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I was fortunate to be able to attend the London SEO Meetup XL event in Shoreditch which, intentionally or not, was on the 4th May 2022 and they really ran with the Star Wars theme! I must give credit to the organisers who took an initially intellectual conference and turned it into a day full of Stormtroopers, Darth Vader and a Tusken Raider!
Aside from all the Star Wars characters wandering around, there were 9 talks throughout the day and a technical SEO panel. There were a large range of topics including ‘How to survive client management in 6 easy steps’, ‘Brand building from a digital PR perspective’ and ‘Proactive indexing for the win’.
Here are my top 6 takeaways from the event:
1. Stop saying ‘It Depends’
With data everchanging it can be hard to provide clients with definitive answers to future data and outcomes. As an SEO Agency we often find ourselves saying ‘it depends’ to clients. Aleyda Solis’ talk explained how to avoid saying ‘it depends’ and the best responses to provide a more detailed answer. She explained that providing graphs and tables to identify a trend to predict possible forecasts provides clients with further insights. Also explaining the methodology and process of how we aim to improve the metric can provide further reassurance and clarity. While this information may seem obvious upon hearing, we are all guilty of saying ‘it depends’ but following Aleyda’s useful advice can help to reassure clients and strengthen relationships.
2. Google is Busy!
Have you ever wondered why pages are not being indexed on Google? Crystal Carter gave a short and sweet answer – Google is Busy! Use Google Search Console to identify the pages which are discovered but not yet indexed. Providing Google with clear instructions on the most important pages, through the Sitemap and No Index tag, can speed up the indexing process.
3. Don’t forget about Bing
With around 1 billion unique monthly visitors it’s important not to overlook Bing traffic. Ensuring you have submitted the Sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools will enable the site to appear in Bing and Yahoo searches which can be just as important as Google Webmaster Tools. I have found Clients often only focus on Google and forget about other major search engines, especially Bing; it is important to remember not everyone uses the same browser and Microsoft’s Edge browser has Bing as the default browser.
4. The MUM update is coming for your content
Google’s MUM (Multitask Unified Model) update aims to answer complex search queries in one single SERP result. Lily Ray defined it as “Google is trying to algorithmically identify real-life expertise, and elevate it above content that simply repeats what’s already been said elsewhere.” Google is not only reviewing the content, but also analysing the author and their expertise on the topic. The author’s authority and trust on the article subject is being questioned and ensuring their online presence is relevant to the industry is becoming ever more important.
5. How Google renders a site using a DOM tree
The final talk of the day was from Martin Splitt who’s talk on ‘what is rendering and how does Google do it’; discussed the DOM (Document Object Model) tree and how it works to render a site. Martin explained, “the indexing system is a bunch of microservices talking to each other”. Google takes the HTML, turns it into a DOM tree to create the page layout. Google then adapts the DOM tree based on the screen size and orientation. This talk was extremely insightful in further understanding how Google uses the data provided and compared to what is shown on your screen.
6. The internet is being attacked by sharks
On an unrelated SEO note, Google’s undersea cables are being attacked by sharks! While Google maintains the cables are wrapped in a special protective guard to protect against shark bites it hasn’t deterred them from trying!
I am grateful for the opportunity to have attended the conference, and connect with other people in the industry; and to hear from amazing speakers, all who were engaging and provided further insights into the everchanging SEO industry.
