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.

Admittedly I learned an awful lot, but primarily what I got was sales pitch after sales pitch, and “new program” after “new program”, and far too many different forums that offered practically no participation by the original faculty members that were the catalyst to my joining.

The primary reason for my joining was to hear directly from certain faculty members, and overall, as a group, their participation was shamelessly poor. The whole experience at StomperNet basically sucked my time dry, and left me wanting for much, much more.

To be clear, I’m not saying StomperNet sucked, or that StomperNet wasn’t worth the money for anyone, just that it wasn’t worth the money for me, because I didn’t have four hours a day to wade through their ever growing and poorly organized volumes of crap looking for the “good stuff”.

At PubCon In December I was discussing my disappointment with someone, and telling him that I was not going to renew Stomper after January 1. I’d put in a year, and was fed up. That’s when he told me that he had gone to Elite Retreat, and it changed his life.

Elite Retreat
The more he talked about Elite Retreat, the more I realized that I had really blown it making my decision to skip it last year. Everything he claimed to have gotten out of ER was exactly what I had been looking for.

Last week I was on vacation with my family in Mexico, and I spent nearly three hours every day doing email, and dealing with work issues by phone and by web.

After getting back this weekend, and immediately spending nearly 2 hours on three separate unproductive phone calls this past Monday morning, I hung up from the last one and immediately signed up for Elite Retreat.

It’s not “productivity” that’s my problem, it’s that I’m focusing on the wrong things. With only so many hours in a day, my business model really isn’t scalable, and more growth as an “SEO Consultant” isn’t something I really want any longer.

One of my Internet Marketers New Year’s Resolutions was to do more of my own affiliate sites, and while I’ve been managing to keep two people fairly busy, we just haven’t made nearly the progress I expected to make nearly 2 months into the year, and have been bogged down by little details. I’m counting on this conference to change that.

Elite Retreat will be held April 2 & 3 2008 in San Francisco, and will be a conference unlike any other I’ve ever attended. To begin with, it’s only comprised of 35 attendees, instead of the hundreds thousands that attend Search Engine Strategies and Webmaster World’s Pubcon.

Elite Retreat is more what I would call an “interactive session”, as opposed to a conference, and I expect to be learning far more in this two days that I would in an entire year of Pubcon and SES conferences and learning it in a much different way.

Along with only 35 attendees there are six world-class experts in their fields, including the keynote speaker, Guy Kawasaki. The entire faculty will be there the whole two days, which means lots of face-to-face quality time with some of the brightest minds in the world.

I’ve spent nearly half of my entire 2008 education & travel budget on this event, and I’m specifically skipping SMX West and SES San Jose as a result, but I have no doubt it’s going to be worth it.

Here’s who’s running the show in San Francisco…

Guy Kawasaki
I was riveted by Guy’s keynote at the 2006 Pubcon, and it remains the best I’ve seen. He’s motivating, inspirational, and dare I say brilliant? I remember trying to get near him just to say hi, and to be perfectly honest, I had an easier time talking to Google’s Matt Cutts than I did getting close enough to Guy because of the crowd.

Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College

Jeremy Schoemaker
Since I ran across Jeremy’s blog a little over a year ago, I’ve found some of his posts to be incredibly inspirational for me, and it’s clear that there’s a reason he’s holding that big fat AdSense check, and it’s not because he just got lucky. This guy is the real deal, and while his “no bullshit” style may not be everyone’s cup of tea, he’s exactly what I need.

Jeremy Schoemaker (widely known by his nickname of ShoeMoney) is an important player in the search engine marketing world, and his knowledge and expertise make him one of the top go-to guys for PPC, arbitrage, SEM, branding, and online income optimization. His weekly Internet radio show Net Income allows listeners to hear Jeremy’s honest assessment about his failures and successes in the online marketing space.

Neil Patel
Having seen Neal speak three or four times now, I can say that he is one of my favorite speakers, and I’m really looking forward to getting to know him. His presentations are always rapid fire fast, totally enlightning, and given with such total confidence and enthusiasm, that you can’t help but realize that he’s bursting at the seams with killer information.

