Back when I started out in SEO there were a number of blogs that I read and could only imagine being a part of, but this is one of the earliest blogs that I really wanted to be a part of. I was finding blogs by following SEO people on Twitter and reading the articles they posted. This introduced me to a range of sites, but as important as the sites were the people I was following.

Back then, as a junior SEO I was inspired by people like the SEO Chicks and everyone who was vocal in the SEO industry, whether they were blogging, tweeting or speaking at events. I wondered how I could become a part of this great community, I had no idea how they all seemed to know each other and why they were all so friendly!

My route to being a part of the SEO community involved tweeting with a few people, then getting the courage to go to the first BrightonSEO (Jaamit was such a nice bloke it didn’t take much persuading to travel down from Southampton for the evening to talk to SEOs outside of Twitter, especially as I knew there were other seo-event-noobs like ismepete going!). The main way to becoming a part of a community is to get involved, writing for a company blog and attending more events helped a lot, but it only helps when you actually talk to people!

I quickly learnt to just go and say ‘Hi’ to people, whether I thought I knew them or not, it sometimes takes courage, or a few drinks, but is always worth it. Everyone is happy to talk, which surprised me a lot to start with. I used to come back from events and tell people “I spent an hour talking to so-and-so!” as if I’d been talking to someone remotely famous. It meant a lot to me that people had the time for me and it’s something that helped me grow in confidence and move forwards with my job and activity within the industry.

I also found that having something to talk about helps. I have found my niche in website analytics and through having an area in which you are more specialist helps to give you something different to people who only focus on SEO as a whole. Friends of mine focus on specific things within SEO such as link building, content marketing or local SEO which helps give them a focus.

By having a specialist area and the guts to get out there I have been able to grow my knowledge, write useful  blog posts, film detailed how to videos and also speak at conferences – everything I wished I would be able to do when I started learning about the SEO industry! I’ve also met lots of brilliant people who have inspired me, taught me, kept me sane and become good friends over the years. And even though the industry has it’s ups and downs with Google throwing updates at us regularly, it’s good to know that there are people there for you who are going through the same things, albeit at a different company, and there are always people willing to help and teach others, whether by email, over Twitter, by speaking at conferences or by chatting at the bar!

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself chatting on Twitter and talking to people at events! You never know what you can achieve until you try.

Here are my highlights:

The People

Meeting the other speakers and people I’ve been talking to on twitter or seen speak in the past was great. It was also good to meet new people I hadn’t come cross before. Thank you to everyone who came and said hi, or who gave me their time when I came to talk to them.

I completely agreed with Dom when he described thinkvis as a big family reunion.

The Presentations

Listening to like minded people talking about what the love and how they go about things was inspiring.

I enjoyed learning ecommerce SEO tips from Barry Adams that I can apply to my clients’ sites.

Jon Quinton‘s talk about using google docs and excel to scrape information to speed up link prospecting was right up my street and I can’t wait to do the same. Check out his Link Building Lessons from Swiss Toni slides for details.

Dan Harrison took us through 25 very useful WordPress tips and even supplied an ebook of 25 WordPress tips that will all be very useful.

Pierre Far from Google explained how sites are indexed and answered some handy points on indexing, all without mentioning the search algorithm as anything other than magic!He followed up his slides with extra information here.

I wish I could have attended Malcom, Carla, Dan and James’ talks too as there was a lot of buzz about all of them, but being in two places at once just doesn’t work!

As well as watching these great people talk, I also had my first proper speaking slot which I really enjoyed. My talk was about Google Analytics and advanced things you can do with it, the slides and write up can be found here.

The Parties

Who knew that a bouncy castle full of balls would be such a hit? A fantastic decision by Dom meant lots of us enjoyed relaxing here, although it was risky at times, I managed to get squashed a few times!

The free bars were also great, thanks to Web Hosted Buzz and Ember Ads for providing these.

The Post Event Go Karting

As a fan of go karting Dixon Jones of Majestic SEO decided to sponsor this event, thank you! 16 of us went along with varying states of hangover and after a few laps I found myself getting in to the swing of it and becoming quite competitive. It was only my second time karting but I managed to come 7th and get the 5th fastest lap time.

Overall, I highly recommend thinkvis to anyone in SEO or a similar field, it’s a great source of inspiration and a place to meet new and old friends for the first time.

Thanks Dom!

Photo Credits:

New friends by martin88

Anna Lewis by Jackie Hole

Chilling in the ball pool by Martin

Dom in a ball pool by Steven Lilley

Go Karting by Martin

For lots of great photos see Steven and Martin‘s albums.

Last year I gave a 10 minute presentation on Multi Channel Funnels in Google Analytics and also provided lunch time entertainment by smashing a pinata to pieces.

In March I will be talking about web analytics some more, covering topics such as multi touch attribution, using APIs and handy tips, tricks and tools.

I hope to catch up with people I’ve met before and meet lots of new faces, so if you’re going to be there please come and say hi!

This post was written by Anna Lewis+