The 8 greatest takeaways from BrightonSEO for digital entrepreneurs [April 2023]

Writer: Sophie Roberts, Managing Director of Koozai.

Couldn’t make it to BrightonSEO this Spring? You then’ve come to the correct place! For those who’re working in digital advertising and marketing, or have been simply too busy spinning plates to make it to the entire talks this time round, you then’re in all probability right here in search of the most important or most related takeaways in your digital advertising and marketing technique.

Fortunately for you, we despatched a military of search engine optimization, PPC, PR and Content material specialists from the Koozai crew all the way down to the UK’s largest search advertising and marketing occasion on Thursday and Friday this week. In between a spot of lunch and a beautiful stroll on Brighton’s well-known seashore, we’ve lined the entire most important talks and conferences in search engine optimization, Content material Technique, Hyperlink Constructing/PR, PPC and Paid Search so that you don’t need to.

As typical, BrightonSEO didn’t disappoint and this time round most of the talks have been extra centered on technical search engine optimization, content material, and the influence of AI than in earlier years. Whereas there have been some actually fascinating new learnings and insights to remove from practically the entire conferences we attended, there are a number of headline takeaways that notably stood out to us as being price a point out for these of you that weren’t in a position to attend.

So, for those who’re in search of the highest line on what the newest developments are in search advertising and marketing, in addition to a few of the professional perception on the forecasted influence of latest expertise equivalent to ChatGPT and what it means in your digital advertising and marketing, then learn on!

With out additional ado, right here is our tackle essentially the most salient learnings from BrightonSEO in your search engine optimization, digital PR, PPC or content material advertising and marketing…

Table of Contents

The highest 8 takeaways from BrightonSEO (April 2023):

First up is our senior technical search engine optimization and knowledge guru, Gary Hainsworth. A passionate search engine optimization with over a decade of expertise within the trade, Gary was everywhere in the main conferences at BrightonSEO this week and was impressed with lots of them, notably these on the Friday, together with:

Claudia Higgins – “Breaking down silos: how built-in knowledge units improve search engine optimization methods”
Claudia O’Shea and Sergey Lesnikov – “How you can create a tradition of search”
Will Critchlow – “How you can generate 8 million search engine optimization check concepts”
Michael Boosalis – “Profitable Google’s coronary heart with CMS”
Chris Spann & Anna Uss – “Succeeding at scale: How Snyk doubled their visitors utilizing Lumar & programmatic search engine optimization”
Jon Earnshaw – “Optimising for the SERP multiverse: a 4-step course of for fulfillment”
Anna Moragli – “Taking your small business to the subsequent degree with the facility of ecommerce search engine optimization”
Emanuel Hoch – “How PPC opened up essentially the most environment friendly Content material Monetization Strategy for search engine optimization”

Listed below are Gary’s greatest takeaways from BrightonSEO this April…

1) The largest takeaway for Gary was AI and the way forward for digital advertising and marketing.
There may be a number of dialogue concerning the execs and cons of AI for digital advertising and marketing. The reality is we don’t know the way Google and different search engines like google will cope with this, or if the content material generated will probably be “recognized” to them.

Generated content material has been seen as unhealthy for a very long time for search engines like google, however customers are far more accepting. The vast majority of customers are effective with it getting used, however there may be additionally an enormous push on customers eager to know what’s AI content material. How this will probably be used by way of authorship and EEAT is but to be totally decided.

Layoffs from massive tech corporations and the elevated use of AI have occurred on the similar time, so there are worries within the trade. It will go away some businesses behind, however usually we see an extra push into on-line advertising and marketing. How this ranges out will stay to be seen, however embracing AI to streamline your work is necessary to remain forward.

2) The second greatest takeaway for Gary was search engine optimization and Website construct expertise. Website speeds and crawlability are details for this, so the main target is on server response instances, JavaScript frameworks and the way totally different units see your website. The simplistic model is to maintain your website quick and to provide alternate options for crawlers.

