About a year ago, we started talking about how we wanted to find a way to meet more people from the community in person. Sure we all get to know each other online through the blog, on Twitter or maybe in Q&A, but it's nothing like getting to meet people face-to-face. There becomes a bond or friendship once you actually know each other that helps to build a community.

The idea we came up with was MozCation. We asked our community to create some sort of unique content and tell us why we should have an SEOmoz Meetup (aka MozCation) in their city. The plan was to pick one city based on the uniqueness of the submission, number of people involved (tweeting, promoting, commenting, etc.) and the actual location. Well we were in for quite the treat after we introduced the idea of MozCation, and people all over the world began nominating their cities.

As many of you know, we had a really tough time choosing just one... and chose four instead. :) But this meant organizing four events including venue, speakers, food, drinks, and about a million other tasks that goes along with a meetup like this. What we weren't quite prepared for was that three out of the four cities were international, which meant we also had to figure out shipping and visas and all that fun stuff.

We've just wrapped up our last one and I wanted to give a quick overview of each and link to each of the speaker presentations. We had an amazing lineup of speakers from Salt Lake City to Barcelona and we'd love to share that knowledge with all of you. Take a peak below at the awesomeness that was MozCation 2011.

Salt Lake City - June 29, 2011

Our first stop on the MozCation tour was Salt Lake City, Utah. We also only had about 3 weeks to get everything organized as we had already set the date. Yikes! Thanks to Elisabeth Osmeloski we found a great venue and were able to get it all done in the nick of time. Being our first one, we also learned quite a few valuable lessons that we changed for the next events. We were amazed by the turnout and it was a seriously packed house. The energy in the room was full of excitement and the speakers really brought their A-game.

At each event we had food, drinks and networking before and after the presentations. Not only did we want to meet the community but we wanted the local communities to get to know each other as well. It was great to see the way the Salt Lake City group began talking about getting together more often. Community rules!

Mozzers arrive for the first MozCation! Airport pics FTW

A packed house in Salt Lake City

Speaker Presentations

Chris Bennett -SLC MozCation From the Trenches, Real Life Examples of Stuff That Works

Vince Blackham - Igniting Organic SEO Efforts with Viral Marketing

Rand Fishkin - How to Use Your Social Network for Higher Search Rankings

Vince Blackham speaking - Some "panda" talk

Get all of the photos from MozCation Salt Lake City.

Sao Paulo, Brazil - July 23, 2011

Whee! This was the second stop on the MozCation tour and what better place than to head to our first of two trips to South America. This meetup corresponded with the Brazilian conference Expon, so not only did we have lots of people from the local community there, but we had some great international speakers around as well. Also a huge shout out to Fabio Ricotta and his team for helping us to get everything organized.

MozCation means everyone works. Especially Rand :)

Mozzers taking cheesy photos *grin*

Speaker Presentations

Fabio Ricotta - Google +1 e Analise Social

Tom Critchlow - Why I Do What I Do

Rand Fishkin - Leveraging Social Media for SEO

Q&A time with the speakers in Sao Paulo

See all the photos from MozCation Sao Paulo.

Lima, Peru - September 23, 2011

Hola Peru! Our third stop took us back to South America, but this time to Lima, Peru. One of the most exciting parts of this trip was that we had people from all over Latin America join us. When Lima was first nominated, we were seeing tweets from Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica, and many other countries pledging their backing of Lima. It gave me chills of excitement to see how the community had rallied together in that way.

One thing we did differently in Peru is that we were able to have a live stream of the event. This made it possible for many people to tune in and enjoy the presentations even though they weren't there (I was one of those people). This was a huge success and we decided that we'd try to make that happen from then on.

This is now known around the office as the "MozCation Face"

Another packed house in Peru

The Lima event wouldn't have happened with out the special help from Daniel Falcon who not only helped us to organize the event but also was our translator during the presentations.

Speaker Presentations

Carlos Chacon (SEOCharlie) - 5 ½ Consejos para un Keyword Research en Español

Tom Critchlow - Enterprise SEO

Rodrigo Stockebrand - La Auditoria SEO: 7 puntos claves para un buen análisis

Rand Fishkin - Evolution of SEO - MozCation Lima

Roger was everywhere! Hanging out with speakers Tom Critchlow & Carlos Chacon

Yay! All the Mozzers got hats from Peru :)

Check out all the photos from MozCation Lima.

Barcelona, Spain - October 28, 2011

Although Barcelona was the last MozCation for the year, it certainly wasn't the least. In amazing Spanish style, the final event was a hit. Since we learned a bit more with each event we planned, Barcelona had it all. As with all of the MozCations, the speakers were top of the line. We were also lucky to have Miguel Pascual as the MC and he helped us to plan the event. Plus I have to give a shout out to Gianluca Fiorelli who quickly responded to my 500 emails about such little things as how we should organize the t-shirts. :)

Let the registration begin! All the attendees got a nametag, MozCation T-shirt and Roger sticker. Beep!

Speaker Presentations

Aleyda Solis - Consejos para Facilitar un Proceso SEO Local - MozCation Barcelona

Joanna Lord - Leveraging the Power of Retargeting for SEO

Gianluca Fiorelli - Contenido y SEO

Rand Fishkin - New Opportunities in SEO: Barcelona

"MozCation Face" :)                                                      A huge group of Spanish Mozzers

See more of the photos from MozCation Barcelona. (More photos to come)

Thanks - Gracias - Obrigado

We owe a huge huge huge debt of gratitude to all of our speakers and everyone who attended these events. We were overwhelmed by the response and attendance, and are simply giddy about the community all over again. Plus we want to thank you all for the hospitality and generosity shown in every city we visited.

I also want to thank everyone at SEOmoz who helped make each of these possible during one of the craziest times of the year for us. Thank you, gracias and obrigado!

Please, if you have photos or blog posts or anything MozCation related, post it in the comments! Thanks :)

MozCation 2012

Don't worry, you'll get your chance to nominate your city next year. :) Just watch this space and we'll let you know when nominations are up again!