Industry Speakers

The Search & Social Media Marketing Programme features a number of industry speakers who help to provide the programme with a context and bring experience from the search marketing industry. These individuals will be available for one part of the evening session and will present their views on the topics of the evening.

The guest speakers will provide any delegate with the opportunity to ask frank questions and learn from their practical experience of working in the Search and Social Media Marketing industry. Some of the speakers are based in the Greater Manchester area, some are from the wider North West of England, but all have extensive experience and clients around the UK and some internationally. One common characteristic that all speakers share is a passion for Search Marketing and a willingness to share their experience with those attending the programme:

• Richard Gregory, Chief Operating Officer, Latitude Digital Marketing
• Mark Johnson, Head of Training, Latitude Digital Marketing
• Phil MacKechnie, Associate Director and Head of SEO, Carat
• Mark Mayne, Search Marketing Consultant, PushON
• Ben McKay, Head of SEO, MoneySupermarket
• Alex Moss, Freelance SEO Consultant
• Tom Smith, Director of Search, Fast Web Media
• David Towers, SEO Director, MEC Interaction
• Simon Wharton, Managing Director, PushON
• Peter Young, Head of SEO at Brilliant Media

Richard Gregory, Chief Operating Officer, Latitude Group

As Chief Operating Officer of leading digital marketing agency Latitude, Richard is responsible for overseeing the successful delivery of industry leading digital marketing campaigns for all our clients including Which, Virgin Games and Bet 365.

In his seven years at Latitude he has held a wide variety of roles, including Head of Production, Head of Search and New Business Manager. Richard also took a leading role in setting up a partnership with BT that led to the creation of BT SearchSmart, a groundbreaking search product for the SME market.

Richard is currently Co-Chair of the SEMPO UK Working Group and has been an active contributor for over 5 years. As a thought leader in digital marketing since the beginning Richard, regularly speaks at industry events, including the Online Marketing Show, SES, SMX and Ad Tech. In 2010 Richard was co-founder of the SAScon event held in Manchester.

Revolution magazine recently said of Richard, he “knows more about search than most people would want to”.

Twitter: @smartrich
LinkedIn: Richard Gregory

Mark Johnson, Head of Training, Latitude Group

Mark is a true expert and specialist in all aspects of online marketing, including Google AdWords and Google Analytics.

Day-to-day he advises campaign managers on online marketing trends and insights as well as provide Google AdWords, web analytics & social media training & consultancy.

Twitter: m4rkj0hns0n

Linkedin: Mark Johnson

Associate Director – HEAD OF SEO – Phil Mackechnie

As Head of SEO at Carat, Phil’s motivation comes from developing world-class SEO and search campaigns that not only deliver results but create a sustainable and competitive advantage for his clients.  Phil and his team of SEO professionals work across some of the world’s leading brands and manage more than £2m in SEO spend annually.

Phil understands the need for a robust approach and processes in a discipline which involves literally billions of annual searches and tens of millions pounds worth of clients’ marketing budgets.  His passion lies in the integration of online and offline marketing channels where he feels currently there are few agencies who understand and deliver on this promise. Whilst some preach the virtues of “holistic search”, traditionally SEO and PPC, few truly understand what it means to be integrated online and offline across all channels.

One of Phil’s personal highlights while at Carat has been in getting clients to share his enthusiasm for reporting and the benefits of gaining intelligence through data by migrating clients onto Carat’s bespoke campaign management and reporting platform, Insight.

Before joining Carat in August 2011, Phil worked in various roles at digital specialist agency, Latitude where he worked for 4 years establishing the agencies SEO team presence in their London office amongst delivering innovation and successful SEO campaigns to the agencies top clients across a myriad of sectors including retail, travel, finance and B2B.

Outside of Carat, Phil relaxes by playing golf, hiking, and snowboarding although notes that his physical activities are limited by his growing family and by a degree of injury proneness bettered only by Dan Carter!

Twitter: akcamiwik

Linkedin: Phil MacKechnie

Mark Mayne, Search Marketing Consultant, PushON

Mark is a highly experienced search marketing consultant who specialises in organic and paid search. He started his career at Just Search, one of the UK’s largest SEO companies and then moved to Manchester based agency PushON. Since joining PushON he has successfully worked in a number of highly competitive verticals and helped to develop a number of award winning marketing campaigns.

Mark is also a University of Salford graduate and received a first classification honours degree in Business Information Systems.

Mark often writes for PushON and his search marketing blog Maynem. You can also connect with mark on Linkedin and Twitter.

Ben McKay, Head of SEO, MoneySupermarket

Ben McKay is Head of SEO for the UK’s number one comparison site – MoneySupermarket and TravelSupermarket.  He manages a team of 20, and growing!  The team is responsible for top rankings across a range of financial and travel sectors including Insurance, Money, Holidays, and Shopping & Vouchers.

Ben is an avid reader and writer on search and social marketing topics, blogging about his life as an SEO consultant, and on a number of other websites including a ‘Search Biz’ column for Search Engine Journal and SEO Scoop.

As a co-founder of SAScon, he made contact with the team at the University of Salford to help develop their Search and Social Media Marketing course – sharing resources and understanding from SEO Academy’s he has worked to support and set-up previously.  Ben is naturally passionate about training and developing people who are interested in SEO and related disciplines in order to promote clarity in what SEO can deliver to marketers, and of course its return on investment for the wider business.

Other key interests in search and social marketing include: search technology (he’s a real SEO geek), link-building, SEO’s integration with other channels (TV, PPC, CRM), on-site optimisation, the promotion of link-worthy content (linkbait) and his latest project, an SEO jobs site.

