BrightonSEO has become one of the most popular and respected natural search conferences in the UK. The most recent event was held on April 13th 2012, and was attended by over 1,000 of the UK’s finest search marketers at the Brighton Dome. Jellyfish were both present and presenting at the conference, and this summary has been created to provide our clients with key learnings and takeouts.

1. Jellyfish POV
BrightonSEO Key Learnings, 2012
17/04 | 2011
© Jellyfish Online Marketing Ltd 2011

2. Jellyfish POV
Brighton SEO Key Learnings, 2012
Background
BrightonSEO has become one of the most popular and respected
natural search conferences in the UK. The most recent event was
held on April 13th 2012, and was attended by over 1,000 of the UK‟s
finest search marketers at the Brighton Dome. Jellyfish were both
present and presenting at the conference, and this summary has
been created to provide our clients with key learnings and takeouts.
Panel Session – Ask the Search Engines
First session was a live Q&A, featuring Pierre Far from Google, Dave
Coplin from Bing and Rishi Lakhani, specialist SEM consultant. After
a short burst of predictable „is SEO dead?‟ questions (short answer
– no!), four points to consider:
Google and Bing were quizzed on an exact definition of a
„bad‟ link; aside from the highly simplistic standard Google
explanation, little insight was gained. Good questions from
the floor e.g. „how can we create good links if you can‟t tell us
what is bad‟. Clear hints from Google that the next algorithm
update will (as predicted by Jellyfish) prune links in a much
more vigorous manner than seen before.
Search signals: Google confirmed that over 200 signals are
considered, but also that „SEO is not a check list‟; great
content and user-experience is what counts (that must
sound familiar by now<)
Significantly, an explicit statement from Bing that being
„good at social‟ will be a key ranking factor. What does being
good mean? Well, it‟s not about volume of social activity
(although this will clearly help). Rather, social quality was
equated to sharing fluidity, in other words, how effectively
content is shared, liked and commented on within relevant /
influential audiences.
And in the most heated segment of the session („why are you
screwing us by not showing SEO keyword data‟), the panel
took a beating (well, Google anyway) about the impact of SSL
natural search encryption, and higher proportions of „not
provided‟ keyword data. Google argued that keyword level
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3. Jellyfish POV
Brighton SEO Key Learnings, 2012
data is accessible via Google Webmaster Tools (GWT);
audience countered that GWT data is „pure fantasy‟ and is no
substitute for analytics data. Google stated that SSL was
necessary as search queries become more „personal‟.
Audience view – it‟s a push to drive greater investment into
PPC, where keyword level data is fully visible (see our
previous POV<.). This one is going to run and run.
Pick of the Presentations
Rather than a blow-by-blow of each presentation, we‟ve created a
topic based analysis to provide a singular summary as follows:
Technical focus – what do search bots actually do?
During a beguiling (to some) / bewildering (to others!) session,
Roland Dunn‟s presentation on what do search bots actually do was
a real eye opener. For example, his deep analysis concluded that:
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4. Jellyfish POV
Brighton SEO Key Learnings, 2012
The technical SEO implications (especially for larger site owners)
are significant, indicating that very careful consideration should be
given to better monitoring of GoogleBot via log files, and then to
working out how best to „direct‟ bots to the pages that matter most
to users (for example, by increasingly granular configuration of
robots.txt files).
After all, there would be little or no point in optimising a whole
bunch of pages if they‟re never going to be indexed and rarely re-
crawled. This is especially relevant to site owners / publishers
pursuing a long-tail strategy, or who promote using fresh, news-
type content.
