Day 1

Tuesday was a long day. I got up at 4:30am and headed to Denver International Airport. For once, I got on a plane that was not totally packed. Actually, it was mostly empty. I love getting a window seat on an early morning flight to Vegas because of the amazing terrain between Denver and Vegas.

10 Minutes Before Touch Down at PubCon

The plane got in early and I headed to an empty taxi line! If you come in at night to Vegas you can wait 45 minutes to get a taxi.

As I was getting out of the taxi, I saw Bill Slawski of KeyRelevance standing outside the convention hall. I have never met him, so I went up and said hi. I didn’t have a name tag, but he knew who I was. I asked him how he knew me and he said he has read my blog. I thought that was neat… that a top SEO was reading my blog.

In the very cold convention hall Craig Newmark from Craigslist was up first. I sat in the back of the room with some friends, but the audio was so unintelligible I had to get up and talk to the audio guy and tell him what he was doing wrong. I told him he need to feed audio into the house ceiling speakers to help with “direct to reflected sound ratio” to bring up the intelligibility..hey hey….I am an old “audio guy”. But as I expected, he said that he could not because it would cost more to use the house sound system.

Craig’s keynote was not all that good. It was more of a history of how he made it big. Or…perhaps it was because half the audience could only understand 50 percent of what he said.

I went to the next session that had Jake Baillie moderating because I like to hear him speak. The session was more for beginners, and I didn’t get that much out of it.

I then went to the next session on PHP and databases and Adam Young had some good points on security that I took notes on.

At lunch I met Matt Inman (?) the “Oatmeal” guy that started a dating site in 66 hours and then sold it 6 months later. I gotta think his coding skills are light years ahead of mine. I wish he had kept the dating site, so I could see if he could have competed with Marcus Frind over at Plentyoffish.com. Marcus is one of my heros.

I then went to the link building session. Greg Hartnett from BOTW seems like a nice guy, but he seemed like he was up there trying to play damage control after Matt Cutts said that using a directory may or may not do you much good because it might be considered a paid link. He was up there trying to tell everyone that his directory is one of the good ones–which is true, but Matt put him in a tight spot.

The link bait session was good. I always learn something from Andy Hagans. I got a few more ideas from him. I wish he would post more on his blog.

John Marshall of Marketing Motive

Then it was on to the analytics session–the best session of the day. John Marshall of Market Motive did a great job. He talked about some great stuff like how tracking bounce rate is better than tracking ROI. Fascinating. I got to talk with him later over a beer and he gave me some great tips on a upcoming project I have.

Guy Kawasaki Giving The Engines A Hard Time

After drinking 3 beers on an empty stomach, I attended the last session with Matt, Tim Mayer and Guy Kawasaki. It was good, but (if Brett Tabke is reading this) those late sessions don’t work for me because I get way too hungry.

The Wynn

The Wynn At $160 A Night

I then went out to dinner with some friends, checked into the Wynn and fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. The Wynn at $160 a night was a great deal.

Day Two

I ended up talking with some people at my table for breakfast and totally missed the keynote, which I hear was good. The people I talked with gave me good ideas for my solar site, which I just started this year.

The first session I went to was with Rae Hoffman and Dixon Jones. I have heard these two in a site review before and I knew I would not be disappointed. Both of them put on a good show. I enjoy how Rae can rip apart a site in 5 minutes–a site which may have taken someone years to build.

I had some high hopes for some of the other sessions this day, but I was disappointed with the ones I picked.

Monte Cahn of Moniker - Domain Auction

I attended my first domain auction, which as very interesting to watch. The most exciting one was SEONews.com, which went for over $8k. The guy who bought it looked a bit frazzled when he put in his final bid. Not sure why WebProNews didn’t bid on that one and redirect it.

After dinner, I attended the Google party and was taken aback by the people that knew me from the comedy video I did on paid links.

I took a look at the crowd around Matt Cutts at the party and didn’t even try to say hi to him. He appeared cornered by a crowd. I don’t know how Matt does it. I think I would get claustrophobic with that many close-to-drunk people around me. Matt is such a rock star at these conference that he must go through withdraws after he goes home.

Day Three

Matt Cutts of Google Answers Questions

The first session of the last day was the “Matt Cutts Show”. For myself and others that have heard Matt speak at a conference before, we pretty much know Matt’s “company line” for each question. But the best part is trying to get inside of his head and understand the way he thinks. So the next time I ask myself what will Google think of what I am going to try– I think I have a pretty good idea.

At lunch I meet a few guys from Demark, and for some reason the conversation turned to Brian White of Google. I told them that I had heard that Brian White is pretty much Matt Cutts’ equal and told them about his blog which they wrote down. I told them he is the guy to talk with since it is so hard to get near Matt and no one knows Brian yet.

Brian White of Google

Right after lunch, I walked in to a site review session, and guess who was on the panel? Yep! Brian White! After listening to him talk, it didn’t talk long to understand why Dave Naylor has a lot of respect for him. It was totally amazing that the session was near to empty with a someone like Brian on a panel.

I got to talk with Brian White after the site review session and asked him about the site subdomain issue in my industry - you can read more in my comments here.

The video SEO session was great. It seems that since Google has placed videos in the main search pages, many people are getting into it and playing around. The room was pretty full for a video session.

Brian Clark of CopyBlogger

When I saw Brian Clark from CopyBlogger.com was speaking on a panel, I had to attend! I really enjoy his blog. I had high expectations and Brian met them. I think it was the best session of day three. I wish they let him talk the entire time, although Heather Lloyd-Martin was good too. Next time, they should let Brian and Heather do all the talking. If Danny Sullivan is reading this– Danny you need to get Brian on a panel at SMX Advanced. He is really good.

After many years of conferences I finally got to meet Matt Cutts at a site review that he crashed. I didn’t have a question for him. I just said hi and it was cool that he knew who I was.

That is what I love about PubCon–all the site reviews. I always learn something from them. You learn all the things not to do. The people on the reviews always try to find different kinds of items for each site instead of pointing out the same mistakes.

Another great conference by Brett!! I almost always end up feeling like I got my money’s worth. I think going to these conferences is a “must” every 6 months. Any more than that would be overkill. So, my next conference will be in Seattle for SMX Advanced if anyone wants to meet up!