As everyone seemed to enjoy the Cittie of Yorke last year, we’re planning to hold an event in their basement dungeon once again. The date for your diaries is Thursday 10th April, starting from 6pm until late.

We’re happy to welcome back Propel Recruitment as our sponsor, who some of you may remember from our September 2006 event which they also sponsored. They’ve put a big chunk of cash behind the bar for us to super-size our beer bellies with. If you’re thinking of a change in career or in need of some new minions, Propel is the best in London for online marketing recruitment. So that I don’t get beaten up, thanks to Lisa for finding the sponsor.

Event Details:

Date: Thursday 10th April 2008 from 6pm onwards.
Venue: Cittie of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6BN [Google Maps] [Streetmap].
Nearest Station: Chancery Lane (Central Line).

FaceBook Group: LondonSEO - April 2008

(images courtesy of Streetmap and Beer In The Evening)

We got two fantastic sponsors for the party, RedFly Marketing and Altogether Digital.

Myself and Evilgreendonkey were out scouting for a venue last week and have decided on the Camden Head in Islington, it is located just 2 min walk from the Business Design Centre where SES is being held. The pub was used for a previous LondonSEO party 2 years ago for anyone that remembers that far back =) Wayyyy before my time, I was wearing SEO nappies back then!

So put this in your diaries:

Date: Thursday 21st Feb 2008

Time: 17:00 - until late

Venue: Camden Head, Islington

Nearest station: Angel

I have also opened a Facebook Group for the party, please feel free to join.

Oh and I would appreciate RSVPs either through comments or the Facebook group, now lets show the Americans and Europeans how the LondonSEO crowd party =)

For the regulars, will be nice to see you all again, for those of you that haven’t been to a LondonSEO party before, you won’t regret it =)

Chris Sherman has been organising a fantastic line-up of speakers and topics for the inaugural event, including 2 SEO Blokes and an SEO Chick taking the podium. Make sure that you get your conference passes now, before they’re sold out! LondonSEO Members get a 10% discount by using the coupon code “LONDONSEO” during registration.

So where is the venue of this auspicious event? We’ve selected The Harcourt Arms, less than 5 minutes walk from the conference location. The fact that the pub is Swedish themed is in no way me trying to get back at Lisa :cough:

So you have no excuses for not attending, here’s everything you need…

Date: Friday 16th November 2007 from 6pm onwards.

Venue: The Harcourt Arms, 32 Harcourt Street, London, W1H 4HX [Ask.com Map] [Streetmap].

Nearest Stations: Marylebone (Bakerloo), Edgware Road (District, Circle, H&C, Bakerloo) and Baker Street (Jubilee, Bakerloo, Metropolitan, Circle and H&C) [Tube Map].

We’ve got a private room booked upstairs with a private bar, plus we can spill out into the rest of the bar if needs be. For those of you who enjoy inhaling poisonous gasses, a rainy beer garden is available for you to kill yourself in (Yanks - we’ve banned smoking in enclosed public spaces now).

We will be announcing an event sponsor shortly for the beer buying, ensuring that your business networking time is suitably lubricated.

A4U has announced their own party tonight which is in the same venue we were planning to use, so we couldn’t hold ours. I think you need a conference pass to get into the A4U one.

We could maybe meet up somewhere else tonight? I’ve got one hell of a hangover right now though, so not feeling top notch.

Rob (evilgreenmonkey) and Lisa Ditlefsen (SEO-Chicks.com) have decided to take the plunge at this December’s WmW PubCon in Las Vegas.

The only potential hold up could be: that for it to go ahead, Rob needs to be ranking top ten on Google for ‘weddings’ by then.

So they thought that this little clause would save them, but alas no, I have taken it on myself to spam the SEOsphere getting people to link to Rob’s site with the anchor text of weddings.

So, to qualify for free drinks at the next LondonSEO party (SES@A4U - 25th October) you need to drop the link and help spread the word: digg it & sphinn it

But on a serious note, we’ll also be at Lisa’s piss-up tomorrow in The Crown & Sceptre from 6:30 onwards. I hope she’s not trying to compete with LondonSEO! Anyway, I look forward to seeing you all there, we’ll probably be down there early.

More information on the next official LondonSEO event at SES@a4u coming soon.

Although a venue and sponsor have yet to be found, please mark Thursday 25th October down in your diaries for our meet-up and remember to get your conference pass to the event at the SES@A4U website.

More information coming soon

For those of you who prefer trains of the underground variety, our usual London based events will be along again soon. One future event will be the Big Party for SMX London which we’ve pencilled in for 16th November near Euston, so get it in your diaries now! We’ll also try and squeeze one in for the end of September hopefully, which we may already have a sponsor for.

