The heavyweights of the SEO world didn’t disappoint and at this year’s WordCamp Brno they brought tips that you won’t really find in your favorite agency’s 5-year-old SEO e-book.
SEO is not about search engines, SEO is about being found. Anywhere.
This idea was the red thread of the whole debate.
And what does that actually mean?
SEO goes far beyond the Google search engine, on platforms such as:
- image search,
- Google maps,
- Pinterest,
- YouTube,
- TikTok…
They can often offer much lower hanging juicy fruit just waiting to be picked.
This is not often the case, however.
Why?
Because keyword analysis (like any analysis) is a good foundation, however, if the execution is lame, it won’t do you any good.
And in SEO, as in most industries, execution is everything. 100 Analyses may be under your desk, but until you do something about them, you’re standing still.
However, a lot of companies and people still don’t act accordingly. Which opens you up to a range of opportunities.
You can see what this might look like in practice in the best tips I’m taking away from the output of the speakers in question.
Filip Podstavec – SEO is not about search engines, SEO is about being found
SEO specialist know what are the sources that can bring you organic traffic and how they work.
SEO pitch is extremely interesting primarily because it is much bigger and more interesting than people, including many SEO specialists, realize.
Imagine you have a potato chip stand. While most of your colleagues have pitched a tent in the town square at the Christmas market, competing primarily on the appearance of the stall, you make your way to the front of the church, where there are currently 350 people for the second Advent mass.
After it’s over, they rush out, they want to talk, they’re cold and they’re hungry.
And your hot potato stand is the only way to solve two of those problems (hunger and cold) in that particular place.
You can’t stop for an hour at a time, plus you can name almost any price and your product can be almost as (un)good as you want.
You’re the only one out there, and it outranks everything else.
You don’t have to compete with others only where they already work. You have to be where your target audience is looking for you and make it possible for them to find you at that location.
This is what I took away from Philip’s talk in particular.
However, Filip also mentioned a number of practical tips, and below are the 3 that stuck with me the most.
3 practical tips from Filip’s talk:
- 1️⃣ Open Google Trends, look every few days for keywords in your industry, and if you catch something meaningful, newly searched (Trends shows in the “Related Queries” section), write an article about it. There is usually zero competition for newly searched queries.
- 2️⃣ pick low hanging fruit, this can often consist of working on SEO where others aren’t doing it (social, maps, business search, video,…)
- 3️⃣ Build topical authority, create content hubs and value your efforts on money, not feelings
If you want to make putting this advice into practice easier, feel free to use Marketing Miner.
Martin Matějka – SEO is a craft, not an academic debate
Functioning SEO is a wet dream for your marketing department without proper and regular execution.
In 18 years, Martin has encountered almost everything in SEO.
But it is sad, almost astonishing, that he encounters some of the problems over and over again:
- Inappropriately incorporated keywords into the site architecture – there are simply no relevant landing pages for many queries on the site. Or, when they do exist, they are named something completely different from how people actually search for them.
- SEO specialists who send in keyword analysis and that’s the end of their job (as well as the sponsor’s) . It’s very common, and then clients come to him saying they already have the keyword, but need advice on what to do next.
- Missing processes and regular SEO enforcement.
On the one hand this is a huge shame, on the other hand it again creates a space of opportunity where you can pile in with your project.
SEO is not popcorn.
It’s not fast, cheap, and you can’t even make it in the microwave…
But if you take it seriously and engage in SEO activities on a regular basis, you can leapfrog a lot more of your competition than you might expect by doing even relatively simple things.
The important thing is to persevere. Believe that what you are doing in SEO is for your visitors. SEO is nothing more than incremental improvement of a website. And that’s what both people and search engines like to do.
And what can be the first steps towards that goal?
3 practical tips from Martin’s talk
- 1️⃣ One landing page per keyword/phrase! This is the golden rule that everyone should follow.
- 2️⃣ If you don’t have a plan for SEO analysis and the steps to put it into practice, fix it fast. If you’re a business, put standard processes in place (called SOPs) and regularly check that the SEO steps in question are actually happening.
