We’re all busy people. We all have too many meetings; emails; phone calls; things to do; commitments and not enough time.
Plus, “networking” – even the mere mention of it brings some people out in a cold sweat.
I want to tackle this head-on. The Optimisey events are on Thursday evenings, every other month, so you need to muster your spirits to attend, after a full day at work.
Should I bother attending?
I’ve run three events so far with well over 100 people attending in total. Lots of them have been kind enough complete the brief feedback forms I send around after each event.
I’m going to share their feedback to help you make an informed decision on if your Thursday evening is worth giving up.
I appreciate all the caveats around surveys and audiences being self-selecting etc. but the sample is pleasingly representative (around 40% of total attendees completed a survey; from a good mix of genders, SEO experience etc.) so I’m pretty confident in this data.
Key question. It’s all about the content, right?
How good are the speakers at Optimisey?
Answer: Pretty good!
I’ve been lucky that some great speakers have come to talk at the events (you can see a full list of previous Optimisey event speakers) and they’ve gone down very well.
[tweetshare tweet=”75% of #Optimisey event attendees rate the speakers as either ‘Very good’ or ‘Excellent'” username=”Optimisey”]
Comments here include things like:
Charming, brutal, funny – just enjoyable. Plus clearly a polished act. It’s always nice watching people who are good at what they do.
speaking about Craig Campbell’s talk on Black Hat SEO; and
Clear and easy to understand, pitched at a good level without being too simplistic or too complex.
about Andrew Martin’s talk on SEO: 7 First Steps.
Which leads me neatly to the next question as some people are worried that the SEO sages on stage will be too clever for them to understand:
How easy/difficult WAs IT to understand the speakers?
I asked people to rate the speakers on this from 0 (I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about) to 10 (I completely understood and followed every word they said):
A pleasingly large score of 8.5 the result. Although the speakers are experts, I work with them to ensure that they don’t get too deeply theoretical and leave everyone floundering as to what they’re on about.
Speaking of which, my aim with the Optimisey events is real-world, actionable advice. Stuff you can try yourself and have an impact on your website’s traffic. So I asked:
How likely are you to put something you’ve learned at optimisey into action
I’ve used colours here to help you see: Reds = not so/somewhat likely. Blues = very/extremely likely:
[tweetshare tweet=”Over 68% of attendees said they were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ likely to act on something they’d learned by attending #Optimisey SEO events.” username=”Optimisey”]
Considering some of the attendees are fairly high-level SEO’ers themselves (so have probably got much of the actionable tips in place already – or at least don’t want to admit they haven’t!) I’m very happy with that.
Other caveats included respondents saying they weren’t able to implement things themselves or they wanted to learn more about something before actioning it – but lots of people had their eyes opened to useful, do-able stuff.
Summed up by comments like this:
I learnt a few quick wins that I’d feel confident implementing but other points I’d prefer a professional help me tackle.
Lastly, a big question for me, as the event organiser:
Would you attend Optimisey again?
Again – Reds = broadly negative/unsure; Blues = positives.
Pretty overwhelmingly blue!
[tweetshare tweet=”More than 90% of #Optimisey event attendees said they were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ likely to attend again in future.” username=”Optimisey”]
There were a few “somewhat likely”-s but not a single “not at all likely”, which kinda made my day.
Highlights here include:
Well organised event and I like coming away having learnt something….or more than one thing!
and
It was really helpful and I got to meet a great bunch of people. Thanks!
Which covers something I’ve not even covered above: you. And people like you.
The Optimisey events are about networking too. A chance to meet people fighting the same battles you’re fighting; trying to spin the same number of plates. And they’re all lovely.
There’s only one thing left to say after all that. If you think that all sounds good, come to one of the next events:
