BotifyCONNECT 2018: Global Botify Community Tackles Structured Data & the Mobile-First Index

23rd March 2018Kevin Bartley

At the first BotifyCONNECT of 2018, Botifyers from all walks of SEO - from e-commerce, to publishing, to travel, and beyond - came together as a diverse community to tackle the challenges posed by structured data and the mobile-first index.The latest BotifyCONNECT offered our rapidly growing global community a chance to converse with fellow enterprise SEOs, pose questions, and share insights about the biggest topics in search optimization today.This BotifyCONNECT was held simultaneously at all three of our international offices - Paris, New York City, and London. Combined, this BotifyCONNECT claimed over 200 registrants, a big jump since we started this group get together a few years ago.Here's a recap of the best moments from all three events!

Breakfast with a Spot of SEO in London: Understand When & How Your Site Enters the Mobile-First Index

The latest BotifyCONNECT kicked off at our Southbank offices in London with a morning of free breakfast and cutting SEO insights. In addition to the main speakers, the event offered coffee, croissants, and friendly chit chat among some of the most prominent SEO professionals in the industry.The speakers included:

• Brett Saltalamacchia, a Technical SEO Analyst from LoveHoney, illustrated many of the challenges his company faces with product cannibalisation and wasted crawl budget, along with how his company is preparing for the mobile-first index.
• The Head of SEO at trainline.com showed how to build Custom Reports in Botify to spot SEO trends and track strategic progress of campaigns, along with how to manage key campaign stakeholders and demonstrate value to colleagues who aren't SEO savvy.
• Mark Thomas, Botify VP of Customer Success, demonstrated how to use SEO log file analysis to track the crawl on your website, by device, to understand exactly when the your site has moved over to the mobile-first index.#The event was a great way to kick off the day, bright and early!

Wining & Dining at BotifyCONNECT Paris: CTR Improves After Structured Data by +20%

Next up, our headquarters in Paris hosted some of France's brightest search marketers for an evening of food, drinks, and SEO in a standing room only event. We were very fortunate to have an esteemed panel, who discussed topics ranging from structured data, to the mobile-first index, to website structure.Speakers included:

• The SEO Manager for LaFourchette discussed the benefits of structured data, in terms of results presentation, from first hand experience: "CTR increases by at least 20%."
• The SEO BU Manager with iProspect reduced the necessity of structured data for sites that have not embraced schema into a single statement: "You must use structured data because the competition does."
• The Traffic Growth Director at Prisma Media spoke about the supremacy of website structure in SEO: "The key to successful SEO remains desktop optimization and optimal content structure."
• The Search Director for SoLocal Group talked about his experience with specific kinds of schema: "I'm not sure Google takes the addresses into account, and the item list information in our result pages is completely ignored"#Looks like our BotifyCONNECT community is still running strong in Paris!

All-Star Panel in NYC: Can I Wait on AMP Pages? Panel Member Says SEO is Not for "Late Adopters".

While Botifyers in Paris and London were fast asleep, we closed out our day of global BotifyCONNECT events with an all-star panel in our New York City office. The event was a very forward looking discussion on the SEO challenges enterprise SEOs face both today and just on the horizon.The speakers included:

• Lily Ray, Director, SEO at Path Interactive, talked about why diligent SEOs shouldn't freak out about the mobile-first index. Google's been pushing mobile friendliness and page speed for years. SEOs who have been engaged with industry trends shouldn't lose sleep at night.
• John Shehata, VP Search, Social, & Email Strategy for Conde Nast, summed up the case for investing in not only AMP, but any new technology or technique endorsed by Google: "SEO is not for late adopters. If you aren't an early adopter and at the forefront of testing new technologies, you'll miss your moment."
• Mike King, Managing Director at iPullRank, talked about the advantages of structured data in terms of the crawl. Schema can help Google speed up its processing of information, and allow more crawl resources for your site. Mike said structured data is one of a handful of things that today's SEO must do well.#Some great conversations - our NYC BotifyCONNECT was an awesome way to cap off the night!

Get Ready for the Next BotifyCONNECT in June 2018

The audience for our most recent BotifyCONNECT was global, and the ideas were, too. Thanks to all the customers, team members, and enthusiasts who made this meeting of the minds possible! We couldn't have done it without you.The latest BotifyCONNECT represented a broad cross section of our rapidly growing community. The event saw some of world's best enterprise SEOs, teaming up to tackle the top issues and opportunities in search optimization today. And now we can't wait to do it all over again.Our next BotifyCONNECT is slated for June 2018. Stay tuned for more details! In the meantime, drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter if have any ideas for upcoming BotifyCONNECT presentations.