Are digital marketing conferences worth it?

Mordy Oberstein:

It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by she who is the keynote to our podcast. The one, the only head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter.

Crystal Carter:

Hear ye, hear ye. Here I am on the podcast speaking about things and in a keynote kind of way. That's not what people say. That would be a terrible, terrible way to open a keynote. Hear ye, hear ye, conference attendees.

Mordy Oberstein:

With a bell from the 1700s.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That sort of thing. People would-

Mordy Oberstein:

It sounds like the plague is coming.

Crystal Carter:

I don't think people would be into that, especially like ...

Mordy Oberstein:

Unless it was a conference about plagues.

Crystal Carter:

No. Well, I mean, yeah, I guess so. But I think they would be more worried. They'd be like, "No, is it?" They would have the details and they would be more worried. I don't think that if you were speaking to epidemiologists that that would be the way to open your conference.

Mordy Oberstein:

Probably not. If it's a really niche audience. Well, anyway, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can get all of your events, structured data markup on all of your event pages on both Wix and Wix Studio done for you automatically. It's all automated and it all happens that you haven't got to do anything. That's what makes it great because that's automated. As this week we're talking about, should I even go to a digital marketing or SEO conference or event? How do you even know what conferences to go to and are they even worth it? What should your goals be when going to a live digital marketing event? And so you want to go to an SEO digital marketing conference, but how do you justify the cost? SparkToro's VP of marketing, Amanda Natividad will join us in just a jiffy to help you decide if you should punch your conference ticket or not.

Plus, the founder of Brighton SEO's conference series, Kelvin Newman stops by the chat about how to pitch to be a speaker at a digital marketing conference. Plus, we have your Snappies of SEO News and who you should be following a social media for more SEO awesomeness. So join us as we help you summit the mountain that is deciding on the pros and cons of the digital marketing conference world as we expose you to a conference information fest on this, the 101st episode of the SERP's Up podcast.

Did I miss any generic conference suffixes there? I got summit, con, world, expo and fest in there.

Crystal Carter:

I mean, you-

Mordy Oberstein:

That's a work or art, by the way.

Crystal Carter:

It was the kind of thing that a pundit on a panel might say.

Mordy Oberstein:

Well done. Well done. Okay.

Crystal Carter:

Thank you very much.

Mordy Oberstein:

So conferences are kind of costly, they can be. There's the trip itself, the flight, the hotel, the ticket for the actual conference, and does it actually make sense to go to a live conference? I don't pay for a webinar. I just kind of show up. What's the value of going to a conference? So please welcome to the show, the VP of Marketing over at SparkToro, which is a fabulous tool. I'm just going to say that I love that tool. Amanda Natividad, welcome to the SERP's Up podcast.

Amanda Natividad:

Hear ye, hear ye. I am here with my own cowbell of some sort.

Crystal Carter:

More cowbell.

Mordy Oberstein:

More cowbell.

Crystal Carter:

Always.

Amanda Natividad:

Thank you for having me.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, we're so happy you're here.

Crystal Carter:

So pleased to have you on the podcast. Honestly, a great person to talk to about this topic.

Mordy Oberstein:

Because full pitch, you are about to run your own conference.

Amanda Natividad:

Yes. Yeah, this is going to be SparkToro's first in-person conference, and we're really pumped about it. I mean, before I was marketing to marketers, I had some experience in running conferences for the HR and benefits space, and then of course my boss, Rand Fishkin, who people here might've heard have ... Obviously had built up MozCon and everything. So we have very strong opinions about conferences and we're really excited about it. I think we're really trying to do something different, something fresh, but we're also trying to figure out how to not market it that way because every conference organizer says, "No, we're different. We're fresh, we're exciting." And everyone is different in their own way. But we're going to try to figure out, well, we'll tell you what's different, and we'll position the conference around that. And then hopefully you will agree that it is different and that you will want to come.

Mordy Oberstein:

Where can people find it?

Amanda Natividad:

Oh, people can find it on the SparkToro website, sparktoro.com/sparktogether. This is the day long Spark Together summit.

Mordy Oberstein:

Nice. Link in the show notes.

Crystal Carter:

And I think the thing that really makes the conference is really the vibe. That's really, really what makes the difference between one conference or another, because people will have ... A lot of conferences will have speakers and they'll have expos, and they'll have exhibitors and they'll have merch, and they'll have things like that. But really the difference is when you get there, how it feels, which is very, very tricky to, I don't know, quantify or whatever, but I certainly know that your team, the team at SparkToro, I don't think I would be wrong in describing you small but mighty. I think you've discussed that your team, you keep it tight for a reason. And I think that one of the things I'm really excited for about the event is I've met you in person. I know you energy. I've met Rand in person, I know his energy, and I know that the kinds of things that you as a team prioritize and I think it's going to be a great event because you'll be able to bring that emphasis, that energy into a real life space.

Amanda Natividad:

Yeah, that's absolutely the hope. I mean, so I have been toying with the idea of positioning it around, this is like an executive retreat except everyone's invited.

Crystal Carter:

Right.

Amanda Natividad:

That's kind of the vibe we want. And so by that, that means, I guess I haven't had a ton of experience with this, but I've gotten to go to a couple of events that were like founders retreats essentially, where various founders have spoken vulnerably about their stories. Like, "Here's where I got to where I am today." Or, "Here's about this time that I sold my business, and it actually went really well. But here are all the steps that we took to make sure that we were giving our employees great compensation." Things like that, that not everyone talks about at a conference.

So we wanted to encapsulate that, which is why it's a storytelling conference. That's another thing we say, where each speaker is invited, speakers that we've invited, we've chosen and we've asked them to share a story that they've never told before. Something vulnerable, something really candid that has some kind of really transparent detail that they've never shared. Because our belief is that that's how we best learn. We best learn through stories and we learn through other people sharing their experiences, warts and all.

