Cshel SEO and PR

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

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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