Pubcon 2013 Reviews, Tips, Tools & More

I just got back from Pubcon New Orleans and it was an awesome show.  Even though I only got one new business lead which isn’t for a client, but for a workshop, I did learn a lot of new information and make some connections that could take my clients Affiliate programs to the next level, which is amazing!  I never know what is going to come out of Pubcon but I have always found a way to partner with someone and make money by going.  I also got to meet with people that I have enjoyed reading about, watching, etc… over the years.  Here is my review of Pubcon 2013 and if you aren’t already registered for the Las Vegas one, you should definitely get off your butt and do it now so it doesn’t sell out before you decide to go.  (You can also tell them you found them through my site (I think they still do commissions for referrals)).

1.  Video marketing

I went to one of the video sessions and was disappointed that they avoided my questions about Pagination with Video.  The session was all about Video marketing and they continued to talk about SEO and no one could actually answer.  They did however remind me of a few things I had forgotten about.  One of these is that YouTube has a keyword tool just like adwords.  By using this keyword tool you can figure out what keywords and longtail you can go after when beginning to optimize your videos for the YouTube algorithm.

2.  Chris Pirillo

Meeting Chris Pirillo was awesome.  I used to watch his live videos when he would review things, go over issues he was seeing online and he was an Affiliate of mine years ago.  We hung out for a while and talked about a lot of marketing channels, monetization and who can drive results and who cannot.  I’m not going to mention any names, but it was a great conversation and I was shocked at some of the people who talk about marketing, give tons of advice and have lots of followers, but cannot actually drive a ton of revenue.

Instead they supplement their income or the majority of their income comes from sponsorships, speaking events and other things.  It was kind of scary.  I’m not going to mention names so please don’t ask and it was not Chris either.  Chris rocked and I think the funniest part about talking was the end where we discussed having work friends.

I ended up talking to him about why he should think about having work friends that are real friends.  As I was walking away I turned back and said “By the way, since some complete stranger, who sat with you at your table and you did not know at all before just gave you life advice, you should completely use it.”  We both laughed because we realized how funny it was and he made an awesome impression on me and hopefully I made a good one on him.  He’s an awesome person and if you get a chance to meet him, I highly recommend it.

3.  Networking at Pubcon 2013

The networking at Pubcon 2013 was amazing.  I actually talked to a ton of people I had never met before, got to share ideas and also had a ton of fun.  It’s amazing how many people are out there that are extremely smart and don’t get a chance to speak.  By going to the networking events at Pubcon 2013, you can meet these people and learn a lot.  One thing to think about is how much you drink at or before the networking events.  If you drink too much you could end up saying the wrong things and things that you keep for your own strategies that you probably didn’t want to share.  There was a lot of that happening as well, but also a ton of people having fun.

4.  SEO

SEO is what I love about this show.  You have insanely smart people and a lot of them sharing really good advice and tools that they use.  A while ago I did a post about what a natural link is for SEO and everyone was talking about what is natural vs. unnatural because of the Penguin 2.0 update we are waiting for.  One thing that will probably get you slapped is if 75% or higher of your backlinks are coming from keyword rich backlinks.  Instead you need a high volume of natural links (links off of your company name, versions of your company’s name, etc…) with the keywords and copy in the article and on the site to be relevant to you.  A lot of SEOs are looking at this and preparing for the next update and feel that sites with a keyword rich linking profile are going to get hit by the algorithm.

5.  Affiliate Clean Up

I was very excited to hear feedback that many programs will begin cleaning up their issues with Affiliate theft.  I talked to a lot of companies and they are going to stop allowing trademark bidding, removing adware partners who are only sending adware sales (some are removing them completely) and getting rid of the sites that rank for your trademarks and urls or even urls + coupons, coupon codes, etc…  Even competing OPM firms who don’t do Affiliate as a main service but offer it if the client wants it sat down with me to help them better understand what is happening within their programs.

Pubcon 2013 in New Orleans was an awesome show.  It was my favorite one so far for working and having fun.  Everyone I met was awesome and we all learned, met a couple of good partners to grow our businesses and I think we all got something out of the show that we didn’t know before.  If you haven’t registered for Vegas, I definitely recommend you do.  You don’t want to wait until the last minute and have it sell out on you.