Neil Patel is an Internet marketing consultant and the founder of Advantage Consulting Services which was started in 2002. He has lead Internet marketing strategies for small and medium sized businesses as well as top companies such as Hewlett Packard and Wal-Mart. His experiences include search engine optimization, social media optimization, reputation management, and viral marketing.

Aaron Wall
This is the guy that actually “wrote the book” on search engine optimization, and while it may not have been the first, (or was he?) I do believe it’s been the best, to ever come out.

At PubCon in Las Vegas, Rand Fishkin said that Aaron was one of the smartest people he’d ever heard, and “if there’s one blog you should be reading every day, it’s Aaron’s”.

Aaron Wall is a search engine optimization expert who blogs about search at SeoBook.com. He also wrote a popular book by the same name, publishes numerous other websites, and has consulted clients large and small about how to increase their search exposure.

Brian Clark
Being a conversion expert, I expect to learn a lot from Brian not only in the area of usability but in measuring and quantifying results.

Learning how to use the tools I already have, like stats, logs and Google Analytics, to better identify exactly where and how conversion rates can be improved upon has never been a more valuable skill.

One of the best quotes I heard at PubCon last year was that “it’s a lot easier to double conversions than it is to double your traffic”, and I’m taking it to heart, not only for my own sites, but for my clients as well.

Brian Clark is an Internet marketing strategist, content developer, entrepreneur, and recovering attorney. In addition to building three successful offline businesses using online marketing techniques, he has sold scores of products and services online via joint venture and affiliate arrangements. He founded Copyblogger in January of 2006, and continues to develop successful web properties with a variety of partners.

Andy Liu
Andy’s name did not sound familiar to me at all, and I can’t even find anywhere online to link his name to. However, anyone not living under a rock has heard of Net Conversions, (now aQuantive, err, Microsoft) and as the President of an Internet company way back in 1999, he undoubtedly has a lot to offer.

As a startup expert, I think he rounds out the faculty perfectly for me, because I have some of my own ideas far beyond simple affiliate sites, and I’m really looking forward to meeting and hearing from him.

Andy Liu is CEO of BuddyTV, the largest independently held TV site on the Internet reaching over 4.3MM monthly uniques. Prior to BuddyTV, Andy served as President and CEO of NetConversions from 1999-2004 prior to its sale to aQuantive and served as VP and GM of its Site Optimization unit from 2004-2005.

He’s also a founder of a non-profit focused on technology in developing countries and is very passionate about entrepreneurship. He brings deep experience in building companies, site optimization, SEO, community building, and product development. In 2003, he was named to Puget Sound Business Journal’s 40 under 40 and holds an MBA from Wharton.

What do I really hope to gain?
By paying approximately $300 per hour for two days of “coaching”, I’m hoping that I can get any specific question I might have answered, and believe me I have a lot of them. I have three pages on the front page of Google for a “Internet consultant”, yet what I DON’T know could fill volumes of Encyclopedia thick books, and I don’t expect to hear many “I don’t know”s from the student questions this crowd gets asked.

I hope to gain the confidence I need to try new things. I’ve continued to stay in my comfort zone for the past couple of years, both in my personal projects and in dealing with clients. I’ve turned down dozens of consulting opportunities, simply because I didn’t like their platform, or I didn’t know anything about their technical setups, and I hope to gain the confidence to break out of that comfort zone and accept those challenges if I choose to.

I hope to gain lasting relationships with these guys, and because they continue to hold weekly conference calls for past attendees, I expect that will happen. The insights that I got from having a conversation with one of their ATTENDEES was enough to keep my buying the drinks in Las Vegas.

I hope to gain some sanity in my affiliate business, as I continue to flounder making just a few bucks here and there on several of my own domains, while I continue to leave dozens of other domains that I own undeveloped. With what I know ALREADY, this shouldn’t be the case, yet it is, and I’m tired of it.

