MozCon, like Comic Con, but WAY nerdier…

Moz started in 2004 as a blog where some of the first SEO experts shared their ideas online. These days it is the most trusted authority on SEO, with a powerful search platform, and professional advice to help marketers like yours truly keep on the cutting edge of digital marketing.

If SEO was ancient Greece, Moz would be Zeus, shooting lightning bolts of knowledge into the brains of us mere humans from atop Olympus.

But, we digress…

MozCon is a three day conference held during mid July each year, in Seattle, Washington. Marketers gather to discuss emerging trends and the latest tools in the search landscape. Challenges are debated and an impressive list of speakers share their latest strategies and perspectives.

No, that’s okay, we had other plans anyway… So what did we miss out on?

Aside from networking, great food and drink, karaoke, and trying to get yourself in the bee-line of a trusted Moz partner as they flutter through the crowd like an all-knowing ethereal butterfly?

The overarching message from MozCon 2019 is that search is evolving and SEOs must adapt. Moz founder Rand Fishkin spoke about the evolution of the search industry and said that in recent times, everything comes down to establishing site authority, improving efficiency of content and aligning information with authoritative consensus.

Here are some of the insights we found most interesting:

1. Optimisation is for humans AND machines.

Ruth Burr Reedy spoke about understanding how Google can parse text, because that can help us create content that’s more readable for humans and robots alike. The commonalities are more obvious that you’d think: both humans and robots desire clarity, concise and accurate information, and covering all relevant points succinctly.

The wisecracks we throw in to keep you engaged are probably just for the humans here, right..?

2. Localisation is key.

This year, Moz announced the launch of a brand new tool, Local Market Analytics. This cutting edge tool is capable of observing performance across local markets through SERP tracking and analytics. It is capable of producing highly granular competitive insights to give a true representation of results from a hyper-local search.

3. Visual content is now an essential that cannot be compromised.

Did you know that only 20% of people remember what they read? Compare that to the 80% of us who retain visual information. So what does that mean for us marketers? In order to drill your message nice and firmly into the minds of others, make it visually stimulating.

Get creative, be different, make people remember you. The same can be said for interactive content, something which forces your audience to engage is going to stay put in their head longer than a wall of text. (Apart from if you’re amazingly talented at writing witty and engrossing blogs, of course…)

4. Google is trying to answer peoples’ questions with answers, not websites.

Remember us lamenting in our last blog about the mystery of Google? We’ll here’s another thing we do know about it: Google loves answers- can’t get enough of them. Google is on a mission for answers and it’s our job to deliver your answer at the top of the list.

This is a case of conducting research to best evaluate the questions that people are asking, and building genuinely helpful content around the answers that Google deems the most efficient and true to life.

Maybe we’ll be packing our bags for a flying visit to Seattle next year! Maybe not. Either way Moz’s open learning platform keeps us informed of all the exciting updates in the SEO world. If you’re interested in how SEO can improve your website, call us on 0161 941 5330 or contact your First Internet account manager today.