Yahoo! is hosting a summit exclusively for its merchants on June 11 in Chicago immediately following the Internet Retailer Conference, which is expecting record attendance. Among the speakers are Chris Merritt, General Manager of Yahoo! Small Business, and Paul Boisvert, Lead Product Manager of Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, who will speak about forthcoming features. Michael Ober, Senior Manager of Account Management for Yahoo! Small Business, will demonstrate how merchants can increase order value and improve website conversions.

Third-party developers will also speak about their latest tools and add-on capabilities designed for use with the Yahoo! platform, including Vikram Singh, Senior Manager of Strategic Alliances at PayPal; Joel Jiminez, President of Practical Data; Don Cole, Founder and CEO of Your Store Wizards; George Chityat, President of KingWebmaster; and Coby Erez, CTO of 4PSite Design.

Merchants can also participate in a speed-review session to get personalized feedback on their site from the following Yahoo! developer partners:

• Don Cole, Founder and CEO, Your Store Wizards;
• George Chityat, President, KingWebmaster;
• Coby Erez, CTO, 4PSite Design;
• Shawna Fennell, CEO, 1 Choice 4 Your Store;
• Joel Jiminez, Technical Lead, Practical Data, Inc.;
• Matt Ledford, President, FastPivot.com;
• Bruce Randall, President, Spring Studio/My Store Solutions;
• Kevin Richards, President, Ventura Web Design;
• Michael Roebuck, President, All Web Promotion;
• Scott Smigler, CEO, Exclusive Concepts, Inc;
• Eric Yonge, President and Creative Director, EY Studios

Rob Snell, author of "Starting a Yahoo! Business for Dummies," will share SEO strategies including specific tips designed to have an immediate impact on SEO rankings and the quality of the traffic merchants drive to their sites. Additional sessions include:

• Strategic Analytics
• SEO and SEM For Managers
• Analytics for Merchant Solutions: A How-To Guide
• Practical SEO and SEM
• Branding for the Web
• Online Communications and Personalization Strategies
• Social and Offline Marketing
• The Power of Design
• Top Merchants Share How We Got Here
• Live Website Do's And Don't's from the Experts

The event costs $249, and another summit will be held on September 13-14 in Santa Clara, California. More information about both summits is available through the registration page