SEO Community Spotlight: Raleigh

Raleigh, North Carolina, is where I’ve called home for more than a decade. It’s a community that I know and love, so I’m featuring it first. It also has one of the largest and oldest SEO communities in theworld.

But why Raleigh? And what makes it special? Let’s findout!

A lot of the SEO history in Raleigh goes back to a single company: Websourced. I’m told that, at one point, this was one of the largest digital marketing companies in theworld.

That was 20+ years ago and before my time. But I do know that many talented SEOs worked there like Jenny Halasz, Andy Beal, Garrett French, Bob Misita, and manymore.

We play the six degrees of separation game with Jenny. The idea is that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. It’s amazing how many people she has trained have, in turn, trained others in the field—and not just in Raleigh.

Ashley Berman Hale also deserves a huge shout-out for starting one of the earliest communities, the Raleigh SEO Meetup. Founded in 2008, she ran it until 2011 when she moved and turned it over to Phil Buckley. Phil ran the monthly events until 2014 when Frank Jones took over. Frank brought me in (Patrick Stox) and, later, JR Oakes to help run...