The Best SEO Meetup

I was looking at a list of the SEO Meetups that are run through the meetup.com site tonight. There’s 371 active meetups that are in the SEO classification. The Raleigh SEO Meetup is ranked #16! The list is ranked by number of members, but I’d like to offer some different metrics.

I pulled the top 20 in the list and did some calculations that may surprise you:

Top 3 SEO Meetups based on number of members:

1. CLT Biz – Charlotte, NC; 1,447 members
2. Internet+Traditional Advertising/Marketing Professionals – New York, NY; 1,355 members
3. SEMPO NY – New York, NY; 1,318 members

The Raleigh SEO meetup is currently at #16 with 594 members. Pretty amazing who we’re bumping up against when you consider that our tiny little southern city isn’t even the largest in our own state.

Top 3 SEO Meetups based on average number of members that have shown up over the last 4 meetups:

1. Internet+Traditional Advertising/Marketing Professionals NY; 1,355 members – Averaging 144.5 attendees
2. The Austin Internet Marketing Meetup; 1,202 members – Averaging 140.75 attendees
3. #1 Internet Marketing/SEO/SEM Los Angeles; 933 members – Averaging 110.5 attendees

This is another segment where we really hold our own. Some of the biggies in this list also count webinars and parties, which can skew the numbers. Over the last 4 months we’ve been averaging 76.5 attendees, which is 6th, just a hair ahead of Chicago.

Top 3 SEO Meetups based on Attendee Rankings:

1. Business Blitz – The Premiere Business Development Network; 679 members – Average Rating 4.83
2. SEO – What you need to know (Cary/Raleigh/Durham, NC); 594 members – Average Rating 4.76
3. The Official Charlotte SEO & Search Engine Marketing Meetup; 576 members – Average Rating 4.69

The Business Blitz is out of Dallas and their last meetup was a cruise! Tough to compete with that.

Top 3 SEO Meetups based on the average percentage of members that show up over the last 4 events:

1. SEO – What you need to know (Cary/Raleigh/Durham, NC); 594 members – 12.9% of members attend
2. SEMPO San Francisco; 721 members – 12.3% of members attend
3. #1 Internet Marketing/SEO/SEM Los Angeles; 933 members – 11.8% of members attend

About half of the cities charge for the meetup, usually between $5 and $20. We’re lucky that Media Two Interactive pays our Meetup fees so that we never have to charge for admission.

I guess the next thing we have to do to really make Raleigh sky rocket to the top is to start doing the meetup on a cruise ship!