It was back to BrightonSEO for the first time in a few years for me. It’s an event I’ve been attending since 2012 and my last (albeit virtual) outing was as a speaker at the 2020, Covid-hit event.
The event now runs across two days; each day consists of five tracks, each track consisting of four sessions and each session consisting of three speakers. On top of that, there’s a keynote for each day.
It’s impossible for one person to take in the full scope of the event, so my focus yesterday was on four things: content, automation, the science of search and measurement.
AI?
Given the meteoric rise in the attention given to artificial intelligence (AI), in particular ChatGPT, it was perhaps surprising to see only a handful of mentions of either on the agenda. That being said, I believe that to be more a reflection of how far ahead the agenda is set (six months plus) versus the level of interest the speakers and audience have in these tools.
As I fully expected, of the 12 speakers I listened to, nearly all gave at least a nod to the rise of generative AI tools and some went further.
ChatGPT is a ‘fluent bullsh*tter’
Probably my favourite description of ChatGPT from the day came from Robin Allenson. He described the platform as a “fluent bullsh*tter” that is “not very good with the truth”. Many of us will have experienced or read examples of this; ChatGPT generates very confident responses but with glaring (or not-so-glaring) factual errors.
Another speaker (I’m sorry, I failed to attribute this one) described the current crop of AI tools as an ‘eager junior developer’. That’s a solid description; it’s like having an enthusiastic, always-ready assistant sitting next to you. You can give it a task but don’t expect it to avoid mistakes.
Ultimately, ChatGPT and AI featured throughout the day, but perhaps not as prominently as the hype would have you expect. My take on the general consensus among the speakers I listened to was that generative AI is going to have an increasingly profound effect on the work we do; right now, that’s by playing the role of helpful assistant, augmenting our work whilst we play the role of editor.
Content and SEO
There’s a cliche in our industry that you’re almost guaranteed to hear at any digital marketing conference and BrightonSEO did not disappoint; ‘content is king’.
This time around, Carlos Meza posed the question ‘is content the king of modern SEO?’. By slide two he confirmed that, yes, it is. Despite this, a series of talks throughout the day offered up some useful thoughts on the role that content plays in a digital marketing strategy.
Dale Bertrand offered up a plethora of solid examples of how ‘templated content’ can be used to good effect. Templated content, in Bertrand’s view, isn’t boilerplate copy, it’s the structure and strategy behind the content. It’s about taking something (an example offered up was a mortgage calculator) and building a suite of pages for different audiences.
The same mortgage calculator can be used as the centrepiece for pages for all sorts of people; those looking to purchase rental properties, holiday homes, etc, etc.
The purpose of templating your content? Scale - it’s possible to produce content at scale when it’s based on a central plan. Other examples of templated content he provided were collection pages, niche buying guides and FAQs.
We’re actually rolling out this approach with some clients right now, so (shameless plug) get in touch if you want to hear about that!
Faces
Giulia Panozzo introduced herself as a neuroscientist turned SEO and embarked on a tour de force of fascinating, science-based considerations for search marketing.
She noted that, according to research certain stimuli, such as faces and emojis, create a pronounced response in people. An interesting takeaway is that if you want your search result to stand out on a crowded Google results page, using an emoji or two could have a science-backed positive effect.
Expect to see lots of emojis in the search results until Google and Bing ban them.
TikTok
I’m not an expert on TikTok, so I listened with interest as Rachel Pearson spoke about the platform. Particularly interesting was her discussion around TikTok ads, which she believes has (at the moment) a low barrier to entry with the potential to generate a lot of views for a relatively small investment.
Automation
There were a couple of speakers who focussed on the benefits of automation, in particular, Sam Oh gave a run-through of his exhaustive work to automate the entire link-building process. Whilst that sounds like a recipe for irritating emails, he gave a good enough account of the process to convince the cynic in me. Without turning this summary into technical documentation, Oh’s process really centred on a couple of things; making sure the data is of a high quality (ie. you are targeting the correct people) and building in a step to make sure the message is genuinely useful.
There were loads more takeaways from the day, far more than I can fit into this article, so for now, that’s all you’re getting. I will, however, be reviewing key details from the day and will share insights into how our processes develop as we go.
