Key Takeaways From Top 10 UnGagged London 2018 Speakers

Last updated on Friday, June 15, 2018

UnGagged unconventional SEO & Digital Marketing conference in London was a great success and gathered the most forward-thinking Digital Marketers and SEO Experts.

Didn’t have a chance to attend UnGagged in London or missed some of the best speakers?

Don’t worry – we have gathered the most important takeaways from the best speakers at UnGagged London 2018.

Here are the key takeaways from top 10 speakers at UnGagged London:

Technical SEO in 2018: Embracing Chaos

Bartosz Góralewicz, CEO – Elephate

Technical SEO is accelerating not just because of unpredictable nature of search engines such as Google but all the players in the market. Bartosz gave an honest and in-depth overview of the current state of Technical SEO and the aspects of Technical SEO that could make or break you in 2018.

One of the most hilarious examples was… Google itself. Even Google can’t get it right sometimes! Google flights content is not visible in Google … If you copy content and then search it – Google doesn’t find it! How ridiculous is that?

It’s only gonna get more complex now. Bartosz walked us through the 2 waves of JavaScript indexing and partial indexing issues when Google doesn’t have resources or Javascript is built in a way that Google can’t process it properly.

He also took a look at Chrome 41 – it might work on desktop but not on mobile because they are not indexed in Google. Bartosz discussed whether it is it Javascript or mobile first problem.

Html is like a ready to eat cake. Javascript is like ingredients of the cake so it's a lot more complex.

Black Hat Analytics – When Your Data is Working Against You

Jono Alderson, Mad Scientist – Yoast.com

Jono told us some scary stuff. Stuff you should not try to do: mean things one could do to their competitors… Very fun but evil ways how to mess with your competitors. You shouldn’t do it of course!

You can do a lot more than just manipulate URL. You can batch hits. You can simulate browser behaviour. You can construct fake paths of conversion. Many businesses rely on JavaScript-based tracking solutions (like Google Analytics, or Adobe Analytics). These are extremely vulnerable to attacks…

But can you spot when your own data has been compromised??

No, not really. And this is scary!

Well, you can try though.. By checking your analytics for oddly inflated goal conversions or page views, odd-looking channel metrics, and visits with odd attributes.

Jenna Tiffany, Founder & Strategy Director – Let’sTalk Strategy

90% of consumers want more control of their data.

In last 2 years, 90% of world’s data was generated!

Companies should have treated GDPR as a campaign and their marketing plan. Instead the last minute panic we all saw. There were more emails sent day before GDPR deadline than on Black Friday! GDPR was also bigger than Beyonce in trends on the day before implementation.

Cambridge Analytica caused people to even delete their Facebook data. 1-2 weeks after scandal the trust was broken and people don’t want to share as much data as they did before. Also, brands want to cut ties with Facebook. The only good GDPR campaign example is from Manchester United who ensured that consumer is in total control of that data they share. It is a great example as they not only did it a good time (campaign started in December 2017) but it also was a multichannel campaign, not just email.

Companies – be aware! It is very easy to complain on ICO… just 2 clicks and you are busted!

Good and practical tips from Jenna:

Make sure you are not tracking IP addresses.

Privacy policy needs to be in plain English, no jargon and clear why are you tracking consumers and what are you doing with that data.

Trust and transparency are the key.

SEO and Content Optimization in 2018 – How to Win the Game!

Lukasz Zelezny, Head of SEO – uSwitch.com, zelezny.uk

Lukasz explained how to best utilize your content. He also went through the Snapshot approach to keyword research and explained how to calculate traffic index potential.

You can find low hanging fruits (keywords, that with a little effort can rank higher) in AccuRanker.

Lukasz showed how to find some quick wins and low hanging fruit. He went through step by step how you can use AccuRanker to get detailed data about your keywords and how to use AccuRanker and receive results in less than few minutes. He explained how to add domains in AccuRanker, as well as how to add keywords from Search Console.

Lukasz also went through how he uses Google Search Console, how he uses social media to do topic research and hashtag tracking to find new PR opportunities.

Big Ern’s Tips on How to be a Local SEO Champion

Greg Gifford, Vice President of Search at DealerOn, Inc

Local search is one of most trending and important topics for all SEO experts. There is no magic pill for local search success but Greg shared tips that will help you be more visible.

All businesses with a physical location absolutely need Local SEO.

Google keeps changing the game so SEO is hard thing to master. Greg explained what factors influence local visibility beyond proximity and showed exactly how to optimize your website to appear in local searches. He mentioned the most typical mistakes in local search and how to fix them.

Greg also explained how to get corporate buy-in for Local SEO, and how to better sell your agency to potential clients.

