Any good business owner carefully monitors all company expenses. Business owners must make decisions on a daily basis of whether or not to “invest” (aka purchase) stuff for the business. This “stuff” can range from simple office supplies to marketing and all the way to sending staff to industry conferences.

Recently, here at Best Rank, we’ve been wrestling with the decision of whether or not to send ourselves and/or our employees to the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose this month. I’m even thinking about attending the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East event in October. Part of this decision process is to evaluate whether or not sending myself or an employee was really valuable to our company and could we see a positive return on investment (ROI) from this activity.

For those of you not aware of these conferences, I’ll tell you that they aren’t cheap. The admission cost alone, for a full-conference pass, is roughly $1795 (for SES) and $1195 (for SMX) if you purchase before a certain date, more if you procrastinate. Plus there’s the cost of travel, accommodations, and food. Oh…and let’s not forget the opportunity cost of attending a conference vs. doing your normal work routine; it’s inevitable that you will miss some work and either have to give it to someone else or let it slip and then catch-up later.

So, what’s the value of these conferences? Is it worth me spending ~$3000-4000 per attendee? If I send myself and 2 employees, can I make up the ~$10-12k in expenses?

Let’s look at the positive aspects of search marketing conferences for a minute. What kind of value can a search marketer get out of attending a conference?

Networking

Networking with search marketing colleagues/peers and potential clients can be invaluable. You never know when you’re going to make the right connection at the right time. Not only do these events attract the most well-known professionals in our industry, but they also attract your more under-the-radar search marketers…who can prove to be very valuable connections. Rand Fishkin, over at SEOmoz, wrote a good post about the benefits of search marketing conferences. Check out what he has to say about Community Building, Meeting People, and Securing Relationships.

Learning the Tricks of the Trade

We get so engulfed in our every day work that it’s tough to keep up with reading and continuing education. Going to a conference and attending educational sessions is a good way to force yourself to learn the latest and greatest. Some of the most useful tools and tricks that we currently use were gleaned from sessions we attended at last year’s SES events. Staying up to date with the latest trends, tips, tools, and tactics (the 4 T’s) will keep your business valuable and on the cutting edge of search.

Speaking

I normally take every opportunity that I can get to speak in front of an audience. While I haven’t had the opportunity to speak at a search marketing conference yet, I do know that speaking can be a significant boon to your business. Best Rank is regularly asked to speak at local business and networking events; every time that we speak we always get a fresh new set of hot leads to follow-up with. After every session at search marketing conferences I see the speakers getting swarmed by people. I imagine many of these people turn into quality leads. Speaking in front of a large audience automatically gives you credibility (deserved or not) in the eyes of the audience. They assume that, since you’re in front of a large group of people, you must be an expert…thus able to handle their project. I would encourage anyone to take advantage of speaking opportunities and of the assumptions that audience members make about you, the speaker.

So, how do all these positives translate into an ROI for my investment dollars? The real answer is that I don’t know. If I were to go to SMX East in October, and if I were to make one good connection (client), then I can justify spending the money. However, there is no guarantee that I will get a new client simply by attending this event.

But, what about the educational aspects? If I go to this event and learn some great new tactics, that I turn around and apply to my client’s campaigns, then maybe my client’s site gets an extra boost in traffic and they decide to expand the campaign, thus more money in my pocket.

I have to echo the same sentiment from Carsten Cumbrowski, who wrote a post about this topic over at Reve News (click here for the post). She states that:

“The single most important reason for me to attend real-life conferences is to do something that cannot be replaced by the best communication technology available: human interaction, meeting people face-to-face and getting to know strangers across different verticals that you would not have “bumped into” otherwise.”

Carsten is right!! While I can’t directly tie an ROI to meeting people, it’s obvious that making the right connections at these conferences can significantly outweigh any direct costs involved in the effort. I’ve made connections at search conferences that are worth 5x more than I’ve paid to be there. Plus, I’ve implemented strategies that I’ve learned at search conferences into client campaigns; campaigns that I’ve gotten great results for and ultimately expanded.

I’m probably not going to SES in San Jose this year…but I’ll most likely be at SMX East in October. Hopefully I’ll make some great connections and be able to positively impact my company’s bottom line. Happy conferencing!!

Here’s another good article about the value of search conferences.

I just attended a very interesting session at Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose titled: Universal & Blended Vertical Search. The panel of speakers included representatives from Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com. These three reps gave us a great deal of insight into their respective company’s theory on universal search and what they envision for the future.

