SunCity SEOcon was traditionally an underground gathering of Phoenix based SEO experts. The first SunCity SEOcon was just a little networking BBQ / pool party in the heat of the summer at WaterWorld thrown by Chris Hooley (me) and Joshua Strebel of Obuweb. The cost of attendance was the price of admission, a side dish or some food to share, and a 6 pack. The attendees had a blast and learned so much, we decided to make an annual event out of it.

Last year, the event got a little out of hand. Word had quickly traveled around the Valley of the Sun, as local marketers wanted to rub elbows and pick our brains. The turn out was much bigger than we had anticipated. I spent more time speaking about tips / tactics than socializing so it almsot felt like more work than play. And that might have been good for the audience, but when I go to a conference the networking and fun is just as important as the rest of it.

This year, we wanted to make sure the balance was just right so that we could grow the event and all of us could learn and enjoy the fun in the sun. So we brought a few new organizers on board, found a better albeit atypical conference location (it wasn’t easy to find a spot where the speakers could be heard from the pool), and we created an actual conference out of it. You know, the kind you can legitimately get your company to pay for because you learn a lot that can be applied to improving your site rankings and web marketing campaigns, but you still get to have a blast.

This is our first time opening our inner circle to the outside world. We plan on holding nothing back. You want to know how we got our sites to rank, this is the place to come and find out the *exact* methods we used, and what we plan on doing next. SunCity SEOcon is the only place to find this kind of “hot” information.