#83 Rewind & Recap: BrightonSEO 2023

Jonny Ross: 00:00:11

Welcome. We are live. This is a pop up. It's a live pop up. It's a lunchtime learning pop up. And what is weird. Welcome to the Jonny. But what is weird is today I am the guest. I've got my very good friend, Pascal Finn Tony, who co-hosts a number of podcasts with me. But today he's going to present I'm going to be the guest, so I'm going to let Pascal take over.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:00:39

I'm taking over happily. I would normally if you were, you know, in the physical room, grab the microphone off you and say, My turn, Monsieur Jonny Ross. And all this started about about a week ago. Give a take to the day where. So lots of interesting reels on social media. You're having a wonderful time in a sunny Brighton where you attended the Brighton 2023 conference and to say that there was an inkling of envy and former would be an understatement, and then thought, You know what, actually lovely that you should go down and take the time to invest in your own development and learning, but think you should share and kind of just see you're very trusting to allow me to literally take over, you know, one of your one of your programs which always follow, you know, because you've had some wonderful guests.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:01:25

So listen, I'm going to go straight into it and start by asking for viewers and listeners and familiar with the conference. So why do you choose to go to Brighton SEO and how did you get there? Did you and did you spend nights in hotel? Did you enjoy it as well, the socializing as well as the learning?

Jonny Ross: 00:01:42

Yes. So Brighton has been going for a number of years and it's known as the world's largest search marketing conference. And how can I not attend something like that where I know that there's going to be so much content on search engine optimization? It's my passion, it's my background, it's where I've where I've come up in the in the digital world. And knowing some of the speakers that were going to be there, some of the content that was going to be covered, it was an opportunity. You know, I think in all careers you've got to continually develop that. And there's nothing wrong with every day as a school day and learning new techniques, even if it gives me the chance to be able to reflect and clarify if some of the strategies I'm using, the right strategies it gives you the ability to reflect, it gives you the ability to be inspired and sort of take a step back from the day to day and actually just, you know, think actually, oh, there's something different there.

Jonny Ross: 00:02:40

And I was always hoping that perhaps there might be some golden nuggets that I could take away ultimately to power myself and to bring back to my clients.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:02:49

Oh, absolutely. No. Did have a glanza the Brighton SEO official website, very clear, very easy to navigate. And there was only a lot of things before the events as well. People could go on walks and they call networking.

Jonny Ross: 00:03:02

Yeah, the fringe events. I mean, there was, there was all sorts of things. There was yoga at lunchtime, there was a there was there was nights out, there was there was five K runs. I didn't engage hugely in a lot of that. I must admit that I took the opportunity of wanting to explore Brighton a bit for myself, so I sort of went off the beaten track a tiny bit and just, you know, I like to when I go anywhere, I try and absorb the atmosphere. And, and so I didn't want to just be Brighton the whole time. I wanted to see a bit of real Brighton as well.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:03:34

Yeah. Which we you shared, you know kindly via the rails on social media. So when I was looking at the official website, it was an interesting format because there were literally hundreds, hundreds of talks where there were all 20 minutes. It must have been so hard to choose the one you wanted to go to.

Jonny Ross: 00:03:54

I, I did not know where to start. I mean, there was there was literally, I think, six different tracks. And each track, as you say, you had, um, well, what it was, was, was each track had a segment where maybe an hour long, an hour and 20 long. And in each one of those there was then three talks that was related to that segment. So not only was it picking which segment or which track it was, there was so much content, so many different speakers. So I just decided I mean, you know, I did quite a bit of research prior. There was particular speakers that I definitely wanted to see.

Jonny Ross: 00:04:32

There was particular talks that I definitely wanted to see, but at the same time I wanted inspiration. I wanted something a bit different and I and I achieved that. And and I'm sure we'll get into some of the content that I went to. But, but I tried to vary it and not just go to the main stage every, you know, for every single bit because I think I think some of the, the sort of the, the newer stuff comes out of some of the smaller rooms and that's where you can get some real insights. Whereas the main stage, you know, it tends to be more in some way a bit more generic.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:05:09

I would agree. I made a point. Now when I go to the event, even on virtual conferences, I do what you do, which is, you know, the beer, which is what do I want to learn more of this year? Where is my skill gap? And just be that tactical and strategic about it. Otherwise you run around like a kid, you know, in a kind of toy store where you want to touch everything and have tried everything.

