Brighton SEO 2022 summary

After 2 years of cancellations due to covid-19, we finally attended Brighton SEO this past edition with our colleagues from Freelance SEO Specialist. Here we spoke to fellow professionals, got useful insights, attended inspiring seminars and spoke to our hero John Mueller. Want to know what our main take-aways are? Then read on quickly.

ContentKing Log Files Feature

We’ve been using the ContentKing tool (part of Conductor) for a while now. These tools allow us to easily track status codes such as 4xx, 2xx and 3xx codes. When we saw in the event program that ContentKing was going to announce a new feature, we were the first to respond. In fact, with this feature we can answer one of our long-awaited questions: when does Google’s crawler actually come by? You could get this from the log files of a website. But this is easier said than done we know. 

Fortunately, ContentKing has come up with the solution. The bright minds (including speaker Steven van Vessum) behind this tool have come up with a solution that can read these log files. So we can find out when Google has visited your website, incredibly handy. The condition is that a CDN (Content Delivery Network) such as Cloudflare or Akamal is used. 

Google Page title Rewrite Update: how’s that?

As an SEO specialist, you often get the comment, “Why does the title look different in Google than what we would like it to? Why would Google rewrite our hard work?’ By now we have known for quite some time that Google looks for the most relevant display for the search intent in question (Title Tag Rewrite). In practical terms, this means that Google itself determines whether the SEO titles and descriptions we write are a good enough fit or whether Google makes something else out of them based on the page anyway. But do we know which types of pages this is done most often? Or how this affects mobile views? 

Fortunately, Google’s Rewrite update is a bit more nuanced. It would involve rewriting incomplete, spammy or irrelevant page titles and meta descriptions. Google indicated they would alternatively implement the H1 and a piece of text.  

During BrightonSEO, we received a status update. What is actually the impact of this change? Mordy Oberstein (Head of SEO Branding, Wix) rushed through the slides. Let’s say up front that Google wouldn’t be itself if there wasn’t a clever algorithm behind it. Because it’s all not as fierce as we thought beforehand. 

ASO: App Store Optimization

App Store Optimization? Yes, you can also optimize the content of your page in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for better findability. During an inspiring seminar, Luis Bueno Tebarnero (Decathlon UK) told us about his love for 90’s movies and how best to do an audit for ASO. How exactly it works we explain to you below. 

Optimizing your app store page actually works quite pragmatically, just like YouTube SEO. It goes like this:

We start with audience research: what are the demographics? what devices do they use? where do they live? how old are they? You know the drill.

Then you start looking at what the current users of your app look like

And last but not least: what do your competitors’ apps look like?

Once you’ve mapped the demographics, you’re going to map the attributes of your app and those of your competitors. Is it freemium or do you use a premium model? But also consider the function and purpose of your app. After that, it’s time to optimize your page. 

This is how you optimize visibility in App stores:

• Make sure you have a preview video
• Images should include the features of your app
• Make sure the font in the images is easy to read
• Use portrait images
• Take advantage of the number of characters Apple and Google offer in titles and descriptions.
• In the Apple Store you can put keywords, be sure to fill them in.
• Do you get reviews? If so, respond to them. This increases your authenticity
• One tool you can use is AppTweaks.
• Make your app icon bright for your target audience and use the color palette of other similar apps for feature recognition

Take-away:

Optimize your visibility in the app stores with a strong visual display and leveraging all the options the channel has to offer.