December’s Battle Of The Search Conferences

It’s mid-November, when WebmasterWorld’s PubCon is traditionally held. But all’s quiet on the Las Vegas front. What’s up? This year, PubCon has moved to December, running head-to-head against Incisive Media’s SES event in Chicago. What’s a search marketer to do?

PubCon’s Brett Tabke has said scheduling issues meant PubCon had to move to December. A convenient excuse for taking on SES? Some think so. Regardless the reason, the two are colliding. PubCon runs December 4-7 in Las Vegas while SES runs December 3-7 in Chicago.

I’ve seen any number of posts over the past few months where people are debating what to do, such as:

• WebmasterWorld’s PubCon Goes Up Against Search Engine Strategies Chicago, Search Engine Roundtable
• Pubcon Las Vegas or SES Chicago? (from Joe Morin, who works on PubCon)
• Chicago or Vegas? SES or Pubcon? (a poll from SEMpdx)
• PubCon Vegas Or SES Chicago Conference?, Dave Dugdale
• I’m Going To Vegas Pubcon, Shoemoney’s blog, with many comments
• SES Chicago vs. Webmaster World PubCon, ExpertSEM
• Search Engine Strategies 2.0: SMX, Shawn Collins

I’ve also seen some posts wondering if one show would "kill" the other. The reality, in my experience, is that the audiences of both shows have relatively minor overlap. Brett’s show tends to draw heavily from the huge WebmasterWorld community. It’s almost like a class reunion experience. SES tends to pull heavily from new search marketers who may not have discovered any online forums. I’m sure both shows will have a healthy attendance.

The real challenge is on the speaker front. There’s simply no way for speakers who DO often overlap between the shows to be in both places. PubCon has worked hard to pull in a lot of the "regulars" on the search marketing conference circuit. Among the several keynotes, Pubcon also features having Googler Matt Cutts on the line-up. Of course, SES has a packed schedule of its own and has two posts recently up explaining reasons to attend in general and a guide for first time attendees.

Had your heart set on hitting a show this year and don’t know what to do? My advice is look through the agendas of both shows and head for the one with sessions that seem to be of most interest to you personally or sessions involving speakers you know and like from your online reading.

Whatever you choose, don’t forget — we’ve got our first big three day search marketing conference, SMX West, happening in late February. Here are a few posts about that from us:

• 5 Reasons To Register For SMX West Today!
• SMX West Is Coming! Ready To Speak?

Our first SMX London show also happens this week. More about that in the posts below:

• SMX London: A Sneak Preview
• Google’s Mario Queiroz To Keynote SMX London
• SMX London Only 7 Days Away – Register Today!