A week later and I’m still buzzing after my first ever BrightonSEO conference. Some seriously great talks to be had and I only had the luxury of attending a third of them. Walking into the main entrance of the event seemed normal, until I entered the corn exchange area which offered stands full of amazing software companies promoting their SEO tools. These included SEMRush, Deep Crawl and OnPage.org. I was overwhelmed by the shear amount of people at the event and recognised a lot of faces – mainly SEO folk whose blog posts I’ve enjoyed reading online, such as Bridget Randolph, Samantha Noble, Tara West just to name a few. It was a fantastic day which ended with a few beers while chatting to a few of the presenters. Here are my favourite four talks from my first ever Brighton SEO event (in time order throughout the day).
Greg Gifford: Local SEO Will Help You Live Long and Prosper
A mobile & local legend! I’ve never experienced a talk so intensely fast as Greg Gifford’s. Greg’s presentation style was on my wavelength – especially after enjoying the delights of Brighton’s finest coffee at Bond Street Coffee Shop. Greg’s presentation included 125 slides which revolved around movies – you have to watch his presentation yourself to fully appreciate this.
Insights from Greg’s talk:
- Build content silos targeted to locations on your website.
- Onsite ranking factors are now top for local SEO.
- Majority of local algorithm updates are rolled out in the USA which is an advantage for website owners based in the UK.
- Citations are still good for local SEO. It’s important to keep all citation references consistent across the web.
Watch Greg’s presentation here
Jon Earnshaw: Cannibalisation & SERP analysis
A really insightful presentation on analysing SERPs and how to identify and fix cannibalisation, including the different situations in which it occurs. The four main areas that Jon detailed around organic SERP cannibalisation were:
- Internal cannibalisation
- Sub-domain conflict
- International domain disruption
- Semantic flux
Insights from Jon’s talk:
- Main issues are related to similar pages ranking for the same terms.
- Competing URLs e.g. non-www. vs www. URL equivalents and .com vs .co.uk versions.
- Monitor your target keyword positions daily/weekly to gain insights.
- Always investigate ranking flux and check internal cannibalisation to determine fixes.
See Jon’s presentation here
Matthew Barby: 10 Ways to Build a Link in 20 minutes flat
This intriguing title caught my attention the week before while planning which talks to attend. Matthew presented a quick snapshot of the top types of links and the processes to gain them.
Insights from Matthew’s talk:
- “Apply simple link building methodologies to your campaign(s) and modify them to work for your audience”.
- Reddit – get dofollow links from relevant subreddits related to your industry.
- Sponsorship is really good for local link building e.g. local clubs, events.
- Wikipedia is a good way to gain citations and identify broken links, wikigrabber is a great online tool for this. (See slides 17-19).
- Build a content influencer team. Basically work with authoritative people in your business niche/industry to create & promote content.
See Matthew’s presentation here
Alec Bertrum: eCommerce SEO: Boosting Visibility with Faceted Navigation
Of the 13 talks I watched, this was one of the most useful and practical for implementing changes to eCommerce websites. In my role at iThinkMedia, my area of expertise is mostly on-page and technical SEO so it was really great to watch Alec’s talk.
Insights from Alec’s talk:
- In some situations eCommerce site structures can be optimised to capture just head terms and very long tail product specific terms. Creating optimised faceted category pages helps eCommerce sites to capture mid tail terms.
- How to build a business case to show the value of faceted navigation to your clients website.
- How to technically implement faceted navigation on category pages of your website.
See Alec’s presentation here
I can’t wait for the next BrightonSEO – Kelvin & team keep up the good work!
Did you attend BrightonSEO this April? What were your favourite talks? Share your thoughts in the comments below.