Rich snippets; the information and authorship layer
Quick reminder<<what is a rich snippet? See below:
In our previous POV (Google Webmaster EDU Seminar March 2012),
we reported that:
„Google is keen to promote the use of rich snippets. Their view is
that an improved user experience is delivered by investing data
(Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS)) with knowledge (rich
snippets). Cynical view: Google is extracting more content from
your landing pages, encouraging users to spend more time looking
at the SERPs (and eye-balling Google PPC ads). Positive view: SERPs
becomes a better place to make an informed decision, consumers
have more intent when they click through, everyone is happy!‟
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5. Jellyfish POV
Brighton SEO Key Learnings, 2012
Three sessions during Brighton SEO confirmed this, and provided a
range of technical views on how best to implement rich snippets,
ranging from discussions on the various formats available (e.g.
microdfata, rdf, rdfa), to conjecture regarding the potential ranking
„power‟ of authors, and use of rel=author / rel=me tags as next-
step „trustrank‟ SEO tools:
So, if / when trustrank comes to fruition, the ranking potential of
competing content (e.g. hints and tips content, or advice guides)
would be influenced by:
• Whether the content is correctly „linked‟ to an author
• How influential the competing authors are; logically, an author
with better / more relevant social connections would improve
the visibility of their content
Jellyfish have been providing advice and guidance on the use of rich
snippets during 2012, so it‟s good to see this issue gaining wide
coverage and acknowledgement.
Strategic view – the next algorithm change
Fact - a significant change in the Google algorithm is on its way
(„Google‟s Matt Cutts announced that Google is working on a
search ranking penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” or
“overly SEO‟ed.”‟). Recurring event theme: how can brands and
publishers be prepared, or (as one presenter commented), behave
like turkey farmers, not turkeys?
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6. Jellyfish POV
Brighton SEO Key Learnings, 2012
Our thoughts are:
• Traditional authority signals will decrease in importance
• „Ye olde‟ link building will become less effective
• Google will increasingly look at more personal, social signals to
determine authority
• Search Plus Your World (SPYW) is a clear indication of this trend
• As the „mix‟ of signals required to succeed in SEO becomes
more complex, understanding the effectiveness of specific
tactics will become more difficult
• Site accessibility / perceived content quality via technical fixes
have traditionally been de-prioritised in favour of off-site
authority optimisation – this needs to change!
• SEO and social activity needs to be better integrated to
promote visibility of and engagement with high quality content
In other words, now is the time to ensure that your SEO efforts are
aligned to this increasingly complex blend of signals, and to also be
aware that as newer signals become more important, older signals
(e.g. links) will be de-emphasised (i.e. will become less effective).
Jellyfish Presentation
Our contribution to the event was created by Tim Ireland, Jellyfish
SEO and Social strategist. Entitled „SEO { PPC Working Together in
Harmony', Tim‟s presentation focused on:
• The importance of understanding user journeys (searchers are
people)
• How user journeys alter depending on the nature and intent of
people‟s motivations, needs and wants
• The unique signature generated by different kinds of journeys
• Mapping / co-ordinating SEO, PPC<.and ideally all
communications tools to these evident signatures
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7. Jellyfish POV
Brighton SEO Key Learnings, 2012
The full presentation from Brighton SEO is here:
http://vimeo.com/40288073
Final thoughts – joining it up…
Key themes from Brighton SEO have been highlighted by Jellyfish in
previous POVs, but a number of fresh insights should remain on
your radar for 2012 and beyond:
• The use of better structured page mark up (or rich snippets, at a
tactical level) is clearly a hot topic and should be near the top of
your SEO to do list for 2012.
• Related to this, and as we suspected, the link between who you
are (author) and what you publish (content) will become
significant, both to better assist user journeys, and likely as a
new and powerful ranking factor (trustrank, which also makes
total sense in a social search context)
• The algorithm will change soon and Google will look to an
increasingly complex blend of content / people / social signals
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8. Jellyfish POV
Brighton SEO Key Learnings, 2012
to determine the authority and hence ranking potential of your
pages
Summary & Next Steps
If you‟d like more information on any of these subjects, do get in
touch, we‟d be happy to help.
And in the meantime, a selection of our POVs is available to view
and download from here:
http://www.slideshare.net/JellyfishOnlineMarketing
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