Believe it or not, the board of SEMpdx has been getting a number of emails asking us where to register for SearchFest 2009, coming up in March.

So, I figured I would take a minute to point out the SearchFest registration, as well as the entire SearchFest 2009 agenda, and a link to our sponsors.

This year’s event promises to be the best ever, with a lineup of speakers including:

• Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land
• Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz
• Vanessa Fox, Nine by Blue
• Marshall Simmonds, New York Times
• Neil Patel, ACS SEO
• Riona MacNamara, Google
• Laura Lippay, Yahoo
• Matt McGee, Small Business SEM
• Greg Hartnett, Best of the Web

and many more…

I will be moderating two sessions myself, including SEO For WordPress, and SEO for Bloggers and copywriters.

The event will take place at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, Oregon on March 10, 2009, so what are you waiting for? Go register now!

I just spent nearly 2 1/2 hours on my 10 minute presentation for the East Portland Chamber of Commerce, tomorrow morning at Warner Pacific College.

If you’re already a search marketer you probably won’t learn much, but if you’re a small business owner, it should be enlightening.

My goal is merely to make the attending members aware of all of the changes that have taken place over the past 18 months in Google, and most of the presentation will be filled with screen shots from different types of search results that will appear when users search from the Google homepage.

I didn’t write much of a script, just took a bunch of notes, since I figure that if I can’t wing it for 10 minutes, then I really must not be very knowledgeable about my subject. At the end, I’ll likely be announcing my part in a full morning marketing presentation that I was asked to participate in before the end of the year.

If you happen to be in the area of Warner Pacific College tomorrow morning at 7:30, please do stop by and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and a muffin… Oops that reminds me, I have to get to Costco before they close…

Warner Pacific College
2219 SE 68th Avenue
Portland, OR 97215

Directions
I’m not sure of the name of the room, but it’s in the new building, right above the Cafeteria…

I’ve been working hard on one of my two upcoming Pubcon presentations, which I’ll be giving in Las Vegas on Wed November 12 2008.

The subject I’ll be discussing is “SEO and Web hosting” and last year my presentation was pretty generic. I prepared well, and I thought it went over okay, but it was geared more towards the beginner, where I tried to dispel some myths about hosting rather than educate too much.

This year I’ve done a lot more research, and I’ll be tackling some of the technical issues faced by SEO’s with many of the different hosting types that are out there. Many thanks to my server admin Rob for letting me take him to lunch yesterday, and for helping to keep me as a web hosting reseller all these years despite my frequent questions.

The moderator for this event will be Jake Baillie (and he’s speaking too)
and the other speakers will be:

• Curtis R. Curtis, Senior Vice President, Superb Internet
• Jake Baillie, Managing Director, STN Labs
• Jordan Kasteler, Senior SEO Analyst, Overstock.com

Additionally, I get to be in a second session, one I really am looking forward to, because it’s a live site review panel. The moderator will be Dixon Jones, and my fellow panelists will be:

• Byron White, Founder and President, LifeTips.com
• Jessie Stricchiola, Founder & CEO, Alchemist Media, Inc.
• Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.

I’m really looking Forward to the second one because there’s no preparation required, and in fact unlike the local SEMpdx hotseat events, we don’t even know what the domains are there going to be reviewed.

This sort of session relies on the knowledge and wit of the panelists to keep it entertaining and informational. To be perfectly honest, it provides a much more appealing environment for me as a presenter too, because I enjoy the audience interaction and answering questions. I do hope that if you’re attending, you’ll introduce yourself…

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.

If you’re with a local business and want to know some specific things you can do to rank your business better when your city name is used in the query, then this is one presentation you don’t want to miss.

Also at this event, I’m going to be on the 4 person panel for a mini – SEM Hot Seat event, along with David,  Todd Mintz and Lisa Williams and we’ll be critiquing three websites.

Check out more info here, and if you come, please do take the time to introduce yourself.

Apparently, my portion of last months internet marketing class went well enough that Colleen from Search Engine Academy of Oregon got good feedback, and she has asked me to speak again to her class in September.

My portion will be about making the most of your efforts when marketing via the social networking sites, and I’ll be covering my own agenda too, as well as covering the materials they provide.

My segment will be presented on Thursday morning, September 26th at 10:30 AM, on day two of the three day advanced search marketing class and remember, you can get 10% off, if you enter the coupon code “commander” here .

I will be speaking on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at the Software Association of Oregon’s monthly meeting, in a presentation entitled -
Content Management Systems Myths Busted – The Good, Bad and the Ugly”

The general topics covered by the speakers will be these, although you can bet that my own portion will focus exclusively on WordPress, and why it is NOT one of the many crappy content management systems out there today…

• CMS Landscape – What is out there?
• Should your next site be based on a CMS System?
• How can you make a website out of a blogging platform?
• What is the best free Open Source CMS?
• What are the top 3 issues for a large corporate CMS?
• Biggest CMS myths – BUSTED!
• How do I get top position in the search engines via my CMS?
• How CMS helps Web 2.0

To find out more about the event, or to sign up to attend, visit SAO website

After several months of being unable to coordinate the date and time, this past weekend I finally confirmed that I will be teaching a portion of an advanced Internet marketing class, to be held next week in Beaverton.

