Nashville SEO Group: 10 years of free SEO meetups

The Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group was a free monthly meetup that Ross Jones of 2theTop ran from 2010 until we paused it in April 2020, when COVID made a packed room a bad idea. No sales pitch, no ticket. You showed up, heard a talk, watched the room tear apart somebody’s website, and asked whatever you wanted.

This page is the group’s record: what we covered each year, where we met, who spoke, and the RSVP counts Meetup logged along the way. It’s the proof behind the line on our home page that “4000+ Nashvillians have learned SEO (in-person) at our Free Nashville SEO Group meetings.”

The group is paused, and has been since April 2020. If you want to learn SEO in a room with us again, tell us through the contact form. That’s how we’ll decide whether it comes back.

How a free Thursday night meetup ran for ten years

Every meeting had the same three parts, and you could count on them:

1. A short talk. One topic, usually Ross, sometimes a member or a guest who’d actually done the thing.
2. A live website review. Somebody volunteered their site and 20 to 30 people brainstormed how it could rank and convert better.
3. Open questions. Anything about SEO, Google, paid search, social or email. Beginners and pros in the same room.

The name changed a few times. In early 2011 it went by the Nashville Web Presence Optimization Group, became the Nashville Internet Marketing Meetup, and settled into the Nashville SEO & Internet Marketing Group. Today the Meetup page is simply the Nashville SEO Group. The group’s own 2011 posts give 2010 as the founding year.

The room moved around too, and the people who lent it deserve the credit:

• ESpaces, 4322 Harding Pike (early 2011)
• BNA Building 200 near the airport (spring 2011), thanks to Jake Robinson
• 301 South Perimeter Park Drive, off I-24 at Harding (summer and fall 2011), thanks to Alana Bryant
• Belmont University on the last Thursday of the month (through mid-2014), plus one night at Lipscomb University in September 2012
• Emma’s Bistro in the Trolley Barns on Lea Avenue from July 2014 on, thanks to the Nashville email marketing company Emma

By 2019 the group met on the third Thursday at the Emma Bistro, and Ross ran an encore Lunch & Learn the next day at noon at our office on Main Street for people who couldn’t do evenings. That one cost $20. There was also an Advanced Digital Marketing Meetup, held the Tuesday after the third Thursday, where beginner questions were off the table on purpose.

Where the “4,000+ Nashvillians” number comes from

Here’s the honest version. Meetup logged an RSVP count for 63 of the sessions we can document between 2012 and 2018. Those 63 add up to 4,956 RSVPs. We didn’t record counts for 2011, 2019 or 2020, so those years add more on top.

An RSVP isn’t a head in a seat, though. Some people said yes and didn’t come, and regulars got counted every month they came back. So read 4,956 as RSVPs, not unique people. It’s the best record we have, and it’s the reason we’re comfortable with the 4,000+ figure.

Source: RSVP counts from the group’s Meetup event pages, as recorded on this page between 2012 and 2018.

Notice what drew the biggest crowds. Not tricks. Google’s own tools, content, and how to choose between marketing channels. People wanted to know how the thing worked, and they kept coming back for that.

What the group covered, year by year

Where a topic still lives on our site as an up-to-date article, it’s linked. The old recap posts have been folded into this page.

2011: AdSense, AdWords and the first live reviews

• January: how Archie, Veronica and Jughead gave birth to Google. A quick trip back to the search engines of 1990, then how Google decides what goes at the top. Ended with a volunteer site review.
• March: Google’s crackdown on thin content and junk links, and the public penalties handed to JCPenney, Forbes and Overstock. Plus a walk through Google’s own SEO Starter Guide.
• April: member Shaun Gross of Hydro Pro Pressure Washing shared what he’d learned running AdWords for his business. The group then brainstormed marketing for Bret Waering’s 3D rendering startup.
• May: step-by-step SEO and a review of the Allon Books site for author Shawn Lamb and her husband and webmaster, Rob Lamb.
• June: “How I Got Google to Pay Me $130,000,” Ross’s talk on Google AdSense, and, time allowing, early numbers from a Nashville roofing client’s redesign.
• September: mobile web trends with Jacob Wiley of Eye Scream Design.
• Also in 2011: Google Places explained, a free internet marketing review of member websites, and WordPress SEO.
• December: how much a Google ranking is worth.

