BrightonSEO is by far the biggest search marketing conference in the UK and its long awaited September 2014 edition did not disappoint. The Verve Search team attended and came away with some fantastic tips and tricks on Content Marketing, Analytics, Link Building and SEO! This is our slideshare deck which covers the main highlights and takeaways of the day. BrightonSEO September 2014: The Ultimate Write -Up: http://goo.gl/L08aEd BrightonSEO September 2014: Exclusive Video Footage: http://goo.gl/0exZ4B

1. BrightonSEO 2014

2. Strategy
Ian Miller
Matt Roberts
Stephen Croome

3. “Google is no longer a search company, it’s a data
platform” -Ian Miller
● Google doesn’t want to be the company that didn’t react or change as a business
● Content isn’t king; context is. It will matter more where your users are and what
they are doing
● SEO teams should be working with media buyers to optimise the entire search
funnel
● It's important to think about what other pages the user will be visiting at each
stage of the buying cycle
● SEO is a two sided education coin with learning on one side and teaching on the
other
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4. SERPs
Moderated by Gerry White
Gary Moyle
Alec Bertram
David Whatley & James Robinson

5. “I realised I’d had to download 50k CSV’s a day –
which is impossible – so I did what any sane person
would do; I automated it.” -Alec Bertram
● Data shows that people are far more willing to scroll down...even onto the second
page
● Branding plays a huge part in CTR – around a 10% difference on P1 clickthrough.
● CTRs used for forecasting is vital – both in winning business and working out
what’s feasible.
● The launch of OpenCTR a project to create anonymised open CTR data
● It’s all about NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency
● There aren’t shortcuts to local, just make your way through citation, citation,
citation

6. Onsite
Moderated by Teddie Cowell
Dipesh Pattni
Dan Patmore
Jon Earnshaw

7. Insert Picture
“Content Strategy was the past…Content Journey is
the future.” -Dipesh Pattni
● Content factors can be summed up in the Content ARC:
○ A: Audience
○ R: Relevant
○ C: Compelling
● Content has to relate better to the audience in a compelling manner
● Driving presence wherever it can be organically driven is vital
● Technical natural search should be prioritized
● Monitor the visibility of your content daily
● Always investigate suspicious flux

8. Links
Aleyda Solis
Laura Crimmons
Kirsty Hulse
Gisele Navarro

9. “We can create content that’s actually meaningful to
them – because we’ve been stalking them – and that’s
powerful”- Kirsty Hulse
● PR agencies are rightfully worried about engaging due to SEO’s history of spam
● Use SEO tools to show changes in traditional PR metrics
● Online personas are often different from offline personas
● SocialMention is a good social analysis tool
● Translation, tone and outreach are very different in different markets
● The 5 types of content curation are aggregation, distillation, elevation, mashup
and chronology

10. Data
Moderated by Matt Roberts
Aaron Friedman
Emma Haslam
Alexandra Tachalova
Daniel Kershaw

11. “Let data change how we visualize concepts and
present them to clients”
–Aaron Friedman
● Know the story you want to tell with your data
● Visualize your data in cool new ways; think outside of the box
● Objectives, KPIs, and targets are very different things; treat them as such
● 70% is the most effective motivating discount when dealing with value hunters
● Tweets including the word "hungover" statistically lag 12 hours behind other
drunk tweets

12. Technical
Moderated by Dan Bell
Tom Bennet
Adrien Menard & Annabelle Bouard
Tom Whittam
Gerry White

13. “Set your own thresholds and don’t be afraid”
-Tom Whittam
● Link Monitoring:
○ Negative SEO
○ Ahrefs New/Lost links
○ GWT link dates
● Download links, use multiple sources (GWT, Majestic SEO)
● Use pivot tables to identify patterns (anchors, number of links, type of links)
● Contact webmasters directly to remove links
● Google Docs can be used to monitor clients
● Google Sites can create dashboard for google docs data

14. Semantic
Matthew Brown
Jan-Willem Bobbink
Dawn Anderson
Marcus Tober

15. “You shall know a keyword by the company it keeps.”
-Marcus Tober
● SEO has become more of a strategic element within the company
● Organize your site like a library to make it easier on Google. Take a good look at
your categorization
● You don't need to go to battle over links if you win on relevance
● Context is king is right. But without content you can't give context to Google
● From 2013 to 2014, site speed is the biggest game changer in ranking factors
within Google
● A page beats a page, not a site beats a site

16. Analytics
Moderated by Phil Haslehurst
Nikki Rae
Lukasz Zelezny
Dara Fitzgerald
Adam Lofting

17. “Effective visits like a sir!”
– Lukasz Zelezny
● GA Project Stages: Initiation, Analysis, Design, Implementation, Testing
● Audit is conducted to:
○ Understand the business problem
○ Understand ability/knowledge of client
○ Specify issue and tasks
○ Write recommendations
○ Propose further opportunities
● Effective visits = Visits – (visits * bounceRate)
○ It represents a real quality of traffic and value
○ It affects on page optimization and conversion rate optimization

18. See you at #BrightonSEO
2015
@vervesearch