The event that started in a room above a pub has come a hell of a long way. Thousands were queueing up well before the doors opened. Our day kicked off in Auditorium One with three sessions on Content Marketing.<\/p>\n
Ross Tavendale, MD at Type A Media, began with an insightful recount of its first large retainer of $50K generating zero links. The reason? The ideation sessions were too subjective. This led to them re-looking at the ideation framework and focus on data-led campaigns. The advice being that you need to ask the question: \u2018Why are we doing this?\u2019 Because the data said so. A simple and yet highly accurate statement.<\/p>\n
Sarah Bradley was up next and gave insight into how brands can gain millennials attention through social media. These included being more personal, authentic and creating social responsibility infused content. Her view is that millennials are crying out for brands to \u2018get to know them\u2019. They respond to a \u2018just ask us\u2019 approach so focus on community management and give them the opportunity to influence the content. If you want to take it a step further, Bradley suggested handing over the reins to your social media or search for a week to the very people who you are selling to as a viable experiment.<\/p>\n
Heading to Auditorium Two, I found a packed room with every chair and every centimeter of space taken by an audience truly engaged with the content on offer. JP Sherman from Redhat made the claim that \u2018knowledge graphs are fun\u2019. While this might be a stretch too far, the data does show that they perform. He gave the sage advice to measure the end results and then track it back. Test. Analyze. Repeat. If it fails, Test. Analyze. Repeat. Until it stops failing. Sound advice.<\/p>\n
If the main stages drew in large crowds, the syndicate rooms were actually where the content became more detailed and educational. As CEO of Tug Nick Beck said: “The auditorium speakers might be pay to play but they do deliver solid sessions. However, the real insights<\/a> come from the smaller stages where the focus is on delivering content which is detailed and educational. The undeniable fact is that BrightonSEO is still the place to be!\u201d<\/p>\n The man who is famous for wearing an orange suit and writing \u2018Spaghetti Code\u2019 Christoph Cemper, gave a detailed list of the most useful SEO<\/a> tools<\/a> including:<\/p>\n Checklists were a common theme throughout BrightonSEO and Alex Rapallo, Digital Marketing Manager at Barclays Corporate Banking, summed it up: \u201cThe atmosphere here has a great social vibe without the expected corporate element. The content has been more checklist base this year and this lends itself to delivering more digestible takeaways to take back to the workplace. One of the overriding takeaways is that SEO<\/a> is about trust. If you rank well in SEO, your brand is perceived as a more trustful company.\u201d<\/p>\n Prabhat Shah from DaytoDayeBay gave another checklist session on Amazon<\/a> SEO tools<\/a> and why Amazon SEO matters. In fact, throughout the day, Amazon showed why it deserves it\u2019s place in the trioply, as it was referenced more frequently throughout the event and eclipsed Google which was notably absent from the discussions and speaker content.<\/p>\n This educationally led session was one of many during the event. David Stubbings, Senior Content Manager at Guinness World Records said:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about learning and getting an understanding of technical solutions that will benefit our SEO. I had an expectation that BrightonSEO would be more <\/em>tech focused this year, What I have found is that it has provided more practical learning and has encouraged me to think differently.<\/em><\/p>\n SEO is more important than ever and one of the key reasons for this is voice<\/a> activation, of which SEO has an obvious advantage in capitalizing.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The livener before lunch was the enigmatic Grant Simmons, VP at homes.com who stole the show with an interactive session on SEO toolbelt which will vanquish Google SERPs. From his claim that those who work in SEO are question engineers to his advice that success will come from questioning not why your competitor is above you, but what you are missing that is ranking you below them. Compare and contrast on each aspect from the snippet to the image to the title tag and improve on each area. If the juice isn\u2019t worth the squeeze, don\u2019t waste time on it. Filter and focus on what is important to your business.<\/p>\n The afternoon may not have had as many stand out sessions but there were plenty that provided future views of SEO and practical nuggets. Three sessions covered SERPs with the most interesting approach coming from Patrick Reinhart with Indexation, Cannibalization, Experimentation, Oh My! Oh my indeed as his views were strong and well presented. This session was one of many that were of a high standard.<\/p>\n Rand Fishkin closed the event with bullish statements such as \u201cThe harder a tactic becomes the more of a competitive advantage it gives us\u201d.\u00a0 It seems like Rand\u2019s relationship with Google has soured somewhat, and he definitely let that come across in his talk!<\/p>\n Fishkin presented a view that Google is ranking google-hosted sites more highly (sites where you can scroll through the site without ever having to leave the search engine results page). Twitter, Instagram<\/a>, and LinkedIn are now following suit \u2013 e.g. ranking blogs hosted on LinkedIn more highly than those hosted elsewhere. The intention of which is, of course, to keep you on that site, rather than directing you away. Fishkin did give some advice on how to respond.<\/p>\nReported most useful SEO tools<\/h3>\n
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SEO is about trust<\/h3>\n
Amazon SEO tools<\/h3>\n
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Practical learning<\/h3>\n
Future views of SEO and SERPs<\/h3>\n
Interactive content: harder for Google to cannibalize and more valuable to the user<\/h3>\n