Jonny Ross: 00:05:32

Yeah, I literally did want to see everything. And the only beauty of it is that they released all the content in video format. My ticket gives me access to that video content now. But then over the coming months, they're going to be releasing one talk, I think a day or a week onto YouTube. So so all the content will be out there within the next year or so. But I do have the ability to be able to look at some of the content that wasn't at and say, Yeah, there was. There was a lot. There was a lot.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:06:06

So going back to the the website, I was literally in a Wow, look at all this happening. But one that the talks at the very top had this very simple title of an update on Google Search was the shortest title. I thought someone didn't think very, very hard about this. Nonetheless, when I look at the names, I saw the name of John Miller and Billy Jenner. And for a moment I went, No, it can't be John Miller from Google, the man who has been literally doing live Q&A forever.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:06:36

Some of this is lasting 2 or 3 hours on YouTube and saw the picture. And it was the John Miller, wasn't it?

Jonny Ross: 00:06:44

It was. And, you know, this is the guy that took over from Matt Cutts. He's become the face of Google, the guy that he puts a tweet out. And Barry, the likes of Barry Schwartz will analyze that tweet to the Nth Degree to try and understand what's the message in there? What's the secret? What's the what's the algorithm about to do? Not only did I go to his talk, I was just bringing this up on my phone. Pascale But for people that are watching right now, I have a selfie with Oh, that's me and John. Uh, I managed to get some time with him after the talk as well. Um, and it was the real John Muller. In fact, one of the questions that I asked him was has, you know, he was never going to give me the answer. But has Google seen a decline in search since ChatGPT has become more mainstream? Um, he, um, he was never going to to give me a proper answer, but he said he'd be surprised because he believes that still there will be a number of people that are still checking Google to check to fact check what Google, what ChatGPT is giving.

Jonny Ross: 00:07:59

I think in reality, you know, I could see in his eyes that I was hitting a somewhat sore point. But but it was an interesting conversation.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:08:10

Absolutely. Now I've been brought up well, so I need to say that I'm so pleased for you to imagine, Miller, but I'm very envious. Well done. You very quickly, on the subject of I, I was pleased to pleased to see, however, glancing at the agenda for the two days that there wasn't too much of it, you know, because there could have been just a thing. The trap to fall into the organizer, which is all I powered this and I enhance the other. And I think they did a very good job to make it very mixed. Now, I know that you've got probably pages of notes and you're still going through those notes and reflection. But let me ask you now, you know, your top takeaways. You know, it could be something that is more of a feeling about the by the event or it could be some very practical things that you're going to start to implement for your clients.

Jonny Ross: 00:08:59

Yeah, I think I guess the theme, the biggest takeaway from the event, it was around I there was no question. I mean, there was a lot of content around. I even though even though at the same time there was a good cross section and I'll come on to some of that. But if you were to ask me what the biggest takeaway would be, it would be we need to embrace it and we also need to be cautious. So it's around finding a balance. It's around. Let's not let's not, you know, just let I take over, but let's recognize the power of AI and let's recognize how much difference it can actually make in terms of effectiveness, productivity in terms of data. But then the bigger caution is more data doesn't mean better results. It's about the quality of that data as well. So yeah, I think I think the biggest takeaway, which would be embracing AI now, I already embrace it. I've been embracing AI for, for a number of years. Um, the, uh, so for me, I think the, the personally, the biggest takeaway was around some of the techniques some people are using.

Jonny Ross: 00:10:18

Um, I went to a really moving away from AI for a second. I went to a really interesting segment on TikTok. It was TikTok SEO. And um, that gave me a real insight into current. I mean, I'm talking like, you know, trends right now, September 23rd, uh, current trends on TikTok and, and the way TikTok is, is how powerful it is in terms of. The signals it's giving to websites and how you can gain the TikTok algorithm. So as a sort of secondary, um, key takeaway for me it was around TikTok is, you know, there's so much can be done. And again, I've been saying I've been using TikTok for, um, probably three, four years. I've been, um, I've always said that TikTok is a platform that we should look at. But as a key takeaway, it's like, oh, that's there's some there's some good stuff here.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:11:18

And we keep saying, you know, in other conversation we've had in the past looking elsewhere.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:11:23

So you may not actually be a regular TikTok user, you may not even have an account. But listening to the strategies and tactics can give you the spark of an idea that you can use back to your more regular platforms.

