Here are the details you need to know:

Date: May 20, 2008
Registration & Networking: 5:30 PM
Program: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: Hotel DeLuxe (729 SW 15th Ave. Portland, OR 97205)
Food & beverages included. Yummm!

There are different prices for members and non-members, so check out the SEMpdx site for all the details. Come on out and say hello, would ya?

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

I’m On the Hot Seat Next Week

The “this one” I was referring to was Small Business Marketing Unleashed 2008, the first of what I think is going to become a very successful conference series. SBMU took a different approach to putting on a conference, and I think they nailed it.

What Was Different

Size: Attendance was purposely limited to a small number. Now, my gut feeling is that Robert, Jennifer, and the Search Engine Guide crew would’ve loved a bigger turnout than they had this time, but even if when the show grows next year, it’ll still be the smallest search conference option around.

Solo Sessions: Unlike the bigger conferences with panels of 3-4 people, SBMU had one speaker per session. Going in, I was afraid this wouldn’t work. (Who wants to listen to me, or anyone else, for 90 minutes straight?) But with a great lineup of speakers (myself notwithstanding), this was the smartest thing they did. It’s one thing to be able to hear someone like Debra Mastaler talk for 15 minutes at a big conference; but hearing her go solo for a full session was terrific. When you get a smart person and make ‘em talk for an hour or more, you can’t help but get great information.

This combination of small size and high intelligence (among the speakers and attendees) made for some great discussion. The sessions that Wendy Piersall and Mack Collier did both had terrific, open discussion. Not your regular two-way Q&A, but real group conversation that benefited everyone.

I think it was Matt Bailey who said it best: The big conferences are like dump truck education — you pull up and they just pour as much stuff into your brain as possible, hoping some of it sticks. SBMU took a different approach, and it paid off. The small business owners who were there just spent the best $1,000 of their business lives.

Other Coverage

Scott Allen: Small Business Marketing Unleashed - An Essential Conference for Small Business Owners

Will Scott: Local SEO (Local Search) at Small Business Marketing Unleashed

Will really went over the top with his praise for the Local Search Workshop I did on Tuesday (thanks Will!), but I have to say that I’ve never felt better after a presentation than after that one. Who knew talking about the same thing for 90 minutes could be so fun?

The WebProNews gang did a 5-minute interview with me on Monday — we covered both the SEO Success Pyramid and the Local Search Workshop. If you’d like to watch, here it is:

Final Notes

I’ve finished uploading SBMU pictures to Flickr: Here’s the full set. Just 32 pix, so you can look through them pretty quickly.

Thank you to Robert, Jennifer, Vickie, Rachel, and everyone who put SBMU together. And thanks for inviting me to be part of it.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

The Future of Search Conferences: Smaller Is Better

The 2-day conference formally kicks off tomorrow morning. I’ll be presenting the SEO Success Pyramid during the opening session, and then doing a Local Search Workshop on Tuesday.

I got in early enough today to walk around the grounds just a bit, and this is by far the most unique conference location I’ve ever been to — and there’s no second place. You have to see this place. And you can, actually. I’ve started uploading a few photos to Flickr and more will come later in the week:

Photos: SBMU 2008 Conference on Flickr

Okay, gotta go. Networking event starts in a few moments….

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

SBMU 2008 is Underway

So, what on earth am I going to do for an hour-and-a-half? Rather than one long talk/speech, I’m going to do four separate local search presentations, with time for question-and-answer after each one. The PPT is finished, and it’s a Rand-like 71 slides. Yikes!

My Outline

Here’s what I’ll be covering in the Local Search Workshop:

A) Local Search: The Industry
   1.) Who’s Playing?
   2.) Who’s Winning?
   3.) Where’s It Going?

Q&A Break

B) Local Search: What’s In The Algorithm(s)?
   1.) Possible Recall Factors
   2.) Possible Ranking Factors
   3.) The Algorithms in Action

Q&A Break

C) Local Search: SEO & PPC Tactics
   1.) The Basics
   2.) Beyond the Basics

Q&A Break

D) Local Search: Finding Local Customers
   1.) The Problem with SEO & PPC
   2.) Solution: Guerrilla Marketing
   3.) Social Sites with Local Elements
   4.) Local Blogs
   5.) Forums and Mailing Lists
   6.) Does It Work?

Q&A until End

That’s it. (cough) If you saw me speak at SearchFest 2008 in Portland, or SES NY last month, section D above is similar to what I presented at those shows, but expanded to include more places to do “local guerrilla marketing.”