This isn’t all the time possible and people websites with bigger budgets will be capable of accommodate this, giving them an extra increase. For smaller websites and budgets you will need to get servers quick in your goal space as a precedence and to get a website which is navigable with JavaScript disabled.

Our gifted Head of Operations, Kelly-Anne Crean, additionally took a bit outing from her desk to affix the Koozai crew in trying out BrightonSEO, and attended a plethora of conferences, together with:

Nick Vines – “Why web page pace issues, WITHOUT mentioning conversions as soon as”
Aymen Loukil – “What your Google Lighthouse rating hides from you”
Amir Glatt – “Optimizing 1 million web sites for Google core internet vitals”
Sam Oh – “Absolutely automated hyperlink constructing – is it actually doable?”
Tom Pool – “Primary automation hacks for search engine optimization”
Robin Allenson – “Automation recipes for search engine optimization success”
Genie Jones – “Entity search engine optimization: the way to use the SameAs tag in schema to fully revolutionise the sport”
Ian Helms – “How you can persuade even the pickiest editors to take search engine optimization extra critically”
Anthony Barone – “How you can future-proof search engine optimization technique for SME companies”

Right here is Kelly-Anne’s greatest takeaways from the occasion:

3) The largest takeaway for Kelly-Anne was from Nick Vines and why web page pace issues. The web can be the fifth greatest polluting nation if it was a rustic. This statistic simply blew my thoughts and made me actually take into consideration the significance of constructing websites sooner and never simply from a customers viewpoint. By making websites sooner reduces the carbon footprint.

How can SEOs assist?

Use a inexperienced internet hosting supplier
Offset your carbon price
Make your web site sooner

Use this carbon calculator the place you’ll be able to estimate your web site’s carbon footprint.

4) The second greatest takeaway for Kelly-Anne got here from the discuss on automation from Tom Pool. Automation shouldn’t be there to take your job, we must always use it to do the ‘boring’ stuff. You’ll be able to present Chat GPT with prompts that will help you write code to make use of in Google Apps Script. This may also help with duties it’s important to do on a regular basis like formatting sheets or slides and making them uniform equivalent to the identical font color, font, dimension and so on. By doing this it may actually enhance the effectivity of your work.

A Sussex native, our Head of PR & Content material, David Wilson, took the quick journey to BrightonSEO this week, and visited a variety of the conferences on the Friday too, together with:

Niki Mosier – “The worth of characteristic snippets Rohan Ayyar- STOP Dissing Rankings!”
Carrie Rose – “Proudly owning TikTok, Pinterest and YouTube SERPS”
Andy Timmins – “Utilizing Python with (Chat)GPT to assist automate content material creation”
Greta Munari – “The redemption of content material automation: the way to scale distinctive content material to 4M+ pages”
Ashley Liddell – “The place ought to – and shouldn’t – AI & ChatGPT play a job in your search engine optimization technique?”
Ashleigh Midday & Sunny Matharu – “Your metrics are my metrics”
Chloe Smith – “How content material design impacts search engine optimization & accessibility”
Dr Kiran Webster – “Why empathy must be a key participant in your advertising and marketing technique”
Prashant Puri and Lomit Patel – “Knowledge-driven search engine optimization & content material technique to cut back your buyer acquisition prices”
Dirk Schembri – “Making a future-proof content material technique with Topical Clusters”
Sante J. Achille – “Strategies and instruments to plan and create your content material”
Toju Duke – “The brand new period: embracing AI applied sciences in advertising and marketing”

Right here’s his tackle the BrightonSEO conferences he attended…

5) The massive takeaway from the primary morning session on the Friday for David was the influence that social media platforms are having on search outcomes. Carrie Rose’s discuss confirmed how a pattern is beginning to emerge in that Google is beginning to prioritise consumer generated content material over branded content material. That is more likely to proceed to be the case, notably if corporations over use instruments like ChatGPT to spam the SERPs. On the similar time, increasingly persons are turning to search engines like google like TikTok and Pinterest first. All of this factors to 1 factor – the significance of “off web page search engine optimization”, influencer advertising and marketing, and PR to make sure that your manufacturers and merchandise are being advisable by others and proceed to dominate the SERPs.

