There are a ton of SEO, SEM, and Internet Marketing conferences all over North America, sometimes even one in Central America. I listed some exciting new events coming through for 2012:

Affiliate Summit West 2012
Location: Las Vegas, NV, United States
Date: 01/08/2012 – 01/10/2012
Check it out: http://www.affiliatesummit.com/

About Affiliate Summit West 2012
This three day conference includes an exhibit hall with affiliate merchants, vendors, and networks, as well as multiple tracks of educational sessions covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts.
COST$2,249 USD

EmMeCon
Location: San Francisco, CA, United States
Date: 01/23/2012 – 01/26/2012
Check it out: http://wappow.com/emerging-media/

About EmMeCon
As the calendar year turns, the Emerging Media Conference welcomes the New Year with an opportunity to view and experience the latest in technology advances and upcoming product roll outs. For three full days there will be demonstrations, presentations, and discussions led by some of the most connected and recognized experts in the industry. Whether you are immersed in the world of emerging media or just have a casual interest in keeping up with the latest trends and innovations, this conference allows you to preview the future of the technology world like a seasoned insider.
COST$978 USD

Social Media Conference Miami
Location: Miami, FL, United States
Date: 01/23/2012 – 01/25/2012
Check it out: http://www.socialmediaconference.com

About Social Media Conference Miami
Social Media Conference discussing social media and strategy, including strategic communications. Subjects at the trade show include: enterprise social media, partnerships, mobile & wireless technology, business strategies, communication tools, new media, legal issues, intel methods, and new technologies.
COST$1,150 USD

Online Marketing Summit
Location: San Diego, CA, United States
Date: 02/06/2012 – 02/10/2012
Check it out: http://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/

About Online Marketing Summit
The Online Marketing Summit (OMS) enables attendees to collaborate, network and learn how to execute on the best practices in online marketing. What sets OMS apart from the typical conference or trade show is its fervent focus on providing educational content without the fluff.
COST$2,195 USD

SMSS Las Vegas 2012
Location: Las Vegas, NV, United States
Date: 02/07/2012 – 02/09/2012
Check it out: http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/las-vegas-2012.html

About SMSS Las Vegas 2012
Learn from top thought leaders in the Social Media Marketing industry.
COST$1,795+ USD

SES Search & Social Accelerator
Location: San Diego, CA, United States
Date: 02/09/2012 – 02/09/2012
Check it out: http://sesconference.com/accelerator/

About SES Search & Social Accelerator
SES is collaborating with the Online Marketing Summit to enable attendees to network and learn how to execute on the best practices in Online Marketing without the distraction of an exhibit floor or vendor sales pitches.

Pubcon Paradise 2012
Location: Honolulu, HI, United States
Date: 02/13/2012 – 02/15/2012
Check it out: http://www.pubcon.com/pubcon-paradise-honolulu-hawaii

About Pubcon Paradise 2012
Mark your 2012 calendars now for PubCon Hawaii 2012, featuring the world’s top new media and optimization speakers, keynotes and sessions, along with PubCon’s famous networking and party opportunities set in a tropical wonderland. What better way to spend Valentine’s Day than in Hawaii for PubCon Paradise 2012, the perfect opportunity for a romantic getaway before, during and after a top-quality leading-edge conference.
COST$1299 USD

Email Evolution
Location: Hollywood, FL, United States
Date: 02/22/2012 – 02/24/2012
Check it out: http://www.the-dma.org/conferences/emailevolution/

About Email Evolution
For the past four years, this event has been focused on the ever-changing and evolving world of email marketing along with integrated with social, search, mobile, video and other email enhancers.
COST$1,999 USD

Digital Cream New York
Location: New York, NY, United States
Date: 02/23/2012 – 02/23/2012
Check it out: http://econsultancy.com/us/events/digital-cream-2012-new-york

About Digital Cream New York
The Invitation-only Peer Summit for Digital Strategists Econsultancy’s Digital Cream New York, now in its fourth year, is our invitation-only event for senior client-side digital marketers. The Digital Cream roundtables provide a forum to learn and share the best practice, discuss what’s working and what’s not. Formerly our Peer Summit, we’ve aligned Digital Cream New York as a key part of a global series of roundtables (also taking place in Chicago, San Jose, London, Dubai, Singapore and Sydney), bringing you the premiere event for senior digital marketers to network and learn through discussion and debate in a ‘hands-on’ participatory format.

