What Did We Learn at Brighton SEO 2015?

On Thursday 17th September Liberty loaded up a car of employees with their overnight bags and sent them down to Brighton for a few days of work training, industry insights and, of course, some drink-related schmoozing.

So, what did the team learn from the event? And how will this knowledge be influencing the work we do here at Liberty Marketing? Read on to find out.

Graphs and tables have long been used to help visualise data and make information easier to digest, but Nikki Rae from Future Insight Analytics showed how to think outside the box to create graphics that are sure to be remembered.

Rae made the point that we all LOVE food  we literally can’t live without it. And as a result, it’s sure to get our attention. So, why not use layered foods, such as burgers or cakes, instead of traditional graphs? Or even a real pie for a pie chart? It’ll certainly pique users’ interest – and make their bellies start rumbling.

One company (data-cuisine.net) is even creating real-life foodie events to help present data through immersive experiences that draw on all of our senses.

We’re not suddenly going to start handing out meals all of a sudden; however, expect a lot more visuals in our content over the next few months.

The Digital PR session had to be one of the team’s favourite sections of the day, not only because there was a spontaneous Mexican wave across the theatre, but because it got us thinking about outreach from the other side.

Tanya Korobka from Caliberi spoke of how it is always best to focus on making strong B2B relationships before requesting for a guest blog to be hosted on another company’s site. And the bog-standard email simply won’t cut it in the future.

We’re proud at Liberty of our ability to explain complex details in simple terms and in a down-to-earth manner. And this is something that is essential with guest blog research and outreach. The most effective marketers speak to other brands how they would like to be spoken to themselves.

Korobka also spoke about how you should utilise your social media accounts. Here at Liberty Marketing we encourage our clients to master one or two platforms first, before branching out. Plus it’s important to share any blog content you create through these avenues.

However, Korobka stated the importance of being even more specific with your social content. She spoke of how traditional media is used for broader, more generalised pieces. Whereas social media (thanks to audience targeting) should be used for niche interests using longtail keywords with specific goals in mind.

So, there’ll be no more ‘what is SEO?’ tweets coming from us.

Duplicate content has always been a big no-no in the SEO world and we’ll never endorse copy and pasting content. But Jon Earnshaw from Pi Datamterics revealed that stolen content can actually end up ranking better than the original in some cases.

How? Well, Google isn’t great at attributing content ownership, it focuses more on authority. Therefore, big brands can quite easily trample over the little guys if correct curation isn’t in place.

Jon’s advice was to do the following:

• Be alert to ranking flux

• Explore historic SERP results in detail and check who else is ranking for your keyword terms

• Identify any offending URLs and take appropriate action (you can report the theft here)

• Curate your content

• Create unique copy

• Check for cannibalisation issues

What will our industry be like in 5 years’ time? Here’s what Britt Soeder from iProspect thought it would be like. Do you agree with her?

2016 – Google will acquire Twitter and Google + will be no more

2017 – Google will introduce a social update where engagement signals will correlate with results.

             Indexing will also be updated for 3D websites, voice search and new technology.

2018 – A giant Panda update where social signals will become more important than ever for links.

             No follow and follow attributed will become obsolete.

2019 – A user behaviour update will connect search results, onsite behaviour and apps.

2020 – A SERP update will trial paid results like the current ‘I’m feeling lucky’ option.

If you were at Brighton SEO and heard about something you’d like to learn more about, get in touch! We’re more than happy to write a blog post on it.