Attending Internet conferences can add real value to your bottom line. While ROI may not seem  apparent in the short term it is likely to add to your business in the long term. The very least you can bet that others in your industry are going to these conferences to see what the playing field looks like now and what to expect in the future; i.e for building business online and accessing consumer expectation.

While there are a lot of conferences springing up these days, here are a few we attend that lay down valuable information for open source and search marketing.

CMS Expo
Featuring speakers on the 3 key open source (CMS) content management systems frameworks today. WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.
For: Developers, Web Designers and Business owners.
Takeaways: Tools, lot’s of how to’s, great connections and key insight into the future development and growth of these core platforms.

Search Marketing Expo
Sponsors and speakers from the current industry leaders in search including Google, Yahoo, Bing and many more. This is a fun show produced by Third Door Media. They put together a nice balance between the need to know ( analytics, seo and security) and the excitement of the growing developments in the search marketing business. Not mention they put on a pretty good after hours party.
For: Developers, Web Designers, Search Marketers, Affiliate Marketers, and Business.
Takeaways: Tools, new relationships, education, and strategic insights from industry thought leaders.

These are few more worth checking out:

Webmaster World -Pub Con
Straddling web development and search marketing you will find many of the main industry leaders here.

Search Engine Strategies
The founding fathers of everything search engine. The search industry gurus home base.

Blog World
For more than just blogger’s. Many businesses are becoming aware that new content and quality content is integral to your business brand and presence on the web.

If you have any open source and search industry conferences that you have attended and found valuable, worth the investment and fun let us know so that we can spread the word.