3 things we learnt at BrightonSEO
Dee Overfield - 22 October 2018
Search is a fast-moving field that’s always changing, and at Wagada, we are always looking to build on our award-winning expertise and we never stop learning. So, we were excited to find out about all the latest developments in the world of search marketing at industry conference BrightonSEO recently.
If you haven’t heard of it, BrightonSEO is a big occasion for search bods. It’s one of the UK’s leading search marketing conference and training events, bringing together search professionals from all over the country (and overseas!) to learn what’s new in search engine optimisation.
Here are the 3 most useful things we learnt at September’s event:
1. Site speed matters
You’ll know this yourself from your own browsing experience: sites that take ages to load are a big turn-off. And it’s not just annoying for users – site loading speed matters to Google, too. It makes sense if you think about it; the longer it takes to access your website, the fewer pages the search bots will be able to crawl. If having lots of content is one of the key factors in being ranked highly, it follows that slow site speed will hamper that. Paired with the fact that Google prizes useful sites that offer value to their users, it’s no surprise that faster sites will take priority in search results over slower ones.
Is site speed an issue for your website? Tools like GTmetrix can help you find out.
2. It pays to latch on to high-ranking sites (known as “Barnacle SEO”)
Ever heard of Barnacle SEO? This is a buzzword that’s becoming better-known in the world of search. The philosophy behind it is that to be extra relevant to your target audience, you can piggyback on the popularity of other, high-ranking websites. Whether it’s getting a reference to your work on Wikipedia or getting a guest article published on their blog, by clinging fast (like a barnacle) to the success of other sites, you can gain some extra leverage for your own. Barnacle SEO is a technique that can be particularly helpful when you are struggling to rank for a really competitive keyword.
3. Your Google My Business profile is really important
Are you listed on Google My Business? If not, creating a profile is likely to boost your search engine performance, on Google at least. That’s because, understandably, the search giant likes to answer queries within the Google search page itself, rather than sending you to another site – meaning that if you have a well-put-together relevant GMB profile, they’ll want to list it as a ‘featured snippet’. We picked up all sorts of useful tips on how to get a featured snippet using GMB, which we’re looking forward to putting into practice with our clients.
As well as learning all of that and more, our trip to Brighton also gave us the chance to mingle with all sorts of fellow SEO professionals, including living legend Rand Fishkin! Check out our very own Senior Digital Marketing Executive, Dan Jenkins posing with one of our big search heroes.
And if you’d like to know how we can use our SEO knowledge to give your website a boost, find out about the SEO services we offer and how we can help.