Universal search (or blended search) is the concept of including different types of listings in the search engine results pages (SERPs). When we talk about “different types” of listings, we are talking about listings other than your typical web page reference. For example, check out this search query for “The Family Guy.” You’ll notice that within the results Google has listed The Family Guy home page at number 1 (to be expected), but then notice the number 7 listing…it’s a YouTube video for the family guy. You’ll also notice that the number 9 listing is a Family Guy blog. Up until recently you would never find a video or a blog listed in the SERPs with normal website listings…this is considered Universal/Blended Search.

Universal search can include: Videos, Images, News, Blogs, Book excerpts, and the traditional web site listings. It is these latest developments in search that forces us to optimize not only the website, but also the images on the site and the press releases and videos that we submit to other internet sites. The Yahoo rep highlighted the fact that the number of video comments and video views (on YouTube or other video sites) directly correlates to how high those videos appear in the search results.

All three company reps stated, in a round-about way, that universal search is in it’s infancy and is only going to become more prevalent. As search marketers, we can’t ignore this. We must take the time to optimize every portion of our client’s business including images, blogs, press releases, and videos. This could make our job much more time consuming and more difficult. However, if done properly you could see fantastic results in the form of multiple results on the front page.

I attended my very first Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference last week in NYC. I learned a ton, not only about search strategies, but also about how not to act at one of these events. I spent the first 3 days trying to meet people in hopes of being invited to one of these famous after hours drinking functions that everyone raved about in the chat forums. After day 2, I still hadn’t received an invite to any social functions; I was at a loss. I’m a cool guy, why wasn’t anyone inviting me to have a drink with them??? Maybe it was the constipation-induced scowl I brandished for the first two days. Maybe the new brand of deodorant I switched to was being overworked. Maybe the blinding reflection off my ever-expanding forehead was causing people to quickly avert their attention from me. As I sit back and reflect upon the reasons I didn’t warrant an invite, I can’t help but zero in on my many unsophisticated actions that clearly screamed “NEWBIE”.

So, for any of you SEO’ers, rookies and pros, who are thinking about attending one of these events, below are my Top 10 tips on how to blend in and better your chances of getting invited to a social function.

10. Stick to the Fundamentals Track!!
- It’s easy to get ahead of yourself. If you are a newbie and you find yourself in the Robots.txt Summit, the you are clearly out of place; you may even start wondering if you are at the right conference.

9. Laugh when everyone else laughs!
- When the speaker makes a joke that you don’t understand, it’s a good idea to play it safe and laugh.

8. Don’t give out your contact info to anyone on the exhibit floor if you truly don’t want them contacting you!
- I thought they just wanted to be my friend…I didn’t realize that they actually wanted me to buy something. By the time I got back home I had 24 e-mails from potential business suitors eager to sell me their goods. I hate to say it but I really have no intention of buying anything from you, I just wanted to get invited to an after hours social event. Sorry!!

7. Bring business cards!
- After telling the 47th person that “I forgot my cards” I started to feel like a fraud. They all gave me that ‘you’re an idiot’ look.

6. Realize that lunch is provided for you!
- I didn’t read the itinerary on day 1, thus I didn’t realize that lunch was provided. I found myself wondering why everyone was rushing upstairs. I thought “this is the perfect time to hit the hot dog stand before everyone else does…suckers!!!”

5. Don’t complain about the crunchy cookies they serve at lunch!
- When I saw the pack of cookies, I expected them to be soft. I had a tourettes moment and blurted out some profanity about not getting soft cookies. Needless to say, nobody from my lunch table that day invited me to have a drink with them.

4. At the first session after lunch, be sure and leave yourself a one-seat buffer zone on each side (don’t sit right next to someone)!
- On day 1, I sat right next to a lady after lunch. I think she got a little scared when I started doing the head-bob, funky chicken between bouts of consciousness. The lecture was interesting and all, but why did they have to schedule it during my normal nap time??

3. Don’t carry around that sweet, and oh-so manly, canvas bag after day 1!
- The conference organizers issue you a “gift bag”, which turned out to be a bag full of advertisements. You’re expected to carry it on day 1, but after that you just stick out. I think the NYC investment bankers were a little jealous of my canvas tote…so feel free to use it outside of the conference.

2. Don’t try to impress the SES ladies by attempting to form a rap circle outside one of the session rooms!
- This one is self-explanatory really. I thought it would be cool to make up a rap about search strategies. Talk about your all-time worst backfires.

1. When attending the Danny Sullivan open discussion forum, don’t stop clapping until everyone else has!!
- I stopped clapping after the first 3 minutes (a carpal tunnel thing) and the girl next to me shot me an evil ‘how dare you disrespect him’ glare. I promptly put aside the pain in my wrists and continued clapping. Who knew he was so popular??

Follow these simple rules and you will fare better than me!! See you all at SES in San Jose.