Everyone loves a party and this month LondonSEO hosted a BBQ at the Vibe bar sponsoredby Media Centrix - well, it was almost a BBQ. It also hosted a little celebration to congradulate our own SEO Chick LisaD and Jon on their engagement!

Here is the happy couple with a chocolate cupcake each ready to tuck in to the yummy goodness. Look at the size of that ring! WOW!

Regrettably the BBQ people did not show up but having Brivck Lane close by means we had plenty to choose from. Many of the people at LondonSEO went off to some of those fine establishments afterwards.

The event was great with lots of new people - although the August weather let us down a bit. I hope I’ll be seeing more folks coming to these events in the future

It could have been the rain which kept people away - it certainly made it a bit of a challenge for the goodies but twin umbrellas saved the day!

Thank you to Rob a.k.a. EvilGreenMonkey for organising such a great event. I know everyone appreciated the time and effort you put in (well, everyone I spoke to did! ) and I am looking forward to the SMX London one!

I love SEO Conferences, but there’s a good possibility I’ll never attend another one. Why? Well, for one thing, after I tick off all the conference hosts today with this post, the SEO bouncers might block me from entering. But in reality, I may never go to another conference because the prices are just too freaking high. (please bear with me on this long rant, because really, you’ve GOT to read it all…seriously)

Yeah, yeah, I’m cheap, I know that. And I agree that conferences have a hidden value, especially in the networking, and that even one tiny nugget of information gleaned from a conference can make up for the price. And yep, I understand that it costs a lot of money to host one of those puppies because you have to pay an arm and a leg for the fancy conference hall digs, and give the keynote speakers a few bazillion dollars plus a promise of everyone’s third-born child. I get all that, really I do. And no doubt, there’s lots of big companies out there that don’t have any problem whatsoever paying all that money to send a couple employees to a conference.

And I agree that the first conference I went to was great. The second…pretty darn good too. But I just honestly can no longer justify the ginormous costs of these events any longer.

What got me started on this rant was the fact that PubCon’s prices have risen pretty dramatically since the last time I went. And while it’s finally in line with the rest of the conferences, it still didn’t make me happy. And it got me to thinking…how can all these people afford to go to conference after conference after conference?

Here, look, let me throw a few numbers at you. I picked just 3 conferences although there’s lots more every year. But I figured 3 was a good solid number, and I’m pretty sure quite a few people hit at least 3 each year. So I chose SES San Jose, SMX East, and PubCon Vegas as good examples of popular conferences that lots of people will attend. I then looked at the prices of the conferences, the hotel prices, the typical airfares, and included expenses for food and drinks (although I went really, really cheap on that part). Each conference has several “tiers”, including early bird pricing, and various options of what is included (full conference, expo only, etc). I used mid-range pricing for full conferences (meaning I used pricing that was early-bird, but not the deepest discounts), and figured out what it would cost to attend all 3 conferences…give or take a few hundred dollars.

The grand total was $11,225.* That’s right, the average conference is going to set you back nearly $4,000, and if you hit all three, you’re likely going to spend over $11K.

Guess what? There ain’t no way in hell I’d ever get that much ROI out of those conferences. So I decided to play around a little with that $11K and see if I could come up with any ideas to make that money work better for me. See if you don’t agree.

First, let’s take a look at what a typical conference looks like, with my head photoshopped over some other woman’s head. (Sorry for cropping you out of the picture, lady, but it’s really important for me to be able to stick my photoshopped head on other people’s bodies in this rant post, k? And I really wanted to see how short hair and bangs would look on me. Not so good.).

Woo. Doesn’t that look like fun. Yeah, k. Now, multiply that fun by 3 and that nets you 3 conferences for 11K.

Ok, moving on.

I could take that same $11K, grab a partner in crime, and spend 2 glorious weeks in Aruba at an ALL-INCLUSIVE resort instead.

(See, that’s my head below, at an Aruba pool, and yeah, that hair style looks better on me, don’t you think? So, ok, we’ll stick with this one from here on out).

But wait, let’s expand on this thought. What if we ALL spent that 11K by meeting up at this same all-inclusive resort in Aruba for two glorious weeks. and just hung out with each other all that time…imagine how much we’d get out of THAT!

Don’t like Aruba for some reason? Ok, let’s all spend that 11K by going to Disneyworld for 2 weeks instead? We can stay at the Polynesian resort shown below (with my head shown there, with above-chosen “do”) and choose one of their nearly-all-inclusive package deals.

Again…two weeks, with a loved one, just hanging out with all our buds. How much ROI do you think we can get out of that, huh? Now I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend that money in either Aruba or Disney than in three of those “lovely” conference rooms shown above. What about you?