I hope to gain some insight on better ways of scaling some of the mundane tasks that are necessary, like outsourcing decent content, getting that content into pages, and obtaining inbound links. I have developed my own methods out of necessity, but the time involved in doing this successfully when dealing with a dozens of affiliate sites is astronomical, and paying employees to do it is not cost effective. There’s got to be a better way.

Above all, I hope to gain more of the knowledge and the networking connections necessary in this industry that will allow me to write my own ticket (but upgraded, of course) and continue making a living online, without the need to get out and “sell” my SEO services – That’s just not a game I want to play any longer.

Since I live eat and breathe for search, and I’m truly passionate about what I do, for me, this is going to be like going to a fantasy baseball camp. There’s literally nothing I’d rather be doing… If you’d care to join me, there are still a few seats left to sign up.

Searchfest 2008, Oregon’s annual search marketing conference will be held on Monday, March 10, 2008, at the Oregon Zoo’s Cascade Crest Banquet Center.

We’ve now got the prices posted, the sign-up form live, and I’m sorry, but it’s already too late for you to be the first person to sign up…

That’s okay thougfh, because it’s not too late to save some money, and if you’re already a member of SEMpdx you can save 50% compared to the door price for non-members!

These early bird discount prices will only be good through the first of February, because we’re budgeting now for headcount, catering etc. and so the sooner you get in, the more money you can save.

Here are the confirmed speakers so far, and Rand Fishkin, from SEOmoz will be giving the keynote presentation -

* Paul Colligan
* Jeff Pruitt, SEMPO, iCrossing
* Stoney deGeyter
* Matt McGee
* John Andrews
* Kevin Wilk – Yahoo
* Marshall Simmonds, New York Times
* Dan Harbison, Portland Trailblazers
* Ben Hanna, VP Marketing, Business.com
* LinkShare
* Brian Schmidt – Google

Sign up today with the early bird discount and don’t miss this rare Portland opportunity…

I skipped a lot of Pubcon sessions this year, either because I was working on my presentation, or because there just wasn’t anything appealing to me at the moment. I did take notes during many of the sessions, but since I always keep my Blackberry on my hip, I also try to write down and remember the really good things I overhear in passing.

There are plenty of good session roundups out there so nobody needs me to rehash the conference like I did for SES Local.

I took a lot of session notes as always, but these are a few items that I found either interesting, noteworthy or amusing, so I also took the time to type into my Blackberry, and I thought I’d share them here.

(Unless I use quotes, then I’m paraphrasing what each person said.)

Matt Cutts –
1. “If you do everything on Word press, you’re pretty much covered for SEO”. Did you hear that, all of you Fortune 500 companies who think you’re far too sophisticated to use a free software program?

2. Recommended a decrease of server IP TTL (Time To Live) to 5 minutes at least a couple of days before you move your domain to a different IP address. While that may be a no-brainer to some, I certainly hadn’t thought of it

3. Google is changing the way they treat subdomains -

Read Matt’s explanation, and not just the interpretations of others)

4. Use Alt Text for images and get “pretty good” credit for the link.

Well well, looks like I’m vindicated… my regular readers may know why.

Greg Boser -
Geg sad, “The Long tail is a myth perpetuated by SEO’s that suck”, and he called PPC advertising, “Checkbook SEO” – hilarious

Alexander Barbara -
“To avoid the Digg effect (crashing your server when a story hits the home page), make sure your article is up at least a week before you submit it to Digg, and gets cached by Google.”

Then, when your story is nearing the Digg homepage, do a 302 to the Google cache for a couple of days until the traffic dies down “.

(Oh my gosh, this was fantastic. You should’ve seen the look on a couple of Google employees faces when Alex shared this tip.)

Rand Fishkin –
1. I read Aaron Walls blog every day. Pay attention to what Aaron Wall says” [sic] no matter what he looks like!
(Wow. That was supposed to be a compliment, and although it came out poorly, I’ve still taken it to heart and added Aaron to my own blogroll.)

2. “Doubling your conversion rate is easier than doubling your traffic.”

