On Friday (13th September) some of MTM’s digital team headed down to sunny West Sussex coast for the twice-yearly conference, BrightonSEO.
Attracting over 3,500 attendees, BrightonSEO represents the largest conference of its type in Europe. It has developed a strong reputation for the quality of its talks and presentations and welcomes a range of speakers from all around the globe, who share the latest trends, features, and news in the digital industry.
Here are our top 5 takeaways from the event:
1 Google is Getting Smarter
Machine learning has resulted in more useful and personalised search results.
Some of the talks at this year’s BrightonSEO discussed how machine learning and artificial intelligence are helping search become smarter and more in tune with what the user is looking for.
The advantage here for brands and businesses is that there are now new ways of connecting with customers, by picking up on their behaviours and user intent. This is all made possible with the collection and analysis of big data.
2 Voice Search is a Hot Topic
The rise of voice search has been significant.
It is believed that by next year, 50% of all searches will be voice-based and that 30% of those searches will be done without a screen.
Voice search has been seen to improve user experience, with the most relevant and useful answers being written in a conversational tone that directly appeals to the user and their search query.
Because of this, it is forcing copywriters to continue to make content that is high quality, conversational and relevant to the question being asked. This is where long-tail keywords take centre stage, making content sound natural with less use of short and snappy keywords.
3 A Spotlight on Health and Well-Being in the Digital Industry
For the first time at BrightonSEO, there were a number of talks focused on the health and well-being of employees working in the digital industry.
With digital burnout at an all-time high, the digital industry ranks alongside medicine and law when it comes to stress, high pressure, and Imposter Syndrome.
In two separate talks, the advice was that those working in digital should unplug in the evening, have downtime away from screens, create a better work/life balance and openly talk about these issues in the workplace.
4 Google My Business is Being Overlooked
Google My Business is blending more into search engine results and businesses aren’t taking full advantage of it.
With an emphasis on the question and answer function, we attended a talk where we looked at the benefits of real reviews and the power of having control over the information that’s out there about your company.
Images and text posts that are published to Google My Business help paint a picture for Google about your business, providing them a better insight into what you do and helping to put your company in front of users looking for your products and services.
5 SEO Will Never Die
BrightonSEO’s motto is ‘SEO will never die.’ Search engine optimisation has had a role in digital marketing for a long time now, and over the years it has evolved and changed as algorithms have been tweaked and new technologies have become available.
The role of the SEO expert will always be required to strategise, implement, monitor and report on SEO strategies, but the tools and methods of doing so will inevitably change and vary over time.
We look forward to seeing what BrightonSEO 2020 brings!
Stay tuned for more articles where we will be discussing these topics in more detail.