Has anyone been to SMX or any other SEO Conference?

[Asher]

Hello All,

I have been given the opportunity to go to several conferences.  But like most SEO guys, I have a tone of work, and need to use my time sparingly.  The one conference that has peaked my interest is SMX.

I was wondering if anyone has been to SMX before and if they recommend it.

Also if anyone has any other conferences they would recommend, preferrably on the east coast, that would be interesting please let me know.

Any answers are appreciated.  Thank you.

[Asher]

Thank you all for the kind responses,  I will definitely see what I can do.

[ThompsonPaul]

The other conference I would suggest is worth considering is SMX Advanced. Unfortunately it's west coast also (Seattle in June) but depending on your level of expertise, it's a terrific conference. It shares the good aspects others have mentioned about SMX West etc, but the presentations are at an even higher expertise level.

Not hard to come out of the sessions with your head swimming with new stuff, even if you've got lots of background. If you're thinking of attending and need to minimize accommodation costs, lemme know. I can recommend the terrific pensione I stay at that's less than a 10-minute walk.

I will say too - if you're looking for ways to take your practice to the next level, a conference is a really good next step. In addition to whatever new skills/info you pick up, the time to be immersed with so many others who "get" what you do without needing a long explanation is wonderful! Those new connections can often be critical to our further development as well.

Paul

P.S. If you're looking specifically for east coast events, check out the Distilled SearchLove conference in Boston. I've never attended but they're a terrific company and I've heard good things about the conference. It's in May http://www.distilled.net/events/searchlove-boston/ (I've got a ping out to my east coast SEO connections - met at last SMXAdvanced actually - and will update if I get more suggestions.

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[josh-riley]

You cannot underestimate the importance of food selection!

[TakeshiYoung]

I've attended SMX West for the past couple years, and have always found it helpful.  I've been in this industry for 6+ years, but I learned a lot of new things from the sessions at SMX, and my head was just buzzing with new ideas after the conference.

I also had the opportunity to attend SES San Francisco last year, but I didn't find the sessions there to be very helpful or informative.  However, it was still a good networking opportunity and I got to meet a lot of cool people people who work for Search Engine Land and a couple other companies.

[KeriMorgret]

I would recommend SMX (as well as MozCon, of course!). Things I appreciate about SMX:

• They seem to work hard to add new sessions and make sure that it's not always the same speaker talking about the same thing.
• There are ample break times between sessions. You have time to network with people, time to ask questions of the speakers, use the bathroom, check in and respond to messages from your office, etc. I have found this to be more important if you're trying to attend as many sessions as possible, less important if there are only a few sessions that interest you and you're willing to skip a session to have a break.
• Delicious food! I do think Mozcon beats SMX for food, but in my experience SMX beats the other large conferences for food. There's enough food for breakfast if your hotel doesn't provide any, well-stocked snack breaks, and a good lunch.

I would also recommend MozCon, though as an employee of SEOmoz, I have to admit my bias here. We are a bit more reasonably priced when you factor in the discount for being a PRO member, which can help make up for being in the opposite corner of the country from you. We have three days of keynote-style presentations. We don't have panels, but instead have 45-60 minute sessions with one presenter giving an awesome presentation. We also have all of the 2012 Mozcon available on video for $299 for pro members (see our announcement at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/2012-mozcon-videos-are-here) that can allow you to virtually attend MozCon and make it to SMX in person perhaps.

[danatanseo]

Hi Andrea and Jason,

I highly, highly recommend MozCon. I attended last year and, because it was the first time I had attended any SEO event, I made a point of asking everyone I talked to about what conferences they attended and which ones were the best. Hands down, without question, everyone I asked said MozCon. They liked SMX too, for the most part, but said that MozCon was different (and better) because everyone had the opportunity to attend all of the presentations. This is in contrast to SMX where you have to pick and choose what you want to attend and if two things you are interested in are going on at the same time, you end up having to choose. MozCon is also great because it's not about selling you anything. In that way, it's not like a traditional convention because there aren't 100's of vendors also vying for your attention.

While I think both are probably great for networking, if you really want to leave a conference feeling like you've learned some seriously important things related to SEO, I have to believe that MozCon is going to be hard to beat. Please don't tell my boss, but if the company didn't send me, I'd pay for it out of my own pocket....That's how valuable I think it is.

Hope to see you both there!

Dana

[josh-riley]

I went to SMX West last February and I found it to be very valuable. I'd consider myself a middle-experienced SEO; I say that because I am constantly impressed with the technical proficiency of many of the posters in this forum and their depth of knowledge. That said, I felt like there was a good balance of presentations for the different levels of knowledge and it was a great way for me to immerse myself into some more technical and advanced learning opportunities.

I liked the variety of presentations SMX offered as well as the access to experts and general networking. I was able to balance my interests of SEO, PPC and social media and come back with some actionable (key word there) insight to help our performance. I'd attend again, no question.

Although not on the East Coast, this year I want to look at MozCon in Seattle. The SEOMoz team was in Milwaukee this October for a Mozcation and if that's a taste of what their annual, bigger conference is like then I think it'd be a worthwhile investment.

Good luck!