Cshel Chicago SEO, PR and Web Development

T-17 days from SES San Jose. Order your business cards NOW.

Posted on 31. Jul, 2008 by Carolyn Shelby.

We’re less than 3 weeks out from SES San Jose, Aug. 18-22. If you’re running low on business cards, or you need new ones printed with updated contact info/title/etc, get on that PRONTO!

I know I go through business cards like water goes through a sieve at conferences, so make sure you’re well stocked and they’re current. If you wait too long, you’ll either end up with craptastic cards that look like you had them printed at the Kwik-E-Mart, or you’ll pay out the nose for shipping. Or possibly both if you’re exceptionally unlucky.

So consider this my little PSA reminder :)

Designed it myself ;)

The reason I thought to issue the reminder is because the mailman *just* brought me a big heavy box full of print collateral! (I know… the strangest things make me happy. What can I say?)

My box of goodies contained my new Lafayette Online business cards, my new BeFoundLocal.com cards, and my new (pictured to the right) cshel cards. Oh, and a couple thousand rack cards for Lafayette Online (rack cards go in the visitor information stands at hotels, the Chamber of Commerce, restaurants by the interstate, etc.)

I was worried that the new cshel cards were going to come out a little weird because I decided to put an enormous blue seashell on the left side of the card and it literally occupies a third of the printable space. The worry, however, was for naught because the color looks great and I’m really, really pleased with the way they turned out. These definitely sparkle with me.

Also, I don’t know if you noticed, but the seashell is the exact same image I’m using as the favicon for cshel.com. Yay for consistent branding :)

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Cshel’s SES Chicago and PubCon plans

Posted on 01. Dec, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

I had originally planned on being in Vegas from December 2 (Sunday) through December 8 (the following Saturday); however, my plans were “modified” due to a “situation” and as a result, I will be in Chicago until December 5 (Wednesday) and miss the first two days of PubCon. While this sort of sucks, because I like Vegas and I was looking forward to having a full week of vacation, the upshot of “the situation” is that I can now hang out with the SES Chicago attendees after sessions (since I’ll be at the office during the day and can’t actually attend the conference proper). So, that’s sort of yay. I would much prefer being able to go to the conference since I can’t be in Vegas, but I’ll take what I can get.

My flight lands at LAS on Wednesday at 8:30p-ish….which should put me on the Strip just in time to be fashionably late for the SEOMoz party at the conference center. I’m seriously considering doing the whole change clothes/put make-up on/get ready thing in the limo after leaving the airport to minimize the amount of time it takes me to dump my luggage in the room and jet over to the conference center. If I could easily fly in my boots, I could just get dressed in Chicago and freshen up in Vegas, but it’s a pain in the butt to get my boots on and off when I go through airport security… much easier in slip-on flats. Less cute, but oh well. Anyway, I digress…

So here’s my schedule as it stands right this second… [...]

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SEO 101: Why search conferences are worth the time and money

Posted on 10. Nov, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

If you’re someone who is responsible for marketing a business website, but doesn’t actually work for an agency, or works for a business that is primarily brick-and-mortar and might be a late comer to the “internets”, you’re probably going to have to justify the time away and cost of your conference attendance to your boss(es). This episode of SEO 101 discusses the value of search conferences and recommends some ways to prepare yourself to give the pitch.

We spent a little big of time on the differences between SES, SMX and PubCon, and which conference we felt would be best to attend based on your knowledge level, overall responsibilities and business goals. Oh, and there’s a coupon code mentioned at the end of the show to get 10% off your registration for SES Chicago.

I should warn you that we encountered some technical glitches during the show (Brian’s office lost power and he got knocked off, and I was doing the show from a “borrowed” wireless connection that was a little flaky (I eventually just called in on a landline). All in all though, it was a good show :)

The important things to take away from this are:

1. Search conferences are definitely worth the price of admission (and airfare/hotel/food/bar) because the value of the knowledge you gain in that one week far surpasses what you can learn on your own through self-study in the same amount of time;
2. When pitching conference attendance to your boss, anticipating objections and questions and then having prepared answers, backed up by case studies and facts, goes most of the way toward getting his/her blessing and funding.

Popularity: 69% [?]

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