SMX East is fast approaching and alot of smart people are coming to NYC. It is not going to be cheap with airfare, hotel and the conference pass. If you are smart and willing to work hard you can make a huge profit from this investment. Here are some tips to help you squeeze the most out of your SMX East experience.

Research Prep – Many people are sent to these conferences because their company needs them to become educated overnight. If you are want to be one of these overnight success stories then you better realize it can’t happen in one night. You should start laying down the groundwork with some preparatory research so you can make the most of your time at SMX. Check out Search Engine Land and the thousands of pages filled with free information. This way you can spend your time talking about advanced topics instead of being shocked that meta keywords will not get your site to rank #1.

Create a Wishlist – You don’t know what you don’t know. If you have do a good job with your prep research you should be able to come up with a list of questions you wish you can get answers to. Having a written list of questions during the conference will help you avoid realizing you forgot to ask someone while you are flying home. SMX East is filled with experts that can answer just about every question you can think of. The expo hall is filled with search engine reps and vendors that can help you. The sessions have great presenters that always hang around after to address questions from the audience. At night there are countless casual networking opportunities where you can brainstorm with fellow marketers and the presenters. Make the most of your time at SMX East and make sure you address all the questions bouncing around in your head.

Schedule Your Sessions – There is nothing worse than attending SMX East and missing the most interesting session to you. Before you even pack your suitcase go online and check out the sessions. Do a little research on the presenters by browsing their blogs. Remember to bring your question wishlist so you don’t forget to ask them. Then schedule your days around those sessions. This will help prevent those scheduling mistakes like when you happen to schedule a lunch meeting during your most valued session.

Schedule Your Free Time – This is very important. In my personal opinion this is the most important piece. There will be sessions you don’t care about and evenings with no formal schedule. Don’t be lazy with this open time. Maximize this opportunity. Start scheduling breakfast and lunch meetings before you even arrive at the conference to make sure you get face time with the people you really want to connect with. Hang out and network in the hotel bar and follow the party wherever it moves from there to help you make new connections. Don’t forget to bring a business card with your email, twitter and/or blog site to help connect you with people after they fly home.

Properly Manage Twitter – Twitter has become the defacto bulletin board and gossip hq for conferences. Want to know where people are and what is happening? Just check out Twitter and search for the smxeast tag. As incredibly helpful as twitter is for conference attendees remember that you are there to personally interact. If you are in a session – DON’T TWITTER. Pay attention to the helpful tips the presenters are sharing and after the session is over you can scroll through your twitter stream to see what you missed.

Bonus Tip – Dealing With Shyness – Not everyone enjoys large crowds and very few people I know like to events where they know no one. To make yourself more comfortable here are some tricks to overcome your shyness and to quickly gather a group of friends at the conference.

• Buy Drinks – While hanging out in the hotel bar (or the neighborhood bar we always end up at) if you see someone from the conference and they are alone or they gave you really good tip don’t be afraid to have the bartender give them a drink from you. 9 out of 10 people will walk over and thank you for their drink and that is how a conversation starts and a new friendship.
• Bring Cigarettes & Lighters - I’m not a fan of smoking but there is no denying that alot of networking is done on the sidewalk where the smokers huddle together. Someone is always looking for a cigarette or light – this a great opportunity to meet someone new and start the conversation.
• Connect with Online Friends - If you have been participating in online forums now is a great time to meet the people behind the posts that you find helpful. Send them an email and ask them in they are attending and if they are attending would like to meet for breakfast – your treat. It will cost you $20 for breakfast in a diner and you have just made a good connection in the industry. I would call that a bargain.

I hope you have fun and make the most of SMX East, I know I will. Feel free to add this list.

ps dont be afraid to come up and say hi to me or any presenters, i promise you’ll be surprised at how friendly people can be in nyc

Search conferences are a no brainer to attend if you have an unlimited expense account.  For the rest of the world we need to make sure our limited budgets and schedules will be well spent at a search conference.  This is not for anyone that views conferences as a mental health break. For those people may I suggest going on a real vacation or join your friend’s bachelor party.  If you want to run a serious business then you need to make sure your investment in a conference will help you.