SearchFest 2012
Location: Portland, OR, United States
Date: 02/24/2012 – 02/24/2012
Check it out: http://www.sempdx.org/searchfest/

About SearchFest 2012
Industry experts and thought leaders from around the country will deliver in-depth presentations on topics including Advanced Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Universal Search, Analytics, Paid Search Marketing and much more.
COST$499 USD

eTail Palm Springs
Location: Palm Desert, CA, United States
Date: 02/27/2012 – 03/01/2012
Check it out: http://www.wbresearch.com/etailusawest/

About eTail Palm Springs
This multi-channel and online conference has been running since 1999. eTail presents case studies in e-commerce and cross-channel campaign management. Receive 81+ hours of benchmarking and competitive intelligence in Palm Springs this February. Note to speakers: Lori, the main contact on the speaking opportunities page, said that speakers are ‘invited’. I’d definitely reach out to her before putting any time into a presentation concept.
COST$4,499 USD

SMX West
Location: San Jose, CA, United States
Date: 02/28/2012 – 03/01/2012
Check it out: http://searchmarketingexpo.com/west/

About SMX West
Participate in your choice of more than 60 sessions on search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media marketing, local and mobile search, landing page conversions and more. Whether you are a beginner or SEM expert, you work at (or with) an agency or manage search marketing in-house, SMX West likely has programming to fit your needs.
COST$1,595 USD

Conversion Conference West 2012
Location: San Francisco, CA, United States
Date: 03/05/2012 – 03/06/2012
Check it out: http://www.conversionconference.com/ccw12-home.html
COST$1,995 USD

SXSW 2012
Location: Austin, TX, United States
Date: 03/08/2012 – 03/17/2012
Check it out: http://sxsw.com/attend

About SXSW 2012
The 26th edition of SXSW will arrive with a lot of momentum carried over from our Silver Anniversary in 2011. Expect to see expansion of last year’s new initiatives, such as the combined SXSW Trade Show for the Creative Industries, which draws from all the events – Interactive, Film and Music. SXSW.COM is the most powerful tool available for keeping up with the countless new developments for the 2012 event, with fresh daily content, new mobile apps, and more rich media to help you make the best choices on what to see and hear while in Austin. The value of meeting people face to face in order to share ideas and do business is what makes SXSW invaluable. SXSW 2012 will once again be a vital launching pad for creative endeavors, drawing attention and participation from around the globe. Tomorrow Happens Here. See you in March!
COST$1,395 USD

SES New York
Location: New York, NY, United States
Date: 03/19/2012 – 03/23/2012
Check it out: http://sesconference.com/newyork/

About SES New York
Approximately 5,000 marketers and search engine optimization professionals attend SES New York each year to network and learn about PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, usability and more. SES New York will be packed with 70+ sessions, multiple keynotes, 100+ exhibitors, networking events and parties.
COST$2,795 USD

Where Conference – The Business of Location
Location: San Francisco, CA, United States
Date: 04/02/2012 – 04/04/2012
Check it out: http://whereconf.com/where2012/

About Where Conference – The Business of Location
Now in its eighth year, Where Conference: The Art and Business of Location, is where the grassroots and leading-edge developers building location-aware technology intersect with the businesses and entrepreneurs seeking out location apps, platforms, and hardware to gain a competitive edge. In the O’Reilly conference tradition, Where Conference presents leading trends rather than chasing them.

ad:tech San Francisco 2012
Location: San Francisco, CA, United States
Date: 04/03/2012 – 04/04/2012
Check it out: http://www.ad-tech.com/sf/adtech_san_francisco.aspx

About ad:tech San Francisco 2012
Brands, agencies, publishers and service providers come together to share, network, learn and do business.
COST$1,995 USD

The Social Media Strategies Summit 2012
Location: Chicago, IL, United States
Date: 04/18/2012 – 04/19/2012
Check it out: http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/chicago-2012.html

About The Social Media Strategies Summit 2012
Each track includes sessions focused on the following categories: Corporate Case Studies; Community Engagement and Customer Service; Measurements, including analytics, ROI and tools; Sales Approach; Legal Risks & Strategies; and Marketing Strategies & Tactics.