He’s a sociable chap, so make sure you say hello to Ben McKay on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Alex Moss, Freelance SEO Consultant

Alex taught himself how to code in PHP using only Notepad and the online PHP manual when he was 17 and quickly started making sites in his year out before university. Studying Law and IT, he graduated in 2006 and worked in television production for a year before returning to web design and development and being introduced to SEO.

Alex works as the Head of SEO for Banc Media and also works as a freelance SEO consultant, and is a partner at Pleer, specialising in on-site SEO, Conversion Rate Optimisation and WordPress SEO. This combination of in-house and freelance experience gives Alex a rather different background to the rest of the industry speakers.

Alex also develops WordPress plugins, helps organise the monthly Manchester SEO Meetup and contributes to SEO blogs such as Search Engine Watch.

Connect with Alex:

• Twitter: Follow @alexmoss
• Linkedin: Alex Moss

Tom Smith, Director of Search, Fast Web Media

Tom is a highly experienced search strategist and consultant who has worked with a wide range of high-profile clients in a range of niches.

An over-zealous interest in the internet in the 1990s led Tom to publish all kinds of “retro” (poorly-designed) sites throughout his teens, and eventually he went on to study Business with e-Commerce, a course from which he graduated in 2006.

Tom joined the Fast Web Media team in 2008, after working client-side on paid search and affiliate management. Since starting at Fast Web Media, Tom and his team have developed many award-winning campaigns that have delivered strong returns for clients such as the Premier League, Carling, Cobra Beer, Bravissimo, along with international clients, mainly in the Netherlands and Greece.

Particular areas of interest include: analytics, attribution, search/social integration with TV, and link-building innovation.

You can connect with Tom on Twitter.

David Towers, Head of SEO, MEC UK

David is the Head of SEO at MEC (a GroupM/WPP company), co-leading a team of 25 full-time SEOs across Manchester and London. Since joining MEC, David has helped increase SEO revenue to over £2 mllion and quadrupled the client base. David leads the SEO across a number of accounts including: Lloyds Banking Group, Paramount, HomeServe and Nintendo. When not working at MEC, David writes about online marketing at GoodWebPractices, consults for a number of charities and is on the advisory board of icould.

David has always had a keen interest in technology and put his first website online in 2000. In 2005, David was awarded the ‘Most Enterprising Student in the Greater Manchester Region’ by the Shell Technology Enterprise Programme following an internship with a local SME, where he created and implemented a market entry strategy to the US.

David graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Birmingham and a Masters with distinction in International Business from Grenoble Graduate School of Business. Following graduation, David joined Schneider Electric at their headquarters in France. Working within the central Marketing Innovation team, he helped develop their online marketing strategy (web development, SEO and PPC) and created resources which were deployed across EMEA.

David left Schneider Electric to freelance through GoodWebPractices with several UK and US based SMEs in SEO and web development. Moving back to England in 2008, he joined MEC as the SEO and Social Media Manager tasked with growing the SEO and Social Media business in Manchester. David helped structure the SEO and Social Media offer, dramatically increasing the client base and growing revenue to over ten times what it was when he joined. In the light of these achievements, David was promoted to the position of SEO Director and subsequently Head of SEO and appointed to the Ops Board of MEC Manchester. In July 2010 he was the only SEO in the UK to be selected in MediaWeek’s ‘30 under 30’ award and in 2011, was shortlisted for in MediaWeek’s ‘Agency rising star’ category and won Silver.

You can connect with David Towers on LinkedIn, read his articles on web development and online marketing at GoodWebPractices and follow David on Twitter.

Simon Wharton, Managing Director, PushON

Simon graduated from the University of Liverpool with an Honours Degree in Computer Science in 1988. From there he moved on to fulfilling his passion – working in music. Not a musician himself, he was content with management and promotion. Simon returned to the digital sector in the 90s, initially delivering technical support solutions for IBM then moving to IP Support where he built ISPs, delivered European VoIP solutions and provided the technical support services behind them. Since joining forces with his colleague Roy in 2002, and utilising the expertise they developed in online marketing, they started PushON and the rest as they say is history.

Simon is passionate about everything digital and regularly shares his findings via Twitter

Simon is priding himself on being the 19th most followed tweeter in Manchester! Having sat for many years on the Manchester Digital board, he has positioned himself as one of the leading authorities on Online Marketing in the North West.

Peter Young, Head of SEO – Brilliant Media – Manchester/Leeds/Birmingham

Peter could be considered a veteran within the SEO industry having been involved in SEO since around 2002 both client and agency side. Having developed hugely successful SEO operations at both Amaze and more recenty at Mediavest in Manchester (the most recent a +1 Million turnover business working with the likes of Selfridges, Barratt Homes, BUPA and Thomas Cook), Peter will be taking on the reigns as Head of SEO at Brilliant Media.

Having graduated from Manchester Met with a degree in Information and Communications Technologies, Peter started his working life as a programmer for a web development agency in Wigan – working on clients such as JJB and Ladbrokes. However, Peter soon moved his attentions to the art of SEO.

Peter is passionate about search (both paid and organic) and runs the successful Holistic Search Marketing blog, which regularly features on sites such as Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land. Peter also blogs for European Search blog State of Search and Search News Central.

Further to this Peter can increasingly be found on the UK search conference circuit, and will be speaking at SES in February 2011. He is also Co-Founder of the Manchester based SASCon conference and was responsible for the hugely successful Manchester SEO Mini Conferences held at the Hive In October
2010.

Twitter: @peteyoung
LinkedIn: Peter Young