Let’s face it every conference is expensive. Conference passes range from $500-$2000. Airfare is another few hundred dollars not to mention meals and bar tabs. Plus you are not working for 3-5 days. It is a serious investment.

This investment can be well worth your time and money if you can get the answers to your tough questions. I have come up with an idea to improve the question & answer part of conference sessions. Currently most sessions have introductions of the speakers followed up by powerpoint presentations and then it is opened up for questions at the end of the session. This Q&A period normally turns into someone running around with the microphone throughout the audience followed by a poor attempt from audience members to articulate their question followed by a vague 30 second answer from the panel of speakers.

Why don’t search conferences allow attendees to submit questions before the conference?

If conferences allow early registrants to submit questions:

1. It would encourage people to register early which helps conference organizers plan conference logistics much better.
2. It would provide the conference speakers a valuable insight into what attendees are seeking from the session. Based on that insight the speakers can better customize their presentations to the audience leading to more useful and original powerpoints.
3. It allows for a more informed and prepared response with screen captures that can be popped up onto the screen to better demonstrate the answer. Ever hear a picture is worth a 1000 words? Instead of a conference speaker trying to describe with no visual aids they could be prepared with a pretty diagram and the infamous bullet points.
4. It ensures that commonly asked questions are addressed. This keeps the audience interested and avoids the possibility of the q&a time being monopolized by people with very unique questions that dont apply to anyone else in the room.
5. It gives the speakers something to do while the microphone is being run around the room to still accept last second questions and requests for clarifications.

To my friends who manage Pubcon, Search Engine Strategies and Search Marketing Expo why not turboboost your Q&A sessions and allow attendees to submite pre-conference questions to the individual sessions?

ps i luv all the conferences and have made money while attending each of them, to be fair i listed them in alphabetical order.

We are very happy continue the tradition of the Internet Marketers Charity Party.  Internet Marketers of NY is inviting, begging, pleading and in some cases even blackmailing people to attend our 3 hour open bar charity party on Monday October 15th in New York.  All the money raised goes to help fight cancer because Best of the Web is covering the expenses.

• Details
• 7pm-10pm October 15th
• Town Tavern, Manhattan, NY
• $40 donation to charity
• http://www.im-ny.org/events.html

This was a good cause for the charity party but now after reading Marty’s survivor blog post I am even more excited to be involved with this.   You can be involved too.  Just attend this charity party for a $40 donation.  But what if you can’t make it to Manhattan?  Don’t worry you can help us by donating money or something to raffle. But what if you are new to Internet marketing and don’t have any spare money or swag?  You can still help by spreading the word of this charity party by joining Marty’s meme.

Thank you to everyone who is helping this great cause.  And special thanks to these three people who I am tagging to continue Marty’s meme: Blackberry Whore, Potato Whore and Canuck Pride Whore

Last night was the IMNY charity party.  Basically it was a bunch of geeks that donated $40 at the door to get drunk for charity.  We raised over $5000 (exact figure to be coming soon) for the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

I personally enjoyed this party the best not because it was the most lavish but because for the first time an Internet party was giving back to the community by helping sick kids.  I think everybody who attended or at least the warm blooded people would agree with me that it is nice to do something good.

I was surprised by a few things:

• 2 people refused to donate and still though they were entitled to the party because they were “press”.
• Never underestimate the generosity/showmanship of people.  When we started selling $1 raffle tickets several people started buying them in groups of $100 just so they could donate more than the previous person.
• The SEO wives club is getting really big and the wives are smart & SEO literate.
• Every lady appreciates being given a rose at the end of the night. (not really a suprise)

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this charity party a success.

I belong to Internet Marketers of New York. It is a local group of guys and gals that meets once a month so I have an excuse to leave my apartment and socialize with people face to face. Since we are a local group and Search Engine Strategies is coming to town we figured we should have a party to celebrate.

