Be sure to check out this great event brought to you by the Nielsen Norman Group.

The San Francisco week is coming up in June… June 16-21. The Usability in Practice: 3-Day Intensive sounds FAB whether you are experienced or want to become a “user experience professional”.

They recommend attending all 3 days because “the progression of the material is highly integrated, with subsequent days building tightly on the previous days’ work.”

If you can afford it (prices are steep!), the subsequent days have interesting full-day tutorials.

SEO & Web Analytics/Web Usability go hand-in-hand… I currently have an article/guide on Work.com with helpful tips on SEO, Web Usability and Higher Conversion for Site Design (or Re-Design).

Am trying http://pmetrics.performancing.com as they have reportedly more features than Google Analytics… to compare.

Will keep you posted… till next time…

Check out LiveFaceOnWeb as a superior [conversion] alternative to SitePal… ask for Steve Geltman and tell him Valerie DiCarlo from SEO Web Consulting recommended you contact him…

Marketing Experiments free webinars are QUITE good. This Wed. (Apr. 16) is Measuring What Matters: increase marketing ROI by up to 75%

Regular, free webinars on what really works: SEO, SEM, web usability

Check them out…

VDC & Danny Sullivan - SMX Santa Clara (thanks for humoring me Danny!) 

Summary:

For the most part good… still wonder how some speakers become speakers at these conferences… and why they allow some to take every opp to pitch their services. One time, it’s ok; two times, it starts to get annoying and any more than that, it’s down right insulting and a huge turn-off. (i.e. Bruce Clay) It makes one lose interest, respect and stop listening. Unfortunate.

There were many nuggets - especially in the usability track. Shari Thurow is quite good, forthright and really knows her stuff. Lance Loveday also quite good. They should expound this track and offer more advanced info/techniques.

Good to hear/see Eric Ward in the link building track. ALWAYS great to hear his expertise. Debra Mastaler was a a great compliment… would have liked to hear Eric a bit more, however… he didn’t get to speak long enough. 

On the SEO & Social Media Marketing sessions, the take-away stand out, in my opinion, was Michael Gray. We heard the same ol’ from the others… Neil Patel offered helpful nuggets…

The Blended Search Revolution track was very good…

And finally Danny Sullivan’s keynote (Search 3.0, Search 4.0 & Beyond) on the first day was by far the best of all the keynotes… I have pics, but will have to wait til I get back to upload them. (Thanks Danny for humoring me!) Nice, very approachable guy.

More later…

There is a good article on bmighty.com by Naomi Grossman titled Do You Need An SEO Consultant?

Especially liked Gord Hotchkiss‘ contribution to this article. His insight on what a reputable SEO consultant brings to a business and that it truly is a partnership… my words exactly on this very website.

No time to blog myself, but sure do get in some good regular blog “reads”…

A great interview with Michael Gray (Wolf-Howl) over @ LinkJuicy on current industry observations and recommendations and on advanced link strategies.

Don’t know Michael personally, but have been to many-a-conferences and heard him on panels. Always seem to agree and like what he has to offer.

WOW, a GREAT post by Dan Thies on Google Proxy Hacking. The post explains how proxy hacking can hurt your rankings and what you can do about it.

Thanks to Dan Thies for not only uncovering this issue, but providing solutions.

WebmasterWorld and SEOClass are joining forces to bring us a premium Internet marketing training program.

The two-day premium SEO Class SEM training programs are limited to less than 50 participants and focus on midrange to advanced Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization curriculum.

The inaugural two-day SEO Class by PubCon is scheduled for New York on July 30th & 31st. Space is limited and attendees should register at http://SEOClass.com.

Speakers include: Brad Geddes (ewhisper), Michael Gray (GrayWolf), Joe Laratro (Tandem-interactive.com), Todd Malicoat (stuntdubl), Greg Niland (GoodROI) and Brett Tabke (WebmasterWorld).

The first day will focus on Content Creation, Brand Management, Usability & Conversion, Blogging, and Link Management while the second day will focus on Social & Viral Marketing, Research Techniques, Paid Marketing Campaigns, Technical Setup, and Internet Marketing Tools.

Registration is @ SEOClass

Not sure I totally agree w/the ClickZ article by P.J. Fusco… I’ve seen the negative repercussions of duplicate content over and over.

While this article gives some sound information and advise on duplicate content issues, there is no “debate” here. With duplicate content, there IS INDEED a price to pay that can have a significant effect on rankings and pages being dumped in the supplemental index. And until the various duplicate content issues are addressed, those negative effects will remain.