Ok, so now that you get my point, let me get serious. Ever heard of WordCamp? Guess what? They hold that sucker for the lofty price of FREE. Yeah, free. I think we need more of those kinds of conferences in our industry. Who’s with me on that, huh? C’mon, raise your hands!

Either way…Free, Cheap, or Aruba/Disney…I’d take any of those choices over the expensive conference circuit right now. But hey, that’s just me. I’m cheap that way.

Wait, don’t leave… there’s more. There are, of course, even more options. You could actually use all that money to pay for - oh I don’t know - lots of good quality content? a decent link building/baiting package? creation of a kickass web app? outsource your entire seo campaign to Bob Massa’s new company for just $1000/month? Just ’sayin… I mean, that doesn’t get you a photoshopp’d pic of my head on someone else’s body, but it sure as heck would likely generate some nice ROI.

* Here are more numbers (which could be significantly higher for you overseas peeps) in case y’all feel the need to do some number-crunching yourselves:

SES San Jose
conference: $1795-$1995 (+ $745 or $1345 for half day or full day training (optional))

hotels:
san jose marriott $215/night
hilton sj $179/night

flight: $460

food/drinks: $250

***

SMX East New York City

conference: $995-$1595

hotel: westin ny at times square
smx east special rate is $359/night + tax

flight: $296

food/drinks: $400

***

PubCon Las Vegas

$899 -$1499 (+ $150 for pubcon on last day (optional))

no official hotel listed, but wynn is closest
$299/night

sahara (kinda run down, but close and cheap)
$48-$113/night

flight: $458

food/drinks/entertainment: $500

(Now I’ll need to get plastic surgery so the SEO conference goons don’t recognize me).

The South is host to more than just grits, rebel flags, inbred fat couples, dogs tied to chains, and gothic short stories filled with drinking and murder…which is why I am so utterly thrilled to announce that we’ll be having our very own SphinnCon on May 2nd, in Greensboro, North Carolina, hosted by Link Fish Media’s Jay Young and Ayima’s Rob Kerry, also known as the editor of Sphinn AND, in some small small ciricles, known simply as Donkey. Sure, Greensboro is a fairly boring town (although we’ve just turned 200! and we have a nice chocolate shop) but with the arrival of the lovely and charming Evil Green Monkey, this town is going to be turned upside down.

So what can you expect from the Greensboro SphinnCon?

• Informal quick sessions presented on a variety of SEO topics
• A networking session with FREE BEER that goes on until the wee hours of the night
• The chance to have your photo taken with an SEO Chick and maybe meet my bloodhound

Many people have complained about the overcrowded nature of the current major conferences, so this is your chance to come out to a one-day event and actually have meaningful SEO conversations with other professionals. We’ll get started around 10 and keep going until someone gets arrested. Tickets are $150 and that includes free beer and free food (for carnivores and veggies). There’s a special conference hotel (see the SphinnCon link) and we’ll be doing a lovely pub crawl on Friday night. Several people are staying for the weekend so send me a message on Facebook or email if you’ll be around and are interested.

Here I am again with the London events

Only this time, it’s on MY BIRTHDAY!

There will be three speakers.  I’m leading off speaking on SEO basics so all you Chicks out there wanting to pick up pointers, come on over and grab yourself a ticket!  There will be food and a bit of wine, water and juice courtesy of the sponsors along with FREE WI FI!!

Head over to http://londongirlgeekdinner20.eventbrite.com and enter the password “searchme” and you’ll be able to grab yourself some tickets!  You can donate any amount and all the cash goes to help Girl Geek Dinners.  Everyone is a volunteer and freely gives of their time.

March London Girl Geek Dinner

Date: 25th March 2008 7:30pm - 10:30pm

Sponsors: Latitude

Venue: The Knights Templar 95 Chancery Lane, WC2A 1DT

Organizers: Sarah Blow, Imp & Judith ‘deCabbit’ Lewis

The talks start at 8:15pm on the following topics:

* SEO the core elements – Recently named one of the UK’s most respected SEO bloggers, Judith ‘deCabbit’ Lewis will be speaking about the basics with handouts. Amanda will get the q & a off to a searchy start as she’s just done a site and used automated seo tools… will make for a good conversation…

* Semantic Markup and Organic SEO - Sheila Farrell will be tackling this fascinating topic on combining SEO with semantic web elements - Danielle from Israel to instigate the Q & A based on her experiences in Israel

* Search Vs Find, the mobile search perspective - Sarah McVitte who is deeply involved with finding answers in a mobile environment will tackle this fascinating topic - Vero to instigate the Q & A as she’s great with the mobile search stuff

It’s a fantastic opportunity to get information usually presented at conferences costing £500 or more to attend.