So we have that. And then the other piece is, especially because it's our first event, we're keeping it relatively small. We have a goal of getting to 200 attendees. I think at the time of this recording, we have 30 or 40 tickets left and a couple months to go. So fingers crossed we get there. And the other thing we want to do is because it's going to be small enough, we're also hosting this sort of mini mastermind session where we'll put people into small groups. We'll have facilitators run the hour or so, and invite people to share a business problem that they have, a marketing problem they have, and have the group kind of workshop it together. So that's kind of the retreat sort of aspect.

Mordy Oberstein:

I really like that storytelling. That sounds really, really interesting because I'll say this, I don't want to sound like a snob when I say this. I've been to a lot of conferences before over the many, many years, and at this point, my conference journey, I don't really enjoy the session so much. That's not why I'm going to a conference at this point. So hearing something like it's someone sharing something they never really told before, it's a little more vulnerable. I would actually be interested in hearing that because I haven't experienced that. And I think that when you're deciding to go to a conference, I think that's one of the things you have to think about is, where are you on the spectrum right now? Because younger me would a million percent want to go do all of the sessions and would gain value from all the sessions. Whereas older me, because I'm an old person ... I'm actually middle age, which is ... My back hurts, which freaks me out.

Crystal Carter:

You are lucky if it's just your back. I'm just saying.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's not just my back. Older me doesn't find that same value anymore. So if you think, "Should I go to a conference or should I not go to a conference?" I think that's the wrong question. It's like, where are you right now? What will you get out of a conference at this point in your career?

Amanda Natividad:

Yeah. You know what, added to that, you also mentioned this at the intro of the show about where we may be as an industry, or maybe not industry, but the average attendee is at is, there's a lot of great content on YouTube, a lot of really good webinars where people are sharing playbooks, tactics, and those are great. But I guess what I as an organizer think about are, well, you can get all that already on YouTube, other webinars, and I don't know if people are going to come to our conference because they want the best tactics. I feel like it's because of the experience as a whole. And the experience as a whole is going to sessions that you wouldn't see otherwise online.

So that's the other thing. At Spark Together, we're asking speakers to share a story but only tell that story at our conference. And that's kind of it. And it's not going to be recorded. And we are also going to foster the networking aspects so that it's going to be a little bit easier for people to meet people. We're going to have it at a nice venue. All the things that you can't really do online. So I actually feel like it's more important than ever that conference organizers really try to double down on the experience as a whole or on the networking aspect. Or it could be anything, right? Maybe it's food, maybe it's like this is a luxury kind of conference, you're going to get like multi-course meals. I don't know. But I just made that up obviously.

Crystal Carter:

I think also one of the things that I really value, I go to a lot of conferences, I speak at a lot of conferences. I volunteer at the Women in Tech SEO conferences. I've spoken at those as well. We've exhibited at Brighton SEO on a few occasions. So I do a lot of conference stuff. The thing that I really enjoy about the in-person aspect of it is being surrounded by your peers I think is super, super important. I went to a conference right after the Content Goblins Verge article came out, and it was so much fun seeing people wearing Content Goblins and somebody with an inflatable alligator and that sort of stuff. That's great. And it makes you feel, I think a lot of times marketers can very often be the only one. They are the head marketer and they're the only marketer at their company.

And even in larger companies, you might be the SEO or you might be the one person who's handling that particular aspect in there and you're not able to bounce things off. So even being in the audience and hearing the questions that other people are asking, you can go, "Oh, yes, I have been wondering about that, and I'm not the only, that's great." And so that feeling of connecting with your peers I think is really, really valuable. So I think you mastermind bringing people together for networking, that's a great aspect of it. I think it's really, really important to facilitate and make spaces for that.

Amanda Natividad:

Yeah, I'm excited about it. And Crystal, now I'm very curious to hear from you, since you go to so many conferences and in different capacities, I imagine you have a top three or five that you really, really like for various reasons. So maybe of three, let's say random, because I don't want to say, hey, force rank all of them, but what are some of the things that you love about some of your favorite conferences?

Crystal Carter:

So first of all, Amanda, this is my podcast and I asked the questions. Second of all, thank you. So yeah, so one of the things I like, I remember being at Brighton SEO San Diego for the first one and Mordy was there as well, and we had a great time. One of the things that I found that was so much fun was that I literally met people, I was walking by and I looked at somebody's lanyard and we had him on the podcast, Will was on the podcast. And I was like, "You're the SEO from the Mayo Clinic." And it was literally, I had a full fan girl experience because I am fascinated by the SEO of the Mayo Clinic. And I walked by and I was like, "Oh my God, you work on the Mayo Clinic. That's amazing."

Similarly, when I was at MozCon last time, I was sharing data from Rick Steve's community blog, and I was like, "Yeah, the Rick Steve community blog, they've seen loads of this massive hockey stick from the discussions and forums feature on Google." And I heard a whoop from the crowd. And then in lunchtime, the community blog SEO from Rick Steve's was like, "That's my blog. That was me whooping." I got a picture with them. Do you know what I mean?

Amanda Natividad:

Yeah.

Crystal Carter:

You're making the face that I was making, which was like, "Oh my God." So I think that, and that's what I mean with that peer thing is that you meet people. I met the SEO team from Suzuki, and I have a Suzuki and I love my car. And I was like, "Oh my God." And they were like, "We told our boss that you were so excited about it…" So I think it's really fun to find those moments of connectivity within your industry. And I think that that can really help invigorate how you feel about what you do and help you to keep going with learning. You meet people who you've only met online and things like that. And Mordy, I can see you want to jump in as well.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah. You sit here, I work remotely. So you sit here, you think, I am this weirdo who's doing SEO stuff and there's no one else out there. I mean, you see people on social media, whatever, but that connection of like, "Oh, there are other people who are like me," does motivate you, and I wouldn't sell that short. It is a really, really, really important thing. I'm not saying that's going to be the thing that you're going to say to your boss like, "Hey, I'm going to go so I feel like emotionally reinvigorated." That's probably not what's going to sell them on spending all that money to send you. But for yourself, it's really important you come back, you're motivated, you feel connected to a whole community, and that has a lot of psychological value that I wouldn't discount.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you're also able to ask people, like whenever I speak, people come up to me and they're like, "Well, how did you do that? Tell me more about this." Or I have people who are like, "Yeah, I'm running..." So I talked about forums at my last MozCon. The guys from Houzz, which is a design website, they came and talked to me about their thing and what they're experiencing and lots of great stuff. I know people go and talk to Lily Rae about all the different things that she's doing.

