Brighton SEO is one of the biggest events in our calendar. This year was better than ever, with 78 speakers across 7 stages, it was busy from the get-go. But we still had time to make tie-dye t-shirts!
We’ve shared what we know with each other, so we thought you’d like to know what we learnt too.
We’ve split the takeaways into SEO and content but there’s a big crossover so it’s well worth reading both!
SEO
- One of the main things we took from the talks was not to always listen to Google. The best way to find out what works is to test everything, then decide.
- Content marketing isn’t the only way to build links but good content will get you more. Links are elusive, so anything you can do to get them is worth trying.
- It was suggested to create images that people will use, upload them to royalty free image databases and then ask the people who use them to attribute you.
- Another resource to find is “forward features calendars”. These generally detail the features a news website is planning to feature. If you create content relating to these topics, send them to the website and you’re more likely to be featured.
- Having articles in local news sites can also often lead to published content in larger regional news, so aiming smaller can work better for you.
- Contrary to what Google says, reavow works. Taking URLs out of your disavow file will cause Google to re-crawl the links.
- With the addition of new Google features, click through rates for the #1 position have fallen to 30% on mobile and 50% on desktop.
- 50% of all search queries contain 4 or more keywords; this means we need to start thinking about targeting keywords for a whole topic, not just a term or phrase.
- Keep this in mind when you’re writing title and meta descriptions as titles that appeal to the search term are more likely to have a higher click through rate than those just targeting keywords.
- There was also focus on the rise of voice search. This will change the way people search dramatically as long tail, more conversational search terms will become more popular. It’s predicted that by 2020, all searches will be done by voice.
Content
The key points we learnt from talks we attended included:
- Good content needs to get in touch with your audience’s emotions and be valuable to them. If it does all these things, you will get links because your content is successful.
- Find out what people are saying about your content when they share it to find out why they liked it. Tools can show you how successful your content is, but not why.
- You also need a strategy before you decide on content, and then create a campaign or post that satisfies that goal, not the other way around. This is a strategy we’re starting to use ourselves so we’ll let you know how it goes!
- Linking to SEO, longer content that used to be thought to rank lower, is becoming more popular. Quality longer content around 3,000 words are more informative so can gain a higher ranking against other content.
- It’s easy to forget that reviews are original user-generated content that creates trust between a potential customer and your business.
- 90% of people read reviews. If you think of your actions when browsing for an item or service, you’re likely to read the reviews to suss the quality of the product. Five star reviews increase your click through rate by 17%.
- Not all reviews will be good but you can approach them professionally. Replying to reviews also helps to improve trust and also shows that you’re engaging with customers.
- We also found out some amazing ways you can use Facebook advertising to cleverly target people in a certain area or with specific interests who are more likely to engage with your content.
You can see more on our content tips in our 64 Tips To Rock Your Social Media blog.
We’ll be starting to put some of these points into practice over the next few months. Will you try any? Let us know how it goes on Facebook or Twitter.
If you or your business needs a SEO-boost, then take a look at this Search Engine Optimisation page to find out how we could help.
