Wil Reynolds from SEER Interactive gave a very good speech on Futureproofing Your SEO Efforts. The thing I really like about Wil is he is passionate about SEO and helping his clients, and it showed in his speech...especially when he was sparring with Jason Calacanis.

Side note: I think it has been a long time since Jason has been a “unknown” person, and he seems to think the tactics that gave him success in the late 90s would still work today...I don’t know if that really the case. I think Jason’s notoriety has helped him kick start efforts like Mahalo - and that is not a luxury we all have at this point. I’m not saying that is bad, I’m just saying he should keep that in mind.

Will did a good job of really laying out the reality of SEO, not mincing words and not backing off when people asked questions that would have made more sense at the 1999 Search Engines Strategies Conference. I mean a 20,000 keyword meta keyword tag? Did someone just thaw that guy out from a cryogenic lab?

Anyway, I’m writing this as things are deteriorating with a lot of Q&A from people who are SEO novices...always the worst part of SEO sessions. Will is doing well though.

Here are some of Wil’s tip from the session:

• Relevance never gets old


• Tricking search engines is not a long-term business strategy


• Google may be using Google Reader subscription information as a data point to improve relevancy


• Google is now a registrar - they could use this data to track all your sites if you do something bad - keep that in mind


• Google can use data from conversion tracking and Google Analytics to improve relevancy


• Start thinking more like a marketer than a techie when doing SEO - if you are focused on keyword density and meta tag length, you are going to lose in the SEO game


• We give search engines a lot more credit than they deserve a lot of the time


• Patience is an essential skill for SEOs


• When you work on multiple sites you have a better chance of understanding what is a real algorithm change and what is a hick-up. If you don’t have multiple sites, build up a network of people who are optimizing sites as well. Compare notes.


• Best thing to do with Directories is get the big ones (Yahoo!, Best of the Web) and then look for directories that focus on your niche.


• Use MSN ad Intelligence - it rules


• Start looking at how-to videos and figure out how they can work for you

All said an done - this was a great session. Well done Wil!