Jonny Ross: 00:11:35

Well, the biggest takeaway on TikTok was that people like watching nothing. They they like watching nothing. They like watching. Someone out walking or someone changing their clothes or someone getting ready for the day or they people are absorbed in in just real life. Nothing. And and the and and it's you know, it's a bit like watching fire watching watching a fire in a, you know, whether it be a bonfire or whether it be in a well the words escaping me a fireplace watching fire in a fireplace. It's you are ultimately watching nothing but you're captivated by it. And and likewise just sort of seeing real life is is the big thing. But then the secondary thing would be around watching something and believing that you're doing it. So whether that be productivity, whether it be travel, seeing someone visit some global city that's, you know, fantastic.

Jonny Ross: 00:12:49

Seeing them do that makes you feel that you've just done it and experienced it and and so there's that um the whilst the whole thing of of nothingness there's also the whole thing of watching someone be productive suddenly makes you feel like you've been productive, which is really weird as well.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:13:08

It's showing that moment in time, which actually Google introduced many years ago. Remember when they had what they called moments.

Jonny Ross: 00:13:14

Z what was it, Z, Z, A zero moment of truth, the.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:13:20

Truth that was for the search, but also when they were pushing videos and what they call microblogging, which I suppose now that because we have the benefit of hindsight, may have been the beginning of short, but sharing moments in time that are relatable as well as, you know, the more meaningful kind of addresses. Um, I need to go back now. I've recovered from, you know, being jealous of you meeting John Mueller. I need to go back to. Did you go to his session and on a date on Google search?

Jonny Ross: 00:13:50

I absolutely went to his session, even though I knew I was going to be getting a video.

Jonny Ross: 00:13:55

I audio recorded the entire session so that I could go back and analyze it. In fact, I, um, uh, there was a few people there that were of interest. Danny Sullivan was also there as well. Oh, right. Okay. So. So it was, yeah, it was, it really interesting. And I think the, the key things I got from John were, well, there was, you know, there was one thing which was, look, don't panic when there's an update, the last thing to do is to panic and start making tons of changes. That's not you know, that's not how to solve problems from a Google update. But I think the biggest thing that came out was around XG, which is the search generative experience, which is where Google is bringing AI into search results. And they've rolled it out in India, they've rolled it out in Japan, they've rolled it out in the US. And these are testbeds to see how the platforms perform. And so this is, as you're doing a search result, you're then seeing AI results as well.

Jonny Ross: 00:15:04

And and so there's a whole question around where does that leave us, those businesses that are desperate to to, to get traffic from SERPs. So there was and what you know ultimately what that came down to was if you want to if you're going to embrace the whole and how are you going to how are you going to rank well with SGI, it comes back to quality of content. It comes back to helpful content, resourceful content produce content that is actually going to help someone that is actually going to help your audience be, you know, and it's what me and you have been saying for for donkey's years and but it's no different. And and but I also want to just whilst I'm talking about John's talk, there was two other big things that I feel came out of it as well. And what he was talking about was how to keep ahead of Google updates and Google algorithms. And there was no secret that the clear focus right now is speed and accessibility. And to be fair speed, we've been talking about page speed, we've been talking about for a long time, but it's clearly still a very high focus.

Jonny Ross: 00:16:19

In fact, coming out in March 24th, I'm going to get the acronym completely wrong, seeing that I'm live in an IP and NPI. I can't remember the the new metric that's being measured for for search speed. And Google have already announced that it's not it's not often that they pre announce things but that one they have done so speed is clearly on top of their agenda and and and we've we in our agency have been very aware of speed for a long time. But but the other word that he mentioned a number of times was accessibility. And this is about making the Web World wide Web accessible for every single person. And. You know, not just making sure that it works across every single browser and every single device, but actually so that every single user can can easily use a website. And if he's saying that now, then we know what future Google updates are going to be. It's going to be around. What is that? Is that website any more accessible than the other website? And if it is, you're going to have a high chance of ranking listening.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:17:30

To you speak to. Because when I glance at all the different talks and it was, you know, literally hundreds, the theme that I got was the reinforcement of claiming your online presence and really establishing a reputable, credible digital footprint around your brand mentions and the labeling and the product and services that you have. And that's not just one webpage that's going to cut it. You know, you've got to really provide that online experience of leaving no stones and turn about the the focus and, and the practical advice and the before, during and after and all those things, you know, discuss time and time again. And there's something actually quite reassuring that it doesn't really veer too far away from that constant. That's been the kind of key messages you and I've shared for many years now.

Jonny Ross: 00:18:20

Yeah, around around the quality of content, for example, or the speed of a website. Yeah, totally. So, so what I ended up doing was, um, I molded, you know, I, I, I shaped where I was going as I was going.

