Anthony Long of AOL

Eric Lander,  Anthony Long and I were talking at SMX about how we’d really like to know more about who we’re presenting to when we get up on stage at a conference and talk In-House SEO shop.  It helps us to know what people in the room want to know more about, rather than just blindly pushing our own thoughts.

So we asked a lot of ad-hoc questions of our audience, and based on people who were awake/alive enough at the first morning session after Searchbash to raise their hands, here is the jist of what we learned about the people in the room:

Q: What size company do you work for?

Under 50 people (some)

Under 1000 people (the majority)

Over 10,000 people (just a couple)

Q: Are you the solo person responsible for SEO/M or are you part of a team?

Most people were solo, but it wasnt an overwhelming majority

Q: Do you work with multiple sites/properties or just one?

Most people worked with multiple properties

Q: Do you use large analytics packages like Omniture or smaller free ones like Google Analytics?

Large majority use large analytics packages

Q: Do you use one all-inclusive SEO tool or multiple tools?

Just about everyone used multiple tools

Q: Do you spend more than $1000/month on tools?

Only one or two people raised their hands (as yes)

Q: Where do you report into?

Marketing (majority)

Engineering (none?)

Product (a few)

—————–

Oh, and just because they were funny, I wrote down some quotes I heard from the panelists.   Decipher them as you wish…

Eric:  “I have had an overdependence on Search”

Jessica: “Reality can last over two years”

Jessica: “usually pulling out is much easier than putting in”