As a speaker, honestly, I got to chat to Britney Muller for ages at MozCon. Fan girl me was losing her mind, I'm not going to lie. And so I think that there are incredible opportunities to connect with people in a way that you cannot do online when you join an in-person event, and there's plenty of time to do that as well. And you're focused because you're there. You're not being distracted by additional activities and things like that. So yeah, I think that in-person conferences are really, really super valuable.

Mordy Oberstein:

Amanda, you were just at MozCon, right?

Amanda Natividad:

Yeah.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, so-

Amanda Natividad:

What was it like?

Mordy Oberstein:

I missed it. A little bit of a FOMO, but we were talking about it before we started recording, it was a great event. What for you made that an event that worked for you?

Amanda Natividad:

The experience as a whole was great. What were some of the highlights? The food was really good. They had some good treats. They had mochi donuts. I can't say that first.

Crystal Carter:

The donuts were phenomenal.

Amanda Natividad:

They were so good.

Crystal Carter:

I had four of those donuts. They were delicious.

Amanda Natividad:

Yeah. Oh, they were so good. Honestly, really not just saying this, but the photo booth that you guys had set up for headshots was such a standout for me because I was like, "Oh, I haven't taken a headshot in six years." And it's not something I'm going to pay for just because I don't know, I'm cheap or whatever. I guess personally, I don't think to like, "Oh, I'm going to get a professional photo of myself." I just don't think that way. So when I saw it, I was like, "I need to do this." And then the photographer that you had was so mindful about each person. He took his time with each person. He showed me how to fix my hair, which no one had ever showed me how to do because I get these flyaways, right? He was like, "Smooth them out." He was like, "Smooth out your hair." He's like, "Pull it into two sections, smooth it out, and then smooth it out again." I was like, "Oh, oh, the flyaway is gone."

But no one had ever taught me that before. But that's a small thing. Those things matter because I, as an attendee, felt really special for five to 10 minutes. And I'm not a speaker there. I was there to just hang out. I felt so special, got to cross something off my to-do list. But the other thing that was really special for me was, well, meeting a bunch of speakers who I was previously friendly with, who I was finally meeting in person. That was great.

But one key moment for me was I met someone who was a big fan of Rand Fishkin, and he was like, "Oh, I'm a fan of you too," or, "I like you," or whatever it was. We had a nice conversation and he mentioned, he was like, "Do you know if Rand is going to stay?" He's like, "It would mean the world to me to meet him, because he's the reason I got into SEO and stayed." And I was like, my heart. I was like, oh. I was like, "He's not staying after. I will make sure that you meet him." And this person was like, "Okay. And I'm like, "No, we'll find him."

And then Rand came by eventually, and I was like, "Rand, come here. You have to meet this person." He came over and this guy was so sweet. He was like, "Could you sign my book?" And he came from, I think he traveled from Nicaragua and he brought his book with... His Lost and Founder book. And I was like, "Oh my gosh. He traveled with that for this in case he got to meet Rand." So of course Rand signed it. And then I was like, wait, I got to get into full.... I don't know what this is, like momager mode maybe. But I was like, "You guys should also take a picture." And I saw his soul leave his body. He was like... I think he even made that sound…

Mordy Oberstein:

Like that aura sound, the heavens have opened. Nice.

Amanda Natividad:

I took a picture. Let's take a couple. So I took a couple and he was shaking and it was the sweetest thing ever. And then at some point I could sense that he was blacking out and not saying anything. So then I was just like, "Rand, you are the reason he got into SEO and stayed." And then he finally snapped in. He was like, "Yes," and then was able to talk again. But it was the most adorable thing. And I started to cry because, just to see somebody who was also just so influenced by Rand and to finally to see on his face, "Holy crap, one of my professional dreams is coming true right now," to be able to witness that for someone else was incredible. I was crying. I was like, "Don't look at me." It was a whole thing.

Mordy Oberstein:

So super hard contrast because that's a great story. That person didn't sell their boss on, I really want to get my book signed by Rand because I got inspired by Rand. There's no boss, unfortunately, who's going to say, "You know what? I'm going to fly from Nicaragua to Seattle. I'm going to put you at a hotel, pay for the conference. You got it." How would that person sell the conference? How do you sell it? Because all the things we're talking about are things, unfortunately, and I say unfortunately, that your boss probably doesn't care about.

Crystal Carter:

Dude, you're killing the buzz.

Mordy Oberstein:

I told you hard contrast. First off, you're expecting something different from me other than killing the vibe?

Crystal Carter:

This is our hundredth and one podcast, Mordy. No, I'm not expecting anything different.

Amanda Natividad:

Well, now, it's like, oh, the rain cloud just came on this beautiful story. But you're right. No, you are right. You can't tell your boss, "Oh, it would mean the world to me to maybe meet this one speaker who's been formative in my career." Sure, any decent boss would be like, "Oh, that's really cool." That's not a reason to expense this.

I think that's when people say, right, because we... Rand did this survey several weeks ago maybe about why people choose an event, and the number one reason was the content, because I think it goes back to when you go to your boss and you're like, "Hey, I need to buy a plane ticket, get a hotel, but I can get a discount or I'll stay at a cheap hotel. I need to buy this ticket." Then it's like, okay, why are you going?

