Have you attended a show this year? I’ve attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Search Engine Strategies, and ad:Tech this year. (I was too busy to attend SMX, but maybe next year)

Next month, I hope to make it out to Chicago for the Internet Retailers Conference & Exhibition conference (IRCE). And in the fall, I’m heading out to Vegas for Blog World Expo.

These are all great shows - I learn a lot from the sessions, network with some GREAT people, and meet vendors and exhibitors that can help me take my businesses to the next level. And let’s not forget the crazy parties, great locations (I’ll never get tired of Vegas!), and eye candy galore!

The problem? MONEY! There’s the cost of the shows themselves, but there’s also the cost to get there, your hotel accomodations, meals, etc. But don’t let that stop you from attending! There are ways to attend these shows on a budget, and get the most bang for your buck!

Getting There

Airfare is getting more and more expensive, thanks to the ever-rising fuel costs. Here are two ways to fly for free (or close to it).

1) Sign up for a Southwest Airlines credit card. They’re currently doing a promo where you get a free roundtrip airline ticket after your first use! Only catch? You have to pay a $59 annual fee. Big deal - Where else can you fly roundtrip for $59?!

2) Sign up for the American Express Business Gold Card, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts. This requires a bit more work, as you need to charge at least $1000 on the card before you get the full 25K Membership Rewards points, but on the flip side, it doesn’t cost you ANYTHING for the first year!

Accomodations

Hotels aren’t cheap.. Attend a conference in NYC, and you’ll spend between $300-400 a night! 4-day conference, and you’re on the hook for $1200+. Because of this, I use my Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express. This card ROCKS!

Here’s how it works - You sign up for the card, and they’ll give you 10,000 Starpoints after your first purchase. That’s enough for up to 3 free nights at a Cat 1 or Cat 2 hotel! (In addition, they waive the $45 annual fee for the first year) Then you’ll earn 1 point for every $1 spent. They’ve also got bonus points awarded to you when you reach certain spending thresholds.

Here’s why I like it. If I spent $25K on a regular frequent-flyer credit card, I get enough miles for a free airline ticket. Approximate value - $300-$400. If I spend $25K on the Starwood, I get at least 25K Starpoints (more if I qualify for any bonus promos they’re running). 25K Starpoints = 7 nights at a hotel! 7 nights at a Starwood property would cost you more than $1400!

What’s also nice is that after you acquire 30K points, you get upgraded to Gold Preferred. All of a sudden, you’re getting free upgrades to MUCH nicer rooms, complementary wine, chocolates and candies, extra late checkout, and a bunch of other perks!

Meals

I rarely pay for anything when I’m at a conference. Lunch is usually provided, and an affiliate manager or other big-wig will usually pick up the tab for dinner.

Admission

So all you’re left with now is the cost of attending the show. There are usually discounts for early registration, group affiliations, etc. Some bloggers contests even give away free passes that were given to them in order to drum up attention to the event!

Another angle to consider - Are you with the press? CES considered bloggers part of the press (though after the stunt Gizmodo pulled this year, who knows where bloggers stand in their eyes), and many people scored press passes! Qualifications for press credentials vary from show to show, but if you’ve got a legitimate reason to request access, you may just luck out.

Good luck, and I hope this helps!

During the last weeks, people in many SEO forums noticed some strange Google result changes. Rumor has it that there is a new -60 penalty that Google applies to websites in which it has lost trust.

What has happened?

Some webmasters found websites that were listed on position 61 in Google’s search results that had Google Sitelinks below their listing.

Normally, Google only displays Google Sitelinks for the first search result.

Many webmasters believe that the website that was listed on position 61 with the Sitelinks was the number 1 result for that keyword but had been penalized by Google.

What does Google say about the -60 penalty?

In a Google Groups discussion about showing Sitelinks for #61 results Google employee John Mu referred to a -60 penalty discussion.

Google hasn’t officially confirmed that a -60 penalty exists. However, Google employee John Mu indicated in a discussion about the -60 penalty in the official Google groups that Google penalizes websites if they contain certain spam elements.

Which spam elements trigger the -60 penalty?

It looks that Google applies this penalty to websites that buy links.

Many of the websites that seem to have been penalized had many inbound links from websites that linked to them from every single page of their website (so-called site-wide links). Sitewide links are an indicator of paid links, which Google sees as an unwanted way to artificially inflate search engine rankings.

