Well, Think Visibility 3 was on at the weekend, and it was a great event. Many people I know couldn’t make it (shame on you), so here’s me rubbing it in with what I learnt from the weekend. Here I cover some of the things that I learnt from the event (keeping the very best stuff to myself!).

To those of you who haven’t heard of Think Visibility, it’s a conference covering a range of aspects from blogging, search engine optimisation, affiliate marketing, conversion optimisation, domaining, and more. The event is a pretty intimate affair, with around 150 people attending. As a result, the event is very friendly, interesting and a spectacular opportunity to meet your fellow digital samurai.

Speaker Tom Critchlow – Local SEO Strategies

Photo Credit: sk8geek

Tom Critchlow (@TomCritchlow) discussed how to get the best from Google Local, particularly with how you can improve the quality of your local business listing and improve your rankings within the map results. Tom had plenty of practical advice, particularly around citations and reviews.

What I learnt #1: Use your company name as your business name. The emphasis was very much a case of not trying to stuff keywords into the title of your business to improve your rankings. Why? Google actively discourages it and it can damage your rankings rather than improve them.

What I learnt #2: Reviews and citations matter in a big way. Tom said that at the moment, the quantity of reviews from different domains matters at the moment (a bit like backlinks), but quality of reviews (and the trust associated with the source domain) are quickly becoming a major factor.

Speaker Judith Lewis – SEO Case Studies

Photo Credit: sk8geek

Judith Lewis (@Judithlewis) had some advice based on her experience as an SEO. Judith specifically asked us not to blog or tweet about what we heard during the presentation. Therefore I am respecting that request.

What I learnt #3: Judith will do anything for (good quality) chocolate! Additionally, Judith’s presentations usually feature free chocolate!

Speaker Stephen Pavlovich – Conversion Rate Tips and Tricks

Photo Credit: sk8geek

Stephen Pavlovich (@BonyToad) runs a successful conversion optimisation business with some pretty significant clients. Stephen clarified what conversion optimisation really was, which is not just about changing your button colours!

Stephen covered the optimisation process, which included researching your traffic, coming up with solutions, testing, and reviewing your improvements. I also spoke to Stephen on one of my sites, where he kindly gave me a few more tips of things to test.

What I learnt #4: Use more tracking tools as well as Google Analytics. Some tracking tools will allow you to work out where people click on your website, which can identify potential issues on your site. One of many tools Stephen suggested was CrazyEgg.

What I learnt #5: Test different pages, but only do a few variables at a time. Testing too many variables makes it very hard to work out which variable is causing the improvement in conversions.

Speaker Kenny Goodman – Dynamite Domains

Photo Credit: sk8geek

The talk by Kenny Goodman (@KennyGoodman) was on “Dynamite Domains”, which was effectively about how to make money from domains and how to get hold of some really juicy domains. Kenny also announced a new tool he’s launching called Domain Face, which is designed to help you find some of these great domains. Kenny did get a little excited whenever he mentioned “dynamite” or “explosive”, I think he thought we were Americans!

What I learnt #6: Ask, and ye shall receive. Kenny kindly provided me with the opportunity to try the tool for free. Thanks Kenny!

Speaker Al Carlton – Making more hours with Outsourcing and Automation

Photo Credit: sk8geek

Al Carlton (@AlCarlton) of Self Made Minds and Coolest Gadgets was sharing his tips on how to save time and things he does personally to reduce his workload. Al covered a whole range of resources that you can use in order to outsource time consuming or complex work.

What I learnt #7: Don’t create a job for yourself! Essentially you don’t want to outsource in such a way that creates you extra work. You want to minimise the work you do to only work on aspects you enjoy.

Who I met at Think Visibility

I met a whole range of people at ThinkVis, many of whom shared with me some great tips and tricks for my own affiliate websites. Here are a few of the people I wanted to thank for advice they gave me.

• Jon (@JonTiffany) of About Loft Conversions – a long time friend of mine online, so it was great to meet in real life for the first time! Jon gave me some great advice on how to move forward with my career.
• Simon Barker (@simonbarker) of Zath – we had an interesting little natter about the practicalities of running gadget sites.
• Martin Wright (@mawawa – I spent a lot of time drinking with Martin, where he got to appreciate the finer side of my humour. I appreciated someone laughing at my crap jokes.
• Rob Cole of Focus Online Management – who doesn’t do twitter. Rob had some really interesting stuff to say on the topic of bingo websites.
• Patrick Moogan (@paddymoogan), who kindly mentioned my guest blogging platform BlogSynergy.com in his presentation on link building.
• Elaine (@ElaineAllkids) and Lee Forth of All Kids – Elaine gave me a simple tip of how to earn more from a niche website if I have a handful of successful products.
• Richard Kershaw (@QualityNonsense) of Quality Nonsense – a fascinating chap, where I got plenty of interesting ideas to test out on my own websites.

Finally, thanks to the team at ThinkVisibility (@ThinkVisibility) for a great event. You can see the photos of the event on sk8geek’s flickr stream.