And then you as an attendee, a person who wants to expense it, ultimately what you have to lean on is, well, the content's going to be really great. And I think it's figuring out what's unique about the content or speakers that you can position to your boss. So for SparkTogether, I might say, look, these are brand new talks of all these... Here's a speaker list. Look, some of these people are agency founders like us, or they are people who've built their audiences from scratch, and I really want to learn from them. But here are the people that are relevant to us and our business needs. Here's why I think they're relevant.

They're also going to tell stories or give presentations. If your boss doesn't care about stories, they're going to give presentations they've never given before, and it's only for this audience and it's not going to be recorded, so I have to be there in person to learn all this. And they're going to tell all these stories and here's some examples. Someone once told a story about this multi-million dollar or million dollar content project that failed or near failed, and they had to fix it two days prior. I want to learn from that story. Or I'm going to learn from this person who they are an agency founder who had to meet some ridiculous, lofty revenue goal of, I think going from five figure ARR to going to over... or was it AR... Yeah, no, I think it was five figure ARR because it was small to get it to over 200K in three months. That's a ridiculous goal. So I want to learn from these people, and this is the only way that I can do it. I think that's one case you can make.

Crystal Carter:

I think also it can be extremely good value for money. If you think about an all day conference and you're going to all the sessions and you're hearing about all those different things, if you go to a good conference with good speakers, every single speaker is going to be giving you resources, links, stuff that you may not have considered.

I'm thinking of, I watched Talia Wolf's talk at MozCon this year, for instance, and she was just like resource after resource after resource, link, link, link, link, link. And I was like, oh my God, if you've ever watched Aleyda Solis speak, she's like this one and that one and that one, and she'll give you a full play by play.

Similarly, I think people underestimate the value of the exhibitors, but I've been to conferences, like MarTech conferences where I've seen stuff that I didn't even know existed. There were exhibitors there who were... And they're like, "This is my new stuff. This is my best thing." Because they spent money on the booth, they're doing the thing. So they're like, "This is my best thing that I have to show." And I remember seeing heat maps, but this is way, way, way, way, way back in the day. But I was stood there and they were like, "Yeah, we can track your eyeballs." I was like, "You can track my eyeballs?" I remember being blown away by this. I'm dating myself.

But the exhibitors are able to show you stuff that you might not have even considered. They'll be giving away discounts on things, they'll be giving away things like that. And I think that if you were to think about how long it would take you to do CPD, that same kind of CPD over the course of a year or something, whereas how much you can get done in two days of all of those resources, all of that learning, all of that knowledge, those mastermind sessions you're talking about, the networking where you can meet other people who are connected to you, it can be very good value for money if you're thinking about it in that way.

Mordy Oberstein:

And just find that pain point. Every company is dealing with something. I don't know, AI overviews. How do we going to handle AI overviews? Well, so-and-so is speaking at whatever conference, and they wrote a whole bunch of articles about AI overviews. I would like to pick that... Mike King and Rand are going to be at the conference. I would like to pick their brains about AI overviews. So it's the sessions and who's going to be there that can help you solve business problems that you're currently facing because you're always facing some kind of thing.

Amanda Natividad:

Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, as you were saying that, I had an idea for marketing our conference. It's like, oh, I got to put a pin in that for later, because this is a really good idea because you called out Mike King and Rand Fishkin. And Mike King is speaking at SparkTogether.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Amanda Natividad:

I was like, "Oh gosh, I need to write specific value props for each session and speaker, and then somehow send them to people." Anyway, sorry. That was weird.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's what we're here for. This is a brainstorm session.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, anytime. Anytime you want to kick the tires.

Amanda Natividad:

Yeah, this is like a public brainstorm, right?

Crystal Carter:

Right.

Mordy Oberstein:

We should totally record actual brainstorm sessions. Then we would have the pinata idea for the conference, which is brilliant. Anyway, I'll tell you about that after the recording though. After the recording,

Amanda Natividad:

What comes out of the pinata? Is it going to be with stickers?

Crystal Carter:

Moving on.

Mordy Oberstein:

I think we have to move on. Amanda, where can people find you?

Amanda Natividad:

Oh, they can find me... Well, let's see. I'm mostly on LinkedIn nowadays. My personal site is amandanat.com, but mostly really go to Sparktoro.com, try out our audio research tool and consider coming to SparkTogether. We would love to have you. And I'll hug you in person if you're the hugging type.

Mordy Oberstein:

Nice. We'll put all the links in the show notes. Check out Amanda's and Rand's content on social media. It's really, really good. Those videos are great. I really enjoy them, the little ones that Rand's putting on LinkedIn. I even comment sometimes. I never comment on LinkedIn stuff. So big shout out for that, and thank you so much for joining us.

Amanda Natividad:

Thank you for having me. This so fun.

Crystal Carter:

Thank you so much.

Mordy Oberstein:

Bye.

So sometimes you don't want to attend a digital marketing conference. No, no, no. You want to speak at a digital marketing conference. But before that happens, you have to pitch to the conference and get that pitch accepted. And there's no one I can think of more qualified than the founder of brightonSEO himself to help you understand the best way to do that. So here's Kelvin Newman as he joins us for a little segment that we call Across the Wixverse.

Oh, so before I get to Kelvin's little tips here, why am I calling it across the Wixverse because usually we talk to Wix folks about across the Wixverse? But in case you were wondering, we have been headlining brightonSEO for a good while now, the UK and-

Yeah. And San Diego. So I kind feel like we're one big happy family. So it's across the Wixverse.

Crystal Carter:

There we go. There we go. Yeah, it's such a brilliant experience working with the brightonSEO team. Shout out to Kelvin and shout out to Andrea as well, and everybody there who does great work.

Mordy Oberstein:

They're really great to work with. So if you want to work with them and sponsor them as well, I'd recommend it. How's that for an endorsement? Okay. Anyway, enough of that. Here's Kelvin Newman on how to pitch to a digital marketing conference.

