I had to find a way to attract visitors to this site. The obvious solution being google. The world of search engines is complex but in reality there are a few things you can do to make sure you get great results.

1. Get your site right first
2. Use google adwords carefully and with thought

How did I get #1 in google UK?

1. I made sure that my site had the right content on it for what I was trying to do.
2. I made sure my case study was there, and contained good accurate supporting information.
3. I set my titles, headings, paragraphs, descriptions, meta-data and keywords to exactly represent what the articles were about.
4. I set Joomla, my content management system, to use SEO friendly URL's
5. I submitted my site to the google crawler.
6. I re-read the adwords chapter in the Timothy Ferriss book "The Four Hour Working Week" - my favourite book about work - even though its a lie of sorts - which suggested spending time looking at what your keywords were going to be by looking at all the websites that you could find on google that were similar or indeed that you didnt want to attract. Avoiding the wrong words seems very important. Attracting a click isnt the objective - finding a customer is.
7. I narrowed down my world to avoid 'funding' and 'grants' because I reason that these are not my audience even though I might blog about these issues, I need to focus on the more technically oriented search.
8. I submitted my keywords to google adwords
9. And I restricted the display of my adwords to England - I want to find customers I can get to!

Job Done.

Attending a conference whether under your own steam or on behalf of your employer or client can be a stressful experience. I've worked for many companies espeically american software companies that expected me to share a room with some random colleague for example. Sounds exciting. It isnt. Theres also all the nonsense of expense policy and travel policy to figure out and the hoops of approval to jump through.

I like lists so here's my list of rules to help you survive a conference. The more of them you can obey they better a time you will have: -

Hotels
Dont stay at the conference hotel. This is by *far* the most important rule. You need to have 'me' time especially at a conference and you won't get it unless you can say 'i have to go' with a plausible excuse. There are techniques you can use to get to a different hotel : -

1. Book really late is the easiest one if youre an employee. The main hotels will be full and it wont be your fault and you may get a much better placel. Dont leave it to chance if you can help it though.
2. Use Trip Advisor to find a nearby hotel friendly to your points collection activities or nicely boutique.
3. Find out early on which hotel the most senior person in your party is staying in and book it, telling your travel arranger that you are co-ordinating that persons critical activity with some client or other. The most senior people book the best hotels.
4. Pretend your staying with friends then just say'it didnt work out' and book the most expensive hotel you dare

Food
Dont eat conference food. Just dont. I was at a software vendor conference where 5000 people got food poisoning. Its just not funny. My team didnt get poisoned because we went to a sports bar for cheesburgers rather than queue for the thai chicken curry that had been standing in heated carts for hours. A good choice.

1. Avoid conference food by choosing hotels with free breakfasts
2. Eat at nearby cafe's and bars
3. Conference free cans of drink and snacks are OK - this is about avoiding food poisoning

Connectivity
Get connected, all the time. Especially if youre supposed to be somewhere else

1. Turn off your iPhone data roaming if youre away from your home network unless you want a ludicrously expensive bill
2. Only stay in hotels with free wifi
3. Find out the names of the wifi connection points at the conference before the start, ideally connect before the start. They will be maxed out on the conference day. Test yor phone and your computer on them ideally on the pre-conference day. Look for the best connections and for places which have electric sockets and chairs (quite rare things at conference atriums for some reason)

In Sessions
Take notes. Why on earth did you go otherwise. Dont pretend you'll look on the web later.

1. Sit somewhere you can see the presenter or demo's or where you have clear view of a screen.
2. Ideally sit somewhere with power and wifi. I like to sit right at the front.
3. Always ask a question – Its just more fun if you do. Just dont be rude - be respectful.

I asked Bill Gates at the Office System Developers Conference in San Jose last year at his last speaking event for Microsoft why Office for Mac wasnt part of the conference even though they had a newer release and were located just up the road at MacBU in the Microsft Silicon Valley Campus. It was fun.(He answered well as youd expect even though Office Mac has no macros, no add-ins and no task panes). Lots of people commented to me afterwards 'great question' and 'they didnt escort your from the building' so its a good way to meet people.

Choose your airline well
Flights are the last bastion of peace and quiet where you can watch a film or read a book or have some strong Gin and Tonics. They arent a place where you need to be disturbed by work. Also if youre on a team flight you'll all be in coach. Dont fly in coach.

1. Do not go on the same flight as anyone you work with.
2. Ideally do not go on the same airline or from the same airport (this is harder) 

Discounted Business or First
Conferences have one unique thing going for them that other business trips don't. They are fixed dates. You can book for them months in advance. So why don't you? Heres an example.

London to San Francisco - Full Fare Business Class 6,000 quid

London to San Francisco - Fixed Dates, include Saturday 1600 quid

And if you do three of those on my favourite airline Virgin Atlantic, you get to keep your gold card and go in their fantastic lounges. Its a no brainer. Even if your company has a 'no business' policy tell them you'll expense only the value of a fully flex economy ticket. (or dont tell them and do just that and ask for forgivness later with the 'it was too late and I just needed to go' routine).

1. Book discounted business travel
2. Multi Leg Business and First is often cheaper than direct business

Use public transport to get around

Spend an hour or so learning about your destination. The conference guide won't have the right stuff. Look for the train times, the bus times, where the good shopping is, where the good neighbourhoods are. Its often better to get a hotel miles away on a good public transport route near to the airport or shops.

Heres an example: -

I wanted to use points because I was paying myself for my hotel in Houston but the hotel in Houston that did that was miles away from the conference. But Google Street View showed it was on a bus route. Checking and it was on the airport express to downtown which zipped through the bus lanes and let me use points and still attend. Perfect. It had free wifi too.

Go to all the parties or arrange your own

Go early and leave early. Thats the best laid plan. Otherwise bad pictures emerge.

Get all the free software and hardware

conferences are great places for free stuff but ignore all the yoyos. At Microsofts Partner Conference I scores two copies of Office Ultimate, a Keyboard, a Mouse, two Decent best practice books, various NFR but nevertheless fully usable licences software products like Norton 360 andseveral $50 gift vouchersd and $100 in cash for attending a research panel. It didnt quite pay for the conference but it was a great haul of stuff.

At MacWorld attending the Office day Microsoft put on was a few hundred bucks but they gave everyone a full packaged product of the most expensive new version of Office for Mac then took us all to a free concert by Devo where they gave away a bunch of Devo stuff I later sold on ebay for $100. Thanks! Devo were good too. It becomes a challenge to me to do this. Its a sport.

Get free research

Analysts - seek them out and hoover up all their free stiff. Its gold dust and they give it away at conferences if you ask them.

Take a few days out

If youre weekend travelling to get cheap tickets stopover in a different city. for example New York on the way to Houston. Stay on points and get away from it all before your flight home. Its a really nice way to end a trip.