It’s a Wrap: GetListed.org Local University in Cleveland
The third edition of GetListed.org Local University is in the books and, for me, it was one of the most enjoyable weeks of business/pleasure I’ve had in a while.
On the business side of that sentence was two very full sessions of Local U. just south of Cleveland in the Valley View/Independence area. What made this edition unique was a number of new speakers who helped us teach SEO and local search tactics to small business owners. The photo at right is Geoff Karcher of The Karcher Group, who started both sessions with a talk on the foundation of search marketing. Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends joined us, too, to talk about two important topics: managing social media efforts and hiring SEO/social media consultants. And Bing sent a new speaker, Maryam Gholami, who brought all kinds of energy to her talk about Bing’s local search product.
We missed Mary Bowling of SEOverflow, who had some last-minute wisdom tooth surgery and couldn’t join us. Google’s rep also missed this one due to travel difficulties, but as I said the night before, Mike Blumenthal (aka Professor Maps) knows more about Google Places than Google does, and he showed it during the two sessions.
Attendee Feedback
What matters most is attendee feedback, and Canada-based Jim Rudnick has already written up his thoughts on the workshop:
My advice here is to ATTEND! Signup and get your rear into one of those seats to learn all you can about Local search opportunities….I did and I and my clients are happy already.
The immediate Twitter feedback was also excellent. Here’s what Jessica Gerich, Brad Heutmaker, and Mark Geyman said, respectively:
(Mark was so excited that he got the workshop URL wrong, but that’s okay!)
If you’d like to see what you missed, here are some Flickr photo links:
- My LocalU photo set
- GetListed LocalU photo group on Flickr, which also has photos from Mike Blumenthal (and we hope others in attendance will add their photos, too)
Thanks to all who attended LocalU, and thanks to the sponsors who helped coordinate the event and made it all possible. I’m already looking forward to the next one. Hope you’ll come out and join us whenever/wherever that is. (coughcough…Denver, New Orleans, or Phoenix probably…coughcough)