Since I’d heard that before, this wasn’t exactly like a “lightbulb going on”, but it WAS like a “lightbulb being replaced”, since I hadn’t been in that mindset lately, and it’s already made a difference in the 7 days since the conference..

Todd Malicoat -
To combat content scrapers, Todd said to “Cloak text links into your RSS feed”. I thought this was ingenious, but as I was writing it down, Matt Cutts laughed and said “Better be careful doing that”…

I can see no downside. I’d like to know what Matt meant…

Roger Montti – Martinibuster
1. When you’re looking for domains/sites/blogs to purchase, look for ones with Adsense below the fold. This is usually an indicator that monetezation efforts are not going so well.

2. Try using olive oil and chicken bullion for seasoning steaks before cooking.

Awesome. Who’da thunk it? Chicken bullion for seasoning beef?
For me this year, the Las Vegas show was my first Pubcon presentation, and I was a bit nervous. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my session was less crowded than my presentation from last year’s Searchfest, and it went off without a hitch. As soon as it was over, I felt like a big weight was lifted off my shoulders, and I was able to have some fun.

Enough about Pubcon – Now we’re less than 90 days from Oregon’s largest search marketing event, there’s a whole new crop of things to focus on. The whole board of SEMpdx is working hard to make it great, and we’ll be having two SEM Hotseat events leading up to it.

I was packing this afternoon for my trip to Los Angeles for the local search engine strategies conference, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t even planned out my session attendance for either one.

It only took me a minute at the SES website, because without multiple tracks, there wasn’t much to choose from. It’s a show focusing on local search though, so I expect to learn a lot about an area I’m not really that strong in, and where there have been a lot of innovations.

On the other hand, PubCon hasd a lot to choose from, so planning ahead took me a while. Here’s my current game plan for PubCon Las Vegas 2007, but as usual, it’s subject to change.

The entire session grid is here, where you can see that at any given time there can be as many as five sessions running at once.

Day 1
The first morning session is the Kickoff Keynote Address by Craig Newmark (o1f Craig’s List fame, so that’s certainly going to be something to see

The next session holds no big draw for me, so I think I’m actually going to attend one of the 101 panels, likely Classic and timeless hits because I’ve been doing a lot more teaching myself, and I certainly have something to learn from each of the presenters.

However, anyone not already comfortable with social networking would probably want to attend this panel for sheer star power and packing a lot of information into a short amount of time.

Following that I think I’ll find Monetizing social media traffic to be the most enlightening. Last year I attended the concurrent PHP databases presentation, and it was very good, if not over my head at times.

After lunch the first day, four of the best pros on the planet will be talking about link building campaigns and strategies, and that’s probably not one to miss.

However, there are some great presenters in every session this period, and they all promise to be excellent. This is one of the frustrating things about any conference… deciding which sessions to attend.

After that, 96 strategies for link baiting is the only clear choice for me, and the last session of the day still has me on the fence. On the one hand, it’s tempting to think that I will learn something valuable in the link buying session but the reality is that none of the good stuff can even be mentioned in a session like that for fear of the wrong person finding out something valuable.

Most likely I’ll attend something that has more practical information to share, like Forums and communities, building, management and optimization. I’ll also point out that this is the same time slot for fellow SEMpdx‘er Scott Orths’ presentation on Web analytics

Day Two
Wednesday opens with a Keynote Address by Richard Rosenblatt and I’ll be following that up at the interactive site review session with Dixon Jones and Rae Hoffman. Dixon is a great guy, and if you’ve never seen Sugar Rae during site reviews, you’re missing out.

The last session before lunch is another tossup, and frankly I wonder if another 101 session isn’t the best option, taking a top-down look at site design at SEO site design & organic structure. Sometimes hearing well presented fundamentals over again can be a valuable experience.

After lunch on day two comes my own session, Web hosting and SEO issues, and I’m excited not only because it’s my first Webmaster world speaking engagement, but because I get to sit with some real pros, including my favorite presenter Jake Baillie.

