Have you been to Blog World Expo before?  I went last year and I can’t tell you how invaluable it was to me as a blogger to go.  There were a ton of great sessions geared for those of us who call a blog home.  It was a terrific learning experience!

That said, I want to go again!  Unfortunately last year I went on the good grace of using prize money from a contest to pay for the $395 for the Weekend Pass level of registration.  Comparatively yes, I’m doing better than some considering the state of the economy, however I still don’t quite have the dough to make the $400 registration + $120 for a hotel + $150 for a flight = $670 is outside my price range!

So, that’s where I ask for your help.  I’m looking for a sponsor to swing the registration fee and any part of my travel they have it in their wallet to cover.  Or, if you’re going to BWE, willing to share a hotel room for Thursday & Friday night, and I deem you a good person, I’ll totally split a hotel room with you!

So, here’s what a sponsor will get for sending me to Blog World Expo 2009!

• My undying love (link & otherwise) & affection
• A glowing blog post about your kindness in sponsoring me
• I’ll wear a t-shirt with your logo both days of the conference (Friday & Saturday)
• I will send you all my notes before posting them on my blog
• A ton of photos of me with high profile bloggers and affiliate industry insiders wearing YOUR logo
• Tell me what else you might want in exchange – I’m flexible!

I hope to find a sponsor before September 14th when the prices go up.  Please contact me through my contact page if you or someone you know is interested in sending this poor blogger to the best blogger and new media conference in years.

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As I am sure Trisha has mentioned before I will be blogging while attending Affiliate Summit East 2009.  Currently I am attending DeVry University, and am in my final term towards a BSB in Project Management.  I am, as of yet, still undecided upon what field I will apply my degree, and have decided to attend Affiliate Summit East in order to further my knowledge.  I hope to present my views as a student and as a project manager on what I learn from each of the sessions and events which I attend.

Look me up while I am there.  I will be rather hard to miss, wearing a very bright Blinkstar Media shirt, as you can see in the picture we took here at home.  See you there.

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Session Description: I’m all a Twitter ‘Cause your MySpace hurts my Facebook when I’m Linked-in – Learn how to leverage social media and your current website to DOMINATE search engine results and improve your organic rankings! Sponsored by Verio.

Industry expert and published author Heather Lutze gives you the rundown on her social media strategies from her new book, The Findability Formula. This breakout will give you actionable tactics you can implement immediately to get your website ranked higher in search engine results. Social media is HOT and delivers results if you know how to use them to their fullest potential. Learn how to use keywords effectively with Twitter, Linked-In, Youtube, Facebook, as well as your own company website to increase your search engine rankings. It is all about knowing and understanding the Findability Formula – and that is what you’ll learn in this workshop!

This session took place Thursday, April 2, 2009. The speaker:

• Heather Lutze, Lutze Consulting

Heather had a lot of great things to say; it was a shame that she didn’t have enough time to really go over it because of such a long pitch by Verio, the sponsor of the session.  One thing Verio did that was annoying but I can’t really fault them for, was parking someone at the door and using the leads scanner to scan the name badges of the people coming in.  Annoying, but since they were sponsoring the session, I can’t really fault them for it.

Bullet Point Review!

• Social media gives you a platform to position yourself as an expert in your field.
• Strategy:
  • Connect with the right search keywords.
  • Edit your social media profiles and elements with keywords.
  • Track the results in Google search results.
• Know how users search:
  • 15.2% are 1 word search phrases
  • 31.9% are 2 word
  • 27% are 3 word
  • 14.8% are 4 word
  • 6.5% are 5+ words
• The longer the keyword, the faster you’ll show up.
• Longer search terms are looking more to purchase, less informational or shopping.
• Resources: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug and The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.
• Tool: Google External Keyword Tool
• Tool: Keyword Discovery
• Connect with the customer when they’re ready to take decisive action.
• Misspellings can rank highly (sometimes they convert higher).
• Look at the pages and be sure you actually want to show up amongst that company.
• Anything over 100 searches, long tail.
• Open tool, whats most targeted keyword, then write blog post (put the keyword at the front).
• Recommends All in One SEO Pack, ShareThis for Wordpress.
• On LinkedIn, when you put your last name in put a dash and your keyword.
• Start on the long tail and work your way backward.
• Do it for your name, do it for misspellings, rank the whole page to push out the “sucks” terms.

Because of the 20 minute pitch for Verio at the beginning of the session, there was zero time for questions, which was a shame.  I was hoping for some more real-world examples that weren’t just about Heather.  There was time for one where a woman who is a voice-over talent was looking at it from her standpoint and Heather walked through the practical application, which was pretty cool.

Overall it was a good session once Verio was done talking, and I wish she’d shared her slides with the Web 2.0 Expo folks, but alas it’s not on their website.

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