Since everyone throws parties we wanted to do something different. So we decided on a Charity Party. On April 9th, at the Town Tavern on 3rd St and 6th Ave we are asking everyone to join us to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House. It is $40 donation at the door (all of which goes to charity) for a 3 hour open bar with cocktail food and raffles. Come on and help do a good think while having a good time.  Everyone is welcome to come.
In case you were wondering Best of The Web and Text Link Ads are covering all of the costs, so your donation at the door can go all to charity. Finally you have a good reason to go out drinking. If you don’t go drinking, children will die. Well maybe not, but seriously Ronald McDonald House helps alot of kids going through a really bad time. If you can’t come then tell your friends and have them go.

For complete information go to http://www.im-ny.org/events.html

I am very happy to announce that after several months of work SEO Class has been officially launched. SEO Class is an internet consulting workshop that is being presented by Rae “Sugarrae” Hoffman, Michael “Graywolf” Gray, Todd “Stuntdubl” Malicoat, Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker and myself. It will be very intimate to ensure our attendees all have a chance to speak with any presenter.

Our first event on March 23rd in New York City is going to be a Pro Bono SEO Workshop – that means it is free but only available to valid non-profit organizations. That’s right we are going to swallow the entire cost of the first conference. Don’t worry we will be charging for the next SEO Interactive Workshop on May 17-18 which is also in Manhattan, NY.

I’ve always been impressed when I worked in the past with Rae, Todd and Michael. I really think this will be a good opportunity to sharpen your skill set and also discover new ways to be successful online. Besides when can you get all of us in a room and be able to ask any question you want to and actually get a detailed answer.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I finally got around to launching Internet Marketers of New York.  It is a monthly meeting of experienced Internet marketers in the New York area.  Its about having fun in a relaxed atmosphere and a much smaller part about being able to do some business on the side. 

A slightly controversial decision about membership was made.  The decisionw as made that new members need to be nominated by a current member.  This is not about being elitist.  It is done because it helps increase the trust factor which is critical in Internet marketing.  Also this nomination process helps ensure quality discussions since members can speak to each other and know everybody possesses a minimum knowledge level. 

We aren’t charging any membership fees or looking to make money. I am only interested in possibly covering the food and drink bill with some sponsors. Otherwise my wife might start competing with me to see who can rack up the largest credit card bill.

Let me know what you think.

I’m sorta a bit late finally posting that I’m back from Vegas Pubcon.  But what a trip it was.  I had a great time meeting alot of new people and also able to spend time with some old friends.

I also met some new faces from Google.  I think someone is spreading rumors about me because the two new Google engineers (at least they were new to me) that I met gave me the coldest of conversations.  Ok maybe I shouldn’t have offered to help better explain their algo to them (that was a bit rude) but I was just having fun and the other Google employee that was with us laughed.  And I even helped a nice lady that was having a problem figuring out why her UK clients website is no longer getting any UK traffic after she 301′d it to a .com and moved the hosting to an American company.

YPN as usual threw a great intimate get together.  I know several people were upset because it was by invite only.  But sometimes its nice to have a smaller event that is not too loud and you can easily find a place to sit down and talk with someone or in my case go swimming with a few of my closest friends.

I am officially off the conference circuit for the next few months.  I have too much travelling for business and pleasure to squeeze in any more conferences.  Besides its nice to sleep in my own bed at least half the time.  Hmm that makes me wonder if I am travelling for more than half the time do I still need to claim Manhattan as my official residence and pay NYC tax plus NY tax plus Federal tax?  Doubt my accountant will like that line of thinking.

It is a good idea to schedule some private meetings when you travel to conferences.  In this online industry we gain many long distance relationships and conferences makes it easy for everybody to get together.

I like to make plans about a month before a conference with my friends who I know are attending and people that I would like to be more friendly with.  You would be surprised how much more information will be shared after you get to know someone a bit better.

If you have never met anyone in this industry face-to-face before, this is also a good way for newbies to pre-break the ice.  Drop an email, fill out a contact form or send a message via sticky mail and let someone know that you really enjoyed their writings and would like to buy them a drink at the conference.  No one turns down a free drink.  Well almost no one, Matt Cutts still prefers to pay the $2.50 for his sprite.