High were our hearts and loud was our voice as we began our quest! From sunny Surrey to the darks of the North was our goal as we mounted our trusty metal steed and joined the mighty Black Stone River known as Motorway #1.
Friday 12th March 2010
Travelling, eating and warm-up party.
And so, having got into Leeds around 2pm on the Friday Night and checked into the fantastic City Inn down by the canal, we met up with a few of our fellow Thinkvisibility Delegates. A few pints with the Forths and Lee Bradshaw later and it was time for dinner, thanks to Dom Hodgeson’s generosity and the lack of speakers to eat his pre-bought speakers dinner, we got a feed for free! From the hotel we headed along to the pre-conference drinks party at the Square in Leeds city centre where we were promised BOGOF on beers – a veritable boon for the affiliate on a budget and the proverbial flame to a moth for all concerned – unfortunately the offer wasn’t on but at £1.75 a pint who’s complaining? A few pints later and it was time to head back to the hotel for an ill-advised drink in the roof terrace bar (they have some awesome art on the wall), courtesy of Mr Hodgeson (possibly) and then, following a minor sleepwalking incident, the day of Thinkvisibility was upon us.
Saturday 13th March 2010
Conference day and after party.
Following an uninspiring breakfast at the hotel we had a leisurely walk along the canal to the Alea Casino in time to grab a cuppa and find a seat for Dom’s introduction. Feeling both welcomed and entertained we eagerly anticipated the day to come.
Session 1 – Local SEO Strategies, Tom Critchlow
This session was all about listings in Google Local and how to optimise yourself for it. The session didn’t really apply to anything we’re into, unfortunately so we headed out for a another lovely cup of tea and horrendous cup of coffee (not my words… Julie likes her coffee posh).
(2.5/5) – Interesting but mainly irrelevant to us.
Session 2 – SEO Case studies, Judith Lewis
The Cone Of Silence must descend for the contents of this session at Judith’s request. I will say though that it was both entertaining and very useful, I learned a lot.
(4.5/5) – Incredibly interesting and helpful.
Lunch and Entertainment
The butties and tortillas were put out and the quiz began, attendees were invited to send in their questions for the panel trough twitter and just look at what turned up:
Thank you very much @heggerz for that! Big screen, big laugh and a nice round of applause as I walk back into the conference room.
(4/5) – Nutritious and entertaining.
Following lunch the conference room split into three for the afternoon sessions, we split these between us as there were some I wanted to see and some Julie thought would be interesting, I’m hoping for a guest post from Jules on her sessions, but I’m not holding my breath.
Session 3 – Conversion rate tips and tricks, Stephen Pavlovich
This was an excellent presentation. He covered the ways and means of testing your site for the optimal conversion rate. With some interesting anecdotal case studies, some great tips (don’t put in too many variables for your testing or you’ll never know which made a difference – right you are!).
The session did have more of a merchant focus than a publisher, with talk of optimising the registration, basket and checkout process and so I did find myself drifting a little, however the presentation was well researched, presented by a clearly knowledgeable speaker and very clearly presented.
All in all: (3.5/5) – Interesting and somewhat relevant in places.
Session 4 – Building A Successful Presence For Your Website In Social News, Andrew Burnett
This was my session of the day! I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that social media is important and useful for getting more traffic to a website but I’d never gone much further than knocking together a twitter feed for my sites, setting up a facebook fan page and then doing very little more with them. I came to realise through this talk that there’s a whole other world out there, a world of SumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Reddit and Yahoo Buzz, a world I had not realised was such a powerful tool for the affiliate publisher looking for traffic.
Along with case studies from the likes of the BBC (who do social sharing awesomely) and really helpful tips about placement for your social bookmarking links came a bit of the bleeding obvious: You’ve got to think about whether your site’s content is worth sharing, you’ve got to think about your audience, you’ve got to make the sites LOOK NICE, think about whether your content is original and inkeeping with your niche and, most importantly, does your site fit in with the terms of usage for the social networking site?
Overall I thought this was an excellent session, it really opened up my eyes to a lot of things I’m doing wrong and as a result I’ve made a couple of changes to my sites with the lessons I learned here (see the Bookmark and share links at the bottom of this page..? Great huh?
(5/5) – Session of the day.
I was very nervous about this session, I’d submitted my site for a free eye tracking session without a second thought but as the time came round I was feeling the anticipation. The session covered 4 sites, of which mine was the 2nd to be looked at. I soon came to realise that the general public do not see the site as I do. I realised there was a massive section I’d completely failed to include as the feedback from both subjects mentioned it.
Come the end of the session I had a great idea of how http://www.garlicbingo.com is seen by the man in the street and I’m starting to introduce some quite obvious (now I’ve seen I need them) changes to the site to make it more user friendly… Watch this space.
Unfortunately the eye tracking session for my site conflicted with some really good sounding sessions across the conference but it was well worthwhile.
(4.5/5) – Really useful insight into my site.
Session 6 – When the BBC met SEO, John O’Donovan
This was the final session of the day and was really just an entertainment piece for me. I have nothing to come close to the BBC’s site (if you do then I envy you) so I felt it would be pretty much irrelevent to my experiences with my sites. I did learn a couple of things though; consistency, short and snappy headlines, share buttons (again) are all good things to have with your site 
– not rocket science I know but interesting to hear it from the Beeb.
(3.5/5) – Good but I was tired and easily distracted by the time he came on.
After Party
The one we were all waiting for – free booze courtesy of the lovely guys at Affiliate Window. With a grand behind the bar and a couple of gaming tables set up, we got down to the essential business of Networking. After a few hands of poker, a couple of spins of the roulette table, a hand of blackjack or two and numerous trips to the bar we were all done for Thinkvisibility until the 4th September.
That’s all folks
I thought I’d add in a final summary of my thoughts on the conference.
All in all I loved the weekend I had in Leeds, I thought the conference venue was brilliant, the informal feel of the day was conductive to open and honest discussion on all levels, the speakers were fantastic – both knowledgeable and approachable, the Twitter Top Trumps lanyard badges were great and lead to many downwards glances and introductions throughout the day and evening.
The tea was much better than the coffee (I’m assured).
It was fantastic to meet up with some old friends from the affiliate marketing industry and meet some new people.
My final conference rating has to be a resounding (4/5) – Very worthwhile, I will be back in September.
A couple of pictures:
You know the story, they all jumped off the cliff so I thought I would too and yes, I know you told me not to come crying to you but I’m here anyhow with my very own blog! That’s me on left there by the way, you can usually spot me in the crowd by looking for a huge ginger beard and/or having a beer in my hand!