- 3️⃣ everything you do for your website (either on or off it) you do to make your customers’ journey easier – to advise, to direct, to make choices easier …
If you want to experience Martin’s expertise in practice, check out his services or maybe go on a SEO date with him.
Pavel Shenkapoun – Boldness and Humility is the Perfect SEO Mix
The best copywriter is you.
This quote is not just a hidden link to Pavel’s site. This quote links to something much more important.
Nobody knows your audience as well as you do.
And you can take advantage of it.
Pavel, for example, took advantage of this by writing an article 10 linguistic phenomena that will convince you that you may not speak Czech that perfectly, which garnered hundreds of thousands of views over several years and was shared by Robert Záruba.
How did he do it?
It’s hard to say.
But it was certainly not to Paul’s detriment:
- knows his strengths,
- is not afraid to bruise people’s egos,
- and knows his audience and the people he’s speaking to.
Then, when he noticed a current issue (the slight cockiness of his colleagues), he wrote the aforementioned article, which put the nail on the head.You may very well be able to use this framework within your business as well. And Paul is clear proof that good text sometimes transcends all the technical optimizations in the world.3 practical tips from Pavel’s talk
- 1️⃣ Get to know your audience well, take notes on what people ask you, what they expect from you, why they come back to you…
- 2️⃣ be aware of your strengths, and don’t hesitate to capitalize on them as needed.
- 3️⃣ don’t be afraid to go out of your skin and write it.
If you want to know more, check out Paul’s Training.
Vláďa Smitka – Make life easier for robots
If your site is not indexed, there can be no question of SEO within the browsers.
Google Crawler has a limited budget and time to crawl and index your site.
Your job is to make it as easy as possible for him.
You should probably start by familiarizing yourself with the Google Search console and see how your site is doing with indexing.
If not very well, try to remedy this and then use the console again to see if your efforts have borne any fruit.
However, it doesn’t end with indexing, let’s look at three other things you shouldn’t overlook:
3 practical tips from Vlad’s talk
- 1️⃣ basic tripod: SSL, speed, internal linking. This is a requirement, not an option. Then use internal links in such a way that most of these links lead to important pages.
- 2️⃣ Wherever possible, use schema – review, product, article… (many plugins can generate it, for example RankMath).
- 3️⃣Podívejte yourself to the Search Console logs and make sure the bots have no problem crawling your site.
If you have time to wait a bit (Vlad has a lot…) you can get technical advice directly from the experts at Lynt.
Speaker Introductions
Philip Pedestal
Filip is the founder and CEO of Marketing Miner . He is the country’s leading linkbuilding expert and you would be hard pressed to find a more versatile SEO specialist.
Martin Matějka
Martin is a seasoned SEO generalist who has been in the industry for over 18 years. In that time, he’s been through just about everything – from marketer to director of an agency SEO division. He runs several of his own e-commerce sites (NaRybolov.cz ) and in his spare time he likes to pull out his bike or put on his running shoes.
Pavel Šenkapoun
Pavel is a creative, songwriter, regional poet and author of the successful blog Best Copywriter . He also runs a creative agency under the brand Logos and for fun publishes lyrics and songs under his pen name Leo Pank Shevelpuna
Vláďa Smitka
Vláďa is a stalwart of the Czech WordPress community, and you’d be hard pressed to find a question in this area that he doesn’t know how to handle. At WordCamp, he represented developers on the SEO panel and brought interesting technical suggestions. In his spare time, he enjoys forging.
️ Recommendations for resources and tools:
- MarketingMiner (Your metal detector in the gold-bearing river valley of SEO)
- Localfalcon (map position tracker)
- Ahrefs YouTube Keyword tool (you can check out the free Google word search)
- Deepl (translator)
Report from other panels
UX is about making people’s lives easier
Performance: performance is not optional
Copy: If you don’t sell, someone else will
Full reports from WordCamp Brno 2022
A little bit of WordPress, a lot of webinar – report from Jan Polzer of Maxiorel
WordCamp Brno 2022 – Jirkont Agency
Thank you very much for proofreading Iveta Zlatníčková.
