London “SEO Hat Trick” with Emarketeers and Jellyfish
Do you get sometimes when you wake up in the morning an immediate feeling of flow, whatever you call it, to do something that will improve your life? The best if it happened fast, was valuable and made you a fully satisfied man afterwards. Certainly you do, if sometimes it happens to me. New people, new contacts, new knowledge – one day I got up in the morning and I knew what I needed. This was the beginning of my one-week stay in the UK, during which I passed 3 different trainings.
SEO Trainings – how to find them?
Don’t think that it is easy to find a training in SEO and related areas which could interest me enough to appear on it. We have access to many courses which we can participate in, but they are adequate if you are just starting your adventure with a more advanced “Internet.” I am interested at this point mainly in what the really experienced practicioners who have been in the business for several years have to say, as I know they can offer me something new and really useful. It takes some hard work to look for this, to check what experience the trainer has, what the opinions on the trainings are and to consider our own expectations very carefully. And to consider whether we will find it useful, of course.
You probably think that I am writing clichés but thanks to them I have managed to hit some sensational lectures a lot of times. While searching for SEO trainings sometimes it can happen that a lecturer might not want to let you in, which has occurred to me ? Imagine that during my research I came across a course from the series “Seo Advanced by …”, which pretty much interested me, so I sent in my application. Generally the leader had made a lot of fuss about himself in social media and everything pointed to the fact that he knows his stuff. And I just wanted to hear it. After a while the guy wrote me back that he thanked me for my willingness to participate but generally, in short – he does not want me there. His argument was that looking at my seo experience he couldn’t take those 700 pounds from me. But when he leads TURBO/Pro Advanced training in the future, I am welcome 😉
Then I saw that he had checked my LinkedIn profile and perhaps this influenced his decision. I don’t want to think about what he was going to talk about/do during this training if he had to refuse to a willing participant. Actually, I still don’t really know why he refused me, I can only guess. Maybe he did not like my hobby of reporting SEO trainings I have attended – I guess I’d rather not inquire.
Summing up – think carefully about the trainings you are planning, because you can get to those who offer you information that the page rank increases whenever you press “refresh” button while visiting it during an Advanced level course ?
British SEO in a Nutshell
I do not limit myself to training only in one country, and I’m mostly into American and British SEO. As for the latter – I like both the UK itself, the people, their culture, and industry solutions. Every six months I go on Brighton SEO conferences, because they have made the most impression on me and they got me interested in the training market in the UK. So when I got up one morning and knew I wanted to see again how “others do it,” England was one of the options for an interesting training. I found several of them, and it appeared that three of them were held in similar terms, so I could spend a whole week on education. I only had to arrange remote work with my current employer and book the tickets.
These were the Content Marketing Training Course (Emarketeers), Advanced SEO Training Course(s) and SEO Advanced Training (Jellyfish). To make it clear – I wasn’t going there for some super secret knowledge of SEO. My goal was to get to know new people, find new contacts, learn the British approach to optimization and good English practice of Content Marketing. You’ll find below what was the most important during these three courses.
Content Marketing Training Course – rating and reviews
On the 12th October 2015 I entered the Wallacespace Conference Centre, so that I could listen for almost eight hours about what interesting they had to say in England about content marketing. And they did quite a lot, all the time stressing that you have to remember the purpose of your content when approaching it. If you treat it just as written information for Google – you will never see all its advantages. Content Marketing is an art that requires planning and a good idea. And besides that you can not forget to measure its quality and efficiency. In a few words I can say that Content Marketing Training Course focuses on abandoning the idea that CM only helps increase traffic on your website, no matter how. It showed how to focus on the target audience, how to develop unique content, and how to provide consumers with valuable and useful information.
Why did I decide on this training?
First of all because of the trainer – Tim Fidgeon, who has all the traits I appreciate. He has been in the industry since the late 90s and his work is based on psychology and utility – so it fits the idea of content marketing perfectly. He also works with UX, which I deeply appreciate – I am also interested in this subject, which I mentioned in one of the other posts. Tim has worked in large companies and big brands, thanks to which I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about from his own practice.