Voiceover:

Three, two, one, ignition. Liftoff. Liftoff.

Kelvin Newman:

Want to become a speaker at one of our events? Well, I wanted to share some practical advice on what we look for in speaker pitches.

Now, first up, it's good to know that we get tons of speaker interest in brightonSEO. We could program a hundred tracks and still have more pitches than we have available slots, so it's quite competitive in that selection process.

When we're choosing the talks, we tend to focus on speakers with advanced and practical knowledge that they're putting into their pitch. We also love working with new people too, so don't let a lack of experience put you off. In fact, actually sometimes being a first-time speaker can sometimes aid and help your application.

We handle all of our pitches via a form that's up at brightonseo.com/pitch. We don't take pitches via LinkedIn or email. And by filling in that form, we get to know you a bit better, your background, your interests, and what we're most interested in, the potential topics for future events. So do spend some time thinking about that topic title as it's one of the key elements that we use when assessing pitches.

We don't have a formal pitch timeline. If we like your submission, we'll reach out when we're planning the next event. We normally start planning about six months before the conference and invite people in waves as well. It's worth saying we only get back to successful speakers and we never fully decline a talk. So when we're inviting those speakers in waves, we like to have options if speaking starts to open up because people do and often have to drop out of events. And sometimes we can have people changing topics and all that kind of thing, so we like to have a bit of flexibility there. So we never formally decline a talk because a talk's always in consideration. We may indeed even roll your pitch forward to a future event as well. But if you don't hear back from us at that moment in time, you haven't been selected.

Here's some practical advice as well in terms of what we're looking for in the talk topics themselves. We like them to be actionable. Our audience loves practical how-to information. So aim for takeaways like tasks, tools or recommendations that people can go and immediately put on their to-do list.

Also try and make you talk specific. So the more specific the topic is the more likely it is to be chosen and reflect that in your pitch as well. So detailed titles and descriptions tend to win us over, so we like those. It's very clear what it's talking about rather than a big, broad topic. And usually the more detail there, the easier it is for us to understand what you're going to be talking about.

And we also suggest that you avoid the basics. Our audience generally is not new to digital marketing. It's not new to search marketing measurement, web analytics and paid search and all that kind of thing as well. So generally speaking, aiming your talks at intermediate or maybe even advanced audience members is a good way of getting your talk selected.

Yeah, no self-promotion. We avoid pitches that focus too much on your tool or your clients. A case study can occasionally be good, but make it about the audience, not you. Again, if you've done some particular research or it's a new piece of information or a research project, that can often be a nice thing to have in your pitch.

And also be authoritative. It is really, really good if you know your subject inside and out. If you can demonstrate that here's a blog post I've written about it, here's a video, here's a previous talk I've done around that, that can often help you as well.

And also keep the topic tight. Most of our talks are 20 minutes long. That is not a lot of time. We'll often get many pitches that look very good and potentially could be very, very good talks, but just the scope of what they're intending to cover is too broad for our particular program. So keep it tight, keep it the kind of thing that would definitely work in 10 to 15 minutes. Even though you've probably got 20, that will give you a bit more space to play with.

And also, if you've spoken at lots of events before, rather than pitching again, I'd really encourage you to try and find a friend or a colleague, someone you know who's not spoken at an event before and mentor or encourage them to put themselves forward rather than applying for your 25th speaking slot. That's good karma as well.

So yeah, if you've got an idea for a pitch, we will very soon be looking at the pitch ideas for our 2025 conferences. Go to brightonseo.com/pitch and get that submission in.

Voiceover:

3, 2, 1, ignition, lift off.

Crystal Carter:

He's got some great insights there on first-time speakers. And I think that brightonSEO in particular, the UK edition is literally the biggest SEO conference in the world, and they are incredibly welcoming to first-time speakers. I remember the first time I spoke at brightonSEO, and they were really friendly. They have a whole program that supports first-time speakers. So not only are they welcoming to people, but also they have a presentation support. So they have a day in London where you can go and you can practice with somebody if you're not used to presenting. They also have a little group chat so that you can talk to other first-time presenters, and they also help you figure out your accommodation, all that sort of stuff. So they're really, really supportive. And I think that it's really, if you're looking to be a first-time speaker, it's good to look at conferences that welcome first-time speakers because they tend to also have that kind of support, which is really, really valuable and can help you move forward if that is a thing that you want to do.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, and that's one of the great things about brightonSEO is their speaker line-up really is diverse and they do really have people you never really heard of before, which is I think unique for a digital marketing conference in general.

I found it interesting, by the way, the focus on the title that he mentioned because you would think like, no, I'm going to have a description in there and it's really purposeful and it'll be really impactful and meaningful and yada, yada, and it might be. But I think you have to realize, maybe I'm reading between the lines here, Kelvin, by the way, thank you Kelvin for that submission. We shouldn't thank you yet. I would read between the lines of what he's saying. They're getting probably hundreds, maybe more of pitches and sifting through them as difficult. And having a headline like an article you're writing on your website, having a catchy headline is a way to pull that reader in, in this case the founder or the review board of the conference. You might think don't put such emphasis on the catchy title. I'll catchify it later once I get the pitch accepted, but maybe do it now so that you get their attention, and then have the very meaningful and prolific substantial description of what you want to talk about.

Crystal Carter:

And I think the other thing is so have a look at the, brightonSEO has their pitch form available all year round. It's really, really useful to give you the kind of idea for what somebody is looking for from any conference speaking pitch. So they ask you to send in your pitch title, the information. They also ask you to send in links to your social media profile. They also ask you to send in links to any talks that you've done or any articles that you've written, which basically helps them to realize how... Because it may be that you're a great SEO, you're a great marketer, you're a great agency owner, but maybe you're not big, maybe you don't have a huge following just yet, for instance. That doesn't mean that you don't have information to give. That doesn't mean that you don't have value to add.

