Our Marketing Insights from Brighton SEO 2024
What do Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz and The Princess Bride have in common with SEO? Compiling insights from a 2-day conference is never easy for a copywriter, but I did my best to pool all of the gathered knowledge into actionable insights concerning copywriting, local SEO, brand and link building with a sprinkle of AI. And don't forget to play fantasy bingo along the way!
TL;DR: Write helpful content, that lends itself to backlinks and is consistent, even if you’re doing local SEO. Involve your colleagues and C-suite through education, communication and a clear plan.
Content creation
2024 SEO Insights about Copywriting and Content Creation
As a copywriter, this part will be the longest, but as my editor says: Kill your darlings, so I'll try to keep it as short and practical as I possibly can.
You cannot talk about everything.
Make content clear and helpful
Readability is key when you try to write helpful content, and after the Helpful Content Update (HCUs) Google did recently, it is even more important than ever. And in order to write helpful content, you must allow yourself time to do the research:
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Know your audience
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Know your subject: products, services
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Know your tone of voice, and more importantly your verbal identity
Make content sustainable and evergreen
Ecology and a sustainable point of view as a brand is becoming increasingly important, and not only when informing younger generations in their purchase decisions. Walking the talk when it comes to sustainability might become a ranking factor in future, so start thinking about and investing in it now.
Make content magic and consistent
Consistency is a pattern that Google loves, so make sure that your content is this across all digital platforms: from your website to your social profiles. Also, kudos to Gizem Bingöl Girginer for her presentation inspired by the wizard of Oz to remind us that in order to resonate with your content on Instagram, you still need to use the guiding SEO principles:
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Follow that yellow-brick road: A clear goal and message
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Brains like the scare crow to think about your content
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Courage like the lion to try new things and put yourself and your content out there
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Heart like the tin man to engage with your audience: they are humans too
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A bit of wizard magic to inspire, engage and create a magical user experience
Local SEO
2024 SEO Insights about Local SEO
Local SEO was a subject that was not completely new to me; as a copywriter for bigger brands with local dealers, I did my fair share of content creation for a more local market. But it is always nice to get a refresher about why the basics still matter today. So, if you are a smaller, local business, these tips are for you:
This is often the place to gather clicks on the SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page). Especially if the user intent is contacting you or knowing where you are. And definitely put your current website link in case they want to explore what you do.
If you did a good job, why not ask your customers to leave a review? Google uses these to determine relevance and has moved on from only taking into account Google reviews; Trustpilot and other third-party review providers can be used too. And if you or your business are featured on another website? Ask them to link to yours.
As a bigger brand with local dealerships, hire a local copywriter who knows how to get your message across and can hype up your local business. They know the lay of the land and any cultural sensitivities or preferences.
Link Building
2024 SEO Insights about Link Building
Building on that local expertise, and the insight of asking for backlinks, a small section needs to be dedicated to the skill of link building. In one of the panels about link building and digital PR I scribbled down the following quote:
It’s not about the number of links. It’s all about context and which links influence your bottom-line.
Links – internal and external ones - are still important for your EEAT score (remember I talked about this at length last year?) and especially when Google wants to determine how helpful your content is. Because one thing to keep in mind is that we see a website as a structure. Google sees a website as list of pages: it’s up to us, as human beings, copywriters, content creators, to link pages and make them seem connected.
AI
2024 SEO Insights about AI
I don’t think there has been a single digital marketing conference this year that didn’t talk about AI. And I should know because I read all of the conference blogs we published in 2024; the one about the Drupal Dev Days, the one about Forward Festival Berlin, and the upcoming ones about DrupalCon Barcelona and Forward Festival Vienna. And don't forget our recent webinar on the subject!
So here are my two cents about AI and SEO. What I keep in mind:
AI is a tool, not an employee.
You can use it for automated tasks so it cannot randomly improvise and make something up. So use it for:
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Writing automation code so you can speed up your keyword research
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Analyzing numbers, statistics and results you have researched and provided
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Getting inspiration for content creation, but be critical of its ideas, especially if you are writing for a very local (non-English speaking) market
SEO Buy-in
2024 Insights about Getting SEO Buy-In
Hopefully by now you are convinced by the use of SEO for your business, but one big question remains: how will you get buy-in from your bosses, or your marketing colleagues? Have no fear, because I attended just the talks to help you with that.
First, educate your team
SEO is not a mystery box; educate your bosses and teammates so they understand what it is you want to do. Hellen Benavides had a very fun presentation – she had me at Harry Potter – about how she got her whole team on board as SEO ambassadors by organizing bite-size educational sessions about 1 SEO topic at a time. That way you can build traction within your team: it demystifies the topic, and your colleagues might be inspired with their own ideas to improve SEO.
Secondly, plans and goals
Having a clear plan, with clear goals that is supported by a whole time is much easier to execute. It helps to create content more efficiently but acts as a support as well that people can refer back to.
Thirdly, communicate with your team
After education, planning comes communication. Within your plan you will have fixed on a certain workflow. It is crucial that you identify the following things:
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Who decides what? Who has the casting decision?
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What do they need to decide? This you specify in your SEO plan.
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Reduce complexity for all the stakeholders by clearly communicating what you expect from them and when.
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Make clear that SEOs are here to help, not to complicate things.
Conclusion
Brighton SEO 2024: you were great
If you’ve read this far: thank you for staying. If it wasn’t clear yet, I had a wonderful time learning from inspiring people, getting to meet loads of interesting people and hear about what they do and struggle with. And if the final bullet point was not clear yet: SEO people really are here to help. The vibe that spans across the whole conference is one of support, knowledge sharing and inspiration.
Of course, I couldn’t go into too much detail and there we so many insightful talks and useful tidbits, so if you want to know more about any of the above, do reach out to me on LinkedIn. And even better if you want me and my colleagues to have a look at your digital marketing and how we can make it more SEO-proof. Just leave your contact details below and we’ll help you find what you are looking for.
Oh, and for those looking to complete their blog bingo card: the best presentation title at the conference was definitely Will Slater's How to write better SEO copy from The Princess Bride (inconceivable!).
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