Lessons learned from speaking at SES London

Speaking at SES London was exciting and daunting - to be honest, I’ve *always* wanted to speak at SES since I started doing SEO, and having two sessions to cover on link building was a dream - many thanks to Mike Grehan for the opportunity.

A couple of clear lessons learned, though:

1. Presentations are Linkbait

The two are essentially the same - plenty of bullet points and images to make for an engaging process. However, do ensure you avoid small images - keep everything large to satisfy large displays with sometimes fuzzy resolution.

Be information rich - bullet points and Top 10 lists are great to see as an audience member, and a simple way to engage an audience as a speaker.

2. Humour

Add humour where possible. In fact, you should try and make the audience laugh at least twice during your presentation. Sometimes they won’t because your offbeat comment or joke wasn’t that funny, or because they’re just tired. But the more entertained - while enriched with knowledge - that your audience feels, the better they enjoy the experience.

3. Stay sober

Watch what you drink the night before. That means if you’re drinking alcohol, be strict on the amount of units you consume. I learned that before the second presentation. You need to be able to convey a sense of passion and excitement about your subject, and that’s hard to communicate if you’re feeling hung over.

4. Relax

An old acting trick - look above the audience’s heads, not at faces, and sweep the entire audience like this to provide a sense of looking at them - even if you’re not. Relaxing can be hard, and if too excited or nervous, it’s hard to frame your thoughts so easily. Therefore also try to rehearse or memorise key points and key comments - not just in your presentation, but also for questions after. Bonus tip - don;t rush or speak fast, you’ll put the audience on edge. Good mentors talk at a relaxed pace.

5. Know who you’re speaking to

Before my first talk I was feeling really nervous - I went to the speakers room and chatted with the people there. Spoke to one girl, chatted about my link building. After about 10 minutes, I’m told she’s from Google’s anti-spam team. WTF? Argh!! I actually like Google - and I like to think that I build around the user experience as much as possible rather than spam. Even still, massively disconcerting, because you never know how Google will react.

Also, on my first talk, Adam Lasnik went to the back of the audience with a couple of Google anti-spam people.

I can tell you all now, I was absolutely terrified - I thought my business was dead and buried, there and then, and my family would be on the street the following week. I know I do stuff Google won’t like, even though I spent the past couple of years trying to move into user-centered link building but the sheer power of Google - and knowing that you are firmly in their attention zone - is terrifying. Truly. But I figured if I was dead, may as well talk links anyway.

Afterwards, caught up with Adam Lasnik and had a chat - the guy is affable: respectfully distant but engagingly accessible. I guess I wanted to know if I up the creek there and then, though if so, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell me. He has his own job to do.

So the lesson is - be very aware of the attention you may get from search engines, and be prepared for it, long before you get up to speak.

Now all I have to do is convince Danny Sullivan that my offline persona is more friendly than my online cynical one, and try to speak at SMX London next time it comes around.

At the end of the day, though, work comes first - speaking is fun, provides industry recognition - but doesn’t pay the mortgage.

2c.