If you’ll be in Houston, that’s what you can expect. If not, well … I’ll send a postcard.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

An Outline for 90 Minutes of Local Search

However: I’m really looking forward to the presentation and think it’ll be valuable information for attendees. My plan is to give what will amount to 3-4 separate presentations, breaking for Q&A in between each topic, all the while trying to keep it relaxed, yet interesting.

(My biggest fear: having to stand behind a podium for 90 minutes. I really hope I can walk around a bit, maybe even sit down a bit, or some combination of the above.)

I’m referring to the upcoming Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference in Houston, which is three weeks away: April 21-22.

Save $100: If you’re thinking about going, be sure to use the discount code PUPPY when you register online to get $100 off the price. That’s just $875 for a two-day conference focused solely on small business marketing strategies and tactics.

It’s a great lineup of speakers/presenters, including several I’m looking forward to meeting and learning from (Wendy Piersall, Mack Collier, Sage Lewis). In addition to the 90-minute local searchfest, I’ll also be presenting the SEO Success Pyramid to help start the conference on day one.

Sign up today and use the PUPPY discount code to save yourself $100!

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

90 Minutes of Local, Local, Local

More on SES New York

In addition to my previous post here on SBS about the SES New York conference last week, I’ve written up something with a little more detail on the video/small business session my wife and I attended. You can read the post on Local Point: Local Search and Video: A Match Made in NYC.

SEMMY Awards

For those of you who are still e-mailing to ask about helping with the 2009 SEMMYS, thank you very much for volunteering, but at the moment I’m all set with help. I have a 12-person advisory committee in place, and we’re just starting to discuss ways to cast a wider net so that even more great authors and articles are nominated for the 2009 awards. I’ll post updates here on SBS as needed, but we’re in good shape.

SEO Madness Update

After the first (crazy) weekend of March Madness, yours truly is currently sitting down in a tie for 9th place with Larry Sullivan in our SEO Madness contest. Taylor Pratt and Eric Lander got super-lucky so far and are tied for 1st place. On the bright side, I’m the only person in the Top 10 to pick UCLA to win it all, so if the Bruins do so, I think I have a shot at defending my crown. Go Bruins! Here’s the Top 10:

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

Tuesday Morning Tidbits

Conference Sessions

The sessions I attended were chosen with my wife, Cari, who was at her first search conference. We looked for sessions that would help grow her real estate business, and chose these:

• Organic Listings Forum
• Video Made the SMB Star
• Orion Panel: Universal Search
• Social Media Marketing: What Is It and What Is It Good For?
• Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization
• SEM Small Business Blitz*

* I was a speaker on this one and suggested Mrs. McGee skip it, but she nixed that idea.

I’m hoping Cari will write a post on her real estate blog soon about her experience at SES, but I know she came home with lots of new marketing ideas and actionable tactics to try with her business. The “Video Made the SMB Star” had a big impact on both of us, actually. Three of the speakers gave what amounted to advertising pitches for their video services, but rather than being turned off by that, I was impressed with how far the companies (EZ Show Studio, TurnHere, and Mixpo) have come in creating a video product/service that’s understandable and accessible to small business owners. Whether it’s affordable remains to be seen, but we’ll be investigating some video options soon for Cari’s business.

Several sessions had speakers I’d never heard before, and with a couple exceptions, the new folks were a breath of very welcome fresh air. Props to the SES crew for getting some new voices up on the dais.

My only disappointment with the sessions/agenda was the complete lack of a session about blogs and blogging. Selfishly, that’s an important element of my wife’s marketing and I think a session would’ve been helpful for her. Beyond that, blogs are quite possibly the number one SEO tool around today; ask yourself, What would impact your SEO more: starting a blog or sculpting your PageRank? Sure, blogs were discussed in the social media track, but for a four-day conference to not have a single session focused on blogging seems like a real oversight to me.

Universal Search

I was impressed by the data ComScore shared on Tuesday during the Orion session on Universal Search. They analyzed Google data from one week in January:

• of 1.2 billion queries, 220 million contained a universal result
• 16% of total clicks involved a universal result
• 87 million people searched, 58% saw a Universal result (38% of people saw video, 34% news, 19% images, 10% maps/stocks/weather)

I was disappointed that they grouped Maps, Stocks, and Weather into one category in that list bullet item. I’d like to have an exact percentage just for Maps. I’m surprised it’s less than 10 percent.

Final Thoughts

Our room at the Hilton was nice, but it was smaller than our living room (and we live in a very modest house).