SMX Toronto
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Date: 04/25/2012 – 04/26/2012
Check it out: http://www.searchmarketingexpo.ca/

About SMX Toronto
SMX Toronto offers 30 sessions, workshops and networking activities delivered by top industry professionals. Whether you are just getting started, planning your search strategy, managing the team, or you are deep into implementation, tactics and campaigns, you’ll get the knowledge, ideas and contacts needed to help you boost your search marketing results and take your skills to the next level. SMX Toronto is co-located with the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. Dates are accurate but URL still shows 2011 data.

Affiliate Summit Central 2012
Location: Austin, TX, United States
Date: 05/15/2012 – 05/16/2012
Check it out: http://www.affiliatesummit.com/12c-conference/

JUMP 2012 New York
Location: New York, United States
Date: 05/23/2012 – 05/23/2012
Check it out: http://econsultancy.com/us/events/jump-2012-new-york

About JUMP 2012 New York
JUMP is a one-day conference for senior marketers looking to join up on and offline campaigns, data, technologies, agencies, creative and knowledge. If the last decade was all about figuring out digital, the next is about integrating it, dissolving it into the marketing mix and finding new hybrid strategies that combine on and offline.

SMX Advanced Seattle
Location: Seattle, WA, United States
Date: 06/05/2012 – 06/06/2012
Check it out: http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced/

About SMX Advanced Seattle
SMX Advanced Seattle is the one show designed for experienced SEMs to exchange ideas, influence the industry and build their networks. Fast paced, Q&A-packed, frequently controversial and always informative.

Internet Retailer Ecommerce Event
Location: Chicago, IL, United States
Date: 06/05/2012 – 06/08/2012
Check it out: http://www.internetretailer.com/conferences/

SES Toronto
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Date: 06/11/2012 – 06/13/2012
Check it out: http://sesconference.com/toronto/

About SES Toronto
SES Toronto will be packed with sessions covering topics such as PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, usability and more while offering high-level strategy, big picture, keynotes, an exhibit floor with companies that can help you grow your business, networking events, parties and more.
COST$2,195 CAD

BlogPaws 2012 – Pet Blogging and Social Media Conference
Location: Salt Lake City, UT, United States
Date: 06/21/2012 – 06/23/2012
Check it out: http://events.blogpaws.com/

About BlogPaws 2012 – Pet Blogging and Social Media Conference
BlogPaws conferences deliver educational sessions on topics ranging from finding content for your blog, to search engine optimization (SEO), to turning your blog into a business or a book, to holding fund raising events called “Twitter-pawties,” to using specialized contest apps on Facebook, and much more. While a majority of the attendees publish about – or in some cases AS their pets – the topics apply broadly to anyone who wants to learn more about effective use of social media.
COST379 USD

Social Media Conference Beverly Hills
Location: Beverly Hills, CA, United States
Date: 06/21/2012 – 06/22/2012
Check it out: http://www.socialmediaconference.com

About Social Media Conference Beverly Hills
The Social Media Conference reviews new media and enterprise social media. The Miami event focuses on all business aspects of the enterprise social media . Topics explored include: social media strategies, partnerships, mobile, analysis, strategy, business strategies, mobile, legal, and new technology.
COST USD

Fitness & Health Bloggers Conference
Location: Denver, CO, United States
Date: 06/22/2012 – 06/24/2012
Check it out: http://fitnessbloggersconference.org

About Fitness & Health Bloggers Conference
This is a conference discussing the communication of cutting-edge fitness and health information to the public via the internet with the goal of combating obesity and improving wellness.
COST$450 USD

Conversion Conference Chicago 2012
Location: Chicago , IL, United States
Date: 06/26/2012 – 06/27/2012
Check it out: http://www.conversionconference.com/

MozCon 2012
Location: Seattle, WA, United States
Date: 07/25/2012 – 07/27/2012
Check it out: http://www.seomoz.org/mozcon

About MozCon 2012
Bringing you the brightest minds in search, social, inbound marketing, and more, MozCon is known for its dynamic, advanced content and idea-filled sessions. Roger, the Mozbot, can’t wait to see you.