Secondly – because of the program that was acceptable and logically laid out. In the beginning there were some brief CM basics, without knowledge of which you can’t understand the essence of good content. Then a look at Content Marketing from the business point of view, based on actual data and credible examples. It mentioned, among others, the issue of one’s own content, bought and gained content – what is the connection between them and how to use it best. Then Content Marketing with regard to the audience, so what the customers like and how to use content to identify the target customer (as well as how to affect them). There also was a discussion on adjusting different types of content and its distribution through various media and the good practices in their application.
What I also enjoyed was that the program took the problem of selecting sites to publish on into account (we have this problem in Poland what you probably know about). The trick is not only to select the sites from the available ones appropriately but also to encourage their users to share. They also highlighted what we often forget about. After publication the campaign of good content does not end. You have to offer good promotion and react to the audience – there was a case study on how to get as much as possible from the publications, how to measure the effectiveness of content and how to respond to the readers’ comments – even the negative ones. Additionally there was some tangible advice on how to organize your own content and marketing activities in order to maximize the benefits and how to analyze the campaigns carried out so that we can improve them each time.
It all sounds appealing and has actually been done in reality. After the training I would say the biggest pros were:
- a really broad description of content marketing rules and possibilities, especially for the UK market
- presentations of data from the most famous Content Marketing campaigns in the UK in recent years (Coca Cola, Marks & Spencer)
- forms of CM promotion and measuring its effects
Tip for you: if it is repeated several times in the program that all the presentations, case studies and analyses will be carried out on real verifiable Content Marketing examples – such a training makes sense. From this position I would recommend this course in the UK.
Advanced SEO Course – rating and reviews
Two days later, on 14th October 2015 I entered the Wallacespace Conference Centre in London once again, so that – according to the slogan of training – I was able to push my SEO campaigns to the next level. How did a British course encourage me to participate this time?
Once again – the leader Jonathan Fink, called an SEO-veteran. For years, he has remained one of the top known and recommended SEO specialists, whose knowledge and experience has been used by medium and large companies, including Oxford University and Motorola. He specializes in using the latest SEO tools and SEO support modelling methods. I did not want to miss what he had to say – rapid response to Google changes is the basis of our work.
The program was accurate – for almost eight hours advanced SEO things were presented objectively and concretely. To warm up, we started with a talk about Google algorithms and updates – what they mean for our work and when they interrupt and help. Then there was about some semantics, ways of understanding Google, keywords and user intentions, so useful tools, techniques and technologies. Next there was an extensive section on planning a SEO strategy and its measurements, and within it a little bit about Google Search Console, determining keywords in an advanced way and foretelling algorithm trends, as well as taxonomy, mapping and targeting the keywords. Besides, we discussed how to use keywords on different channels and platforms.
Jonathan Fink did not also omit the importance of Mobile SEO and showed us some pretty good case studies on mobile Googlebot and well done British SEO mobile practice. This in turn was closely associated with Local Search – when we should focus on it, how to best adapt the site to it and how to measure the effectiveness of actions. In short, it was Google+, content, keywords and off-page strategies.
At the end we considered on-page and off-page optimization. We discussed the importance of semantic tagging, integration of all the elements of technical SEO, Google penalties and more. There was also Link Building as an important part of any strategy, examples of good and unusual site promotion channels and PR on the internet and in the press. We talked a little about how to avoid cannibalization, there was some advanced analytics for monitoring off-line and on-line SEO conversion. Believe me, this was just a small part of what we talked about during this training. I would describe it as a thoughtful, functional course, which addressed all the major issues of the Advanced SEO that you need to know to achieve good results. All the discussions were supported by what I like the most, that is true examples, not artificial theories.