Just as I converted a bunch of SEOs into In-N-Out Burger fans a couple weeks ago at SMX West, last week I converted Jeff Quipp, Stoney deGeyter, Matt Bailey, and Jennifer Laycock into Junior’s Cheesecake fans. As Stoney said, while eating a slice of Carrot Cake Cheesecake, “This is the best thing that’s ever been in my mouth.” (I didn’t ask what else was in the running for that title.)

I’ve uploaded some of my photos to Flickr: SES New York 2008 Photo Set.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

SES New York, New York

This year’s conference was held at the Oregon Zoo (thus this photo of a sleeping tiger, which is pretty much how I felt by the end of the day), and the location was the only downer. We were downstairs in a conference area that, for some reason, couldn’t get an Internet connection, nor (for many of us) a cell phone connection. On the other hand, being at the zoo meant I was able to walk around the premises late in the day after the gates closed. Nice! (I love zoos.)

The event was crowded and the Q&A I heard in various sessions was quite good. The social media session seemed to draw the biggest crowd, although I’m pleased to report that my Small Business session was standing room only (but in a smaller room). I was a lot more nervous than usual about this presentation because it was somewhat atypical in that I didn’t really provide the common list of tips that I think a lot of people expect at conferences. Mine was more … theoretical, I guess … especially the first half. But afterward, four different people gave me the best speaking reviews I’ve ever had, so I must’ve done something right.

Twitter (%$#@#) was the hot topic during the social media session, with one speaker going so far as to recommend it as a B2B social marketing tool. Hmmmmm. Not sure I can see that being very effective, but okay.

I always like to speak with non-industry people to hear what they think about these conferences, and I had a chance to chat with two such people — one, a small business owner’s wife, and the other, a traditional PR person. Both had nothing but praise for the information, speakers, and the event as a whole.

So, hats off to all at SEMpdx on another successful SearchFest!

I didn’t take a ton of photos, but you can see some of what you missed on my Small Business SEM Flickr account.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

SearchFest 2008 is in the books…

This is one of my favorite photo from SMX West: Poor Danny S. isn’t too fond of the taste of beer (me, neither), but during the Search Bowl they weren’t able to bring him anything he really wanted to drink. So, this was a common sight: Bitter Beer Face! I also caught Lisa Barone having a case of BBF, too. Ha! While you’re at it, you may as well check out the full set of 41 photos:

SMX West 2008 on Flickr

Next Up: SearchFest 2008!

The first of my 8-appearances-in-14-weeks is finished, so next up is one of my favorite events: SearchFest 08 in Portland, OR, which is put on by the good folks at the SEMpdx organization. Last year’s inaugural event was a blast, and this year’s version will be bigger and better.

SearchFest will take place all day on Monday, March 10 — that’s eight days away. If you’re thinking about attending, how about an extra $40 off the registration price?

Use code SEMBD to save $40 on your SearchFest 08 registration — but don’t wait too much longer. Click here and scroll down to register.

I’ll be the sole speaker on the “Small Biz SEM” session, and my presentation is (tentatively) titled “Guerrilla Marketing for Small Businesses.” Darcy Hill, my longtime co-worker, will be there, as will Nick Berliner, our new SEO Manager at Marchex.

I hope to see you there!

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

From SMX to SEMpdx

Matt McGee U.S. Tour 2008

I’m signed up for every hotel and airline frequent flier bonus program, so something good better come from this. Here’s a look at where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing in the first half of 2008:

February 26-28 - SMX West, Santa Clara
I’m on an “SEO Checkup” panel and I’m the Q&A Moderator for two other sessions: “Search 3.0: Local Search & Blended Results” and “Industrial Strength SEO.”

March 10 - SEMpdx SearchFest 2008, Portland, OR
I’ll be speaking on a Small Biz session.

March 17-20 - SES New York
I’ll be speaking on a Small Biz session.

April 21-22 - Small Business Unleashed, Houston
This is the new event put on by Search Engine Guide. I’m speaking on the conference intro session and doing a Local Search workshop.

April 22-23 - SMX Social Media, Long Beach
I’m flying from Houston to Long Beach and speaking on the “Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers” panel on Day 2 (April 23).

April 30-May 2 - Kelsey Drilling Down on Local, Seattle
Looking forward to this local search conference.

May 13 - SEMpdx Hot Seat event, Portland, OR
I’m the sole guest/speaker for this evening event in Portland.

June 3-4 - SMX Advanced, Seattle
The last show of the tour, at least the first leg of the tour.

So, yeah, just a little bit of travel coming up. If you’ll be at any of these shows, please do say hello.

(Here’s a link to the concert ticket generator if you want to have some fun, too.)

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.

Matt McGee: 2008 U.S. Tour Dates (1st leg)