Speakers
Andy Atkins-Krüger
Founder and CEO of Webcertain Group
Andy is a seasoned speaker and brings over 20 years’ experience in international marketing.
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Gianna Brachetti-Truskawa
Bold ventures
Gianna Brachetti-Truskawa has been working in online marketing since 2009 with a strong focus on internationalisation strategies.
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Manfred Schlosser
Yandex
Manfred has extensive experience in managing high-budget campaigns for global brands.
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Gemma Houghton
Webcertain
Gemma is the Director of Marketing at Webcertain with over ten years experience in international digital marketing and events.
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John Müller
Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google
John joined Google in 2007 and works as a Webmaster Trends Analyst with Google Zürich.
More about John
Dominik Schwarz
HomeToGo
Dominik is Chief Inbound Officer at HomeToGo, the search engine for vacation rentals and holiday apartments.
More about Dominik
Izzi Smith
SEO Manager - Sixt UK
Izzi Smith is the SEO Manager for Sixt UK and has lived in Munich for over three years since moving from her hometown in Manchester, England.
More about Izzi
Sven O. Wilhelm
Sport-Thieme
Sven has been involved in search for the last 10 years. His focus lies in automation to improve the performance of paid search accounts.
More about Sven
David White
Edit
David is the Head of Content Marketing at Edit, leading the PR, content and outreach strategies.
More about DavidAgenda
How to motivate, gamify and drive SEO programs across multiple markets
Nick Wilsdon has spent years designing and deploying high-performance SEO programs across multiple local markets for well-known multinational brands. This talk will cover lessons he's learnt in terms of how best to engage and direct local markets with SEO. Beyond technical SEO skills, you will need an understanding of corporate strategy and how to use analytics, business cases or gamification to get SEO techniques deployed. This talk is for anyone working within a large or medium-sized organisation or an external agency attempting to get their SEO recommendations deployed.
Nick Wilsdon - Vodafone
International content outreach: Tactics, tools and tips
Link acquisition is a key offsite ranking factor for any site looking to increase organic visibility. Different countries naturally adopt different cultures and as such engage with different news stories, different formats of content, and advocate brands in different ways. What works in one country might not be the same for all. Marketers need to not only be aware of customer behaviour in each region, but also what stories will gain the links they need from media. Using a mixture of real-life examples, David will share actionable advice on how to build links in different countries, what tools marketers need to be using and tips on how to gain national media links in multiple territories.
David White – Edit
Scaling PR & Link-building internationally
One of the challenges of international SEO is scaling efforts across multiple markets and replicating successes in one country across others. Dominik Schwarz, Chief Inbound Officer at HomeToGo shares best practice examples from his "Inhouse Team of the Year" (awarded at SMX Advanced, 2018) and shares case studies of what they have achieved, as well as answering questions such as if and when should you hire a local PR agency and whether it’s possible to do performance-based communications projects.
Dominik Schwarz - HomeToGo
Coffee break
Using Automated Bidding Strategies for international expansion
Everybody is talking about AI at the moment, however, many companies and agencies are not even using automated bidding strategies to make use of this easily accessible form of “artificial intelligence". Sven will share his experience in implementing bidding strategies for lead generation and e-commerce accounts to show how to avoid the most common pitfalls and how to manage expectations. He’ll discuss whether Account Managers should be worried about handing over control to automated bidding strategies and which frameworks are required to use automated bidding strategies successfully. He’ll also look at whether using such strategies make a real difference to performance and highlight challenges of implementing them on an international scale.
Sven O. Wilhelm – Sport-Thieme
Paid search tactics for Baidu and Naver
PPC is an essential channel for brands and businesses trying to reach a Chinese or South Korean audience on Baidu and Naver, yet in order to spend budget effectively, it is essential to understand the different products available and how to get the best visibility for your business. This session will showcase the advertising options you should be aware of and share tips for how to utilise them. She’ll also highlight some key differences between the search engines and potential pitfalls to avoid.
Gemma Houghton - Webcertain
Remarketing 2.0: Combining Digital Out Of Home, Media and Video in Yandex
With its leading position in the Russian market, Yandex offers a variety of ways for international advertisers to reach this ever-growing market and improve advertising ROI. In this session, Manfred will focus on how retargeting can support and enhance performance, utilising an array of features including DOOH, media and video.
Manfred Schlosser – Yandex
Lunch
Optimising SERP appearance in international search engines
The search engine result pages have changed dramatically in recent years, with the 10 blue links definitely a thing of the past. With so many features appearing, understanding how to maximise SERP visibility is a priority for SEOS. In this session, Izzi Smith will look at the myriad of search features available in global search engines including Google, Bing, Baidu, Yandex and share tips and tricks for identify and improve CTR problems across international domains. She’ll also look at how to scale and roll-out structured data strategies internationally and finishing by looking at what else to expect from the SERPS in 2019.
Izzi Smith – Sixt
Navigating the complex world of geo-targeting and hreflang
For anybody managing global websites, geo-targeting is one the biggest challenges. If you’ve invested in creating localised, relevant content for each target market, you want to make sure it reaches the right audience. This session will investigate the different geo-targeting options available and provide advice on how to determine the right strategy for your business.
Andy Atkins-Krüger – Webcertain
Technical Traps in international SEO and how to avoid them
There are many technical SEO factors at play with any website, but international sites have additional factors to consider and manage. In this session, Gianna will dig into some of the issues she’s encountered ranging from hreflang implementation to international relaunches to crawl frequency and share practical advice for overcoming the pitfalls and improving global SEO performance.
Gianna Brachetti-Truskawa – Bold Ventures
Coffee break
Q&A with John Müller
We'll talk to John about a range of topics relating to international SEO, to dig deep into the common challenges and issues that impact global sites. Have your questions ready!
Final Q&A
We'll end the day with a final open Q&A session, with opportunities to ask questions to any of our speakers and on any international digital topic.
Drinks
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Testimonials
What did past ISS attendees think of the event?
SEOs and online marketing specialists in general who are working with international websites or for online companies thinking about going international will definitely benefit from attending ISS. Before my first ISS, I had always thought I could just learn everything on my own about global online marketing topics such as International SEO just by doing online research and experimenting, but honestly nothing beats the efficiency of attending a conference like ISS where you can share your experiences and quickly gain a treasure trove of learnings and best practices from other international marketers.
I very much enjoyed the ISS! Actually talking to people who know what you’re talking about when you mention hreflang-tags and geotargeting was great. There was a sense of mutual interests that you don’t often come across in your daily work.
I came to the International Search Summit with an international SEO problem. I left with a solution.
Awesome speakers. Great insights. Perfect event.
