My last post was about how conferences are a great source for search engine marketing training. Judging by the attendance at search engine marketing conferences it seems many professionals attend these conferences to learn the basics, keep up to date with the latest trends and hopefully pick up some actionable information. Oh and if you can’t make it here’s a way to fake it.

It’s impossible to get to all the sessions though or attend all the conferences and that’s where blogs come in handy. If you miss a session or miss a conference for that matter you can read about it from several different bloggers. I can’t begin to tell you how that coverage has helped and I’m truly thankful for those that contribute to the knowledgebase.

One of my favorite blogs I read to get the latest coverage is the Bruce Clay Blog. Formerly written by none other than ‘the lisa’, one of my favorite bloggers of all time hence my “Ode to the lisa”. Now mostly written by the very talented and lovely may I add, Virginia Nussey. If you haven’t read the blog since ‘the lisa’ left then I encourage you to do so. Virginia does a great job after being ‘passed a torch from one of the most esteemed and beloved bloggers in a burgeoning industry’ as she put it.

She even encourages us all to blog. Thanks Virginia but my bloggability doesn’t come near that of you or Lisa. And least I forget the contributions continue from Susan Esparza in conference coverage as well as her famous snarky back seat blogging. This is one of the most entertaining features of any blogs I’ve read.

Anyway back to the purpose of this post. The Bruce Clay Blog started the best of search conferences series last year and is continuing it this year. I really like how they laid this out, just like a regular conference with session times, etc. This is a great look at some of the best sessions of the best search marketing conferences of 2008. Or as Virginia puts it “That’s where we pull together our favorite liveblog coverage of the most kick-butt sessions from conferences we attended throughout the year“.

There is coverage of nine conferences and about 170 sessions from Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, ad:Tech and PubCon.