Relevance recently attended Brighton SEO 2022, a leading search marketing conference. The Brighton SEO conference enables digital specialists, including those specialising in SEO, PPC, digital PR, and content marketing, to learn about the latest industry insights from leaders in search marketing and network with like-minded individuals.
The Relevance team has been attending Brighton SEO for several years, enabling our specialists to remain at the forefront of search marketing. This year, the conference featured an incredible 116 talks spread across two days. Our team attended the most relevant Brighton SEO talks that relate to our prestigious clientele, taking notes and then pooling our knowledge to ensure that we continue to create incredible digital campaigns that will ensure results for our clients. We’ve summarized the key takeaways from this year’s conference and highlighted some of the most relevant talks for the luxury industry.
Brighton SEO key takeaways
Brighton SEO talk: Purpose-driven SEO: An authority-based approach that Google loves
Dale Bertrand, president at Fire&Spark spoke about the importance of developing purpose-driven SEO at Brighton SEO 2022.
More than ever before, Google focuses on artificial intelligence (AI). Through AI, Google hopes to understand the language better and ultimately improve the search results it presents to users. AI algorithms have significantly changed search engines, and marketers need to be aware of this moving forward.
The most important takeaway from Google’s shift to AI is that content should be created for humans. A few years ago, digital marketers could get away with content that was specifically crafted for search engines. With increasingly complex algorithms and machine learning, AI interprets language more as humans would.
AI should influence the way we write content and the purpose behind it. Purpose-driven SEO focuses specifically on the meaning and purpose behind a brand. Brands that incorporate their purpose into their ethos should also integrate it into their content. Purpose-driven SEO can be mission-driven, product-driven or story-driven.
Building a community around these three factors directly links a brand and a community associated with that same purpose. Creating citable content on a consistent base ensures that like-minded individuals can use your content to advance their cause. More and more, Google is picking up on this and takes note of the community behind a brand and its mission, story or product. In short, what people like, Google likes too.
Brighton SEO talk: Content readability for SEO
The founder and CEO of Write My Site underscored the importance of ensuring content is readable, something that is of paramount importance to Relevance’s team of copywriters.
The readability of content has a huge and direct impact on the user experience, which impacts ranking on the SERPs.
The average reading age in the UK is just nine. According to the National Literacy Trust, an estimated 5.1 million adults in England are functionally illiterate. And it’s not just poor education levels that impact reading levels. Learning difficulties such as dyslexia – which impacts around 10% of the UK population – also makes reading difficult.
This underscores the importance of clean and easy to understand content – no matter who your audience is. But readable content doesn’t mean dumbed-down content; it’s about how you package the information to make it easy for your reader to understand.
Short words, sentences, and paragraphs are key to ensuring content is readable. Individual word choices can also have a significant impact on readability. Other tips include making just one point per paragraph, arranging statistics and data logically, and writing with a clear purpose in mind.
Brighton SEO talk: Entity search: Your competitive advantage
Benu Aggarwal, president at Milestone Inc gave an insightful talk on entity search. Understanding the context between content on a site has become known as entity-focused marketing. Creating a compelling piece of text doesn’t mean much if the meaning behind it isn’t clear to users or to Google.
That’s where entities and semantic writing play a considerable role. Disambiguous content allows users to absorb your content and take something away from it.
Competitive analysis isn’t only an excellent way to see what topics you should be covering. It’s also a reminder of what topics you should be covering better than them. Brands that incorporate entity search along with keyword research, the intent behind those searches, and subtopics in their content scope, create a significant competitive advantage for themselves.
Brighton SEO talk: Web design for people and the planet
As the world faces a climate crisis, sustainability is a topic that is on almost everyone’s minds. Tom Greenwood, managing director at Wholegrain digital, gave a fascinating talk during Brighton SEO 2022 on how to make online activities more sustainable.
Websites can be data consuming and therefore are not always sustainable. Just some ways to reduce a website’s carbon emissions include:
- Changing jpg images into webp or avif format
- Blurring the edges of a photo
- Choosing C, rust C++ or javascript
- Stopping autoplay videos and instead giving the option for users to click ‘play’
According to Website Carbon, where you can check your website’s carbon footprint, the average web page produces 1.76 grams CO2 per page view. For a website with 10,000 monthly page views, that’s 211 kg CO2 per year – the equivalent carbon footprint of a car driving 500 miles.
Brighton SEO talk: How to go viral on a budget
Digital PR lead at Rise At Seven, Alex Hickson, discussed how brands can go viral on a budget at Brighton SEO 2022. He discussed how going viral isn’t about strategy; instead, it’s about executing emotion. To do this, a brand must truly understand who its audience is and how they want to make them feel.
Tying a product or service into a trend is an excellent way to go viral. Carrying out in-depth research on the latest trends and how people are engaging with them can help ensure viral success. It’s also important to note that there are short-term trends and long-term trends, both of which will impact the longevity of any campaign a brand develops.
Researching other brands tapping into current trends, and drawing inspiration from more established product campaigns, are also good ways to ensure success.
Before launching any campaign, validate trends using digital tools such as Buzzsumo, Google Trends, and Answer the Public, a search listening tool.
Once you have identified a trend that you wish to tap into, only then should you consider how you will cut through the noise.
Next, you should identify your audience and brand archetypes that relate to them. Also consider product positioning, price point, brand values, and secondary channels.
Finally, using analytics can help a brand identify who its prospective customers are and enable them to better tailor a strategy.
Relevance is a full-service digital marketing agency that helps luxury brands reach and engage with their target audience. Our specialists are experts in their field, harnessing the latest industry techniques and insights to deliver marketing campaigns that yield results. If you require PPC, SEO, and social media support or any other digital marketing services, then contact Relevance.
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