Jonny Ross: 00:18:37

So hearing John talk about accessibility so much, of course, on day two, where did I go? To a whole accessibility session. Um, and it was, it was on my radar. But, you know, I'm not being funny. When you are torn between six different rooms and all of them are compelling. All of them. All of them. You're reading the descriptions, you're seeing the speakers, and you're like, No, I want to go to that one and I want to go to that one. Anyway, because John had mentioned accessibility so much in my way of measuring which room I was going to go to that hat to win. And so, so that was a really interesting three talks around accessibility, around ultimately making web pages way more accessible. There was some tools that were were quite interesting in terms of measuring accessibility, but there was also some techniques, you know, just just simple things, you know, for people that are watching or listening right now. Just just as a really simple example, um, if you've got someone that isn't using a mouse and they might be using a keyboard more, they want the tab key to be able to go in the correct order.

Jonny Ross: 00:19:50

So whether that be in the correct order across a menu or in the correct order across a form, there's so many examples where you press the tab key, but actually it takes you to field seven instead of field one, two, three, four in that order. So it just randomly takes you to field seven, field nine, field ten. If you go on to some well-known big websites, if you go on to the big mega menus and you start using the tab key, you find that actually it doesn't go in the correct order. It goes it goes horizontally instead of vertically along the submenus, which if you are a user, you'd want to go vertically. So they would just, you know, I was just trying to give a real practical example of what we might be talking about here in terms of accessibility. But Google is definitely, definitely measuring this. Well, you know, you can see in Lighthouse there's already a score. It's nothing new. But I think I think what is new is that there's this there's a focus on it.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:20:46

Yeah. Fascinating. Listen, time is against us, so I need to kind of ask you where possible to use your memory or look at your notes. Of course, I'm thinking on behalf of someone who is particularly busy, so they can't do the full version of SEO as someone who's, you know, who's that? Principal activities. So if you're the casual optimizer, I mean, nothing bad, but just, you know, time is against you. You're a content creator, you're publishing it and you've got just enough time to add some of the kind of SEO magic. Is there something that you picked up from the event that we need to continue to do or that could be introduced for the first time?

Jonny Ross: 00:21:25

I would say less is more. So for someone that's busy, that's a content producer, perhaps a website manager, it's around trying to think of a pillar, piece of content, a really important piece of content that's going to be really helpful, really resourceful and use AI not to write it, but to help you structure it, to help you think about the keywords, to help you think about the the different sections, to help you think of some of the things that you need to include in there and and and embrace AI but own the content yourself.

Jonny Ross: 00:22:02

Ensure that you. Have personality. But yeah. What what one thing would I be doing if I was a content creator, I'd be reducing the actually reducing the amount of content I'm creating and increasing the quality of the content I'm creating, creating and increasing the depth of content I'm creating. And if you want to appear for a particular keyword, you need to use tools to find lots of keywords around that topic so that you are really showing demonstrating to Google that you are knowledgeable not just on that phrase, but on all the phrases around it as well.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:22:37

Thank you very much. Let me give you a different scenario then. You have more time, perhaps? Indeed. This your full time occupation to do the SEO and anything that you want to mention that you took away from Brighton SEO 2023.

Jonny Ross: 00:22:52

Well, if you're an SEO consultant, for example, and or perhaps you're head of a, you know, head of SEO in on client side, um, it goes back to embracing AI, but also focusing on accessibility.

Jonny Ross: 00:23:10

You know, it's what I've just talked about, but that would be, you know, I'm hearing agencies that are coming out saying we are not going to be using AI for our content. And my big concern with that, I don't believe that I should be writing all of it or all of your content. But my big concern is if you don't embrace these things, it's a bit like when we switch to email from from the post. If you didn't embrace email, you were going to get left behind and lost. And I just think you need to embrace these things. And and from a real technical point of view, focusing on the SEO, start looking at accessibility scores and start really focusing on the differences that you can make The.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:23:57

Thank you very much. And I think you know what is meant often by that statement. We're not going to use AI is is we're not going to charge clients for offering copywriting where none of us got involved. And I think that's, you know, essentially trying to claim some amount of honesty and integrity, but to not use it to support strategic thinking or planning, as you mentioned, or simply saying, give me again, you know, the broad stroke of what is meant by accessibility, according to John Miller.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:24:25

Yeah, Google, I think you want that digital assistant, as you would call it, as opposed to AI to be there to support you. And obviously we can sense that a week on, you're still so excited and so fired up about you being there. Brightness your 2023 What about you and you know your services and what your clients can look forward to in terms of what would you add maybe what will you reinforce in terms of what are you going to do for your many projects?