After that there’s a break, and then a domain name auction followed by a reception with the Google engineers. If you think you’re going to learn anything from the Google engineers, you’d better be a fast talker, because every time I’ve had a chance for a one-on-one conversation with one of them, they’ve pinned me in the corner and had nearly as many questions as I have! Seriously, they’re all nice, and usually willing to answer anything you can throw at them within reason.

Day 3
Matt Cutts kicks off day three with his “Coffee with Matt Cutts” chat supersession, and that’s always informative.

The second session of the day I may hit up Brand management unless I can weasel my way onto the site review panel. When Brett at Webmaster World accepted my application to speak this year, he did tell me I’d be on a review panel as well, and this is one that still isn’t listed as full for speakers

The third session is going to have to be the Search and blogging reporters forum, with four of the most respected names I know in search. Then again, there’s another empty review panel just sitting there…

After lunch I think I’m most interested in startup costs of getting in the video game , but will likely end up in Multivariate testing and conversion tweaking because that’s where I can do the most good for my remaining clients.

Following that is the site review session that I’d really most like to sit on, (are you reading Brett?) with Greg Boser, Todd Friesen, and Seth Wilde, but when I’m not added to that panel I’ll either go to word-of-mouth marketing or just go back to my hotel room and pout

Surprisingly the last session of the day is not the “search engine smackdown” that seems to be conspicuously absent this year, but instead it’s just another breakout with four to choose from.

To be perfectly honest, at this point I’ll probably be hanging about in the halls trying to get invited to something private, but if that fails I’ll probably go to the Blue sky small business roundtable.

*edited – Thursday night I’ll be attending the Microsoft party at the Ghost Bar in the Palms. (I’m not sure why I got an invitation, but I’ll be there anyway). Someone commented below about an SEO poker going on tournament too, but the link seems to be down.

Day 4
There’s nothing going on in the morning, but at 1 p.m. comes the “Pub” part of PubCon with the location yet to be announced. If you see me there, please come up and introduce yourself, don’t be shy, and if you mention you read this on my blog, I’ll buy you a beverage and talk search for a while.

How lame is it that Microsoft chose “Party like a rock star” as the theme of their Webmaster World party this year?

Shoemoney (Jeremy Shoemaker) ran a contest he called, “Party like a rock star” paying the airfare, hotel bill, conference admission, and %400 cash for one lucky winner, and he got quite a few entries, quite a bit of blog buzz, and created a pretty good thing, in my opinion. (Yesterday he announced his winner, which was Laura Martin)

Just now via e-mail I got an invitation (exclusive, no doubt to the Microsoft Ad Center party, and they are calling it “Party like a Rock Star” also.

I don’t think that takes away anything from Shoe’s contest, but really, are they so far out of the loop that they didn’t know this contest was going on?

I suppose Microsoft can do whatever they want, just like Google does, but I think it shows somewhat of an “unawareness” about the community of attendees at the conference. I won’t hold it against them though, and I’ll be there anyway, partying like a (aging) rockstar…

Unfortunately, I won’t be attending the SMX social media event in new York city next week, and now I’m even more disappointed.

I don’t think I’ve ever regretted not going to a specific event so much before, and not just because I’m missing great content, but because this is a great way to spend an evening in support of a good cause.

If you are going to be at SMX in New York then you absolutely have to go, and donate $40 at the door of this event to support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s fight against cancer. Attendees will have three hours of open bar partying with fellow marketers.

I got tagged on this post by Todd Mintz, and I’m doing my part by tagging three others – Andy – Jerry and Scott and you can see the incredible amount of community support this is getting at Sphinn

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.

My intention was simply to write a quick, short post, giving only the most salient information…

Several hours later, I completed my novel, and instead of posting it on my own blog, I decided to add it to the SEMpdx blog, since my association with them was so beneficial to my own visibility while I was in San Jose. I established some great relationships that might not have otherwise come to pass were it not for SEMpdx.

If you have a few minutes, (okay maybe a half hour), and you want to see what I found to be the most important things I learned specifically, at each session I attended, and then head over to the SEMpdx blog and read my post.

