Next week’s SEMpdx presentation gets very specific regarding the local search ranking algorithm. SEMpdx is fortunate to have a new board member join us for 2009 who’s recently moved here from San Fransisco.

His name is David Mihm, he’s an expert in local search, and he’s agreed to give a similar presentation to the one he gave at SMX West in California couple of months ago.

I’ll be on a panel at Innotech this year, because for the first time, there will be live website reviews taking place at the conference,  here in Portland Oregon.

The entire conference is scheduled for next Wednesday, April 16th and Thursday April 17th,  but the live SEM Hotseat is Thursday April 17 3:30 PM in Room D135

I showed up late for breakfast, at about 7:40, which was only 20 minutes before the day was supposed to begin. The buffet (again spectactular) was set up in the hall, so with my backpack over my shoulder, I made my plate, and went inside to try and get a seat.

The morning started out great with a buffet breakfast of rosemary potatoes, scrambled eggs, chicken apple sausage, thick sliced bacon, and an assortment of bagels and breakfast breads. I’m typically not a breakfast eater but I’ll never turn down something like this, and I piled my plate high and when into our private dining room.

As I write this we’re circling San Francisco Airport, and I expect to be told to shut down the computer in a moment, but I wanted to give my blog post about the first night at the elite retreat.

There are approximately 72 hours remaining for you to obtain a ticket to SearchFest ‘08 at more than half off of the non-member door price.

Here are the steps…

1. Join SEMpdx
2. Register for the conference. (Price goes up slightly March 1st)
3. Before checkout - apply this additional $40 discount code - SEMBD

In January of 2007 I joined StomperNet under the belief that I would get the personal attention of their world-class faculty.

I assumed that for the nearly $10,000 I was going to pay for the year, I would not only learn everything I wanted to know, but I would establish some personal relationships that I could continue to nurture over time.

Somehow, there are still some slots available for site reviews at next Mondays SEMpdx Search Engine Marketing Hot Seat event.

For those who don’t know, Vanessa is a top speaker on the conference circuit. Formerly head of Google’s Webmaster Central team and more recently Zillow.com, Vanessa has transitioned to features editor at Search Engine Land and to helping startups at Ignition Partners.

My trip to Los Angeles for the Search Engine Strategies local conference was a real eye-opener for me as to how many big (and not so big) corporations view the Internet.

Amazingly (to me) there are huge companies paying no attention whatsoever to organic search engine optimization, while spending tens of thousands of dollars on Internet Yellow Pages, banner advertising, and pay per click. To many of the people I met, organic just wasn’t important, even though it a far larger source of traffic than any paid options.

When I first wanted to take classes in search engine optimization, my options were pretty limited, and there were no Oregon search engine marketing classes offered anywhere that I was aware of.

After narrowing it down to just a couple of choices, I settled on attending John Alexander and Robin Nobles’ Search Engine Workshop, in Las Vegas in 2004.

I’ve now gone through my Search Engine Strategies conference book, and pulled out the most relevant points that I had written down, with the thought of making a quick blog post called “SES Nuggets of Knowledge”.

I always like to do this because it gives me a quick refresher on the overwhelming amount of information I get after attending any conference, as I begin to apply what I’ve learned to my own website and to those of my clients.

Last year I attended the Internet strategy forum in downtown Portland, and came away with mixed feelings as to whether or not it was worth my time.

There was little talk about search from other then have few speakers, and instead focus on many of the broader aspects of Internet as opposed to simply Internet marketing.