I honestly believe, that by sharing their knowledge, most SEOs stand to gain more than they stand to lose. Until recently I was also more than a little jealous of the buzzing social scene across the London agencies.

That’s why a few of us got together in May and created the Manchester SEO Meetup, and its supporting Manchester SEO Linkedin Group.

So what is Manchester SEO Meet-up?

David Towers put it quite nicely back at the first curry and beer meetup in June:

It will all be informal, no presentations, no pitches – just a chance to meet up and talk SEO!

There were about 8 of us back then, and it’s since grown to over 25 – Turns out there are a lot more SEOs in Manchester than I thought – we had a bar full of onpagers, copywriters, linkbuilders, techs, account managers, blackhats, heads of departments and more.

Manchester SEO Meetup has no hard and fast agenda – people meet to share SEO tests and methods, find people to collaborate on projects, look for job opportunities, and just chill with like-minded agency and in-house SEOs.

Last night I had some great conversations about everything from Google Base, drop-shipping, SEO ‘celebrities’, golf, Google Wave, American bands, and both extreme demographics of the travel sector. I also drank lots of continental beer from a glass with a stem, which confused my northern mind no end.

Find out more about SEO Manchester Meetup

So if you’re an SEO in Manchester, or just interested in search in general, sign up to the Manchester SEO Linkedin Group and look out for the #mancseo hashtag on twitter to keep posted on when the next meetup will be.

Oh yeah, regrettably recruitment agencies are not welcome – there’s plenty of other events guys, but please respect that this one is just for us SEOs to chill without hearing about your latest commission-driven “fantastic opportunity in a leading North-West agency”.