The portion that I cover will be about making the most of your efforts when markting with social networking, and I’ll be expressing my own advice and opinions based on real world experiences, as well as covering the materials provided by the Search Engine Academy of Oregon.

The Advanced SEO class sill be held Wednesday, Thursday and Friday July 16, 17 and 18, and here is the agenda for the entire three day workshop.

My own segment will be presented on Thursday, July 17, and a direct link to sign up for the class is here, and remember, you can get 10% off the enrollment fee if you enter the coupon code “commander”.

I’m honored to be a part of next tuesday evenings SEM Hotseat, because we have another guest star coming in from out of town to speak.

I’m going to go out on a limb and risk embarrassment by admitting that I did not recognize the name Matt McGee when Todd Mintz mentioned him about 18 months ago in a discussion about “people we’d like to get to Portland some day” while we were at an SEMpdx board meeting. (Sorry Matt

Even Todds s mention of Small Busines SEM didn’t directly ring a bell, although once I saw the graphics I recognized it as something I had indeed read before, and was looking forward to meeting him.

Since hearing his name for the first time, I’ve seen Matt speak twice, and hung out with him at SES San Jose, at Pubcon 2007 (was it twice?) at SMX Advanced in Seattle I think, and most recently here at Portlands’ SearchFest 2008.

Unfortunately for me, I did not get to hear his SearchFest presentation because I was presenting in the other room and I really wanted tobecause he had recently released something he called the SEO Success Pyramid.

On my long-time list of “things I should do” was to create something like that , which provided a fantastic graphical overview of things you must do, complete with visuals. You can download a full color copy here.

Next Tuesday is a rare opprtunity to meet Matt in person, and be treated to his knowledge and expertise in his presentation. Afterward, I’m honored to get to be on the panel with him, as we present another round of SEM Hot Seat.

Where? When? How Much?
Next Tuesday night 5/20/08 at the Hotel deLuxe from 6 to 8pm, with the after hours party at… ?

Find out more, and register here and if you’re going, please drop a comment here, or be sure to say hello.

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

Three members of SEMpdx,  Benjamin Lloyd of Amplify Interactive,  Kent Schnepp of Engine Works, and myself, Scott Hendison, will be on the panel critiquing participants websites, answering specific questions, and providing specific information to the site owner,  as well as to conference attendees.  The panel will be moderated by SEMpdx president Kent Lewis, of Anvil Media.

While it is not necessary to pay to attend the “Hot Seat” event beyond your Innotech pass,  if you’d like to have YOUR website reviewed, then that is something extra, but at a ridiculously low price…  Register your website to be reviewed here

Today I got confirmation from Brett Tabke that I will be participating in not just one, but two sessions at Pubcon Vegas 2007. The first will be in one of the Web hosting & SEM sessions, and for the second I will get to sit on one of the site review panels.

I’ve always enjoyed the site review sessions, and to be honest I’m pretty excited about the opportunity.

Another e-mail came from Brett today, that he had posted on the Pubcon blog with some tips for speaker’s.

Although the title of the post is somewhat comical, PubCon Street Tips: Giving a Kick Ass Presentation With a Hangover,  the tips offered are sound.

Besides the title of the post, it talks about who was in the room, what your opening should look like, hitting the sweet spot, getting over your fears, proper etiquette during Q&A, strategies for your presentation, and “the big finish”.

There are also a couple of good suggestions about what to do after the presentation is over, and I’m sure I’ll be rereading this a couple of dozen times between now and then.

Now I have to think of some clever swag to give away at the event… Maybe $5 bills?

I will be giving an internet marketing presentation to a small group of about 50 realtors next Wednesday, August 15th, 2007, from real estate companies all over Oregon.

The subject matter came as a request from a local title company, and the presentation is called “12 things you can do to get your website noticed”, and will be non-technical, yet filled with information that small business owner can take to the bank.

There are currently no remaining seats available, and I believe they already have a waiting list, but if you are interested in attending, please contact me directly, and I’ll see what I can do but can’t make any promises.

I’m happy to announce that I’ve now received a final confirmation from Brett Tabke that I will be one of the speakers at the 2007 Las Vegas Pubcon show, December 4 – 8.

As this industry grows, I know there are many people getting their feet wet speaking a different conferences.  Still, as a long time attendee of several previous Pubcon shows, I consider it an honor to be selected, and I’m pretty damn excited about it!

Of course the fact that the SES Chicago is going on at the exact same time certainly didn’t hurt my chances any did it?

I haven’t finalized the details of my presentation yet, nor do I even know exactly what session(s) I may be participating in.  I just know that I’m happy to be going there, to sunny and warm Las Vegas, instead of traveling to Chicago in the dead of winter