When working in London, I always try to attend a marketing breakfast event hosted by the Content Marketing Association (CMA).

The #ContentBreakfasts are a fantastic way to network with industry experts and marketers whilst picking up great tips and insights. They have been set up to inform and inspire marketing professionals on the latest trends happening within the industry. This event focussed on SEO and delved into the best ways to create the best SEO strategy for your brand.

The audience were joined by an amazing panel – Louise Parker, Outreach Director at iProspect, Kevin Gibbons, CEO at RE:Signal and Stephen Kenwright, Co-founder at Rise at Seven, all offering advice and tips on how to create a successful SEO strategy.

Having come away with so much information I thought it would be great to share this knowledge with you and help you to create the best SEO strategy for your brand.

Here are my top 10 tips taken from the event:

1. “Google sees links as a vote of confidence” – Parker summarised SEO in one great sentence, links do reassure Google, however only if they are from high ranking sources.
2. Test – Fail – Learn – Improve – When all is going well it’s easy to assume that everything is working well, conversely when it goes wrong, it’s easy to assume that nothing is working but lets be honest this is rarely the case. Creating a successful SEO strategy is all about trying new things, understanding what works and improving over (a longer) period of time.
3. Find the best SEO tactics for your brand – Whilst it’s great for everyone to adopt the latest ‘best practice’, you can inevitably become the same as your competitors – all reaching for the same goal, Kenwright’s advice…look outside of your own industry, what is it that other brands are doing that you can replicate. And as Gibbons added, keep in mind that ‘best results’ doesn’t always come from ‘best practice’.
4. Create content that people want to engage with – Content needs to be both rational and emotional. Tell a story and follow Kenwright’s rules of “Care, Do, See and Think”. Remember your customers are human beings too!
5. Think about a content marketing strategy, not campaigns – Gibbons discussed how brands tend to focus on one single campaign instead of an overall marketing strategy and that’s where they can fail to see results. SEO must be part of the bigger picture. SEO is for life not just for a short period of time!
6. Communication must flow, don’t work in silos – Teamwork really does make the dream work. It’s important that all teams fully understand your plans to ensure everyone is on the same page if not it will just fail.
7. Be part of the conversation – Time relevant content can help elevate your brand awareness and gain valuable PR in targeted publications. Kenwright’s tip is to search for your audiences unanswered questions and give them the answer! Your customers will be happy and you’ll have gained some useful awareness and traffic.
8. Audience first – Think about the types of events/questions in your audience’s life and what you would like to read instead of the sexy content you THINK they want to read. Gibbons recapped that this is the only way you can truly become a market leader.
9. Digital PR comes in all shapes and sizes – Parker reassured us that successful digital PR doesn’t just have to be big and expensive campaigns. It’s all about the effectiveness and the outreach. Whether you manage to gain PR from a national newspaper or a niche industry publication, it’s about telling the right people and becoming an authority.
10. Produce outstanding content – Take inspiration from the assets you already have – then think outside the box, take an alternative approach and create content people WANT to engage with. Parker recommends researching where your links DON’T come from, for a fresh angle.