Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Advanced 2008, THE conference for Search Marketing professionals to attend, is behind us. The venue was on the Waterfront of Seattle, a city that provides a perfect gathering place for artists and geeks. SEO & SEM Geeks took over the Seattle Waterfront from Monday night, opening with a Microsoft party at the Olympic
Sculpture Park and through Wednesday with Developer Day for the super geeky. (I attended the morning Developer Day sessions, so that qualifies me as only half-geek!) SEOmoz closed down SMX Advanced with a party that included bowling and billiards. (I didn’t attend since I had plans to take the ferry to see friends on Bainbridge Island – next year for sure.)
This was my first SMX event, but my 4th event hosted and/or coordinated by Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, a blog that covers news and information about search engines and search marketing. I only met Danny briefly, but his influence on the Search Marketing industry reaches world-wide. After all, it is called the “World Wide Web.” (I hated missing SMX West in Santa Clara, but a lung bug took a vacation in my chest.) I recently started consulting again (gosh, how I missed it), and SMX Advanced was a must! It will be on my annual calendar for search marketing training.
SMX Advanced was worth the time and money. It was well organized and orchestrated like a finely tuned digital piano. Heck, even most of the music on the PA system was good. Oh, and the food was awesome and the best I’ve seen at a conference. There was more than Diet Coke, Danny’s beverage of choice. I’m a health geek, too, and I was pleasantly satiated. Each attendee was given an SMX backpack (shown right). The backpacks sported padded shoulder straps, a place for pens and business cards and were large enough for a laptop with a 17″ screen. Forget paying for daily Internet at the Waterfront Marriott – the conference offered free WiFi!
SMX Connected
“Free WiFi” is a perfect segway to mention how well connected SMX Advanced was for attendees. Prior to the show, Search Marketers were able to sign up on a password-protected events page to get to know others ahead of time. During SMX Advanced, fingers tapped away on keyboards and cell phones. These SEO & SEM Geeks were live blogging and live tweeting on Twitter, a platform for microblogging. (Follow Dana on Twitter if you’re so inclined.) We Tweeted 140 characters or less throughout each session. I was able to “watch” what was going on in the other sessions by keeping a Twitter window open on my laptop.
The only “closed” session was “Give it Up!” where the panel told their inside secrets. The attendees and panelists swore an oath to stay silent or to have their souls doomed to the Goolgle Sandbox if any of the information was revealed for the next 30 days. That included agreement by Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Live Search. The search engine giants swore to not “fix” any loopholes that were divulged. And, some of the tactics revealed where borderline black hat SEO techniques. Fortunately, there were some solid, clean white hat SEO tips divulged as well.
SEO Half Life
I’m registered for SES San Jose, and they have big shoes to fill. I heard multiple people at SMX Advanced say now they are only going to SMX conferences for keeping up on the latest in search marketing. I recall someone, probably Danny, announcing at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose in 2004 that half of what we learned there would be outdated in a year!
Are you interested in SEO and Search Engine Marketing?
You cannot afford to miss SMX conferences and training events.
