I was skeptical of virtual events for a long time. Then I ran a few dozen of them and adjusted. The format has real limitations, but it also has genuine advantages that in-person sessions do not, and if you design for the format rather than against it, a remote session can be more useful than the same content delivered on a stage.
When Virtual Is the Right Call
There are situations where virtual is not a compromise — it is the better choice.
- Geographically distributed teams. A workshop for a team with members in three time zones is logistically simpler as a remote session than flying everyone somewhere. The content delivery is the same; the overhead is lower.
- Smaller organizations with limited travel budgets. If the value of an in-person session is the content and the interaction rather than the event experience, virtual closes that gap significantly.
- Follow-up sessions. An initial in-person workshop followed by a virtual check-in six weeks later is often more effective than two in-person sessions, because the second conversation is about what happened after the first one.
- Conferences with a distributed attendee base. A virtual or hybrid conference can reach practitioners who would not travel for an event but will tune in for quality content.
What Changes in a Virtual Format
Attention is harder to hold remotely. In a room, a speaker can read the energy and adjust. On a screen, that feedback loop is compressed. The formats that work best virtually are shorter, more focused, and involve more structure around participation.
For a keynote, I keep virtual sessions to forty-five minutes maximum with a live Q and A built in. For workshops, I break the session into segments with exercises rather than running long blocks of presentation. Screen sharing of actual crawl data, schema code, or Search Console outputs is more effective in a virtual format than in-person, because every participant can see the same detail simultaneously rather than squinting at a projection.
Technical Setup
I have a dedicated recording setup: external microphone, proper lighting, stable fiber connection. I am not dialing in from a laptop camera. The audio and video quality matters because on a remote call it is the first signal to an audience about whether to take you seriously.
I have used Zoom, Teams, Riverside, Hopin, and a few custom conference platforms. Platform preferences are yours to set; I adapt to what you are already using rather than requiring something specific.
What Stays the Same
The preparation is identical to in-person. I ask for the same pre-session information: audience background, specific questions the group has, any site data they want looked at during the session. The content is customized to the room regardless of whether the room is physical or virtual.
One thing that actually improves in virtual workshops: participants can follow along on their own screens in real time. If I am walking through a schema implementation or a crawl analysis, everyone can open the same tool and do the same thing simultaneously. In a conference room, that requires everyone to have a laptop open and a reliable wifi connection. On a remote call, it is the default state.
Recording and Follow-Up
If the session is recorded, I ask that the recording not be redistributed commercially without a separate conversation. For internal team use, sharing a recording with colleagues who could not attend is generally fine. We agree on this before the session.
For the logistics of scheduling either a virtual or in-person session, the SEO speaker page is the starting point. If you are comparing virtual versus in-person for a specific event, the post on SEO speaker fees covers how format and travel affect the overall cost, which is often the practical factor in that decision. You can also read about the SEO workshop for teams format to understand what a structured session covers regardless of whether it is remote or in person.
Hybrid Event Participation
Hybrid events — where some attendees are in the room and some are joining remotely — are technically more complex than either pure format, and they are often harder for the speaker than organizers anticipate. The failure mode is common: the speaker is set up for the in-room audience and the remote attendees get a back-of-the-room camera angle with ambient audio. That is not a hybrid event; that is an in-person event with a stream attached.
What makes hybrid work is treating the two audiences as parallel rather than one being an afterthought of the other. That means a camera positioned at eye level rather than behind the in-room audience, a microphone setup that captures the speaker clearly for remote viewers, and a moderator who can relay remote questions into the room so the speaker does not have to manage two attention streams simultaneously.
When an organizer has thought through those logistics, I can participate in a hybrid format comfortably. When the plan is to point a laptop at the stage, I will say so upfront rather than agree to a setup that produces a poor experience for half the audience. The conversation about A/V and setup is one I initiate before any hybrid event, not after.
What to Tell Your Team Before a Virtual SEO Session
A virtual session where participants are unprepared produces worse outcomes than the same session in person, because there is less friction to disengaging — someone can mute, open another tab, or step away from their desk in ways that do not happen as easily in a conference room.
Three things worth communicating to participants before the session. First, what the session will and will not cover — so people arrive knowing whether this addresses their specific context. Second, any pre-work: if they should pull up their own Search Console or have a crawl report ready, tell them before the session starts rather than at the beginning of it, when setup time eats into the content. Third, that questions are expected and welcome — not at the end only, but during. Virtual workshops work better when participation is normalized from the start rather than saved for a Q and A that some attendees skip because they drop off before it starts.
One more thing that pays off: ask people to join with cameras on if the group is small enough for that to be reasonable. It is not about surveillance. It is that I can read whether the room is following along or losing the thread, and adjust pace accordingly — which is the single biggest thing a virtual format takes away from a speaker. A team that knows in advance the session is interactive, not a webinar to watch passively, gets far more out of the hour.