Oh, here’s one nugget that I left off that post. Do you know that there is a service that allows you to bypass airport security lines?  you can’t bypass the security check itself.  However, if you’re in the right airport and you have this “preclearance” card, and you can win is right by the entire line. How awesome is that? It’s only $100 a year (for each family member), and although it’s only in seven airports right now, its rapidly expanding throughout the country.

The two pieces of bad news for me are that #1, it’s not available yet in Portland, where I live, and #2, they don’t offer an affiliate program. After seeing it available in San Jose, I contacted the company when I returned home, and they’ve informed me that they don’t offer any sort of affiliate program, nor does it sound like they intend to. Wow, too bad for me

The company is called Clear and when it’s in Portland,  I’ll be first in line to pick one up…

After what many are calling the best SES session, Matt Cutts was caught on camera physically expressing his feelings about the way he was treated, as he attempted to strangle Graywolf!

During his portion of the session, Michael Gray attacked Google pretty viciously, but did so in a methodical and logical way that was nearly impossible to disagree with.

I’d never seen Matt actually squirm before, and being in the front row, I could swear I saw sweat on his brow. I actually did feel bad for him, but he really was placed in an indefensable positition.

I think the height of utter hypocracy was best demonstrated when Todd Malicoat showed a screenshot of a Google search for “buy text links”, and everyone in the audiience could see that Google was profiting from the very activity they publicly condemn.

Next to pile on were Todd Friesen and then Greg Boser, who both laid out their cases very matter of factly, and again, barely a sylable could be debated.

The only hope of salvation came from Andy Baio, who is the founder of Upcoming & Waxy but his point was basically that people SHOULD be nice and not to cheat. Well, yeah, that’s true, but teachers should get paid more than basketball players, and thats just not the way the world works, is it?

The writeups on this session were incredible, and you can read all the gory details as captured impeccably by Tamar Weinberg of Search Engine Round Table, Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz and Lisa Barone from Bruce Clay. Dana Larsen at Top Rank Blog also has some insight worth reading, with a funny analogy.

I predict that this session may actually lead to the death of (visible) PageRank in the Google toolbar, but there’s not much they can do about the algorithm’s dependancy on inbound links, or the publics desire to trade green paper for green pixels.

The attack? – Well, Matt and Michael were just joking around…

The picture was shot by Mark Knowles, from Smart Solutions, a Bend Oregon web development company, and I’d better make it clear that no money changed hands in exchange for the picture, or for any of these links

I arrived in San Jose too early to check into my room, so I dropped my stuff at my hotel and walked over to the Marriott. As I walked in, I saw a familiar face walking out.

It was Dixon Jones, a Webmaster World moderator (Receptional), and principal of an  SEO firm in the U.K. I nodded and gave my usual “”Hey”, when it dawned on me that the whole reason i came was to talk and network with people like him!.

I wheeled around, and followed him outside, asking, “Aren’t you Daron”? He said, no, I’m Dixon” but stopped and walked back towards me. (For some reason I had him confused with someone from Webmaster Radio, not Webmaster World)

I introduced myself, and mentioned that we had talked briefly at SMX, and he asked me if I wanted to grab a coffe or something, ’cause he was just walking around.  Naturally, I jumped at the chance, because I’d seen him at just about every Pubcon I’ve ever been to, as well as at the seattle SMX show in June.

He was a genuinely nice guy, and we talked for over an hour. In his “former life” he wrote murder mystery games, and actually played the dead body” parties. Today, he still markets the home games online.

We talked about the differences in people, marketing and “sales approaches” in the US vs. the UK, employee management, and shared some copywriting ideas. He also gave a couple of tips for my Pubcon presentation on hosting.

Even though hes’ not speaking, he came to this SES show because he’s going to run the post conference training classes at the London SES show, and wanted to see how they were run here.

We also talked about some different theories on 301 redirects for changing domain names, and then he told me about a GREAT idea for a future project he’s beginning.  The market he’s chosen has yet to be developed, and I can’t really be specific here, but I will say that his idea is out of this world.

It’s things like this that keep me coming to these conferences…