Three things that I would distinguish as the most valuable:
- a lot of examples related to semantics, the Hummingbird, the Pigeon, Contet Marketing
- training in small groups of a few people – you could not go there and sit without speaking, the trainer had direct contact with the participants all the time
- the presentation did not only offer facts but each theory was supported by some results
SEO Advanced Training Jellyfish – rating and reviews
At the end a real icing on the cake, the SEO for advanced with Jellyfish – a training in one of the most important SEO SEM companies both in the UK and the US. In the early years of its existence, that is somewhere in the late 90s, the company focused on paid search. As it developped, it slowly extended its services to become one of the leaders in creating effective SEO and SEM marketing strategies today that can be measured in terms of efficiency and quality. It is worth checking who they have worked with to see that when talking about experience, they are certainly not faking. The Jellyfish Agency is a classic in itself – it employs the best people who want to share their experience and know how to do it.
The SEO Training was held on 15th October 2015 in a rather unusual place, because in the basement of the Office for National Statistic, which in itself was interesting. I was not disappointed either with the leader, Daniel Collier. This guy is a SEO Manager who has several years of experience. He started as a Link Builder and in time got more and more into other areas related to SEO. What do I respect him for? – he is focused on making the customers and trainees like myself understand the meaning of all actions and strategies very well. He follows the principle that without a specific purpose and understanding the rules of using SEO you can’t succeed. At the same time you have to remember not only about your expectations but mainly about the desires and needs of your customers.
The subject of the course was similar to the previous training – in the end it is well known that we are moving in the same industry. What was important for me was a different approach and presentation of the same issues in another way. It is nice to get inspired and listen to different people and not blindly follow just one authority. From each meeting with these people I take something for myself, something stays in my head that I can tie logically. So the course was following the subjects of:
- setting the goals for SEO
- advanced SEO audits and content audits
- advanced keyword research
- advanced analysis of competition
- algorithms and their updates – the current ones and the ones likely to appear
- off-site SEO
- content and site popularization in various media and channels
- building domain authority
- backlink profile management
- building a content strategy
- integration of social media
- SEO strategy analysis
It’s just a small part of what you could hear. In total, approx. 30% of the time was devoted to the technical SEO, which is sometimes being ignored as we focus on other aspects of our industry. Another 20% of the training time was spent on useful tools in planning strategy and its verification. The rest of the time was for content marketing, which they put a great emphasis on. There were many examples and content marketing cases from the market all over the UK, from a variety of industries.
Actually, all we talked about had its representation in practice – the experience came first. The training which I am writing about was valuable for me also because of other reasons – it was not a theoretical lecture supported by graphs. Each person from the group was encouraged to join the conversation and had to express their views and insights. You could draw a lot from the experience of others and their ideas. In addition, there was also pair work and exercises, so that everyone left the course with the actual knowledge that would remain in their memory.
Some practical information:
- the training took place in a small group of 10 people, thanks to which it was easy to make new contacts and everyone had a chance to comment
- everyone had a laptop at their disposal, which greatly facilitated work and making notes
- the training lasted 8 hours and this is the best time to give this kind of knowledge, as it does not tire very much, and at the same time it doesn’t leave you with the feeling that one subject was discussed worse because of the lack of time
- everyone received a printed and bound presentation, which is a good practice for me – I can always go back to some issues and refresh my knowledge
- the people who were there with me are mostly people working with SEO on the customer’s side and SEO managers from different SEO companies in the UK who expanded their knowledge similarly to me
At the end of the SEO training weekend in England
If you lack motivation or you want to introduce something new in your companies – I would kindly recommend all SEO trainings and courses which are based on the knowledge and experience of the trainers. It doesn’t matter where they are organized in the world. I recommend to go on a training outside the Polish market at least once, so you can get new contacts and a different approach to SEO. None of the trainings I have attended was about something I had never heard of or practiced but I am content with all of them. I have learnt good SEO practices in the UK, their approach to optimization and positioning, as well as several ideas which may be useful also in Poland. Besides, I have made a lot of contacts which may come in handy one day.
These are the thoughts which ended my trip to England, after that one day I woke up and realized that I had to do something, to get to know, see and experience something new. I recommend going, trainings always work.
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