Wi15 to Feature Live Marketing Meetup Focused on SEO

Booksellers are invited to attend the American Booksellers Association’s live Marketing Meetup during the 15th annual Winter Institute, where attendees will hear from Jordan Brannon, president and COO of Coalition Technologies, about the value of search engine optimization (SEO) to independent bookstores.

Brannon’s presentation will focus on effective SEO strategies and best practices for booksellers that are easy to implement and can have near-term impact. The head of the SEO and web design agency told Bookselling This Week that SEO is the practice of optimizing web property — which can refer to a website, a news article, or a blog, among other things — to rank highly in specific search engines. Essentially, he said, SEO governs how customers find and choose what businesses to give their money to.

“When someone searches for a term that expresses a commercial opportunity, your business should show up,” he said. “An example of that might be someone looking or a bookstore in Portland, Oregon. We would want our client business to be the one that shows up first to all of the relevant search engines for that sort of search.”

Said Brannon, “The goal of the meetup at Winter Institute will be to actually help booksellers drive business to their stores, whether online or in-person.”

The 15th annual Winter Institute will be held January 21–24, 2020, at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor, located at 401 West Pratt St. in Baltimore, Maryland. The live Marketing Meetup will be held on Friday, January 24, in the Ruth Room on the first floor of the Hilton.

This year’s Winter Institute is sponsored by Ingram Content Group and publishers large and small. Questions about Wi15 can be sent to [email protected].