SES San Francisco
Location: San Francisco, CA, United States
Date: 08/13/2012 – 08/17/2012
Check it out: http://sesconference.com/sanfrancisco/

About SES San Francisco
Marketers and SEO professionals attend SES San Francisco each year to network and learn about topics such as PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, usability and more. The conference offers 70+ sessions, intensive training workshops, and an expo floor packed with companies that can help you grow your business.

Search and Social Hawaii!
Location: Kaua’i, HI, United States
Date: 09/17/2012 – 09/20/2012
Check it out: http://wappow.com/searchandsocial/

About Search and Social Hawaii!
The Search and Social Hawaii! Conference provides the innovative strategies and how-to techniques for thriving in this ever-changing environment. Our agenda includes discussions and debates around the hottest topics. Wappow! has invited speakers who think outside the box-and so will you. Search and Social Hawaii! ads uniqueness to its lineup by bringing you professors and educators from universities around the world.

SMX East
Location: New York, NY, United States
Date: 10/01/2012 – 10/04/2012
Check it out: http://searchmarketingexpo.com/east/

About SMX East
Attend SMX East and you’ll take away tactics that increase traffic to your web site, increase conversion and sales! Choose from 60 sessions on search engine marketing topics including search engine optimization, paid search advertising and social media marketing on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. You’ll get three days of sessions, keynotes, networking activities, special educational presentations and meals for which SMX events are famous.

Conversion Conference New York 2012
Location: New York, NY, United States
Date: 10/22/2012 – 10/23/2012
Check it out: http://www.conversionconference.com/

Top 10 Searches on Yahoo!
-iPhone
-Casey Anthony
-Kim Kardashian
-Katy Perry
-Jennifer Lopez
-Lindsay Lohan
-“American Idol”
-Jennifer Aniston
-Japan Earthquake
-Osama bin Laden

In June of 2011, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the world’s domain name system announced that Starting January 2012, established public and private organizations can apply for the rights to the gTLD(s) of their choice – both branded (e.g. .nike) and non-branded (e.g. .shoes).

Price
For $185,000 per application, businesses or organizations can have their own gTLD based on the final approval from ICANN.

Process
The evaluation process can take anywhere from 9 to 20 months, so it can be assumed that the first of the new gTLDs will go live in 2013.

SEO Impact
The new gTLDs aren’t likely to dramatically affect the SEO landscape. ICANN hasn’t confirmed anything directly about how the new gTLDs might be helpful in term of SEO. The only possible SEO benefit these new gTLDs can bring us is more keyword URL possibilities. These new gTLDs would increase the opportunity, or at least the potential availability, to include keywords in domain names. Although, it is still very questionable whether it’s worth it to spend $185,000 for a particular keyword opportunity or continue focusing on the industry best practices and strategic SEO optimization, because keyword usage in URL is only one small factor of many other highly weighted on-page SEO elements, such as Title Tag, Meta Description Tags, and Header Tags. However, the new gTLDs can improve more than just the URL structure. Online safety/reputation for a brand can be enhanced, because under the new gTLD, domains that abuse trademarks will be taken down immediately.

