Just a last-minute reminder about Tuesday's RMIUG meeting on search
engines, which promises to be a very interesting evening. Note that
we've added Eric Kallgren to the panel, from Mondo Code to discuss
designing web systems from the ground up to optimize search engine
results. Hope to see you there! Regards,

Dan Murray
dan@...

******

The Tuesday, November 12th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet
Users Group (RMIUG) will feature a panel discussion called "Search
Engine Optimization Demystified -- the Google Dance, PageRank,
Pay-Per-Click, Spiders & other strange critters." Every day,
150 million searches are done on Google. How many of those find
your website, products and services? In addition, an NPD Group
study found that 55 percent of online purchases were made on sites
found through search listings, while a mere 9 percent were on sites
found through banner ads.

- What are the most important factors when optimizing a web page
for search engine traffic? (If you do nothing else, what's
the Number One thing you should do?)
- How many pages on the web are currently linking to your site
and how does that affect your search engine ranking?
- What is pay-per-click marketing and how effective is it?
- What keywords and keyphrases are people using to search for your
products and services? (BTW, how many people search for the
phrase "widget xyz" each day on the Net and how do I find that
out?)
- What are the (almost) undisputed #1 and #2 players in the world
of search engines that you can't afford to ignore, and why have
most web surfers never heard of #2?

Find out the intriguing answers to these questions and many more as
our expert panelists discuss how search engine marketing works and
what you need to be successful in getting web traffic from the
engines. As always, plenty of time will be given for interactive
Q&A, so bring lots of questions.

Bob Bandy (bbandy@...), Partner of Actis eMarketing,
will be giving us an overview of search engine optimization and
discussing what factors affect how your site is ranked in the
engines. He will be covering which search engines and directories
are most important, how they work, and giving some recommendations
on the "do's and don'ts" of search engine marketing. Bob has more
than fifteen years of experience in technical sales and marketing,
and is a past Board Member of the Colorado E-Commerce Roundtable
(COECRT). Actis eMarketing provides marketing strategy, website
development and redesign, search engine optimization, pay-per-click
ad campaigns, targeted email and newsletter ad campaigns, affiliate
and link programs, and in-house e-newsletter programs.

Les Reaves (LesR@...), President of Pyramid Media, will be
speaking on pay-per-click (PPC) search engine marketing and how
it integrates into an overall search engine optimization effort.
He will cover which search engines are important PPC players,
how they work and give us an in-depth look at this interesting
aspect of search engines. We'll find out why some companies are
spending $100,000 and more per month on PPC marketing, and what
those of us with more modest budgets can hope to accomplish. Les
has been working with PPC marketing since it's inception and his
company, based in Vail, offers consulting and services in online
marketing including an automated bidding service for Overture PPC
and revenue tracking for each individual keyword.

Eric Kallgren (eric@...), President of Mondo Code, will
talk about designing web systems from the ground up to optimize
search engine results and drive traffic. He will discuss a range
of techniques that produce high search engine rankings by working
in concert with search services rather than resorting to spam or
the expense of pay-to-play programs. We will learn how web sites
can become an integral part of the web and gain increasing exposure
and leverage without advertising expense. Eric is a web site
producer and programmer with many years of experience building and
operating high traffic web sites including GoSki.com and
MondoTimes.com. Mondo Times, the worldwide media guide, reaches
over 250,000 users each month with more than a third of site
traffic coming from search engine referrals.


URL's of interest:
-------------------
Actis eMarketing, http://www.actis-emarketing.com
Resort Technology Partners, http://www.rtp.com
Mondo Code, http://www.mondocode.com
Mondo Times, http://www.MondoTimes.com
Search Engine Watch, http://www.searchenginewatch.com
High Rankings Advisor Search Engine Marketing Newsletter,
http://www.highrankings.com


The meeting is Tuesday, November 12th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with
optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking).
The meeting will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric
Research (NCAR) at 1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to
NCAR from the Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take
Table Mesa Drive west towards the mountains for approximately 2.5
miles into the foothills. NCAR is at the top of the hill. For
door-to-door driving directions, go to MapQuest
(http://www.mapquest.com/ ), click on Driving Directions, enter
your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila! Park in the NCAR
lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point you to meeting,
which is held in the main auditorium, right off the lobby. The
meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the hat to
help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating
is always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of
more attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional
people into the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our two sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and
Technical Talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing
Communications
and Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and
beverages for RMIUG meetings.

ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software
company that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors
the RMIUG meeting minutes.


Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our
web site is at http://www.rmiug.org/

Tentative schedule of upcoming RMIUG meetings:
-------------------------------------------
Jan 2003 - "Starting an Internet/Software Company Today"
Mar 2003 - "Domain Update - Legal Issues & Technical Changes"
May 2003 - "Nonprofits on the Net - A Web of Activism"
July 2003 - "E-Learning: Did the Hype Ever Pan Out?"
Sep 2003 - "Instant Messaging vs. Email vs. Web"
Nov 2003 - "Web Technology - What the Present and Future Holds"

(To suggest a topic, send your idea to rmiug-comm@...)