The 2008 edition of SES London was a refreshing change from the previous year.  Not only did it start better for me with no unwanted groping, the initial session really set the tone for the rest of the conference - fun and different.  This year I also resolved to get over being shy in person and introduce myself to people I have been reading.

I got as far as introducing myself to Liana “Li” Evans and Adam Lasnik and stopped.  Sometimes being a journalist bites as I am always aware people are suddenly careful about what they say around me.  Makes for a difficult time making new friends!

The sessions offered far fewer sales pitches than previous years and far more content.  One colleague who attended with me was very impressed at the amount of information she was able to pick up.  SES London was pitched perfectly at people who were just learning about search optimisation and marketing.

If I were structuring a learning program for someone new to SEO, it would go SES London, SMX London, PubCon then SMX Advanced with if possible SMX West, SES New York and SES San Jose.  I also highly recommend the places I speak :D  Well, I would.  My upcoming speaking sessions can be found in my deCabbit’s London View of Conferences Ahead

At the end of the first day was the anticipated (but not as anticipated as the SEO Chicks take-over of LondonSEO Pissup) networking drinks.  Held on the main floor with the exhibitors, we each had a sacred ticket, sacrifice of which was rewarded by the keepers of the temple of alcohol.  The wine was excellent for cooking and the beer was just the right strength to ensure new growth in your annual flower beds.  Yum.

Heading off for food, those among us intrepid enough to do so headed off to a pub… which had nowhere for us to sit so we headed to Thai Square.  When in the area of Angel/Islington, do visit this Thai restaurant.  Not only did they accommodate all 22 or so of us, on my table where there was a vegetarian and a seafood allergy, they cooked special food for us.  They so rock!  I’d like to apologise to the good folk on the other table I never got to say hi to.  It is the curse of the commuter and her train schedule.

Day 2 was a late start for me (lightweight that I am) but not so late that I missed all the sessions.  I even did my job of interviewing despite the mocking in the press/speakers room.  Sessions were again great with Googlers out in full force.  It was great to see Googlers on panels who were not just sales people.  That was a refreshing change.

Search Term Research and Targeting was an excellent session with fellow SEO Chick LisaD giving an excellent section on researching keywords and her own experience of a client with an Egyptian God for a business name wanting to rank for that name.  Excellent stuff!

The evening of the second day was a washout for me as I had a friend coming over.  It was a lovely evening though and I was re-energised by the and of it and was ready to face another extremely early start and late end.

Day 3 was, of course, the most important day.  Each passing session was a step closer to the SEO Chicks take-over of the LondonSEO Pissup.  Meet the Crawlers had knowledgeable people from each search engine (but Live) talking about some of the stuff us SEOs want to know (like how to get in to Ask or how to get spidered more frequently).  Site clinic was, as always, a good laugh with a few small take-aways and really, all the sessions added great value but evening was approaching.

Having had a lacklustre meal at Med Kitchen (compared to Thai Square especially), we headed over to Camden Head for chocolate, beer, wine and, apparently, a comedy evening!  My chocolate had melted *SHOCK* and when I tried to get more they were sold out *MASSIVE FAIL* but it was great fun nonetheless.  Every time I tried to escape the stairs though, I was inevitable pushed back there.  I think the stairs liked me.  I also got a back massage, chest bumped, bum rubbed and got to set up a friend and another new acquaintance.  Hey, misery loves company

All in all, London SES was a great place to be to learn, meet people, have fun and enjoy being an SEO!

Finally we can announce our first guest-bloggers. It seems like ages since we first wrote about getting some cool guest bloggers on board. We’ve had a few interested, and we’ve stalked some (ehm Donna).

And since the guest-bloggers are in fact “guest” bloggers we thought it would be cute to call them “SEO Chicklets”. So without further ado, let me introduce you to our first ever guest bloggers!

Jane Copland

Ok if you don’t know who this blonde kiwi bomb shell is, you’ve had your head in the sand for the last year and a half. Jane works as a Search Marketing Consultant at SEOmoz, but is maybe more known as the Moz plex’s Social Butterfly (ehm only with regards to Social Media of course, no pun intended…cough cough). Jane has written two in-depth guides on social media marketing for SEOmoz and has been a speaker at SMX on the same subject. Along with being a pretty smart chick, she is also one of the funnest people to party with and one of the sweetest people I know. We are very excited to have Jane on board to contribute to the SEO Chicks blog, watch this space for some wicked posts.

