London is bracing itself for Search Engine Strategies this year. The conference and expo, which runs from 16th to the 19th of February, is always well attended by delegates and speakers from all over the UK and, indeed, the world.

We’ll be there in force speaking and moderating a number of sessions on search, PPC, Bing and social media.

Today, I caught up with Mike Grehan, VP and Global Content Director for Incisive Media who put the show together, to have a chat about his role, the industry, and what delegates might expect in Islington in 3 weeks time.

You’re six  months into your new role at Incisive. Can you outline your remit and how it’s been going?

Six months? Feels like six years! Seriously, my role is heading up the content side of Incisive Media’s interactive division based in New York. So essentially I’m responsible for the direction and content for  Search Engine Watch, ClickZ and the Search Engine Strategies (SES) international conference series.

My first move has been to create a lot more cohesion between the three brands and develop a single content development team. This way we can ensure that all of the content we develop can be used across all three brands . A number of contributors form Search Engine Watch have already donned ClickZ shirts and are writing excellent material over there now. And ClickZ is about to be re launched under a brand new interactive publishing environment which will provide a much richer end user experience.

Later in the year Search Engine Watch will be reborn as a breeding ground for tech marketing innovation and also have a brand new platform. And already, you may have noticed that Search Engine Strategies agenda has had some big changes. There are newer panels, newer speakers and a much broader base for content.

As we move ever closer to convergence between various online marketing disciplines such as search and social media, for instance, this is reflected in our agenda. Plus, we continue to collaborate with other players in the online marketing space and SES is rapidly developing into much more of a global interactive marketing resource.

Of course, search is at the core of the agenda so we’re absolutely still positioned as the industry’s number one search marketing conference and expo.

What can London expect from this year’s SES Conference?

Chaos!

If you take a look at the agenda, once again you’ll see there has been a huge shift from some of the fodder of old and there are some excellent new panels and themes. And we’ve made a determined effort to feature the best talent in the UK and keep the show predominantly UK focused. 

We have totally kick-ass keynote sessions each morning with Avinash Kaushik, Bryan Eisenberg and Jim Sterne. Three of the industry’s leading minds in the field of search and analytics.

I’m really excited to bring back the “power panel” discussion sessions in the afternoons where we’re assembling the UK industry’s leading minds in the space to discuss everything from the state of the industry, to investigate what’s working in search engine optimization and what’s not, as well as an in-depth delve into the convergence between pay-per-click, content networks and display advertising.

Plus we have all the usual evergreen session such as the introduction to search engine marketing and link building basics.

It’s all good. Believe me.

Every year there’s always a hot topic. What’s top of mind in 2010?

I can answer that instantly: real time search. There’s no doubt that practitioners want more information on search and social and how to optimize their campaigns to tap into this new stream of live information.

And social media is such a hot topic. Not just how do we do it better. You can take a step further back, it’s more about how do I convince my boss that we should be doing it. So explaining where it fits into the marketing mix is just as important as talking about pure tactics.

Do you see regional differences in how marketers employ SEM? Are some more sophisticated than others?

Absolutely. It’s not always just about optimizing campaigns (both paid and organic) just for Google. Few would believe it but there are pockets around the world where Google does not have absolute power. So in these places there’s less emphasis on the big G. Not only that, all kinds of cultural differences exist.

So even certain creative messaging which works perfectly well in the west can backfire in the east. And of course, language nuances make a big difference. Think American and British, for instance. It’s not just spelling it’s a lot more. I recently moved into a new apartment and went online shopping for bedside tables and found virtually nothing. But when I changed the search to nightstands (which is how American’s refer to bedside tables) and it was whole different search experience.

Any social gatherings planned for the week?

When SES rolls into town, you can guarantee there’s a party of two comes with it. So we start the conference off with a meet and great in the hotel bar on the night before the conference begins. This is also the Online Marketing Summit day. So we’ll all be mixing together to get the show started.

Plus there are the usual events such as the sponsors cocktail reception to the  LondonSEO  pub bash.

Most of the events are listed here http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/london/special-events.php But there are always the spontaneous things that just happen on the spur of the moment.

Thanks Mike!

As we’re a sponsor of the event, we’ve teamed up with Incisive and are offering readers a 20% discount on a ticket for the show.

Plug in 20Bing when you register for money off an event we're sure you won’t regret attending.

Cheers

Mel