Search Engines

SEOs have complained for many years now, that the SERP just isn't what it used to be. We yearn for the simpler days of 10 blue links. But Google is changing for a reason, and SEOs have reason to be invested in its survival. Besides, not all SERP features are bad news. In this talk, Tom Capper will look at Google's direction and the strategic imperatives that are forcing its hand. You'll walk away with a plan to unearth happiness (and organic revenue) in the brave new world.

From ChatGPT to Bing's Prometheus to Google's Bard, AI (specifically, Large Language Models) is disrupting search as we know it. We can fight the inevitable, or we can put these tools to work. Learn where AI chat excels, where it fails (sometimes spectacularly), and how to use these tools to not only keep your SEO job, but also level-up your SEO career.

It's more important than ever to build a sustainable online brand presence to algorithm-proof your traffic. This talk will explore how SEOs can contribute to brand building, and how it can help future-proof your online visibility, with Miracle Inameti-Archibong.

For years, "keywords" were everything in search, and then came the rise of 'the entity'. Tom believes that the time of the entity will soon be over, and will explain how Deep Learning 'latent spaces' are highlighting that entities were 1-dimensional thinking. The future of search is going to be about context, and it isn't far off. You'll walk away from this session with a new technique that will replace keyword research so that you can prepare, and ideally, get ahead of the competition.

To keep up with the ever-evolving needs of users, Google is transforming from being a search engine to an ecosystem of experiences that often reach people before they need to search. Discover, Google Lens, YouTube Shorts, and Bard are just a few examples of this shift towards richer, more engaging surfaces. By the end of this talk, you'll be able to leverage these new visibility platforms to improve organic performance and future-proof your brand.

What can we learn about this transformational period we're in from the early days of search? Yes, the value of ranking will diminish, but SEO was just a means to an end. Our job was to help people find what they were looking for and now there's a new approach. It's game time and the game has been reset. Wil Reynolds talks about timing, the role data and silos play in helping you to get the most out of AI, and where you should focus your time. By the end of this presentation, you'll gain 3 advanced approaches to get your brain going on what is possible, and how to lead

As an SEO, you've probably fallen down the rabbit hole of "organic" results that lead to more Google SERPs. If you map that rabbit hole, you'll see a systematic effort to push searchers down the funnel to commercial results. Why is Google doing this, what does it mean for SEO, and what can we learn about our own customers' journeys?

Take charge over the indexability of your website! With a focus on aggregators and classifieds, Areej AbuAli will share advice on how to best reduce index bloat for large websites. Diving into parameter handling, sitemap logic, robots directives, and more, we'll also assess how to analyze the most impactful changes, how to get sign-off from senior stakeholders, and how to prioritize work with product teams.

Successful websites are all different, yet nearly all Google-ranked websites succeed in the exact same fundamental ways. In our quest to optimize for Core Web Vitals, mobile-first indexing, and JavaScript rendering, have we lost sight of the content and user experiences that dominate the very top of Google search results? In this presentation, Cyrus Shepard explores the three Google click and engagement signals that top-ranking web pages master: clicks, long clicks, and last clicks. Using examples and experiment results, he demonstrates how any website — and SEOs of all skill levels — can leverage these signals for improved Google traffic.

Reporting on website performance is an integral part of SEO, but not all metrics are created equal. If you think your CTR metrics are telling the full story, think again. Start building more insightful reporting methods with data science. In this session, Britney Muller will show you how to quash your reporting woes and make easy work of identifying exactly why your website’s performance changed.