Unlike all the live blogger geeks out there (and there were a lot!), I decided to focus on the workshops at hand, and worry about posting later. I watched countless people miss the entire session, as they fought to get connected to the flakey wifi network.. Such is life.

I was very interested in attending the Organic Listings Forum, so I made a point to get up early and catch the train into the city. Unfortunately, this “open forum” was VERY basic in nature, and the questions being asked by the audience weren’t thought-provoking in the least. I had high hopes for this session, as I’m a big fan of Jill Whalen, but she didn’t actually speak all that much. I left this session disappointed, and wished that I had gone to the “Redefining the Customer” session instead.

Next up was Analytics: Data Into Action. I picked this session because none of the rest appealed to me. I’m actually glad that I decided to attend. Matthew Bailey was a fantastic speaker, who interjected some fun into his presentation, while still getting his point across. The main theme of the session was to use segmentation when analyzing your visitor data. All-in-all, not a bad workshop..

Then it was lunchtime, and SES had a “Networking Lunch” planned for us. I actually made a few good contacts here, and the food wasn’t bad either. They needed to turn down the A/C, but other than that, no complaints.

2:00pm brought the next set of workshops, and I opted for the Web Analytics: Measuring Success session. Again, I wasn’t wowed by the other options, so that’s how I ended up here. Avinash Kaushik from Google was first up, and he really showed off the power of Google Analytics. He also stressed the need for multi-variable testing, which is made easy using Google’s Website Optimizer. A great speaker, and I’m going to be following him closely from now on.. The rest of the speakers weren’t bad either, touching on many of the same points..

Up next was the Orion Panel – Getting Vertical Search Right. An interesting panel, but not really relevant to my personal needs. I stuck around for almost an hour, before ducking out. I had intended to stay for the SEMPO mixer (never one to turn down an open bar!), but I was wiped out and just wanted to check into my hotel room and get some rest.

As I mentioned previously, I’m a HUGE fan of the American Express Starwood Rewards Card. Not wanting to drop $300+ for a hotel in the city, I logged into my SPG account and looked to see if there were any Starwood Hotels in the area. Low and behold, the Sheraton New York was only 1 block from the Hilton (and was actually a recommended hotel in the SES NY literature!). I booked a room for 12,000 points. For most rewards cards, that would equal $120. You can’t even stay in a hostel for $120 in NYC! The room was great, and as an added bonus, the SPG manager left me a complimentary bottle of wine, and a box of candies. Sweet!

Till tomorrow..

Ok, this is the last batch, I swear!

The coming week will be hectic, with SES NY on Monday and Tuesday, and Las Vegas from Wednesday-Sunday. I don’t know how easy it’ll be to post from my iPhone, but I’ll give it a shot. If not, be prepared for lots of updates and pics when I return!

And now, the pictures:

It’s not often that an e-mail makes me laugh, but this one takes the cake!

I’ve been eyeing the iPhone since it first came out, but the pricetag kept me away. Then the price dropped to $399, and I started to reconsider it. And finally, after months of procrastination, I decided to get one. And just before I bought mine, I got the heads-up on a special hush-hush deal that AT&T had. Get an 8GB iPhone for $249, or a 4GB iPhone for $199. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Here’s the deal. Right now, you can go on Apple’s site and pick up a refurbished 8GB iPhone for $350, and save $50 over a new one. Certain AT&T stores in the Northeast are now selling these same refurbished 8GB iPhones for only $249! They are absolutely MINT, and come with the same 1-year warranty that the new phones have. They’re SUPPOSED to be for new AT&T customers, but a number of people have had luck getting the phone without a contract (and subsequently jailbreaking the phone for use on another network).

I was with Verizon for the past 8 years, so I was reluctant to switch carriers, but there really is nothing else that holds a candle to the iPhone. So I made a few phone calls, found a store that had the refurbs in stock (an AT&T kiosk at the mall, go figure!), and ran down to get mine. It’s everything I expected, and then some!

Deal not sweet enough for you? If I refer you to AT&T prior to you purchasing your iPhone, you’ll get a free $25 AT&T gift card! All you need to do is contact me with your name and e-mail address, and I’ll send you the referral link..

Enjoy!

I’ll be in NYC next week for the Search Engine Strategies conference.. If you’ve never been to a Search Engine Strategies event in New York City, this is a “must-attend”. The industry converges for a week of spirited discussion, high-level learning and attendees leave with actionable battle plans to go forward with for their companies.

So why would an affiliate be interested in a conference about SEO? Honestly, if you’re not using SEO to promote your campaigns, you’re leaving easy money on the table. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of PPC.

Most affiliates would consider that statement to be sacreligious, but I just don’t agree. Sure, you can ramp up a campaign in a matter of minutes, and drive traffic to your site (or even directly to the merchant’s site), but there’s a cost involved. You’re now worried about ROI, ad budgets, daily spending limits, Google’s quality score, and a number of other things. If you decide to go on vacation, you’re going to have to remotely manage your PPC campaigns, or shut them down and stop all sources of profit!

With SEO, you’re definitely going to spend more time setting things up, and you have to be patient, because jumping to the top of the search results doesn’t happen overnight. But when it does (and it will), life will be great! The affiliate commissions will start rolling in, and you can just sit back and count your $$. Want to go on a cruise and leave the laptop back home? No problem! That’s the beauty of SEO, you just set it and forget it. Sure, you can spend time tweaking your landing pages to improve your rankings, but it’s not as “labor intensive” as PPC is.

So what do I hope to learn at SES NY? How to continue improving my search engine rankings.. The search engines are constantly tweaking their algorithms, and it’s hard to keep up with them. MSN rolled out their Live service last October, and something changed in their algo. The net effect – I lost about 50 1st-page rankings! To this day, I’ve been unable to get those pages ranked highly again. Yahoo is odd, with some pages ranking great, and others totally lost.. And Google is a total mystery. For a search engine that supposedly cares so much about the quality and integrity of their index, it sure doesn’t show. The sites that constantly rank highly are the ones that buy a HUGE amount of links from other sites. Strange, I thought Google was taking a hard line on sites that bought and sold links. Apparently not so much!

If only Ask would become the Search Engine of choice, I could retire today. I guess whatever I’m doing resonates with them, as I rank #1 for a TON of my targeted keywords.

If you’re going to be at SES next week, drop me an e-mail and let’s meet up!

Sorry for the lack of updates over the past few days, but sometimes life just gets in the way.. With less than two weeks until my wedding, things have been absolutely chaotic! But we’re in the home stretch now, and I just have a few loose ends to tie up before we leave. My goal for today? Finish compiling the tax information for my accountant, trick out my new iPhone (ringtones, apps, etc), and setup the Wii I scored yesterday at Best Buy!

The g/f is home sick today, so it’s unlikely I’ll get much accomplished.. Maybe it’s just me, but when she’s at home, I have a hard time staying focused on work. I don’t know how some of you are able to work with your significant other at home, but I just can’t deal with it.

I started this post at 10:15am. It’s now almost 1pm, and I’m just publishing it now. In the meantime, I’ve watched Dirt and Maury, and barely done any work.