SEO day 2020 – Richard Fenning

SEO Day 2020 with Richard Fenning

SEOday is an event that was launched in 2015, as an initiative to spread and expand knowledge of organic positioning. More than 30 speakers from 13 countries took part in the 2020 edition.

The event was held online, in keeping with the worldwide context of the Covid-19 pandemic. We talked about SEO myths, ecommerce references, the power of long-tail keywords to increase traffic, email marketing, and how to identify opportunities to get SEO results faster.

Many interesting topics were addressed; in particular, pre- and post-pandemic perspectives on e-commerce. Experts shared strategic tips, discussing how analyses can be made using ScreamingFrog, the importance of connecting SEO with UX and products, and how to plot methodologies and link building processes.

The high calibre of participants was essential to understanding different points of view on any given subject, and putting the potential of SEO work in Latin America into perspective. I contributed my experience too, from over 12 years working with SEO.

I began by pinpointing the factors which I consider to be important when working with SEO, both on-page and off-page. I placed particular emphasis on technical factors since, as we know, one hallmark of ecommerce sites is that they have millions and millions of pages.

As I see it, good SEO work involves working with teams dealing with IT, technical, performance and other areas. Only through this comprehensive teamwork will the results of SEO work start to take shape. So for me, the ideal is to do little on-page, a little off-page, and stay focused on the technical stuff.

I was asked about commercial events here in Brazil, of which there are many throughout the year, and singled out Black Friday as the most important one.

This landmark event can be a challenge, but it also provides a great deal of opportunities. At Lojas Americanas, for example, which has more than 1300 physical stores, the SEO challenge is huge, because as traffic increases, this sudden influx can lead to performance issues.

I also talked about metrics. Specifically, the ones which are important to my manager at Americanas are linked to sales and visits. Other metrics which I keep track of are related to positioning, both as standalone data and compared to the competition.

The full livestream is available to view in Spanish, and topics covered included:

The SEO factors considered most relevant to ecommerce
Manipulation of inventories in product landing pages
Using filters within an e-Commerce
Participation in events such as Hot Sale and Cyber Monday

You can check out my contributions to the event in the video below: