If you reached this page with genuine intent of having "how do I cook broccoli?" answered by a search engine, unfortunately your culinary dilemma is not answered here. However, read on and you may gain an insight as to 'how' you arrived at this particular page, if your broccoli can wait? Those just curious as to why there's a cookery title in our Journal, read on about our discoveries at Brighton SEO 2019.
Errolyn and myself (Marc) negotiated the UK rail network to Brighton, where the latest industry techniques, advice, facts, figures and developments of all things search, engine and optimisation waited.
Exquisite evening meals, no broccoli included, and breakfasts in the arty surrounds of our boutique accommodation (Artists Residence on Trinity Square) were had as we co-ordinated which halls and speakers to attend. Mobile devices dominated the breakfast table as Errolyn updated our social "story", before a short stroll onto Brightons seafront and the unexpected sight of queues surrounding Brighton Centre. Fortunately our passes and lanyards had us ushered into the organised chaos.
Into a sea of people and fending off tote-bag freebies like conference going pros, before being washed our separate ways. A technical morning of talks in one of the smaller auditoriums for me, whilst Errolyn would be off to the more attractive sounding social media and search advertising presentations in the main auditoriums.
I'd say the organisers mis-judged the interest a talk on the subjects of; "Love The .htaccess File", "Best Kept robots.txt Secrets" and "Don't F*ck Up Your Site Migration" would garner, I don't blame them. I thought i'd be amongst a handful of people in a largely empty room. Wrong. Instead, this small auditorium was full to bursting with Marvel, Trek, Star Wars and D&D t-shirts (I wasn't wearing mine, sincerely). Air-con off, people sat on the floor, in the aisles, two-deep stood around the auditorium. Dedicated techies.
Never did I think i'd be relaying, by text, as quickly and enthusiastically, lines from a talk about .htaccess and robots.txt files back to View Towers. These are files we use on each of our websites and happy to report we've been using correctly for years. Fine-tuning tips for SEO were picked up (already implemented in our core website builds) making for an unexpected strong morning. Bring on more charts and graphs to nod along to, as the topic of "Site Migration" was next. A topic i'm on the frontline of at View.
Finding myself in total agreement with this speaker as she made it clear the client needs to organise a detailed migration plan and check their expectations. Amending your site structure, your domain name, your business name, will have a huge effect on SEO. Downwards. Initially. Always. The amount of downturn and length of time to recover can be reduced by the steps outlined by the speaker. It will recover, maybe improve, but beware, the graph and downturn in search ranking is expected and part of the upheaval of a migration process.
Phone battery down to that worrying single digit % as more notes were relayed back to base. It was time to find a charger, oh, and Errolyn.
She was of course found updating all of the social medias at once. Both of us inspired and sharing knowledge over a quick lunch (still no broccoli!) opposite the centre, between Brightons piers. Some sun and sea-air before the afternoon sessions.
We both attended the main auditorium for the afternoon sessions where speakers focused on website content. Opposing opinions were shared from the stage. One a targeted, scientific, algorithm beating approach was heard, versus a more, 'Just be yourself, write good content that people will want to read; leave the search engines to do their job to find your good content'. Each view valid and applause worthy.
A talk on techniques used for good 'voice' search results via Alexa, Google and Siri was very insightful a look at the present and a glimpse to the future. The overwhelming majority of searches, especially voice, are questions with the words, how, what and why in the search phrase. We were told a "how" question, with the least helpful results ratio when voice searching in the UK, is the question, "How do I cook broccoli?". How true that is, I don't know. Seemed like a good title for this blog post anyway. If this does appear as a result on a voice search, I apologise for having added to the quagmire of bad search results for those genuinely asking how to cook broccoli...
As the bars opened around the conference centre for the after-show, we were making our way in the late afternoon heat up to Brighton station and a late night arrival back on the North Wales riviera. Though each of us that little bit sharper and enthused for all things SEO.
About the Author: View Creative Agency, a creative website and digital marketing agency based in North Wales and work across the whole of the UK. We can help improve your google rankings by using a number of SEO advanced toolkits which create site audits, full analysis of keywords, compare them against your competitors. We do advertising research, analysis competitor ad budgets, monitor ad copy and landing page to maximise your google rankings ensuring your organic SEO is as good as it needs to be.
Contact a member of our digital marketing team for more information on how to improve your rankings and SEO.
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