I’ve decided to head back to Mozcon for the second year running.

I try to head to the USA for one conference a year to keep up with the latest developments in the industry. I realise there are Australian conferences too, but you just can’t get the same value and learnings in terms of quality of speakers and the networking opportunities.

I have previously been to Pubcon, Las Vegas for around 4 years running, and really enjoyed all aspects of it, but last year decided to make a change and ‘upgrade’ to Mozcon – and wwas not disappointed!

There are so many reasons I cant recommend Mozcon highly enough and I’ll try and reel off a few:

Speakers

Mozcon is a little unique where speakers don’t apply, you have to be asked. The speakers at this event are hand picked for the value they can provide to the entire SEO community, so you never have any fear you will end up listening to a sales pitch.

Some of the speakers I’m looking forward to:

• Rand and Wil (Obviously!)
• Oli Gardner – Unbounce
• Daniel Russell – His talk “What We Learned From Reddit & How It Can Help Your Brand Take Content Marketing to the Next Level” has me listening already

Honestly, I just picked out a couple, but last year I don’t think I even had one session I tuned out on last year – the content is that great.

Networking

I am not super big into networking as a general rule. When we head to a USA based conference, networking is great to meet new people, but its rare for anything to turn into real business opportunities (Which is totally fine!)

Mozcon does a great job of having fun networking events, that are so well organised its unheard of at a convention.

Last year we had:

• Pubcrawl
• Ted Talk style event with food and drinks
• Big end of conference celebration with drinks and bowling to finish off

To illustrate just how well they were put together, and it may seem like a tiny detail. but they had even organised different beer coasters at every location for each night of the conference. How is that for ATD!

Travel

One of the best things about attending a conference in an overseas country is the ability to combine my two favourite things – work and travel. Last year I was lucky enough to visit Portland on route to Mozcon. In addition Seattle was a city I had always wanted to visit, and one it turns out I loved. The opportunity to see places like this is something I am very lucky to experience.

This year, I am adding some family travel to the end of the conference and will be joined by my wife and daughter for a few weeks in New York and LA. What could be better!

Followup actions

Every conference we attend we come back with a huge list of things we want to start doing. Like everyone though, we NEVER do them all. What’s important though is we come back to a few very actionable things we can immediately change in our business, and without fail I can say that happens every time. While it may not always be something specific that is said at the conference, being out of our own office environment gives us time to sit back and think which always leads to productive ideas.

Will I see you there?