Last week I had the opportunity to speak about SEO at E-Tail west. I spoke about basic Google Webmaster Tools issues as most of the people in the room were not SEO’s and of the 100 or so people and when asked by a show of hands how many actually used the tool, only 20 hands shot up. I expected that.

Eric Wu was my co-speaker and we touched on general SEO issues and then we did a few simple site audits. We looked at RVCA.com and Lowes.com. RVCA was in the room and I don’t think I have ever seen a guy write notes as fast as he did.

It was a great event, I went to 2 days of the conference and I enjoyed it. I think next year I will stay for the whole conference. I heard a few sessions that were impressive and there was a lot of talk centered around ideas. The biggest thing I took away from the conference was testing. If you are not testing your site, you are never going to know the bad ideas from the great ideas. Next, do not be the elephant in the room that will stifle thoughts and actions – test all ideas. When testing an idea, let the person own the idea. If the idea wins and is successful in a test thank them, if it fails – ask what can be done better in the test next time.

SEO is not magic. SEO is a testing in a live world. Think of a science experiment that is not controlled in a lab but in the real world.