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Are you the conference-going type? Are you thinking of attending another marketing or search-related conference? Rebecca Kelley, a seasoned SEO person, and ex conference goer tells why she now prefers to stay home.
As she says,
I’ve been to tons of SEO and search conferences since I started doing Internet marketing in 2006, and at first they were really awesome and exciting. You can’t beat traveling on the company dime and staying up until 6 am making friends and knocking back drinks. It took a while for the luster to wear off, but when it does, you’ll discover that there are any number of things you’d rather do than climb aboard a plane, pull a lanyard over your head, and pretend that the same crap you’ve heard at the last 15 conferences is new and exciting.
Her reasons basically boil down to the fact that conferences are repetitive, appeal to newbies or groupies, have mediocre speakers, and have no significant business value. For all the time, energy and money spent attending a conference you get very little (if anything) in return.
Of course she admits that attending a conference can be “really awesome and exciting” the first couple of times. But after that it’s the same old thing over and over again.
I must admit I haven’t been thinking much about attending a bunch of conferences this year (I’m not the conference type – more the hermit type.) Now I have a few good reasons why I think they are a waste of time.
Read the very good article by Rebecca here: Why I’m Kind of Over Search Conferences
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I’ve mentioned guest blogging in a few previous posts, but I admit I haven’t done much of it myself. For years I have focused on article marketing and it is only in the last year or so that the idea of guest blogging has really dawned on me as a really powerful marketing tool.
It is the interactivity of blogs that gives guest blogging so much potential to build followers and subscribers. This is completely different from article marketing (AM). AM is primarily for link building. And as social networking gradually replaces search engine marketing as the most important way to drive traffic to websites and blogs, many of the old techniques such as link building using article marketing are beginning to look flat and uni-dimensional. Getting links is great, but wouldn’t it be so much better if you also got readers, commenters, followers and subscribers?
This comparison between article marketing and guest blogging is what Ann Smarty looks at in the article “Guest Blogging Versus Article Marketing: What Really Works?” (see link below). As she says,
Do blogs have more people who are likely to follow and promote your brand in the future?
Yes, absolutely. Let’s face it: blogs and article directories do have different types of audience. People follow blogs while they only randomly check article directories (if they do that at all). Blog readers are much more likely to “stick” to you and help to grow your brand by spreading the word, linking, coming back regularly, etc.
This disctinction (between AM and guest blogging) is actually true of blogging itself, not just guest blogging. But the fact is, if you have a poorly trafficked blog you can reach so many more people by publishing in a major blog within your niche than by simply posting on your own blog. In other words, guest blogging is a way of reaching out and promoting your own blogs by building and enhancing your own online profile.
To read more about the comparison between guest blogging and article marketing see Ann Smarty’s article here:Guest Blogging Versus Article Marketing: What Really Works?
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