WebmasterWorld Internet Marketing & Publishers Conference, Orlando, Florida February 26-28, 2004

WebmasterWorld, the worlds largest superforum for Webmasters, marketers, and online publishers burst onto the scene with a massive conference in Orlando, Florida.

For the first time, the infamous PubConference series adopted a more traditional format with two days of interactive presentations by some of the worlds foremost experts and industry figureheads in search engine marketing. Topics included pay per click search engine advertising, proactive linking, pay for inclusion programs, affiliate marketing, conversion tracking, online public relations, and the much over hyped contextual advertising programs offered by companies including Google, Overture, and Kanoodle.

Presentations at PubConference included tons of how-to information and cutting edge news from the engines themselves.

Have you ever spent thousands of dollars to go to a search engine or Internet marketing conference and felt you wasted your time and money to listen to people who had nothing worthwhile to say?

At PubConference, you hear from the experts who are in the trenches, running there own firms (and not just the management types) who have built them from the ground up. You'll find "super affiliates" among the crowd and on the speaker list, explaining some of their tactics and strategies.

Top tracks at PubConference included:

Affiliate Marketing - Finding good affiliate programs and attracting top affiliates

All speakers in the track obviously had extensive experience and success in the world of affiliate marketing. Online pharmacies and personals were mentioned as two of the most profitable niches for affiliates. The full range of affiliate promotional methods were discussed from what might be considered Spam tactics like mass signing of guest books to more above board tactics like pay per click advertising on Google, Google, Overture, FindWhat and other pay per click search engines. Throughout the session, expressions on the faces of attendees ranged from horror to humor as affiliates discussed how affiliate marketing really works.

• Adam Jewell of NetPlus Marketing, Inc. gave a how-to presentation on using Google AdWords to participate in affiliate marketing programs by driving traffic straight to affiliate sites without even building a website. He made it seem that 50k or more per year in profits was possible simply by purchasing AdWords ads and sending the traffic straight to merchant sites. Who would have thought this was possible?
• Shakil Kahn of freeserch.co.uk gave an enlightening talk on both sides of the affiliate game, providing tips for both affiliates and merchants.
• Chris Ramondi of PR10.com & Dave Naylor of SEOPS related their experiences as super affiliates, obsessions with stats checking and the beauty of working from home and collecting massive amounts of affiliate payouts.
• Todd Friesen of Oilman Promotions discussed what super affiliates look for when joining affiliate programs and how merchants can successfully deal with affiliates to keep the top performers in their programs.

In Running With The Big Dogs, Are You Really Master of Your Domain?

• Joe Garboe of SEOPR discussed the tremendous benefits of optimizing press releases to target traditional search engines and news feeds such as Google news to gain maximum exposure. Careful selection of keywords in the headers and body copy as well as careful selection of a press release service such as PRWeb.com that offers stats tracking for your press release can make the difference between a massive revenue generating press release and one that lingers in obscurity.
• Ann Kennedy (BeyondInk.com), Jessie Stricciola (Alchemist Media), and Christine Churchill (Key Relevance) provided additional insight as to how small firms can compete with virtually anyone in any industry utilizing guerilla tactics.

Other highlights of the conference included a SEMPO meeting. (SEMPO is the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) and a WebmasterWorld members meeting where moderators and administrators discussed the history of WebmasterWorld, the current status of the board and what the future holds.

All in all, the WebmasterWorld PubConference was a smashing success.

Since the PubConference in Boston in March of 2003, attendance doubled and the conference expanded from one to three days. Cost to attend the conference jumped to $299.00 and is expected to increase next time, however, compared to other search engine marketing conferences like Search Engine Strategies that top out at over $1500.00 for a full conference pass, the WebmasterWorld PubConference is an outstanding value.

When is the next US conference?

Expect WebmasterWorld to follow up the Orlando conference with another this fall, sometime between September and December in the western US. Details have not been released, but you can expect a larger conference with more exhibitors and sponsors.

The all-star speaker list included

• Tim Mayer of Yahoo! search
• Matt Cutts of Google
• Greg Boser of WebGuerilla
• Mike Grehan - Author of the widely acclaimed search engine marketing book.
• Dan Boberg of Overture
• Paul Gardi of AskJeeves/Teoma
• Jessie Stricciola of Alchemist Media
• Adam Jewell of NetPlus Marketing, Inc.
• Kevin Lee of Did-It
• Greg Jarboe of SEO PR
• Todd Friesen of Oilman Promotions
• Shakil Kahn of Freesearch.co.uk
• and many, many more

   

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