Happy party chicks, Jane Copland and myself at SMX London

Lauren Vaccarello

Lauren used to work for Forex Trading company as the Search Marketing Director, she then founded lvlogic, an online marketing business specialising in paid search, web analytics and brand and reputation management. I first met Lauren at PubCon in Vegas, where we bonded over a few vodka’, chatting about the Search Industry, conferences and of course women in search. Like Jane, Lauren is one heck of a clever chick and has attitude like only a born and bred New Yorker can have. She rocks!

Lauren with Todd Malicoat at 9 in the morning in Vegas, having eggs and tequila for breakfast.

Welcome to the SEO Chicks Chicklets, you both rock!

oh and lastly a random fact: “Did you know that a goldfish has the memory span of only 3 seconds?” That made me laugh so much today….Ok it’s way past my bedtime, I’ve entered random land.

Well, 2008 has already started with a bang (but, living in the past as I am, I’m still catching up with 2007…) with lots of conferences shooting ahead out of the starting blocks.  I’m speaking at three so far (maybe four) and attending many more so for all you London-based marketing folk, here is what’s up and on.

Technology For Marketing & Advertising 2008 – Feb 12 Earls Court Conference Centre London.  It’s free to attend and tends to be all about the stands with free sessions of limited value to those who know what they’re on about.  For those new to the industry, these sessions are great bite-sized free talks at a free industry event.

SES London – Feb 19 Business Design Center.  Be there or miss out completely on one of the best times.  Felt left out of all the fun at PubCon?  Why not get involved in SES London and create some networking magic!  SEO Chick Lisa D will be speaking there so you know you *have* to go.

Web 2.0 and Beyond: Applying Social and Collaborative Tools to Business Problems - 5-6 March 2008.  This conference has a great atmosphere with networking not just encouraged - it is enforced!  Practical advice, with the ability to implement immediately means anyone going to this will find something about it for back at the office.

Future of Web Design - London 17-18 April  Kensington Town Hall.  This is a fantastic conference really aimed at folk who already know what they are doing and want to push it further as well as seeing what’s coming up.  I highly recommend this event.

Social media for Business – Apr 24 Hotel Hesperia London Victoria.  I’m speaking at this event on “The Dark Side of Social Media” or how not to bugg3r it all up by learning from the mistakes of the past.  This was a fun conference last time so I highly recommend it.  But I would – I’m speaking at it!

Internet World - Apr 29 Earl’s Court.  This is another large, free event that is apparently bigger and better than last year.  Again more of a trade show event, it also has free seminars (like my online reputation management one) but is mainly aimed at those looking to source suppliers.  I’m speaking at this event too!

Search Engine Marketing Advanced Conference – June 12 Hotel Hesperia London Victoria.  I’m speaking at this on something (don’t know yet) so it should be a great time.  And lunch is always nummy and we all know a conference is rated by its lunch.

Online Marketing Show – Jun 24 Business Design Centre, Islington.  More of a trade show event, this is free to get in and has some great workshops though the main draw is the number of suppliers under one roof.  There is a fantastic Thai restaurant across the street – dinner anyone?  I’m probably speaking at this event too!

That’s the first half of the year so far.  I know that we have SMX London sometime between June and November and also ad:tech Sept 24-25 Future of Web Apps, London 1-3 October at ExCeL, Future of Mobile in London November 2008 (exact dates TBC), Virtual Worlds Congress and Expo in November 2008, Online Information is Dec 2-4 at Kensington Olympia plus more Social Media and Search Marketing conferences.

Search Engine Strategies – Feb 2008
Wohoo I’m a speaker at Search Engine Strategies London this year , pretty cool, especially considering my first ever conference was SES London this time last year. SES London is on from 19th – 21st February at the Business Design Centre in Islington, London.

I’m on the panel “Search Term Research & Targeting” with amongst other Christine Churchill and Maxim Grandchamp

If you are going to SES London, make sure you come and see me speak on Wednesday 20th Feb, 11:45-12:45, I’m going to be nervous as hell, so any support will be very much appreciated No heckling please, unless it’s “Lisa you rock”…

LondonSEO party Thursday 21st Feb
As usual the search engines are rubbish at organizing ANY parties during search conferences in the UK, so LondonSEO are again organizing a big piss up for the last day of SES London.

