What are the key takeaways for B2B marketers from Brighton SEO 2023?
It has been a month since the Brighton SEO conference which was nothing short of exciting! The great variety of insightful and knowledgeable sessions left us buzzing with ideas. It was great to stay up to date with the latest advances in search marketing and hear from thought leaders from various industries sharing their views on recent developments in the SEO world. Now, we look back at the learnings we picked up from the event.
Here are the 4 key takeaways from the event for B2B marketers targeting a niche.
1. Use Generative AI for SEO with human oversight:
AI is here to stay, and it has already started impacting content strategies and SEO by streamlining processes and fast tracking the ability to create huge volumes of content. However, it’s essential to understand that LLMs (or large language models like ChatGPT, Bard, etc.) operate without intrinsic knowledge – they don’t have a data source; instead, their outputs are all based on patterns.
The AI models see words as patterns and are programmed to complete the patterns. This means that they will look to complete patterns even when they don’t know the answer. And that is why they often churn out incorrect, inaccurate or just made-up answers. This is why having a roadmap for a responsible and ethical approach to AI content production is paramount in maintaining authenticity.
Whilst AI excels in many areas, it cannot replace the human touch, particularly when crafting unique and original long form content that showcases your expertise.
2. SEO can be key to your sustainability efforts:
Did you know that the global carbon footprint of Google Search is the equivalent of 7 trips to the moon every day? This was news to us as well and highlights how important improving the search experience is – not only for your business objectives but also for the planet.
We can reduce the energy that’s spent on search by making bot crawl easier, reducing the user’s number of page loads or reducing the energy needed to load pages.
A good SEO strategy is a sustainable strategy as well.
3. Keeping the SEO strategy simple:
With so many algorithm updates and a constant flurry of fancy new SEO/research tools – it is easy for digital marketers to get distracted or overthink their SEO strategy. As we are entering the age of AI, it is important to understand the value of easy wins and small incremental changes over a longer time that can drive great results. Not everything needs to be advanced.
However, an increasing number of SEOs recognise that sometimes it is just about knowing what to fix first and sticking to the basics to get some SEO wins.
Basic tasks such as updating meta titles and internal links still significantly affect the search performance.
4. Search Generative Experience (SGE) is coming and could affect your search traffic:
Launched earlier this year in the US, Japan and India, Search Generative Experience (SGE) is poised for a global rollout, including the UK, after further testing and improvements. This has the potential to drastically change the search experience with AI generated results.
While this could help us understand a new topic intuitively, all on the search results page without needing to surf through multiple links, at the same time it could decrease the organic traffic and make it even harder to rank on keywords relevant for your business.
B2B marketers should anticipate the transformational potential of SGE in how users interact with search results and adapt their strategies accordingly.
Last time we witnessed such a buzz was around voice searches and how that would lead to change the search ecosystem. That did not quite happen, so we need to be mindful that this could go either way.
Our time at Brighton SEO was a great learning experience and it was insightful to engage (in person!) with like-minded professionals and industry leaders in the SEO space. We look forward to integrating these learnings into our work and helping our clients navigate through the transforming search marketing space.
Get in touch with us if you found this useful or if you have any questions.