Search engines and the hundreds of signals that comprise their ranking algorithms are still dialed in to focus on quality content and enriched link portfolios as drivers to visibility and rank. Many top level search marketing agencies and experts also expressed that there will be little to no impact on SEO from new gTLD. One of the existing organic ranking signals, domain age, is still relevant, so it’s very possible that a new gTLD would need time to garner equity before a search engine like Google assigns it appropriate value. Plus, with more than 95 million active .coms populating the Web (and millions more websites housed under the other current gTLDs), it’s safe to say that the value of having a .com or .net isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

In conclusion, if there is the budget necessary to purchase a gTLD, it could be a wise option to consider down the road from a branding and marketing standpoint – especially if competitors are swooping in and doing the same. Due to the rise of social media networks, mobile devices and the “I need information right now” attitude of those who use them, as well as micro blogging sites like Twitter that rely on URL shortening services, the speed at which consumers communicate is picking up by the day.

Google just rolled out a new algorithm update designed to pick and select which queries demand fresher results impacts about 35% of searches. Where their Caffeine architecture allows Google to quickly crawl the mass and complex contents of the Web, this latest update is meant to select which queries require the most recent results.

One clarification between “Search Queries” and “Keywords”: When Google says 35% of queries, these are words that people are actually searching for. It’s not necessarily just every keyword in the keyword universe. What we started to see is more recent posts being annotated to the SERPs, so they’re having 8 hours ago, 3 hours ago, 18 minutes ago.

“Different searches have different freshness needs,” Singhal wrote. “This algorithmic improvement is designed to better understand how to differentiate between these kinds of searches and the level of freshness you need, and make sure you get the most up to the minute answers.”

So let’s see how this new update rolls out. I certainly look forward to comments and feedback from you guys.

Have a Spooky Halloween!!

Google is also displaying a cool video to wish all the search engine users a “Happy Halloween”!

www.google.com

1. Keywords in title tag
This is one of the most important places to have a keyword because what is written inside the title tag shows in search results as your page title. The title tag must be short (6 or 7 words at most) and the the keyword must be near the beginning.

2. Keywords in URL
Keywords in URLs help a lot – e.g. – http://domainname.com/seo-services.html, where “SEO services” is the keyword phrase you attempt to rank well for. But if you don’t have the keywords in other parts of the document, don’t rely on having them in the URL.

3. Keyword density in document text
Another very important factor you need to check. 3-7 % for major keywords is best, 1-2 for minor. Keyword density of over 10% is suspicious and looks more like keyword stuffing, than a naturally written text.

4. Keywords in anchor text
Also very important, especially for the anchor text of inbound links, because if you have the keyword in the anchor text in a link from another site, this is regarded as getting a vote from this site not only about your site in general, but about the keyword in particular.

5. Keywords in headings (H1, H2, etc. tags)
One more place where keywords count a lot. But beware that your page has actual text about the particular keyword.

6. Keywords in the beginning of a document
Also counts, though not as much as anchor text, title tag or headings. However, have in mind that the beginning of a document does not necessarily mean the first paragraph – for instance if you use tables, the first paragraph of text might be in the second half of the table.

7. Keywords in alt tags
Spiders don’t read images but they do read their textual descriptions in the alt tag, so if you have images on your page, fill in the alt tag with some keywords about them.

8. Keywords in metatags
Less and less important, especially for Google. Yahoo! and MSN still rely on them, so if you are optimizing for Yahoo! or MSN, fill these tags properly. In any case, filling these tags properly will not hurt, so do it.

9. Keyword proximity
Keyword proximity measures how close in the text the keywords are. It is best if they are immediately one after the other (e.g. “dog food”), with no other words between them. For instance, if you have “dog” in the first paragraph and “food” in the third paragraph, this also counts but not as much as having the phrase “dog food” without any other words in between. Keyword proximity is applicable for keyword phrases that consist of 2 or more words.

10. Keyword phrases
In addition to keywords, you can optimize for keyword phrases that consist of several words – e.g. “SEO services”. It is best when the keyword phrases you optimize for are popular ones, so you can get a lot of exact matches of the search string but sometimes it makes sense to optimize for 2 or 3 separate keywords (“SEO” and “services”) than for one phrase that might occasionally get an exact match.

11. Secondary keywords
Optimizing for secondary keywords can be a golden mine because when everybody else is optimizing for the most popular keywords, there will be less competition (and probably more hits) for pages that are optimized for the minor words. For instance, “real estate new jersey” might have thousand times less hits than “real estate” only but if you are operating in New Jersey, you will get less but considerably better targeted traffic.

