Cshel Chicago SEO, PR and Web Development

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.

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SMX Wrap-Up on Beginning SEO Podcast

Posted on 27. Jun, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

While it’s a little late, the Beginning SEO Podcast did not want to be left out of the spate of “SMX Wrap-Ups” so… here it is. Since Brian and NeO didn’t go, it’s pretty much them asking me questions about the conference and of course I blather on and on about it because… well… I like the sound of my own voice. (Just kidding. I actually can’t listen to myself on recordings for some reason. What I hear when I listen to recordings of myself doesn’t sound like what I think I sound like, if that makes any sense. It’s weird. That being said, though, I am a chatterbox… but anyway, I digress…)

Beginning SEO Podcast SMX Wrap-Up — Download the MP3

Brent Csutoras, Lisa Barone, Carolyn Shelby at MSN Party at SMX Advanced 2007

In the interest of keeping the topic focused on issues relevant to beginners, we discuss the tone and subject matter of SMX Advanced, and at what point in your learning curve you should consider attending. If you’re not to the point where you think you could hang with the big dogs of search, we also recommend some alternative conferences where you can catch more basic sessions and get up to speed.

For other stuff on SMX Advanced 2007, see:

• Long Overdue SMX Wrap-Up – moi
• Live Blogged Sessions from SMX Advanced – Search Engine Roundtable
• You’re all bright people… go do a search :P

[Photo: Brent Csutoras, Weird Asia News; Lisa "The Lisa" Barone, Bruce Clay; Carolyn "cshel" Shelby; Hanging out at the MSN sponsored SMX party on Sunday night]

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Long overdue post: SMX wrap-up

Posted on 11. Jun, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

I’ve sat down to write this post at least a dozen times, and I’ve either been too tired to write coherently, or been busy and otherwise preoccupied. So, I apologize for the completely untimely nature of this SMX summary.

The Space Needle in Seattle, WA

Here’s the quick play-by-play of the trip…
I left for Seattle early in the morning (at like 4 am) on Saturday, June 2nd. Arrived at SEA at 10:30a local time. Spent a couple hours in the lounge twittering about how bored I was. Wandered through the duty free shop and got sprayed by a lady testing perfumes, so I smelled very flowery for a few hours, which I suppose is better than smelling like sauerkraut or something. Got a limo to the hotel (yay). The weather was fantastic, the hotel was very nice. There were flowers waiting for me in the room for my birthday (peonies — my fave).

Saturday night, we walked to Belltown. Stopped in a couple shops… had dinner at the Queen City Grill (very good steaks). We ate outside and people watched a bit. I noticed a disturbing trend… apparently it isn’t usually quite that warm in Seattle, so there was an overabundance of very, very, very, very white people in shorts and sun dresses. Let’s see… after dinner we cabbed over to the Space Needle… It was prom night, so the place was packed with teenagers and tulle. We bumped into Danny Sullivan, Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox on the oberservation deck. We (exclusive of the aforementioned people into whom we ran) hung out until sunset so we could get some pictures of the skyline, and then I think we just headed back to the Fairmont. [...]

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