The head of Google’s anti-spam team Matt Cutts has often said that websites that buy paid links will be penalized and it looks as if Google tries to do the job properly.

If this penalty for paid links really exists then even websites that follow Google’s rules can get in trouble. Your competitors could harm your website simply by buying links or by creating mini-net websites with sitewide links to your website!

Air travel is just awful these days.. At my old “corporate job”, I was traveling 52 weeks a year, as our big client wanted us working on-site.. I flew so much, I quickly made Platinum Preferred with US Air, and had well over 150K frequent flyer miles! But back in those days (1999-2001), air travel wasn’t as bad as it is today. You didn’t need to take off your shoes to go through security. You didn’t have to show up 2 hours before your flight took off. A simple belt didn’t set off the metal detectors!

After 9/11, things changed drastically. I flew about 2 weeks after 9/11 for a wedding, and there was a STRONG military presence in the airport, complete with loaded rifles. Ironically, I had a pocket knife in my carry-on that I totally forgot about, and it went by completely unnoticed. So much for their security!!

Anyway, now JetBlue is in the news, getting sued by a NYC passenger that was forced to give up his seat to a flight attendant (because her jump seat was uncomfortable!), and told to go “hang out” in the bathroom. He was forced to sit on a toilet for more than three hours before being allowed to return to his original seat.

He’s now filed a $2 million lawsuit against the airline, saying that JetBlue negligently endangered him by not providing him with a seat with a safety belt or harness, in violation of federal law. Talk about a public relations nightmare!

Here’s hoping that he wins big, like in Soul Plane.

I’m back from my honeymoon, and just got through the 864 e-mails that were waiting for me! Talk about a nightmare, I spent the better of 6-hours going through everything, and I still have about 100 e-mails that I need to address in some manner.

That’s the thing about being your own boss - It’s hard to take a vacation! My wife has a regular 9-5 job, and her only worry is that her out-of-office is turned on, and that her voicemail states that she’ll be out of the office. If only my life were that easy.

It really got me thinking.. My current business model is VERY complex, and requires almost constant attention. If I’m not around, I need a staff of skilled workers to handle things properly, or we lose money. While it’s still a good model, it’s very limiting, and it has alot of overhead to boot.

I’m about to launch a new business, and it’s model is completely different - It’s a subscription-based service that is completely automated. Someone signs up, I get paid, and they do their thing. Instant gratification, and everyone’s happy. I could take a 6-month cruise around the world, and as long as my admin is keeping watch over the servers and making sure nothing breaks, I’d be fine.

Affiliate marketing is that way to a degree, but there’s still the aspect of promotion, whether through PPC, SEO, social media, or other methods. If you don’t do anything to promote the products, you’re not going to make any money. And that sucks.

Food for thought. Now to handle those last 100 e-mails..

So we’re finally leaving on our honeymoon tomorrow, only 6 weeks after getting married!

Don’t expect any blog updates for the next week.. Frankly, I NEED this vacation, and I’m not even going to THINK about work while I’m gone. Sure, uber-bloggers like John Chow would be posting daily updates from his cabin, complete with annoying Flip Videos (”Wow, this cabin isn’t very spacious, just look at my shower!”) - But I just don’t get it. Sometimes, you need a break, and there’s nothing quite like a cruise to “escape” from reality.

I could have preloaded a bunch of posts to tide you over until next week, but I wasn’t really motivated to do that.. I was completely unproductive last week, as all I could think of was leaving.

I wish I had planned this trip better.. Leaving in the midst of the NHL and NBA playoffs is going to cost me a bundle, as I’m shutting down all of my PPC campaigns for the ticket broker I promote. But, this is the itinerary I wanted to go on, and that made my options limited.

For those that are curious, here it the itinerary:

Leaving from San Juan, Puerto Rico:
Day 1 - St. Thomas, USVI
Day 2 - Dominica
Day 3 - Barbados
Day 4 - St. Lucia, WI
Day 5 - Antigua
Day 6 - St Kitts, WI
Day 7 - Return to San Juan

6 islands in 7 days, it should be a blast! See you all in a week!

Check out this prank - Over 200 people gathered at Grand Central Station in New York to pull off a ‘frozen in place’ act. The onlooking travelers who weren’t part of the act were mystified as to what was going on.

And then a bunch of students at the University of Minnesota decided to copy the idea!