12. Keyword stemming
For English this is not so much of a factor because words that stem from the same root (e.g. dog, dogs, doggy, etc.) are considered related and if you have “dog” on your page, you will get hits for “dogs” and “doggy” as well, but for other languages keywords stemming could be an issue because different words that stem from the same root are considered as not related and you might need to optimize for all of them.

13. Synonyms
Optimizing for synonyms of the target keywords, in addition to the main keywords. This is good for sites in English, for which search engines are smart enough to use synonyms as well, when ranking sites but for many other languages synonyms are not taken into account, when calculating rankings and relevancy.

14. Keyword Mistypes
Spelling errors are very frequent and if you know that your target keywords have popular misspellings or alternative spellings (i.e. Christmas and Xmas), you might be tempted to optimize for them. Yes, this might get you some more traffic but having spelling mistakes on your site does not make a good impression, so you’d better don’t do it, or do it only in the metatags.

15. Keyword dilution
When you are optimizing for an excessive amount of keywords, especially unrelated ones, this will affect the performance of all your keywords and even the major ones will be lost (diluted) in the text.

16. Keyword stuffing
Any artificially inflated keyword density (10% and over) is keyword stuffing and you risk getting banned from search engines.

Last night, Matt Cutts from Google tweeted they have “released the biggest refresh of our spam report form in, oh, say 10 years.”

they break it down by type of “spam”:

Paid links – This page is selling or buying links.
Copyright and other legal issues – This page should be removed under applicable law.
Objectionable content – This page is inappropriate.
Personal/private – This page discloses private information.
Malware – This page is infected.
Phishing – This page is trying to get sensitive information.
Other Google products – This page abuses Google products other than Search, e.g., AdSense, Google Maps, etc.
Something else is wrong This page has other, non-webspam related issues.

Plus they have a button at the bottom that reads, “This page is really webspam. Report Spam.”

With Google+ recently reached million members, and as Google releases more invites to its social network, more people are trying to learn the ins-and-outs of the Google+ ecosystem.

That’s why I was excited when I stumbled across a Google+ cheat sheet, whose origin we’ve traced to Google+ user Simon Laustsen. The cheat sheet includes most of the common syntax, hotkeys and tips you need to know to use Google+ like a pro. We’ve embedded the English version of the cheat sheet below.

on June 17, 2011, Google announced their support for rel=”canonical” HTTP headers. This can come in handy if you see duplication of content across different file types. It basically allows webmasters to assign a file a rel=canonical tag that references an HTML document as the real (canonical) URL. This tag will be very helpful for many websites out there that currently offer the information on their HTML web pages as a downloadable PDF. For instance, a power tool company may be offering information on Air Wrench User Guide as both an HTML page and as a downloadable brochure in PDF format:

http://www.handtoolsite.com/air-wrench-user-guide.html

http://www.handtoolsite.com/air-wrench-user-guide.pdf

In this instance, with both files serving up the same content, a sever-side canonical tag could be applied.

All very well and good, but how do you apply it? If you’re using ASP.net, Classic ASP or PHP web pages, here’s how:
ASP.Net C#:
<%Response.AddHeader(@”Link”,@”< http://www.yoursite.com/>; rel=””canonical”””);%>

ASP VBScript:
<%Response.AddHeader “Link”,”< http://www.yoursite.com/>; rel=””canonical”””%>

PHP:
; rel=\”canonical\””);?>

After you modified the server HTTP header, next time when the web page is requested the server will respond with a 200 status as well as the link header telling Google that the page is a canonical of the URL specified.

I just quickly checked some sites that I have managed or optimized before, 80% of them received a higher PR score on most of the web pages, 15% remains at the same level, and 5% got a step back.

This is the first major Google PR update after the Panda update of their natural search algorithm. The last PR update before this one was on Jan 20, 2011. It seems like Google is catching up with their PR update frequency much better than last year.

How is your site perform?