Jonny Ross: 00:24:52

Well, without answering that question quite directly yet, one of the talks that I haven't even mentioned was by Professor Hannah Fry. She's a mathematician. She she does a lot of presenting on the BBC on Radio four as well. And she did a talk about data and and there were some really interesting examples that she talked about and it was real life example. So there was there was talk about data in terms of shrimp population. There was data in terms of cows are more females born with born than male cows. And in fact, actually she talked about how farmers are now using Fitbits on cows to track their steps, because what that's linked to is, is the is what they've found is female cows walk more when they're on heat.

Jonny Ross: 00:25:49

And if they can, um, use if cows can, um, what's the word that can use if, if cows can create more create young cows at the earlier stage of heat, there's more chance of a female cow being born and so so cows. So farmers are using data to to increase the the profitability ultimately. So anyway, the point being is that she was giving real life examples, lots of different data. But one of the things that one of the clear things that came out is that. If the data doesn't always give you the true picture. If you're if there's too much of it, and if you've not taken into account some of the other metrics and some of the other things that are going on. So going back to your question, what's what are my clients going to get and what what am I going to be doing differently? I think what Hannah's made me really reflect and think about is that there's not just one thing that needs to be right. It's this you need to have.

Jonny Ross: 00:27:06

Google is looking at so many different data points that for us to rank really well and for us to stand out really well, we've got to get it right in in in several key points. So there's no point having the fastest website in the world if the content isn't helpful. There's also no point having unbelievably helpful content if the website doesn't work very well across all devices. And I know that we've been saying that phrase for years in terms of does it work across other devices, but I'm talking about it in a serious way where technically what's Google actually scoring in terms of how it works across those devices. So I think, you know, and lastly, well, clients aren't going to get anything different because I'm already embracing AI and AI is is an absolute part of client delivery in terms of increasing the value that we're offering and increasing the strategy that we're offering as well. Because what AI brings is all the experts across the world saying, Ah, yes, but have you thought of this as well? And that can make a big difference.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:28:26

And what is lovely is this idea, which is what you're explaining. You have to have context and the context comes from you understanding your customers, their needs and wants, but also just, you know, their world, you know, and I think you're right if you're given a data set, but you can't read the data with that tacit knowledge and understanding of your customer's world, you might make some either poorer decisions or go in a direction that is not going to be particularly productive or fruitful.

Jonny Ross: 00:28:58

Yeah. Yeah. Context. You're absolutely right. It absolutely is about context. Um, I was just looking we had a couple of comments as well, so thanks. If you've been watching live or if you're with us right now, thank you for engaging online. I'll reply to some of those comments afterwards. Um, but yeah, I mean, it was, it was a great trip and um, the, the content was just awesome. I met some brilliant people as well, met some, you know, being in, being in a room where there's thousands of other people that do a very similar thing to you is, is a great place to be where you can really, you know, have deep conversations and reflect on some of the learnings and some of the, um, you know, the work that I'm already doing with clients to be able to share some of that data and be able to talk about strategies that have worked, that haven't worked.

Jonny Ross: 00:29:59

It was really insightful. It was, it was really good.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:30:02

No, think of much and thank you for taking the time to share both your your kind of feelings or reactions and memories from from that event. I know that over the coming weeks more you'll share more and more. As you know, that kind of dust settles and more the key takeaways become my more evident to you. Thank you also for being so trusting, for allowing me to, you know, demote you to a guest on your own show and hope that since you've been away, you're away for three days. All in. Yeah. A thought. I hope that you thought something very, very nice to do with your family, because I'm sure they missed you as well whilst you're away. But thank you. Because for all of us as marketers, whether we are casual optimizers and content creators all the way to full time, it's nice to to hear it in that way with your passion and kind of fire in your belly. So well done.

Jonny Ross: 00:30:53

Thank you. There's going to be lots of content coming out of this is already some blogs on on my agency website marketing. There's also blogs on the Jonny Roskam, but there's plenty more content coming out from this. You know, there was so much I can't not share it. Pascal Of course I could trust you to to to run my podcast. Thank you very much for you taking time out to, to tease some of this out of me. And yeah, I've really enjoyed it. So thank you very much for for doing this.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:31:20

You're very welcome.

Jonny Ross: 00:31:22

See you all soon. Please do join us on the next Jonny Ross, fractional CMO. Thank you so much to Pascal for a quick round of applause for Pascal. And we shall see you all soon, Same time, same place on whatever favorite podcast platform you listen to or whatever video platform you watch. We'll see you soon. Take care.