But if you've written an article somewhere, if you've done a webinar that you can share, if you've done a podcast that you can share, that's show don't tell, which is really, really, really valuable. And I think that sometimes with people who are like, "Oh, I want to do speaking." I'm like, "Cool. You don't necessarily have to go straight in on stage. You can demonstrate your expertise in a few other ways."

And the blog could be on your own blog. The blog could be on LinkedIn. The blog could be wherever. It could even be a really good LinkedIn post. Let's say you write a really good LinkedIn post. Some people write whole essays on LinkedIn and let's say it went viral, or let's say you did one of those little carousel things. I know people who do really well with those as well. You can share those, for instance, to give people the kind of idea of how you do what you do, and that helps people to qualify you as a speaker, even if you haven't done speaking before. And if you can show that people are interested in what you're talking about, let's say a viral post or something that's got a little bit of, not necessarily attitude, but I guess personality can be really, really useful.

Mordy Oberstein:

I'll say also if you pitch and you don't get accepted, it's a numbers game to a certain extent. It's par for the course to not get accepted to multiple conferences. It's probably expected that you're going to pitch to 100 and get accepted to one kind of thing, so don't be too hard on yourself.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, absolutely. I think also in terms of the numbers game, supply and demand. For SEO for instance, there's a lot of people that are going to be talking about keyword research. How are you talking about it in a different way, for instance? Almost every year, almost every time before brightonSEO Kelvin puts out a shout saying, "We need more technical SEO talks." So for instance, if you are somebody who is able to talk about technical SEO, you're probably more likely to get through than somebody who's talking about say content marketing because there's a lot of content marketing folks. And I think also the personality type of content marketers tends to be more like, "Yeah, let's talk about all the things," and technical SEO folks tend to be more like head down looking at a million spreadsheets, that sort of thing.

So I think that when you're thinking about it, and this is I think what he was talking about with the talk title, try to find an angle that's unique. That if there's something that you feel that people aren't talking about, try to find that to talk about. It's certainly something that I try to do when I'm pitching, and it's certainly something that I think I've seen be really effective.

Now, you don't want to go too far out in the weeds. You don't want to be pitching, I don't know, a JavaScript deep dive talk to a content marketing thing. If it's not positioned for content marketers, you don't want to be like, "Oh yeah, here's how you do Ruby on Rails." They're not going to care. But you want to make sure that maybe it's a unique angle on something that appeals to that audience, and that'll make a big difference.

Mordy Oberstein:

And again, build that out beforehand. I think a lot of the work that you're going to do for the pitch is done beforehand. So write an article, not about that exact topic, but adjacent to that topic. Build up that brand, your personal branding around that area in whatever topic you want to talk about so then when you go to pitch it, you have that cache of like, "Okay, I've done this before around this topic. I did an article here. I did an article there. I did an article here. Here's the next evolution of this topic that I'm going to do uniquely for you," but you have something you can kind of grab onto.

Crystal Carter:

Definitely make sure you have things that are adjace.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes, that's my new word, by the way. I use it all the time.

Crystal Carter:

I noticed this.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's because there's a podcast that I listen to. This is great. It's going off-topic for a second. There's a sports podcast that I listen to, and it's the announcer for the New York Yankees is a sports nut, okay? And I don't know, 10 years ago, they brought in a guy who does a hip-hop show on another radio station in the morning to do the afternoon show that they do, the sports show, to get the younger audience. And it's a whole big audience fight because the real sports nuts don't like him because he's not a real sports guy. It's great. Sal from Staten Island does not like Peter.

Crystal Carter:

Okay, okay.

Mordy Oberstein:

But he uses that word all the time, and I stole it from him.

Crystal Carter:

Right, okay, okay. So you're picking up the lingo.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes, from the cool people who happens to be another forty-year-old Jewish guy, so whatever.

Crystal Carter:

Hello, fellow kids.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes.

Crystal Carter:

Welcome to our podcast.

Mordy Oberstein:

Then there was another forty-year-old Jewish guy, Barry Schwartz.

Crystal Carter:

Barry has a million years experience or whatever. He started when he was 14.

Mordy Oberstein:

Right?

Crystal Carter:

It's crazy. Barry, what? 14 years old, Fourteen-year-old Barry was like, "You need a website."

Mordy Oberstein:

Can I develop an app for you?

Crystal Carter:

Right.

Mordy Oberstein:

Here's some news about SEO.

Crystal Carter:

Right, straight in there. Straight in there, no flies on him.

Mordy Oberstein:

So by the way, in case you're new to our podcast, which, hi and welcome, this is the part we pivot into the SEO news by waxing poetic and/or trolling Barry Schwartz who does all the SEO news.

Crystal Carter:

And who is our co-host on It's New, which is a daily dose of little tidbits, little snippets of information on the latest SEO News.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes. If you love SEO news, if you love this segment of the podcast, check out It's New on the Wix SEO Learning Hub. It's right there. You show up, you see Barry's face, see our faces, Greg Finn. Just click on that, get some daily news.

Anyway, it's time for the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, one article for you this week, just one because it is a mouthful. This from Barry Schwartz over on seoroundtable.com, my interview with Google search liaison on the August 2024 core update. My interview not being my interview, but Barry's interview with Google search liaison, Danny Sullivan.

I'm going to go into sports radio host announcer mode here with this. I have a bunch of comments to make. It's a great interview. There's a lot in there. There's way more than the true one that I can possibly put into the Snappy News, and I already feel like this section is not going to be so snappy at all. I'll link to the article in the show notes. Have a look at it. I'm pulling out some random quotes from Danny throughout the article. I'm just going to comment on them and try to be as forthright with my thoughts as possible in a productive way.

