A few weeks ago, Lucy and I ventured down to Brighton for the bi-annual Brighton SEO conference, one of the largest meetups of search marketers in the world!
The event takes place over two days, at the end of April and around September/October, enabling search marketers to learn more about the latest trends and tips within the SEO, Social Media, Content and PPC industry.
Takeaway 1 – Content is becoming even more important
Many of the talks this year had a similar message, stressing the importance of content. This is inevitable with the introduction of the Google March Update, which focused on accessing content’s helpfulness.
Backlinks have always been an important part of improving your website’s authority with search engines like Google. However, with the latest updates, Google has been more stressed about making sure your site has useful content that provides value to searchers.
Takeaway 2 – Tips on Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
With the introduction of GA4 last year, industry experts have commented about the platform, with many stressing their dissatisfaction with all the changes in how Google Analytics records traffic and other data like conversions and purchases.
One of the main takeaways was to look at the different Google Analytics experts who have demystified the platform and given tips on how to get the most out of it. Some of these experts included Krista Seiden and Simo Ahava.
Takeaway 3 – Shopify SEO
More and more websites are now switching to Shopify as their e-commerce platform of choice for selling online. One of the most important things to think about when optimising a Shopify site is to make sure that you are following the fundamentals of SEO, as this still applies to Shopify. Some people in the SEO industry still think this isn’t the case.
One of the main stresses of the talk we attended was that there are many SEO plugins available, but most of them will bloat your site. It’s best to use the built-in tools on Shopify for optimisation.
Takeaway 4 – Thriving in competitive niches without backlinks
One of the speakers mentioned how they have improved the performance of a site without using backlinks, which is now ranking above big brands like Amazon.
Some of the key points from this talk included:
- Ensure that content has a good structure. This will help search engines better understand the content on the site and crawl the website more efficiently.
- Having a good number of internal links from other content on the site is as important as having backlinks to your site, as links to other content help to improve the page’s authority.
- Experiment with different meta titles and descriptions to see which one helps to further increase conversions.
Takeaway 5 – Websites should be really focusing on E-E-A-T and showcasing their expertise
With the introduction of Google’s Helpful Content update in the past few months, focusing on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) has become even more important, as showcasing this can help to further increase your site’s rankings in the search results.
There are many ways in which you can showcase E-E-A-T on your site, including adding author pages to your website and getting content reviews by authoritative people in your industry, who may be well-known and this will help to further improve your authoritativeness with search engines.
Overall, Brighton SEO was an amazing conference to attend, enabling us to further expand our knowledge to help our clients drive more organic traffic to their websites.
If you’re looking to increase your business’s online conversions, contact our friendly team to discuss how we can help.
Contact Us
Cheshire (Head Office)
Manchester
Get in touch
Let’s find the best solution for your business