Accelerate: Page Speed Optimization Tips

Fili Wiese, SEO Expert – SearchBrothers.com

Fili explained why page speed is important. Because of conversion rates!

Pages need to render fast and you should prioritize visible content.

A great tip from Fili – optimize web font loading with font-display. If the connection is slow, it will skip font loading, therefore making the website much faster.

You can also optimize images with smart compression. In this way, you can make pictures better and smaller.

Fili gave great insights on how to improve page speed for mobile-first and how to actually measure success.

Killer Digital Strategy Hacks for your Business

Judith Lewis, Founder – deCabbit Consultancy

Judith explained how to put together an amazing pitch and proposal for potential clients that won’t take you more than a half-day. It’s all about understanding the needs of the customer but not letting them drive the strategy too much. What they think they need and what they need might be two different things. You really need to take a step back and think who are you selling to and what their needs are?

Judith suggested using usability audit to see in Google Analytics where your customers drop off…

Search for keywords that have a lot of search volume and not much competition. Go after them!

As for link building, Judith pointed out to build the link in the first paragraph and make it ‘clickable’. She also suggested to reach out to bloggers on Facebook groups.

She also explained how to catch cheaters when doing outreach.

Judith went through the list of free and affordable tools she actually uses to make her pitch to clients.

Winning in a Mobile-First Search World

Aleyda Solis, Founder – Orainti

The primary usage of mobile devices brings a new world of search opportunities. More than half of all web traffic is now coming from smartphones and tablets and over 40% of online transactions are now done on mobile. You need to understand mobile audience behaviour to better connect with them. Aleyda pointed out that mobile users expect immediate answers wherever they go. She explained the search behaviour called “micro-moments” consisting of I want to know/go/do/buy moments. Aleyda reminded of the increasing need of localisation as nearly 30% of all mobile searches are related to location. Voice search is also on the rise with 20% of mobile queries now being voice searches.

You need to maximise your Mobile SERP visibility for your targeted queries. Do you know how different are Mobile search results CTR? The real difference is that there are many more “no clicks” searches than in desktop. As Aleyda explains, one can blame the SERP features in mobile results looking to give all the final answers (especially when it comes to local packs and instant answers). So Aleyda suggests focussing on improving your mobile SERP visibility through Featured Snippets as they are shown on top of mobile SERPs having higher visibility than other features.

It is crucial to point out that mobile featured snippets are mainly shown from the top 5 ranked positions so it is important to track your mobile keyword rankings.

Google’s Mobile-First Index is here and it means that Google will now primarily crawl and index our mobile websites versions to rank them. So make sure that your website has been migrated to the Mobile-First Index.

Marty Weintraub, Founder – Aimclear®

Marty walked us through the top video spend KPIs.

Put keywords on the creative! When it comes to variable creative constructs, Facebook decides the winner pretty well. So use Facebook for what it is good.

Videos are so valuable in today’s marketing efforts. And you don’t even need to say much… Short videos with 2-3 sentences are enough. Really..! And you don’t need even to have sound. Even with PowerPoint animation, you can make a simple video that people will watch!

Marty also gave an update on Facebook marketing with really helpful tips. There is no more free custom audience study in Facebook, but you can still do it for advanced combinations and you can filter it. Engagement retargeting is very hot in the US but not yet in Europe.

Some key takeaways from Marty:

Include keywords in everything that you do!

Integrate search and social if data is available!

Marty could not stress enough:

Creative is everything! Having really interesting shit to say is the key!

The Ice-Berg Approach – SEO Power from What Lies Beneath

Dawn Anderson, International SEO Consultant/Managing Director/Lecturer – Bertey & Manchester Metropolitan University

Down walked us through the evolution of information retrieval and how mobile information retrieval is accelerating the whole process. She also discussed what does the modern assistive search system and its user look like. They are time poor and research crazy and mostly searching with one eyeball and one hand.

We need to think about iceberg approaches in modern mobile-first and assistive SEO. What lies beneath a site using semantic cues to replace content-heavy cognitive-load burdening pages can be very powerful. Iceberg approach is work done by pages deeper in the site to strengthen relevance for light, yet powerful user experiences.

Fun fact. The brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text.

Navigation is king for humans and search engines alike, so utilise the power of rich relevant text combined with structure from navigational systems. Remember to use structured and semi-structured task-driven and contextual internal links. Treat every menu on your website as an opportunity to add structure and power and implement sitemap strategy.

Dawn suggested using first and second level relatedness for disambiguation for both traditional search and concise brevity conversational search in natural language processing and strong, powerful site foundations.