Okay, where do I want to start? Let's see. Okay, Danny said, "Yes, we have increased the amount of social content that appears in search." He's talking about Reddit. "The social content is indeed helpful for many queries. It's not perfect, but we continue to improve on it, but it can be very helpful. It can be very helpful in some cases to hear from other people who are encountering health issues that are looking for support." So this obviously is a response to the whole Reddit's, I'll call it a snafu like Reddit here, Reddit there, Reddit everywhere. Danny said afterwards, "When Reddit is actually outranking the content that actually produced the original thought," which has happened. There's been a whole, I don't know, hoopla about that, and that's not good, but social content is great.

I am somewhere in between on this. Yes, there are a lot of things where the social content can be really good. I think it's not diverse enough, meaning you don't have enough diversity in the forums, the diversity type of content. And as you'll see later, Danny does talk about more firsthand experience content that's not actually social. So I think the reality is somewhere in the middle there.

So on the whole social thing, Danny was talking about, or Barry asked Danny about the hidden gems update, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and Danny was talking about they want a little bit more content that's not just social, that takes things from a authentic human voice point of view, beyond social.

So for example, Danny said, "One of the sites I saw on the feedback, I'm referring to the feedback form they sent out with the March update, it helps you understand if something was in a movie or a TV show that you want to buy, that's amazing," he told me. Sullivan added, "I would like to see us do better by them, and it's where we're trying to find a way to do better surface this kind of authentic human voice type of content."

So Google is looking to move past pure social media for human voice, human experience content. I've talked about that a lot. The Reddit is a default. They don't have anything better. They are looking for actual longer form web content that is human voice or human experience-centric. I don't think it exists. Here's my sports radio critic voice coming in, to me, part of the problem with that is Google. I don't think Google is rewarding that kind of content enough. Meaning content creators are just going to follow what Google is rewarding. That's how the incentive cycle works. So if Google's not rewarding that kind of content, what incentive are you creating to produce that kind of content?

And on the same front, I don't think Google's doing enough to actually explain what that means. And this is where I feel like there's a little bit too much of a critique about Google and what's going on with the algorithm, yada, yada, yada. I think Google is trying to get it right. I don't think they're trying to mess things over, like Danny said, because our goal is if you're doing good content, we wanted you to be successful. I think it's a hundred percent true. They want the best content to rank. It's in their best interest. It's in their best bottom line interest.

So I think a lot of the narrative like Google's just nefarious, they're not. Getting this algorithm right is complicated. I'll get into it in a little bit in a second, because I have another quote that I want to get into. I'm actually going to end on that quote. They're not trying to get this wrong. They are trying to reward the best content. Part of the problem is si that I don't think people really understand what they're talking about. Danny said, as I've said several times on social elsewhere, if you know you're producing great content for your readers, that's your touchstone, your North Star, whatever you want to call it, if you're feeling confused about what to do in terms of rankings.

Again, Google has been saying over and over again, do what's good for your readers. Do what's good for your audience. Maybe it's a little bit of a hot take. I don't think the vast majority of the web understands what it means to create good content. What does that mean? As a former teacher, someone with a master's degree in education, the pedagogical approach Google has here is non-existent. It's basically Danny, and I don't think it's Danny's job. Okay, I'm ranting now. I don't think it's Danny's job. Danny's job isn't to be a teacher about content on the web. You need to have some kind of content liaison to basically show you what does it mean to create really good content. Because what you basically have is insanity. You have basically people going through the quality readers guidelines and trying to reverse engineer that to get an understanding of what quality content is. That's not going to be successful.

And at a certain point, what happens is when Google goes out there... And I think their intentions are good here. I think Danny is doing a great job with this. I just think it's not his job. But he goes out there and starts talking about create good content for your users, yada, yada, yada, it falls on deaf ears at this point because there's not enough context behind it. What does that mean pedagogically? What does it mean to create good content? And Danny has done, I think, a good job trying to show the best that he can in his limited scope there. He gives a couple of examples of some sites who requested," Hey, here's some feedback on the March update. Why did we lose rankings?" And he's offering, "Hey, well, maybe you should have because you didn't do this," or, "Your content is not as good because of X, Y, and Z." And that's really good stuff, but it's a little bit here, it's a little bit there, and it's just pedagogically you're not creating a knowledge scheme.

So I think there needs to be a little bit of a shift. If Google's really serious about getting that content created that really has a human voice to it, they need to, A, incentivize the content by ranking such content, but they also need to actually show you what that actually means and what that actually looks like a little bit more in depth. And I don't think this Danny's job. I don't think it's fair for anybody to think that's Danny's job. That was a mouthful.

Okay. One of the things Danny said I wanted to also talk about really, really quick is basically says if you move from first to second on the SERP and you lost traffic because of that, and you can lose traffic because of that, it doesn't mean we don't like you, meaning Google doesn't like you. You're ranking number two. That's great. But you might just not have the ability to earn as much traffic as you did before. I want to touch on that point because I think sometimes as SEOs we're like, "Oh, we'll get you ranking number one and we'll get you the traffic," and Google could just move you to number two and it's impossible to know why they moved you to number two. And it can mean a significant traffic loss and there could be nothing to do about it. So sometimes we think we have control over the system or it's clearly mapped out. It's not always like that. I just wanted to make that point. Okay.

The last thing, I have a bunch of other ones. I feel like I've gone on too long a little bit already, but I just wanted to end off on this one. Danny was talking about some of the sites. Obviously the big narrative with this whole update was the recovery from the helpful content update in September 2023, yada, yada, yada. So Danny said, "I do think that some of those sites will continue to see good gains if they're good sites," meaning some of the sites that saw a bit of a rebound will continue to see good gains, if they're good sites and if they're "producing good content for people." "I hope that they continue to go that way," Sullivan told me. So I'm a little bit confused about that. If, and maybe again here, I'm sports analytics talk show host too much of a hot take mode right now, so maybe I'm reading too much into this.