This time I have high jacked the LondonSEO site and I’m organizing the party. It took some convincing Rob and Mike to let me do it. But I’m not one for giving up =)

The party is being held at the Camden Head in Islington, only 2 min from the Business Design Centre. We are estimating around 100 thirsty search marketers coming to the party, the lovely Dave Davis from RedFly Marketing and Ciaran Norris from Altogether Digital are sponsoring the party. Thanks guys!

It should be a good laugh, for more info about the party visit LondonSEO I have also started a LondonSEO Facebook Group for anyone that wants to join (you have to be logged into facebook to follow the link!)

See you there?!!

The English Speaking Union was the location of the “B2B Marketing Debate” (watch the video!) between SEO and PPC. SEO experts Lisa Ditlefsen, head of search at Base One and Andrew Girdwood, head of search at Big Mouth Media debated with PPC defenders Stuart Small from Google and Simon Norris from Periscopix.

With over £700 million being spent annually on paid advertising within search engines, pay per click (PPC) advertising is often seen as the easy way in to the top spot on search result pages. Easy to change, start, stop and completely transparent, Stuart asserted that PPC was a better, more targeted way to gain leads.

Stuart Small from Google mooted that with 85% of all B2B purchases starting in a search engine, paid search ads were vital to any business. Google sees 80% of searchers clicking on organic results, with 20% of all searches clicking on a search ad.

With SEO perceived as a “black art” taking time, expert knowledge and effort, both Lisa Ditlefsen and Andrew Girdwood tackled the issue expertly, mooting that organic results were often perceived as more directly relevant, with a lower overall cost.

With three times the interest in SEO, paid search ads just don’t generate as much interest. PPC is a “money eating machine” according to Andrew. “People don’t want to put more money in. For B2B campaigns SEO has a definite advantage over PPC.”

Lisa Ditlefsen spoke about how SEO is like buying a house and PPC is like renting. While initial costs may seem larger, SEO is by far the cheaper investment. A well optimised site lasts in the SERPs, while a poor site with PPC lasts only as long as the money.

Simon Norris mooted that organic results were manipulated by devious SEO methods. To counter, Andrew Girdwood argued that Google was excellent at filtering spam out of the index “Google does an excellent job at this. ‘Gaming’ the search engine is just no longer possible the way it used to be.”

Simon also claimed that Google is trying to increase the number of ads clicked on by searchers and that personalisation changes the ads shown based on user intention. “That is not true” said Stuart Small from Google. “Google is very careful about privacy and we do not change ads based on people being logged on to Google. That is completely wrong.”

At the end of the debate, search engine optimisation won. No contest really, considering who was fighting the SEO side

When the SEO Chicks were sent the questionnaire by our lovely Julie about the last 6 months, and we were asked how it had changed our lives, at that point I hadn’t really noticed a difference.

Enter PubCon and suddenly we had a fan (HI NATASHA!) asking us to sign her t-shirt (which we failed to do – SORRY!).  Others wiggled out of the woodwork and suddenly I realised that not only were more than 6 people reading the blog, they actually recognised the other chicks and me!  SEO Chicks changed my life (and not in a National Enquirer way) forever!

So, on I move to the past weekend and the BBC Backstage Christmas Bash.  BBC Backstage is a grouping of techie sorts who hack and code and generally enjoy coding.  According to the BBC Backstage website “backstage.bbc.co.uk is the BBC’s developer network to encourage innovation and support new talent. Content feeds are available for people to build with on a non-commercial basis.”

Admitting to just how much of a geek I am in public now, I went to this techie Christmas drinks event which I have been attending since its inception.  Always a great evening with geeks, I met up with Suw Charman, Improbulus (who had to leave early to sing Messiah), Ian Forrester, Ryan A, and others.  I also made new friends in Trisha (who is an SEO Chick fan – HI TRISHA!), plus Marko and Martin – Yahoo and Google respectively.  They were drinking together, enjoying the company (me and Trisha and Cotta and someone whose name I forget) and talking about stuff they couldn’t talk about.  So you can gather the conversation was scintillating.

What did I learn?  Those two Dutch guys were great fun and I wished I could have chatted with them more.  Regrettably being a filthy spammer SEO meant my time with them was limited by my profession.  Sad but true – apparently I went black hat after a glass of mulled wine (white hats – watch that stuff!).

I did find out about knols and Google’s wiki-killer project.  No, I don’t believe it’ll kill wikipedia nor am I totally sure it’ll take off.  I do understand why they are doing it but it will be ad-driven and so never seen as completely neutral.  Not that Wikipedia is neutral, it just seems less evil.

Quote of the night?  “We’re just more subtly evil” by Google guy who said it in response to a conversation about Google, market dominance and the statement “don’t be evil”.  Really does just sum it up, doesn’t it?