SEMCLT Association – The Inside Scoop

What is SEMCLT? It is the Search Engine Marketing Association of Charlotte.

Should you care? If you are in the Charlotte area and are involved in any way (or want to be) with search engine marketing or any online marketing of any sort, you should care.

Why? Because this association is not just some crazy idea that someone thought up and threw up a website.

It all started on May 23, 2007 when Keith Schilling started a little meetup group on the website meetup.com.  Roy Morejon, Fred Sexton, and David Kyle all joined him over the next few months and started holding regular meetings to talk about search engines and online marketing.  I joined them in October.

Since then, that little Charlotte SEO Meetup group has been holding monthly meetings on various online marketing topics.  Now, (less than two years later), there are 319 members and our meetings are attended by 50 to 100 people every month.

The meetings are so popular that we now need to start charging a little money in order to afford a larger location.  So Keith turned it into SEMCLT and is now going to be charging an annual membership fee.

Part of the inside scoop is that the five of us didn’t really make this association, it made itself.  We’re just trying to keep up with the demand for online marketing training and information.

What will happen to the Charlotte SEO Meetup?

We are keeping it alive on Meetup.com and will hold regular meetings every few months or so.  These will generally be beginner level.  The meatier meetings will be for members only at www.SEMCLT.com.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW…

Here is the urgent part… Keith has told me that as of March 1, the price for membership will go up to $125 per year.  But as of right now, you can signup and become a member for $50.  This gets you into all the events, access to the live stream, and access to all previous events that have been recorded.  It may get you a link from the members directory.  (Keith, leave a message below to confirm or deny this.)

In fact, Keith told me over instant message today that members that join now will be flagged as “charter members”, which is pretty cool.

I’m not trying to make money here.  This is for real.

I would hate for any of my readers to miss this opportunity.

As a matter of fact, as of right now all the money is going into the renting of the room for our events.

WHO IS BEHIND THIS?

I think you will like the founders and the other members of this group.  (The five founders have been typically grabbing dinner before our meetups.  It’s great.)  Now that we have a bigger location, we’ll probably all just network before and after the meetings.

WHAT I’M DOING

What about me?  Keith has asked me to work on getting good topics and speakers for the upcoming events.  I have some really cool ideas.  I think I can get some very informative and enjoyable sessions in the next few months and into the future.

So please don’t miss this opportunity.  You can learn more and become a charter member at www.SEMCLT.com.

PS:  Don’t let the site fool you.  It’s not quite done yet.  There will be a lot more information on it soon.

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