Search Marketing Takeaways From Brighton SEO 2012

Shifting marketing efforts to digital space, applied creativity in advertising and a Panda dancing with a Penguin on the same stage. All these were approached on Friday (September 14) at the  Brighton SEO conference, the perfect place to reunite highly skilled marketers who brought up the newest challenges in the industry.

The Advanced Web Ranking team was happy to attend and sponsor this amazing event, put together by Kelvin Newman from Site Visibility.

Now we're back and eager to share everything we've gathered on this trip: things we learned, things we spoke about and the great people we met.

What we learned

Without any further introduction, here are our top takeaways from the Brighton Dome this year:

Search Marketing

1. It's important to start thinking now how you can open your sites to semantic search.
   Tom Anthony (Distilled)

2. Over the next 10 years, people will access content on their phones instead of visiting websites.
   Tom Anthony (Distilled)

3. Every week learn something new to keep your knowledge fresh.
   Richard Baxter (SEOgadget)

4. If you don't love something you just did, then it's not finished.
   Richard Baxter (SEOgadget)

5. Keep a good balance between SEO and CRO.
   Martin Belam (Emblem)

6. Don't be obsessed with SEs mechanics – obsess about User Experience instead.
   Martin Belam (Emblem)

7. It's important to know your own website very well to find its most advantageous assets.
   Tony King (Semetrical)

8. A large percentage of searches for many products come from people looking for images of those products.
   Tony King (Semetrical)

9. To chase the algorithm is a hopeless effort. Smart SEOs should learn and adapt.
   Rebecca Weeks (MGOMD)

10. Using responsive web design is the best option for developing a mobile site, but not always practical. A possibility is dynamic serving or having a parallel mobile site.
    Aleyda Solis (Orainti)

11. You dont know if you are making money, unless you are looking at data.
    Anna Lewis (Koozai)

Content marketing

1. Content is not just king – it is a kingmaker.
   Yousaf Sekander (Rocket Mill)

1. Use your own URL shortener for infographics to have full control over the URLs, using your brand name in the shortened versions.
   Yousaf Sekander (Rocket Mill)

1. Time of black hat / white hat SEO is over - now it’s all about creating the content your users want.
   Antony Mayfield (Brilliantnoise)

2. Instead of comparing techniques (SEO vs. Social Media etc.), they should be regarded as a single environment.
   Antony Mayfield (Brilliantnoise)

3. Think about how your headlines will look like when they are shared, and accept that you can't control how they will appear.
   Martin Belam (Emblem)

4. Organize content along the lines of how your audience understands it.
   Martin Belam (Emblem)

5. A content strategy should flow with peaks and troughs, so you should have a mixture of "Big Bang" content events and regular blog posts.
   Simon Penson (ZazzleMedia)

Advertising

1. On average, a person receives 1000 advertising signals in one day, but 90% of them don't work because they go unnoticed.
   Dave Trott (CSTTG)

2. If you can’t explain your model to an 11 year old, then you haven't fully understood it yourself.
   Dave Trott (CSTTG)

3. Complication is weakness while simplicity is strength.
   Dave Trott (CSTTG)

What we talked about

As a headline sponsor, we were requested to make a short presentation about Advanced Web Ranking. But we knew how boring most of the 5 minute elevator pitches are, so we came up with the idea of sharing something useful. So we thought that the best way to talk about AWR is to actually show people how we use it inside our company!

The presentation was focused on the people that are using AWR within our company, the SEO workflow and the architecture we use. Because most of the boys that work here are actually programmers, the team that actually uses AWR inside Caphyon is made of three funny and talented girls :) - we proudly call them the "Powerpuff girls" (and I'm the one in green!).

If you're curios to see how we use Advanced Web Ranking, check out the slides that were presented at the conference.

Our biggest thanks go to...

• all the Brighton SEO speakers, for sharing their knowledge and experience.

• everyone who won our BrightonSEO competition. It was a pleasure to meet you in person.

Special thanks to Kelvin for organizing this conference and allowing us to be part of it. We really felt like home. And the weather was so nice that some members of our team actually got to work on their tan (imagine that!).

Thank you everyone who joined us at the Brighton Dome. It was an amazing experience, and we'll surely be happy to see you again next year.

P.S.: Me!.. Pick me!