Rob Lamb came to his first meeting in May and said afterward: “Ross, thank you for a very informative and challenging evening. We learned a lot from you and the other professionals that attended. I will implement the advice we determine is the most useful. I will be back for the June meeting.”

2012: the Perfect SEO series, penalties and links

• January: the perfectly optimized page and the right words in the right places.
• February: social signals in search.
• March: Perfect SEO part 2, keyword research.
• April: how to make money with Google AdSense (63 RSVPs).
• May: white hat SEO (52).
• June: link building, why links matter and how to earn them (70).
• July: Google penalties, updates and what still works (58).
• August: the web design mistakes that hurt SEO (62).
• September: a Yoast WordPress SEO plugin review, held at Lipscomb University (56).
• October: a full SEO audit of DrJeffCornwall.com, a site whose traffic was wrecked by a redesign that ignored SEO (48).
• November: Google rich snippets and author highlighting (79).

2013: the busiest year on record

• January: digital marketing options and when to use what (151).
• February: 4 SEO tools you need to know: Raven, SEMrush, Screaming Frog and SEOmoz (122).
• March: social media’s impact on SEO, a joint meeting with the Social Media Club of Nashville (161).
• March: local SEO strategies (70).
• May: Google+ for business (107), then inbound marketing (83).
• June: the top 5 SEO mistakes small businesses make (92).
• July: SEO strategies for 2013 and beyond (72).
• August: consumer reviews, how to get good ones and what to do with bad ones (63).
• September: free SEO audits from Nashville SEO consultants (54).
• November: SEO for WordPress (97).

2014: Hummingbird, analytics and a new home at Emma

• January: the future of search and Google’s Hummingbird update (126).
• February: Google Analytics (101).
• March: linking strategies for growing authority (94).
• April: SEO experts review your website, live (62).
• May: local SEO for your small business (63).
• June: the truth about SEO. Keyword density myths, guaranteed-ranking cold calls and what actually changed (93).
• July: email marketing with the team from Emma, our first night at their bistro (100).
• August: SEO is easy, SEO is hard (64).
• September: WordPress SEO, what you need to know (50).
• October: Google Authorship is dead, but author rank isn’t (58).
• November: Google Webmaster Tools, the biggest RSVP count the group ever logged (179).

2015: Future Proof SEO

2015 is the year Ross laid out the method this site is still built around. SEO comes down to three things: architecture, content and engagement. The group spent four straight months on it, and you can read the current version in the 3 pillars of Future Proof SEO.

• January: SEO for 2015, architecture + content + engagement (143).
• February: Future Proof SEO, architecture (111), with an encore in May (23).
• March: Future Proof SEO, content. Intent, quality, relevancy, presentation and supplementary content (159).
• April: Future Proof SEO, the 8 facets of engagement (129).
• May: mobile friendly vs. Mobilegeddon (66).
• June: the new SEO formula for blog success (114).
• August: step-by-step essential SEO, the internal process behind our SEO package (104).
• September: what to do with those keywords, on-site SEO (89).
• October: why customer reviews are critical and how to get more (51).

2016: the Advanced meetup starts

• January: SEO for 2016 (54).
• February: Google AdWords pay per click and the 5 top ways people waste money on it (75). Same month, the first Advanced SEO Meetup, on using roundup posts to earn backlinks.
• March: the critical SEO checklist for a site redesign (43).
• April: free website SEO reviews (43).
• May: titles and meta tags (31).
• June: Get Your Business Online, a partner event with Google to put Nashville businesses on the map (45).
• July: link building for Future Proof SEO (47).
• August: use Google Analytics like a pro: acquisition, behavior and conversion (36), plus an Advanced meetup (47).
• September: WordPress SEO.
• October: how to convert a site to WordPress without wrecking your SEO (35).
• November: move to HTTPS before Google penalizes you (26).

2017: the Digital Marketing series

In 2017 the group ran a beginner series, one channel a month, so you could build the whole picture in order.

• January: 7 critical tasks for SEO success in 2017 (93).
• February: find the right digital marketing mix (78).
• March: learn SEO (70).
• April: learn SEM (79).
• May: learn social media (81).
• June: learn online advertising (76).
• July: learn analytics (82).
• August: learn online reputation management (68).
• September: learn email marketing, with help from Emma (99).

