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DigitalSEOSocial media

Five things you need to know from BrightonSEO

Date 01.05.2018

BrightonSEO is the event for all things search engine, and it is very much optimised for the industry it is attracting. Not only is the event held in the inclusive town of Brighton – where I’ve discovered that they’ve been keeping the most delicious vegan food (and I’m not even vegan!) – but it seems that creative-minded people flock here from far and wide.

This was especially the case on Friday when BrightonSEO took place. If you couldn’t make it, it’s SEoh so fine, because we’re going to share 5 things that we think you need to know… It’ll be like you were there.

5 things to take away from BrightonSEO

1: Specialise your content – Marcus Tober

“You can’t be everything to everyone. Traffic comes from niche content for niche audiences. Specialists make it to the top. You can’t be good at everything.”

You just can’t argue with that, but it’s something that we often need to remember… The more niche your content, the more intent your audience has when they find it. Isn’t that what we’re all after? We. Like. Conversions.

2: Unleash the power of unique content – Eleni Cashell

Did you know that “29% of the internet is duplicated content”? We didn’t either, but that’s a shocking fact. And, if you can help it, why would you want to add to that with your own duplicated content?

Whether that’s writing about something that’s already been written about by someone else with nothing new to add or creating content that’s similar to your own existing content, it’s a waste of your time. Google also doesn’t know which content to give preference to, meaning that all content can be negatively affected and see its rank decreasing.

Cashell says that it’s time to clean your content, and to do this you need:

  • To find the troublemakers; your duplicate content
  • Assemble your (kickass) team; the employees who will be tackling this issue together

Then you’ve got to be patient and wait for the results of unique content to show. This is all about the ‘long game’, and it’s a game that we should all be playing.

3: SEO is more important than ever – Steve Rayson

Social channels are great for having your content shared, but Rayson revealed a few facts that had the social-lovers in the audience – myself included – feeling a little shellshocked.

  • Only 5% of content gets more than 343 shares
  • 50% of content in 2017 got an average of 4 shares
  • 70% of all content shared was never linked back to
  • 65% of content is shared on ‘dark social’ – e.g. copied and pasted to WhatsApp, where it can’t be tracked etc.

When you take all of that into account, it’s understandable that Rayson thinks SEO is far more important for content than social sharing. If people aren’t sharing your content, they at least need to be able to find it with relevant keywords and phrases.

SEO has never been more crucial for content that goes further.

4: Mobile users are driving Facebook spend – Guy Levine

Although it’s nothing new that most Facebook users – and, indeed, social media users altogether – are accessing the platform using their mobile devices, with 56.5% of users only visiting in this way, it’s surprising how purchase-driven these users are.

89% of product purchases on Facebook are made by users whom only access Facebook on their mobile, which is a significant percentage of users. Clearly there is a very clear correlation between accessing the platform on mobile and having an increase intent to purchase, or at least more willingness to consider any products or ads that may appear within their session. Kerching.

5: Get your own team to promote your content – Steve Rayson

Rayson makes another appearance with a question that really stuck with me…

“If not even your own staff are sharing your content, why should anyone else?”

People forget the importance of building an internal culture of sharing and self-promotion. Everyone should feel like an ambassador of your brand and if your team aren’t inspired to share your branded content, why should anyone else?

And that’s just a few things that really stuck with me after an amazing day at BrightonSEO. Expect more fun facts soon from someone more technically SEO-minded than myself, because there was just so much good content to come out of this year’s event that we can’t wait to share with you. It certainly ranked highly with us, anyway.

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