If your hunger for beer and SEO cannot hold out that long though, there’s an event similar to LondonSEO taking place in Manchester (near Scandinavia) on 14th-15th September. More information on this event can be found on the Search Engine Serious Blog.

And lastly, as our fellow LondonSEOer Str0ud could not be with us in Brighton; he wrote, sang, animated and directed a very cool video for us (well, sent me the link to it anyway).

I know that Italy shares a border with France - but on the positive side, they did bring us Pizza and the “dive and cry” technique in football. They’re also going to be the host venue of our next LondonSEO event; although as Ekky can’t get through Airport Security without an in-depth cavity search these days, we’re heading for an Italian bar on the beach in Brighton.

Dan Caplin has kindly organised the venue and has spoken with our latest event sponsor - the Brighton Search Marketing Agency Propellernet. The event will take place on Friday 3rd August from 8pm, although I’ll probably try to get down there for 6:30 for a spot of dinner. We organised this one for Friday so that those of us working in London, don’t have to worry about traveling back to work the next day. There are plenty of hotels in the local area, so get yourself booked in if you’re up for an all-nighter (I’ll most likely stay at the Holiday Inn).

Venue Details:

Date: Friday 3rd August 2007
Time: 8pm onwards
Location: Alfresco, Kings Road Arches, Brighton, BN1 2LN [Google Map] [Streetmap]
Nearest Station: Brighton Station [Google Map Directions]

There are currently 32 direct train services every weekday from Brighton station to London Victoria, of which 26 are express services with an average 50 minute journey time. There are up to a further 60 direct services every weekday from Brighton to Bedford via London Bridge, Blackfriars, City Thameslink, Farringdon and King’s Cross Thameslink run by First Capital Connect.

I know it looks a bit artsy fartsy, but I’ll probably bring down the tone quite a bit anyway.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

To limit workday hangover syndrome, it has been suggested that we hold the event on a Friday - so those who want to stay up all night and drink can do. The train service back to London is also pretty good judging from the last time I used it.

The only points remaining are - a) Can we find a sponsor in Brighton and b) is everyone up for a bit of a school trip?

A number of people were getting increasingly jealous of the limited edition LondonSEO.org T-Shirts which Ekky and I were wearing. So, by popular demand, I’m please to announce the SEO clothing range by LondonSEO.org (summer collection). Each T-Shirt donates 1 pint to the beer fund

Did anyone read what was on the beer cards by the way or discuss the questions posed on them?

Post your thoughts below if you did

Getting there from Chancery Lane (Central Line) is extremely easy - simply take the left exit out of the station so that Thorntons is on your right as you get to the top of the stairs. Then just keep walking for a minute and the pub will be on your right. The pub has 2 large oak door entrances - take the first entrance (on the right) and then take the second door on the left down to the basement bar. We’ll try to put some signs up, although it’s quite easy to find once you’re there.

As it’s a Sam Smiths pub, all drinks will be own-brand. I’d recommend Alpine for lager drinkers and Old Brewery for bitter lovers. Apparently the stout and cider are rather good there as well. If you must, they also sell white wine or a fruit based drink for the ladies

Free drinks will be available by showing the bar staff a special LondonSEO card which you can obtain from Mike, Ekky or myself (just ask someone to point us out if you’re new). There’s a £400 minimum spend to hire the bar and a pint costs as little as £1.50, so feel free to drink as much as you want (unless you’re a violent drunk or puke after 3 pints).

We’re still accepting donations (haven’t hit £400 yet), so please visit the Donations Page - even if you can only give a fiver or a tenner towards your drinks.

And in case you don’t get my humour by now:
1. I’ve never met Brett, but he’s a friend of some friends and that makes him alright in my book.
2. I’ve got nothing against Northerners, I even let my sister marry one.
3. I didn’t make the white wine rule, that’s down to the Guv.

See you all on Tuesday,

Your friendly neighbourhood evilgreenmonkey.

The purpose of the kitty is that you can donate whatever you want, I’ve stuck in 15 quid, and a tenner donation from you would easily ensure that we all have a good time. Here’s the page you need to go to >> Donations Page

A bunch of us went down the Cittie of Yorke yesterday for lunch and the food was top notch. Maybe a future venue for an all day get-together with a Steak and Kidney Pudding for lunch?