2018: Search Console and paid search

• January: 8 critical tasks for SEO success in 2018 (84).
• February: learn Google AdWords and SEM (70).
• March: getting the most from the new Google Search Console (55).

2019: Learn Digital Marketing, round two

2019 opened with “SEO: everything has changed” in January and then ran the Learn Digital Marketing series again: the marketing mix in February, then SEO, SEM, social media, online advertising, analytics, email marketing and online reputation management from March through September. October was free live website reviews, and November covered the basics plus newer advanced techniques.

The August email marketing night is a good sample of how practical these got. You walked out with:

• Four kinds of email to plan for: broadcast, onboarding, transactional and triggered.
• Five numbers to measure: open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, average order value and churn.
• Three ways to stay out of the spam folder: double opt-in, cleaning hard and repeat soft bounces off the list, and an easy unsubscribe.

2020: the last two meetings

• January: 2020 SEO, everything has changed.
• February: SEO for 2020, architecture + content + engagement. The Future Proof SEO method, five years on.

Website reviews were the part people came back for

Why did people keep showing up? Ask anyone who volunteered their site. You’d hand over your URL and get 30 people’s honest reaction in an hour.

Here’s what one looked like. At BarCamp Nashville in October 2011, Ross ran an impromptu SEO session for about 30 people. Tabitha Hawk of Nashville Computer Guru went first. She was sitting at #5 in Google’s organic results for “Nashville computer repair” but didn’t show up in the local map results at all. The room’s advice:

• Put the phrase on the home page where people can see it, not only in footer micro text.
• Earn more links.
• Ask happy customers for reviews and build citations, since she’d already claimed her Google Places page.

Next up was Robin Thorpe Piano Studio. Robin wanted to rank for “Nashville piano lessons,” but she’s based in Franklin. So the advice split: chase the Nashville phrase with organic SEO, and aim the local and map results at “Franklin TN piano lessons,” because that’s how Google ranks local businesses.

Want that kind of look at your own site now? That’s what our SEO audit is for.

Beyond the monthly meetup

The group was the anchor, but the teaching spilled into the rest of Nashville’s tech calendar:

• PodCamp Nashville, April 2012. Over 90 people signed up for Ross’s “How I Got Google to Pay Me $150,000” session, and it was standing room only. He followed it with an impromptu session of 5-minute SEO audits on about five websites. Jonathan Taylor and Russell Portland drove down from Knoxville for it and later had Ross on their BIB Podcast.
• BarCamp Nashville. The free tech unconference. Ross led sessions in 2011 and 2012, including “How a Redesign Killed DrJeffCornwall.com,” and volunteered on the organizing side.
• Belmont University, March 2013. “SEO 101: Just Google It Baby!” kicked off Belmont’s New Century Journalism Speaker Series, with over 100 students, staff and members of the public. The same series brought in Marcus Whitney, Dave Delaney, Erik Qualman, Nancy VanReece, Kate O’Neill, Dr. Sybril Bennett and Clint Smith of Emma.
• MTSU, April 2017. A free website and SEO seminar in the John Bragg Media and Entertainment Building, with live site reviews, led by Ross as part of MTSU’s Spring Showcase.

Ross also taught Digital Marketing at Belmont as an adjunct. The meetup ran a lot like a good class: one topic, real examples, and something you could go fix on your own site that week.

Want to learn SEO in a room again?

The meetup was always one piece of how we teach. The rest has its own pages:

• WordPress and SEO training: our hands-on class on setting up WordPress, then configuring it for search.
• The do-it-yourself internet marketing class Ross taught for website owners, designers and agencies.
• The Digital Marketing Masters Class: the college-level course Ross ran privately, capped at 15 students, with a certificate at the end.

Then the pandemic hit. On April 23, 2020 we announced that, following CDC guidelines, the group’s monthly meetup and Lunch & Learn were paused indefinitely. The March 19 meetup and March 20 Lunch & Learn were the first ones cancelled. The group hasn’t met since.

The group’s page is still up at Meetup.com. So here’s the real question for you. Would you come back on a Thursday night to talk SEO with a room full of Nashville business owners? If the answer’s yes, send us a note and tell us what you’d want to learn first.