6) The second massive takeaway for David was about featured snippets from Niki Mosier. Featured Snippets are a extra helpful advertising and marketing instrument than folks first suppose. It’s not unusual for folks to dismiss them, as a result of the consumer doesn’t need to enter your website to get the data they want. Nevertheless, Niki’s presentation highlighted that 17% of SERPs have them, and so they cowl about 50% of the preliminary SERPs on most cellular units, so you’ll be able to’t actually keep away from them. We additionally noticed some actually fascinating examples of how featured snippets can truly drive substantial visitors, model authority, and consciousness.

Our Senior Paid Specialist, Joaquin Lopez (additionally affectionally recognized within the Koozai crew as ‘Quags’), attended a number of conferences on the Thursday too, together with:

Rachel Pearson – “TikTok for search advertising and marketing”
Carlos Meza – “Is content material the king in fashionable search engine optimization?”
Dale Bertrand – “Cease writing search engine optimization articles: templated content material that ranks”
Hinde Lamrani – “Congratulations, you’re going international! What you would like somebody advised you.”
Sarah Presch – “The psychology behind inclusive worldwide search engine optimization methods”
Natalia Witczyk – “Serps past Google”

Listed below are his high takeaways from BrightonSEO this April…

7) The largest takeaway for Joaquin was from Rachel Pearson. TikTok adverts don’t require massive advert spend to realize nice efficiency. The platform has a low barrier to entry making it an awesome place to begin promoting and reaping rewards. TikTok doesn’t penalize customers for deleting and reuploading content material if efficiency is weak. The place different social media platforms dislike this follow to the purpose the place it may have antagonistic results, TikTok incentivizes customers to curate their content material to place one of the best model of their message on the market. Don’t be afraid to delete posts that haven’t fairly landed, simply you’ll want to check totally different captions or hashtags and optimise the place doable to get essentially the most genuine model of your story. Utilizing that info, having optimised captions and subtitles utilizing researched key phrases, ought to offer you a greater final result. Combining this natural technique with the convenience of TikTok promoting, you’ll be capable of increase your advertising and marketing and technique for fast wins.

8) The second greatest takeaway for Joaquin got here from the discuss on the psychology behind inclusive worldwide search engine optimization methods from Sarah Presch. An ideal takeaway from Sarah Presch was to optimise for the consumer and never for Google. Simply because your web site seems first doesn’t imply that the content material customers are in search of is there. Ensuring you’ve got helpful content material is a should however it’s additionally necessary to have correct and related H1s and descriptions that match the content material you’re offering. Individuals have a tendency to recollect the primary and final phrases from a chunk of information so having the correct key phrases at first and finish of your advert is essential. Ensuring that essentially the most helpful data is in the correct place might result in you profitable the press. Utilizing emojis is an effective way to draw that click on as our eyes divert to apparent variations in a search outcomes. What’s much more fascinating is that no matter high quality of product, buy behaviour is led by who has essentially the most evaluations. Our brains are socially wired, and we now have a pure intention to mimic others round us. Asking for evaluations out of your prospects and displaying them in your product pages or in your advert may simply be the lacking piece that will help you convert a click on into a purchase order.

That’s it! For these of you that wish to be taught extra about these matters, our digital advertising and marketing sources are additionally price trying out as they embrace a whole bunch of articles, whitepapers, and digital advertising and marketing guides.

As and after we discover them, we’re additionally linking above to the slides from the BrightonSEO conferences we attended, so you’ll be able to recap for those who missed one thing or have been unable to make a specific discuss.

Alternatively, if you wish to be taught extra about how search engine optimization, digital PR, PPC or content material advertising and marketing can leverage your digital advertising and marketing, then get in contact with us or take a look at certainly one of our on-line digital advertising and marketing coaching programs.