SEO Meetings

I’ll be speaking about SEO and PPC at the September Toronto LUG (or newTLUG).

Date: September 23, 2008
Time: 7:00 - 10:00 pm.
Place: Seneca College on the YorkU campus, Room S1209, Lower Kaleidoscope Room
Stephen E. Quinlan building
Cost: Free. Parking however is $8.

I spoke at the KW Lug and everyone seemed please with the value for the price; I’ve got three hours this time instead of two so I’ll go into a bit more detail on the ‘how to’.

I recently spoke at KW Lug (Linux User’s Group) about SEO and was very pleasantly received. That’s despite:
- using a windows computer for my demo (my computer is actually dual boot and I run Linux normally, but I don’t have wireless networking working under linux).
- explaining that Google is in fact a for-profit company with for-profit motivations.
- Talking about SEO, which is very maligned in the tech community.

Still, they were very pleasant and seemed to enjoy the presentation. I’ve been asked to speak at Toronto LUG as a result and plan to do that some time in the fall.

In addition to my occassional speaking gigs, I regularly post on various forums on the subject of SEO. I think I’m going to tone that down a bit and start posting here instead.

So - assuming I start to use this site as a regular blogging platform on the subject of SEO, what subjects would you like to talk about?

I’m presenting at KW LUG (Kitchener Waterloo Linux User’s Group) on Monday August 11 at 7:00pm. I’ll be talking about SEO and SEM for 2-3 hours. Given that I’m presenting to linux guru’s who typically rabidly hate SEO or SE manipulation, I expect to not make it out alive :). Actually, I believe I’ll be able to change their views on the subject. I’ll be talking about white hat, clean ways of promotion, not spammy crap.

If you’re interested, visit www.kwlug.org for directions and details. The meeting is downtown kitchener and it’s free. They do however pass the hat around to collect some money. They then donate the money to worthy open source projects. (A fabulous idea). So if you’re coming, bring a few bucks to toss into the hat. I promise I’ll make it worth the ‘cost’.

Going forward, we’ve moved out of our home office to our own office digs downtown New Hamburg. I’ve got way more office space than I can possibly use. So I may be inclined to have a meeting in the fall or winter here at my place for those that feel like making the drive.

Probably due to my lack of promotion and a very short deadline, we only got a few people willing to commit for next week. Certainly not enough for a session. So I’ve refunded those folks that have paid their $10 (with my thanks) and the SEO bash for this Friday will *NOT* be held.

I’ve confirmed with linuxcaffe.ca for Friday February 15th at 5:00.

We’ll start at 5:00 sharp. We’ll have a break at 6:00 for about 15-20 minutes to get a bite to eat (linuxcaffe serves great food and beverages) then continue on with the presentation. No end time, but it’s likely to be 8′ish.

To ensure that all this planning work doesn’t conflict with my natural laziness, here’s the dealio intended to keep my work to a minimum. To confirm your spot, you need to paypal $10 to gcooke at sourceage.com preferably by Thursday February 7th along with your name or username. Only the first 25 people will have reservations - and we will be unable to accept latecomers or people showing up the day of and hoping for a spot. Not unless something drastic happens and we don’t fill the space - but you’d best assume that’s not going to happen; the last two times we’ve done this we’ve run out of space.

Please come prepared to buy your dinner during the 6:00 break. When booking a spot like this it’s normal to have to guarantee a certain volume. Linux cafe is letting me away without that guarantee this time but I assured them everyone would be having a bite to eat at that time. Hey, they’ve got to make a living, and we want to support that if we’re getting their space for free. It’s very kind of them to allow us the benefit of the doubt like this (I doubt anyone else would); the alternative is costs go up for everyone and I have to commit and organize and that all sounds like work I’m not looking to do. We get free meeting spots without commitment, you drop a tenner on a sandwich and a drink, they pay their rent, and everyone’s happy.

Bring your business cards. See you there!

Oh yeah. Location: www.linuxcaffe.ca

I need a break from work, so tentatively Friday Feb 15th around 4-5pm (to be confirmed), tentatively at the linuxcaffe.com where we held the last toronto one.

Location may change if we get too many people since the cafe gets squished if we have more than 20 people.

I’ll be talking about solid white hat website rankings including link development. Will likely touch on some greyer stuff that’s working right now as well as paid blogging and Pay Per Click and maybe touch briefly on affiliate marketing.

Figure about 3 hours give or take.

There will be a nominal cost, likely $10. Any money I take in is given to the staff at the restaurant as a ‘tip’ for putting up with us.

Of interest to folks in the web arena just to meet with others as well as small business owners looking to increase their web rankings.

The Ottawa bash was a great success. We had about 20 folks attend for about 3 hours of presentations and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive!

After the presentations, about a 1/2 dozen of us went for a quick beer and to talk further about pay per click. The conversation continued out in the parking lot until about midnight at which point a cruiser drove by to see what we were doing. Apparently it was end of school year in the area and there was lots of underage drinkers out that night, requiring a constant police presence. On hearing that we were discussing websites, the fine folks in blue carried on.

It was interesting to note that the majority of folks attending were small business owners looking for tips to increase their own site’s rankings. By contrast the folks who attended the Toronto get together were affiliate heavy.

Special thanks to Jack at Assure-All Associates for providing us the conference room at no charge. They also scrambled and found us a projector to use after I realized (an hour into a 5 hour trip to get there) that I’d forgotten to bring one.

Next bash is yet to be determined. Keep an eye here and we’ll let you know when the next meet up is planned.

Ottawa SEO bash date, time and location is now confirmed. Location is 100 Craig Henry Drive in Ottawa, Suite 204. Thursday June 14, 2007, 5.pm to 9pm.

$5 or $10 at the door to defray the costs of pizza. There’s a pizza joint next door so we’ll use the funds to bring in pizza. We’re limited to about 25 people, so book early - I believe it’s possible we’re going to fill up.

See the ‘Ottawa networking event’ page on the right side of the page here for full details.

Lots of ‘tentative’ details for the upcoming Ottawa bash.

Tentatively, we’re going to book the library on Metcalfe street, downtown Ottawa. Tentatively we’re planning on the end of May. I just need confirmation from my best friend when I can crash at his place overnight. Tentatively we’ve got Bob Mutch from seocompany.ca booked for a presentation on directory submission (topic subject to change). Firmed - I’ll be doing a presentation on link development.

Stay tuned for details.