I just want to be forthright in saying that. Maybe I am reading too much into this. But if the website Danny is saying is good, they're doing a good job, then why weren't they already rewarded? Now, I do want to say that if Danny would've said, and he does say later on in the interview that it's a constant process. You can't get this right in just one update. We're going to work towards it, make continual improvements and we'll eventually get there. That, I buy. It is really hard to get an algorithm exactly where you want it to go with a super complicated algorithm obviously. And getting it exactly where you want to go is going to be super, super complicated. And I think as hard as it is, and if you lost rankings and you lost business, I don't blame you for feeling angry and I don't even blame you for screaming at me for saying this right now, because I can't imagine what you're going through.

But I do think there was a little bit too much anger at Google for not just getting it right. It's not easy to get it right. It is easier said than done. That's said, that wasn't what Danny was really saying here. You're saying, "Yeah, I think they'll continue to get good gains." But look at the quote in the actual full context of the interview. It made me walking away feeling like, and this is again my speculation, Google is trying to do something with the algorithm. That to me is very clear. They have a very purposeful thing that they're trying to do. I don't know what it is, but it seems big. What it seems like to me is that Google realizes the web is undergoing a paradigm shift in ways that I'm not sure we even understand yet. And they're trying to align the algorithm to that shift, or they're trying to engineer the shift. Either one of those two options.

Getting these sites that Danny's talking about up and ranking to the levels that they're "supposed to be" perhaps contradicts or is in conflict with the overall shift that Google's trying to make. And what it seemed like to me, and again, I'm really reading into this, what it seemed like to me Danny was saying was he wants those sites to improve. He thinks those sites should improve. He hopes they will improve. But there's something else in the algorithm that's currently going on that would preclude them from getting that full boost right now, because Google's got other goals in mind and it can't just engineer the algorithm to focus on improving these websites. So that I thought was interesting. Again, I thought it was a little bit of an internal contradiction. If you think these websites are great and then they're wonderful and they're writing the content that you're talking about, people should create and they should be ranking, which goes back to my earlier point.

If you can't get those websites ranking the way that they should be ranking, you're fundamentally not creating the incentive cycle you need for what Danny was talking about, the hidden gems, that experience-based content, yada, yada, yada. And I see it in the algorithm updates. You'll see a couple of sites that do that kind of thing, and they do get rewarded. There are cases like that. But then you also see a ton of not like that. And it's like, okay, how do I create an SEO strategy, or a content strategy rather, where I don't know what it's going to be? Could be Google gets rewarded, Google doesn't get rewarded. It's hard to create a strategy based on something that's so not concrete.

But again, kudos to Danny for talking with Barry. There's a lot of good stuff in there. The truth I think is always somewhere in the middle with all these things. Is Google getting it totally wrong? No. Is Google getting it totally right. No. Are there major problems? Yes. Have a look at the article. I've gone way too long for the Snappy News. I apologize for my speculation, but I'm going to call it the way I see it and offer my take. This is a podcast and that's what we do. And that's this week's Snappy News, or Not So Snappy News.

Again, if you're looking for more news, check out It's New. It's not new anymore. It's been around for a little bit, but the news is new, so that's why it's It's New.

Crystal Carter:

I like it.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, it's a good name. Anyway, which brings us to a new follower or rather a new person that you should be following on social media to get some more SEO and marketing awesomeness. This time we have Cheryl Draper for you. She used to be over at Moz and running MozCon, and now it looks like she's partnering up with Noah Lerner on a little SEO conference thingamajigger that's pending and forthcoming. That should be exciting.

Crystal Carter:

That should be really exciting. And she has so much experience. She recently posted that she's going to be collaborating with Noah Lerner, Sean Huber, Nick Leroy, to bring the SEO community together in San Diego around the Brighton SEO for a fringe event. And it should be really, really good. It's an SEO community bash called Brighton SEO Boardwalk Bash, which should be super cool. Cheryl is such a fantastic person. I was talking about conferences that nurture new speakers, and Cheryl and the team that she had there did some incredible work there. And I think that that's just part of the core of who she is, seeing someone who nurtures new talent and encourages people to do great things. And so I am under no doubt that she will be able to do some incredible things with her next endeavor and that the upcoming event will be really awesome. And it'll be great to see her because she brings such incredible energy to everything she does.

Mordy Oberstein:

So look for Cheryl on LinkedIn, and on X @CherylDraper. Link in the show notes. Yeah. Okay. So when's our flight to the next SEO conference now that we've clearly advocated that you should be going to SEO conferences?

Crystal Carter:

I'm just there for the swag. I'll be completely honest.

Mordy Oberstein:

Can I tell you one, time I showed up to a conference, it was Brighton SEO in the UK, and I didn't have enough room in my suitcase for swag. I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to go buy another bag to put all my swag." Is that wrong and silly? I don't care.

Crystal Carter:

Honestly. My recent one was the MozCon hat that I have, which a lot of people are like, "Oh my God, I love the hat.

Mordy Oberstein:

I love that hat. I'm jealous.

Crystal Carter:

Everybody loves that hat. People are like, "Where'd you get it?" I'm like, "Yeah, I know. It's a good hat."

Mordy Oberstein:

Yo, Moz people. Send me that hat.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, I got it from the stat booth. I was like, "Yo, hook it up. But yeah, and we also have great swag. If you come and see us at Brighton SEO, we will be at Brighton SEO in the UK in Autumn. We will also be at Brighton SEO in San Diego in Autumn, and we will be at a number of other events with incredibly juicy, incredible, fantastic swag. So do come and check that out if you're in the vicinity.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, we do a lot of live events, so come find us and take our swag.

Crystal Carter:

Yes. Yes. Indeed.

Mordy Oberstein:

All right, well that'll do it. Thank you for joining the The SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. Back next week with a new episode as we go into BotLogs, the Transformers Chronicle. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts or on the Wix Studio SEO Learning over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars and resource on the Wix Studio Learning up at, you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO.