Insights & Ice Cream at Brighton SEO

Brighton SEO has been one of the most talked about events in search since I started in the industry almost 9 years ago and as I’ve recently moved back into a hybrid SEO/content/brand role at Summit, I couldn’t wait to attend and throw myself back into all things search!

Having never been to Brighton before, I was very excited for a trip to the south coast and both Brighton and the event lived up to expectations. It was great to be in such a lively location, surrounded by likeminded people and being inspired by so many amazing speakers (there really was a topic for everyone). The only downside was having to decide between which talks to attend- and which ice cream flavour to try next.

So let’s have a look at a few of my favourite talks from Brighton SEO.

Do you hate your competition?

We all want to write content that drives more leads, converts better and results in bigger sales. Obviously. But how do we do that?

Araminta Robertson explained exactly how in her talk Yes, You Can Acquire Customers By Writing About Your Competitors and the answer is comparison posts and competitor content. I was intrigued to see how I could use this technique to create better, more targeted content for Productcaster (Summit’s suite of performance marketing technology).

But why does this content convert better? As obvious as it sounds, if people are comparing then they’re further down the funnel at the decision-making stage and they are ready to buy.

Buyers are doing 3 x more research now than they were in 2010, so if we create comparison content, we are giving buyers the information they want, creating our own narrative around ourselves and competitors, and producing content that has higher-than-average results.

Araminta ended with a quote by Robert Burns: “Dare to be honest” and that is how you should approach creating this type of content. Your customers likely already know your competitors, so use this to your advantage.

Watch this space…

What do you know about Sustainable Content?

There was one talk that shocked me and the topic wasn’t something I’d previously given much thought to in my work life. This talk was What is Sustainable Content and Why Does it Matter? by Fiona Brennan, who shared some astounding stats. Did you know:

• Our digital lives account for 3.5% of global carbon emissions (more than the aviation industry!).
• You can fly the whole population of London over to New York and back for less carbon than it takes to fuel TikTok for a year.
• A day of ChatGPT prompts takes about the same energy as fuelling 5.5 homes for a year.

When you combine those stats with the fact that 1 billion pieces of content are created daily, of which 50% have no engagement, and they’re created by marketers, 50% of whom are burnt out (Hootsuite), you realise it isn’t sustainable at all to continue as we are.

Sustainability isn’t something I’ve considered when creating a content strategy, but when you see the above stats, it really makes you think about how creating all this content impacts the people, planet and profit – and how less, better content could be working harder for us all…

Fiona shared a great framework (and I don’t want to give too much away!), but sustainable content should meet each of the following criteria: Purpose, Impact, Momentum and Profit. And if it does, by creating less content you can make more money, reduce your carbon footprint and reduce pressure on the content team.

Definitely something to try!

How do you become a thought starter?

My personal favourite was Mastering Thought Leadership in Business Marketing by Kineta Kelsall– something I am actively trying to be better at this as it’s so important when thinking about growing your business or personal brand.

Allodoxaphobia is the fear of other people’s opinions.

I know we’ve all worried about other people’s opinions, but who knew it was an actual phobia? And this worrying can stop us sharing thoughts and stop us becoming thought leaders. Crazy. But it isn’t only worrying that can put us off. Kineta spoke about how even the term “thought leader” itself can be intimidating – almost implying you need to be the expert to share anything. She prefers “thought starter” or “thought provoker” and I love that. You don’t always have to be right or be interesting or be an expert, you just need to share your thoughts and start the conversation.

But how do you start the conversation? Show up. Be interested. Be curious. Read. Consume. Go to events. Be consistent. Have an opinion. Engage. Contribute. Build a network. Be comfortable being uncomfortable.

You just start.

Final thoughts from Brighton SEO

I can’t wait to put learnings from all the talks into practical actions, and not just the above. There were so many amazing talks that I loved, but didn’t have time to include in my summary (namely the importance of Brand x SEO and Social x SEO – maybe something for a future post!). But one notable thing I haven’t discussed yet is this year’s hot topics and I couldn’t not mention them in my final thoughts…

AI and SGE. Understandably the most talked about topics of the conference.

The increased use of AI and the introduction of SGE are both going to change the way we create content and how this is displayed in SERPs. While there is a lot of change, worry and unpredictability within the online space at the minute, one thing remained clear to me throughout the whole conference (and was echoed in my favourite talks above). If you create unique, valuable, helpful content for the customer, that focuses on their pain points and the solutions you offer/they need, your content and business will continue to perform well in this ever-changing landscape.

PS: Lime and ginger was the BEST ice cream flavour!

Written by Emma Drury

 

Sources:
https://www.mediamath.com/blog/digital-advertisings-contribution-to-scope-3-emissions/
https://carboncredits.com/tiktok-dances-toward-net-zero-emissions-by-2030/
https://indieessentials.co.uk/how-to-create-sustainable-content/