For anyone who hasn’t been to one of the old London Pubcon’s™, the CofY is a fantastic tudor-looking building and is part of the mighty Sam Smith’s brewery. After explaining who we were and what SEO is, the landlady generously offered private use of the downstairs dungeon bar for our exclusive use because - “the last thing I want is a load of UNIX shirt wearing pony-tailed geeks scaring off all the regulars”. Ooops, I haven’t even said when it’s going to be yet - it’s now fixed at Tuesday 29th May, so that Dixon doesn’t get told off by his wife. It happens to also be the birthday of one of LondonSEO’s founding fathers, Tim Webb (second on the left), the Java programmer who pretends he’s not an SEO.

Although we usually ask for sponsors, we’re going to try something a little different this time. Below is a donations button, you can donate what ever amount you like and it all goes into the kitty. We then put the kitty behind the bar and if there’s any money left over we keep it for the next event. There’s now a Donations Page which gives thanks to people who contribute at each event. Please include your name and website when donating, or ask to be listed as Anonymous on the PayPal payment page.

Now, we don’t like to set an agenda for these meets as we end up talking about religion and politics after 4 pints anyway; but we would like to plant something into your head (next to your Google implant). If LondonSEO was to be expanded into a UK association for our industry - what would you like from it and how would you run it? We’re not planning on making a UK-SMA clone - more of an inclusive group for in-house, freelancers, affiliates and agencies alike. There will be no charters or boards; we may organise 1 day events though and make membership a sign of reputation and integrity (or just reputation for the Black Hats ). I know this all sounds a bit generic, but we don’t want to form anything without putting everyone’s suggestions and ideas together. By the people, for the people, as someone I don’t know said. Have a think about it, make sure you attend this event and then shout abuse at us.

Anyways, here’s the science bit…

Date: Tuesday 29th May 2007 from 6pm onwards.
Venue: Cittie of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6BN [Google Maps] [Streetmap].
Nearest Station: Chancery Lane (Central Line).

(images courtesy of Streetmap and Beer In The Evening)

I’d be interested in knowing peoples preferences with these 2 pubs:
Princess Louise - Sam Smiths pub, so more beer for your buck.
The Anchor - Tables outside by the river, although rain may be an issue.

I also had a couple of people at our last event say that they were interested in sponsoring a future event. Unfortunately I was a little drunk at the time and don’t recall who it was, so please email me if you were one of them or know someone who’s interested.

Dixon from the Internet Marketing company Receptional and James Avery from Flight Mapping paid for many of the drinks, so please remember them when blogging about the event

I was too busy trying to recover from the Tequila and Sambuca shots that Ekky, Lisa and I were drinking - so I only managed to take one photo of Dixon in a black hat…

No caption needed really

Congrats to Jen and Dave for their very successful SEO conference, and hopefully I’ll have some details up soon for the next LondonSEO meet-up scheduled for sometime in May.

Flightmapping.com offers a unique way to find uk flights operating out of your preferred local airport. Discover which airlines fly from each airport and then locate the cheapest tickets available.

We’re still going ahead with the planned meet-up, we’ll all just have to spend some our hard earned AdSense and CJ cheques. Someone may still jump in and save the day at the last minute, so stop being such a cheapskate and join us tomorrow at Mable’s Tavern (directions given in the post below). People with expense accounts are especially welcome

Location, Location, Location

Address: 9 Mabeldon Place, Euston, London, WC1H 9AZ.

Tube Stations: Euston (Northern, Victoria, National Rail), Euston Square (Metropolitan, Circle, Hammersmith & City) and Kings Cross (everything, but a 5-10 minute walk).

From Hilton Hotel Euston: Turn right out of the Hilton along Upper Woburn Place and take the first left (a pedestrian footpath) down Woburn Walk. At the junction carry straight on down Flaxman Tur and you will see Mable’s Tavern at the end of the road on your right. [Google Map].

From Euston Station: Exit the front of the station and turn left until you hit Eversholt Street (runs alongside the station). Turn right and walk up to the busy junction of Euston Road. Cross the road at the lights (be careful, we almost got run over) and turn left so that you’re walking alongside Euston Road. The second turning on your right should be Mabledon Place - as you walk down this street Mable’s Tavern will be straight ahead of you. [Google Map].

Look forward to seeing you all there!

I was thinking that we’d kick off the party at 6ish for non-SDs and the SDs can join us as soon as they finish their final session.

The venue is still to be confirmed, although will be in the Euston/Kings Cross area. All SEMs are welcome as long as they don’t wear a Dave Pasternack T-Shirt or act like a wanker.

Help Wanted:
If you know of anyone who’d be interested in sponsoring the LondonSEO bar tab, please let us know. It usually works out as £15 a head, which is extremely cheap for any company looking to make contacts in the industry (Recruiters, SEM Agencies, Affiliate Networks etc). I wonder if we can get every online poker site to sponsor a LondonSEO event?

Official SEO Days Photograph :