The best of BrightonSEO Conference 2013 in a Nutshell

The other week, the team and I ventured to Brighton for the annual SEO conference organised by the lovely folks at Site Visibility. Here, I’ve compiled my thoughts on the best speakers of the bunch and suggested how their insights might be implemented by brand owners.

[Editor's note. Readers interested in this article may also like to check out this post from Rhian Simm's on 5 key SEO takeaways from BrightonSEO].

This roundup is from the speakers who really stood out, dropping invaluable tips and drawing on fascinating case studies to illustrate how to get the most out of SEO which I thought would be most useful to share.

Speaker Oliver Snoddy on Real-Time Marketing for any Brand

Speaker: Oliver Snoddy - Head of Planning, Twitter UK

Mr…

Not a major update likely to impact rankings as the headlines suggest?

Importance: [rating=1] For commercial Purchase Intent Queries

Recommended link: Search Engine Land FAQ by Sullivan

Mainstream media such as the BBC have picked up on what they call a "Major Upgrade to Google’s Search Alogorithm". This sounded like something we should alert readers too particularly since it is said to affect 90% of users. However, it has been in place for one month already, so this suggests it won’t have a significant affect on rankings otherwise the impact would have been seen already.

It was announced in a slightly bizarre way, not through consumer-facing Google’s Inside Search blog which covers big announcements to the interface or consumer algorithm or Webmaster Central which alerts about algorithm changes limiting spam which have a major impact on rankings such as Panda and Penguin.

Instead it was announced at what the BBC called…

More reasons for businesses to share on Pinterest

Importance: [rating=4] Recommended link: Pinterest blog: new article pins for media sites and Ad announcement Pinterest has recently developed their pins for media sites, so articles on pins can now include the Headline, Author and Story Description including a larger link. 'Article pins can help writers, media and other businesses reach new audiences, get more referral traffic and extend the lifespan of their content' It appears Pinterest are trying to keep up with business needs this year, as can be seen by their developments including promoted pins and free analytics. Its usage is growing at 48.7m uniques users per month, and they are clearly extending functionality and usage for mobile users, to improve shareabilty and facilitate content sharing. So what does the new pin look like for Media Sites?  The New York Times, Fortune…

4 Alternative options for reviewing SEO effectiveness now most keywords are "not provided"

Importance: [rating=5]

Recommended link: Search Engine Land

It’s now two years since Google started restricting information about the search keywords used by searchers to find a site when they were signed in to their Google account. Over this period these not provided encrypted search terms have gradually increased as shown below as different browsers have added encrypted search.

This alert is to let you know, if you haven’t heard, that a recent change by Google means that ALL searches from Google will now be encrypted even if the user isn’t signed in. In effect, this removes specific SEO search query data from Google Analytics.

This change means that, for most sites, counts of specific search terms in Analytics are now unrepresentative and highly misleading. In the Search Engine Land article…

AdID to replace ad tracking through third-party cookies?

Importance: [rating=5] Potentially… Recommended link: USA Today Article: Google may ditch ‘cookies’ as online ad tracker This is an interesting one to watch for in 2014… USA Today has spoken to "a source at Google who says that the company is developing a technology called AdID which could replace the third-party cookie for Ad targeting and tracking across Ad networks such as Google Display Network / AdWords Remarketing. USA Today is the only original source for this disclosure. The source said: “The AdID would be transmitted to advertisers and ad networks that have agreed to basic guidelines, giving consumers more privacy and control over how they browse the Web”. Google apparently plans to consult with privacy and industry groups and it seems this leak to USA Today is the first part of this. The paper is short on technical…

A summary of SEO approaches for 2014

Last Friday saw the latest installment in the bi-annually free SEO conference, BrightonSEO. Lots of ideas and content were discussed - far too many to cover in one post - but I thought it was worth putting together a short list of the top 5 cost-effective SEO snippets raised by the speakers.

1. Data for low cost link building

Link building is not just about hiring an agency, producing lots of inane content, or posting back-links from forums. Data is a key instrument in your link baiting toolbox (and it needn't mean big budgets). Use data to find a niche interest, tell a story, back it up with data, and create news. Readily available source suggestions: Surveys - ask a question and use the results to create content Analytics - spot a trend of interest and write about it Freedom of…

The only way is… Local SEO.  A tutorial on how to optimise your website for Local Search.

It’s vital that you optimise your site for local results if you have a local sales presence. Google wants to provide their ‘customers’ the best possible and most relevant results and nowadays you don’t even have to type the location after your search term or be signed in to get local results. Let’s have a look at how to make sure your site is well-optimised for local search:

1. On-Site Optimisation

If you’re just starting to optimise your website for local search the first thing to do is to ensure that your core location is included in the following on-page key elements: Title Tag Meta Descriptions Headings (H1,H2,H3..) – Not all of them but occasionally On-page – The site copy as well as on the page itself (e.g. within the footer area) This is really a no-brainer and good SEO practise which…

A 6 Step approach for Targeting Local PPC Campaigns

Last month, I shared my tips for carrying out a local SEO audit on your website. But that’s only half the story. It’s not just your organic SEO that needs to be geo-targeted. With Google placing a great visual emphasis and authority on PPC adverts, you should be integrating geo-targeted ads in your marketing mix. A geo-targeted PPC campaign works best for businesses who perform their services locally, but could attract customers from further afield. Let's take a UK example, Mrs Jones runs Blue Widget Weddings, a store selling wedding dresses in Redditch, UK. She obviously wants to attract brides from her local area – Redditch, Bromsgrove, Birmingham and Droitwich. This makes Mrs Jones the perfect candidate for a local PPC campaign.

Six step Paid Search campaign plan for a local business

Here, is a six step plan she, or any other local…

A checklist of 10 best practices for creating infographics for marketing

You'll be all to familiar with infographics, so I won't bore you with an explanation. Some argue that infographics can only be about data visualised (charts, comparisons, Venn diagrams, graphs, flow-charts etc). Suffice to say that we believe the term covers more than just that and includes any graphics that explain something, a concept for example. For us, if it's visual, useful or entertaining and sharable, it's an infographic! We used that approach for our Content Marketing Matrix infographic and the inbound marketing process which aren't classic data infographics, but we got good feedback that they were useful and they were shared. So this is how Dave Chaffey and I see it, here is our checklist for creating the perfect marketing infographic. I've also written a follow-up on promoting infographics. We will illustrate it with extracts…

What is the future for SEO?

Danyl Bosomworth suggested, a little light-heartedly, in his recent Smart Insights article ‘SEO is dead’, that one of the ideas for resetting your SEO agenda is to ‘Forget SEO and forget Google’ and in this he is absolutely correct. SEO really only has itself to blame for the predicament in which it finds itself. Daily emails bombarding your inbox promising untold wealth from a number one position on Google, ‘guaranteed’ link building schemes that ‘Google won’t penalize’ and many other ridiculous claims have made SEO a very bad name for itself. Of course it wasn’t always like this. There are many SEO professionals out there who have always had the best interests of clients at heart, have striven to produce good quality content and links and have generally behaved with propriety in a landscape dominated by excess and greed. Even today you can buy…