It’s conference season. You can smell it in the air. Next week, I’ll be taking part in Search Engine Strategies Toronto. The event is taking place from June 16th – June 18th, 2008 at the Metro Convention Centre in downtown Toronto. As always, Six Pixels of Separation friend, Andrew Goodman (Page Zero, Traffick and author of Winning Results With Google Adwords) helps swing this together, and this year’s Search Engine Strategies Toronto features two keynotes: Fredrick Marckini (Founder of iProspect and Chief Global Search Officer, Isobar) along with the one and only, Bryan Eisenberg (Co-Founder of Future Now Inc., Blogger at GrokDotCom and co-author of Call To Action and Waiting For Your Cat To Bark?).

I’ll be taking part in the panel discussion, Universal And Blended Search, described as:

"Search result multiplicity is not a new phenomenon, but recent advancements guarantee that the world of search and marketing will be changing forever. How do the new ‘blended’ search results pages affect your marketing strategy? Do these changes mean that the major search engines are eager to keep the ‘second click’ on web properties owned by themselves? How popular are the new blended search results with users? This session will include research data available only at SES."

And I will also be moderating a session titled, Social Media Success. "One of this year’s panelists promises that search marketers have the potential to ‘own’ the social media marketing space because of search’s inherent bias toward ROI measurement. Panelists will focus on defining different measures of success, and explore case studies of social media campaigns that helped clients get rich, famous, and better-looking."

Both panels that I am participating in fall under the "advanced" track sessions. Those Marketers interested in more basic or intermediate information won’t be disappointed either. As with all events like this, it’s a deep dive into the world of Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, so if that’s your thing (and, it better be), I hope to see you there.

In an around this, you can also head over to Third Tuesday Toronto on June 17th, 2008 featuring Jesse Brown – the host and one of the producers of the CBC Radio One show, Search Engine (one of my most favourite Podcasts). And although, the name might imply a tie-in to SES Toronto, it’s actually about general Web culture (I agree, the name is a little confusing). For the more analytical people, you might be interested in attending Web Analytics Wednesday on June 18th, 2008 in Toronto. While there is no specific content for this event, it seems like anyone and everyone interested in online measurement will be making their way there.

So, lots of cool ways to stay Geeky and Googly next week in Toronto.