Attention In-House SEMs! You are not alone…

I met Duane Forrester at SES NYC in April 2007. Duane was very approachable and freely shared his knowledge with me at the SEMPO booth. As a result, my company footed the bill to join SEMPO and I later submitted my name for consideration for SEMPO’s in-house SEM committee. A few weeks later, Duane, the chairman of the committee, called me for a quick interview. First, he made sure I wasn’t actually from an agency and once he confirmed that I was indeed a one man SEM army with my company, he welcomed me to the committee with open arms and filled me in on the committee’s purpose and even answered a few nagging SEO questions that had been bugging me.

The point I’m trying to make (hang with me) is that just because you may be the only person in your company that even knows what SEM is doesn’t mean you are alone. There are others out there, like myself, who feel your pain and know what it is like to do go it alone. But you don’t have to anymore! Duane recently wrote a great article for Search Engine Land titled “Networking: The In-House Search Marketers Most Powerful Tool” and I highly recommend that you give it a read. It talks about the importance of networking. After you read it, come back to this blog and give me a call at (540) 769-8447, or e-mail me at gary.cope@gmail.com and start your networking!

I’m budgeting for two SEM conferences in 2008: Search Engine Strategies in New York City and Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara. Make sure you get to at least a couple of these types of conferences every year.