Ahrefs Evolve is a wrapper. What is my favorite memory? All the people I met at the event.
I actually really enjoyed the diversity – being held in Singapore, I was finally able to meet SEOs and marketers from across the region: Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, China, Korea and Japan. These people are rarely seen or mentioned at global SEO conferences, but they are an important part of our industry.
credit: Jin Lizhi From Elliphant
Beyond the network, the speakers were incredible. Their presentations were very actionable and many attendees took away lessons that they can immediately apply to their work to achieve success on Google and other marketing channels.
Me too.
Here’s what I took away from the event – new things I learned, experiments I want to run, and things I’ll do differently from now on:
The SEO strategies everyone used were sound until useful content was updated.
You can do keyword research, optimize your content through content optimization tools, make sure your on-page SEO is on point, build some links, and voila, rank high.
But these are not what searchers want to see.
Slides from Cyrus Shepard’s speech
If searchers want recipes, they want recipes. Not pasta history. If searchers want to get started with email marketing, they need a simple guide. This is not a 10,000-word article. If searchers want the best running shoes, they want actual recommendations. Amazon product descriptions are not crawled.
As SEOs, we hit our KPIs. But we’re not helping our readers and customers. We certainly don’t have a help network.
When was the last time you Googled and found something that changed your life? I don’t even remember when that happened.
That’s why, like Sam, I want to get out of my SEO brain.
Sam was referring to YouTube, but it applies to written content as well.
I want to free myself from having to fill in the unconscious “what is X” and “why is X important” content templates. I no longer want to think that the right way to make content is to simply copy content that already ranks, but content that works for users. I want to exercise the right side of my brain, the part that helps us create things readers want to see, even if they don’t prompt us with search queries.
I’m happy to say I was already doing this for our blog, but Evolve showed me this was the right way forward.
I’m not saying we should give up on SEO entirely. We can still use keyword research to understand what people are looking for and search intent as a proxy to understand what searchers want.
But at the end of the day, we don’t want to make content that looks the same as everyone else’s because content also helps build the brand. that’s why…
If you could sum up most of Evolve’s speeches in one word, it would be “brand.”
Slides from Amanda King’s talk
Slides from Aleyda Solis’ talk
Clearly, branding is becoming more and more important, even in SEO. as ryan argue herethis is Google’s easiest way to combat AI spam.
In fact, the problem is so difficult that Google has hedged on it. Instead of evaluating the quality of each article, Google seems to be cutting the Gordian knot, choosing to promote large, trusted brands like Forbes, WebMD, TechRadar or the BBC into more SERPs.
After all, it’s much easier for Google to police a handful of large content brands than thousands of smaller ones. By elevating “trusted” brands (those with some track record and public accountability) to dominant positions in popular search results pages, Google can effectively insulate many search experiences from the risk of AI overflow.
How will this be reflected in my work? I’m not sure yet, but one idea we’re looking at is adding more of our brand to our content, events and communications. We have done this by calling the event arefs developour podcast arefs podcastand our YouTube channel Arev TVbut we can redouble our efforts.
For example, if we share a The process of creating contentwe should call it the “Ahrefs content creation process”. This way, we can potentially increase search volume for our brand, thereby According to researchsuggesting that it might actually be a signal.
Slides from Aleyda Solis’ talk
But you can’t take any old process and name it after your brand. It has to be special and unique. How does the process become unique? When you actually do the work and gain experience, you can say something different. This leads to…
Both Google and searchers want to see content that features expert knowledge or first-person experience. But it’s not enough to say you’ve done it—anyone can say that. you must work harder Showcase the work you’ve done.
For example, in Cyrus’s Speaking, he shared the website Repeat runa website literally Cut the shoe in half to test. If you check out their reviews, you’ll see unique GIFs and videos of them actually testing the shoes.
this yes What Google wants to rank. You can see this clearly in their organic traffic:
After all, artificial intelligence can’t yet cut a shoe in half. Plus, the content itself is difficult to replicate – not every niche site is willing to spend a little more on a few pairs of shoes, get actual testing equipment like smoke pumps and microscopes, design a complete testing method, and then go out and run it on concrete and in water.
Completing all of this will not only give you first-hand experience, but also provide you with plenty of evidence that you’ve done your job. As Cyrus also pointed out, Google Lens can tell whether an image is original. Most affiliate sites only use manufacturer photos, but not RunRepeat.
Slides from Cyrus Shepard’s speech
I’ve started doing some of this at work. For example, when I Ask marketers to share their favorite books For me, I don’t just ask them for a quote. I also asked them to send selfies:
but i can do it more. For example, I interviewed eight SEO people Posts about travel SEO. I can easily share a screenshot of the Zoom call we had, or even a selfie if we were in person.
Same for me Posts about SEO content creation. I can embed a walkthrough video showing the entire process.
There is still a lot of room for improvement in this area. Speaking of videos…
We’ve all heard how TikTok is becoming the new search engine for Generation Z. (God, I’m old.) Charlotte Ang She pointed out in her speech that TikTok recognizes this trend and is increasingly interested in becoming a true search engine.
Slides from Charlotte Ang’s presentation
I may be a writer, but I do have a small suspicion that text-based content may not be the preferred format going forward. as Neville Medora In his newsletter he wrote:
Most SEOs are still highly focused on textual content and optimizing websites, but with Amanda King Pointing out (as many speakers did) that SEO evolution is no longer just about websites.
It’s about everything.
Slides from Amanda King’s talk
Google’s SERPs increasingly include a large number of features (videos, tweets, knowledge panels, images), and SEO now and in the future will optimize all aspects: making videos (long and short), making original photos and images, publishing books, etc.
In essence, SEO is finally back as part of marketing.
Like it or not, TikTok, or short-form videos in general, is and will be part of the future.
Although I am not a TikTok user, Charlotte’s success has given me a lot of inspiration on how to do better on the short video platform.
Slides from Charlotte Ang’s presentation
my colleagues Rebecca have Tried the platformso it’s not that we’ve completely avoided it.
Will I be featured in a video on our YouTube channel soon? Will I start creating short-form videos optimized for TikTok, Shorts, and Reels?
let’s see
final thoughts
Everyone’s situation is different, so everyone has different points that can be applied. Those are my most important things and what I want to do differently from now on.
If you want to get the takeaways from other attendees, I recommend checking out these posts:
