SES San Jose 2009 is off to a rockin' start and this afternoon I'm sitting in a session about turning web analytics into money. Avinash Kaushik, from Google, shared this #1 rule with the audience: Don't Stink! If you do, nothing else matters. To get started, figure out which pages Google has determined are your home pages (i.e. the pages they send traffic to) and fix those pages first. The biggest opportunity lies with these pages and reducing bounce rates.

Day one of SES continues with the hot topic of turning the social web into real ROI.  Everyone knows the social web is essential to how we live our lives and stay connected, but many marketers aren't finding returns on their ad spends. Tim Kendall, Director of Monetization for Facebook moderates this heated session with speakers (R to L in the image): Sean Heywood, Managing Partner, MR Barber Shop & Urban Lounge Rogelio (Ro) Choy, Chief Revenue Officer,

by Michele Meyer Plants look so serene, peaceful, and innocuous. They're silent and often go unnoticed, preferring to fade into the background. And yet some of them, beneath their seemingly innocent facade, hunger for more than sunlight and water...they want blood. Although meat-eating plants have appeared in works of fiction, like the sci-fi novel and movie "The Day of the Triffids" and the black-comedy " The Little Shop of Horrors ," they really do exist. In fact,

People who write comments, share photos, upload videos, and contribute to blogs have different motives for participating online, sometimes surprising their audiences. And don't assume those motives are all the same, warned Clay Shirky, author of " Here Comes Everybody " and keynote speaker at Search Engine Strategies San Jose, on Tuesday.

Most people start with Google when they search for information, but increasingly users look to niche-specific engines like YouTube search when seeking entertainment.  Search engine marketers, digital media producers and entrepreneurs must create unique, relevant content that stands out if they hope to gain popularity in the Internet community.  Optimizing for search while engaging the community is part art, part science. Kicking off day one, Greg Jarboe,

I have noticed there has been some really positive discussion in the Webmaster Center blog around how to optimize your site. I wanted to highlight some of the recent information that the Webmaster Center team has published on optimizing site architecture in their SEM 101 column that should be useful to webmasters and web publishers. There are four recent posts that explore various aspects of site architecture optimization: file/page issues , links , content ,

What does Van Halen have to do with Search Marketing? Let's find out with John Marshall of Market Motive. Marshall starts out by illustrating Van Halen's very unique pre-show requests. Specifically, Van Halen was very clear that in their dressing room, there should be M & M's, but no brown M & M's. The business lesson of the brown M & M's is 'lose early'. They used the brown M & M's as an indicator of whether or not the contract had been read. If not,

Although search engines can be used to look up songs' names, and with Facebook, you can keep track of your friends' antics, search and social media can serve more important functions, too. And at SES San Jose, a session focused on using these resources to find missing persons. Coverage of the SES San Jose conference continues at WebProNews Videos . Stay with WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week. Lieutenant Robert H. Rahn (retired),

It's no secret that online video is popular, from Hulu to YouTube the number of Americans watching video continues to increase. In the SES session "The Next Wave for Online Video," the panelists focused on optimizing online video for search and other strategies. Coverage of the SES San Jose conference continues at WebProNews Videos . Stay with WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week. Gregory Markel Founder/President Infuse Creative, LLC Gregory Markel,

Razorfish is behind a JC Penney touch screen experience aimed at back-to-school shoppers. The above demo shows how a mall visitor can interact with male or female models, as well as browse by styles or specific brands. The screen interface makes heavy use of interactive video, for instance by allowing kids to make the models turn to show various views. Razorfish's Chicago, Austin and Atlanta offices worked together on the project.