The event, “Getting SEO Measurement Right in 2024” provided an opportunity for attendees from the digital marketing discipline to understand more about the latest issues and trends, as well as hear updates and top tips on how to address these; important for maintaining a competitive edge in digital marketing.

The focus was on SEO hot topics for 2024 ‘so far’, including Cookie Consent, Bot Traffic, Google Results, the shift to GA4, and the AI impact on SEO – and conveniently, Google formally announced the release of their AI Overview the evening before. Thank you Google!

Cookie Consent Impacts and Problems

With increasing regulations around data privacy, the topic of Cookie Consent was the first major highlight to resonate with attendees – a dry and not normally exciting topic brought alive by the shared recognition. When it comes to this topic, businesses often ask, “Do I have to?” and the short answer is YES. According to gov.uk following the EU directive, “You must get the user’s consent before you set any cookies that are not strictly necessary.” The impact is usually a significant drop in recorded traffic numbers, affecting data analysis in perpetuity. Effective cookie consent management is essential to have a reliable baseline for digital marketing let alone maintaining user trust.

Bot Traffic Ruining Tracked Data in Google

Bot Traffic is spam traffic leading to short term spikes, with clear footprints such as time on site time (low), traffic from, er ‘unusual’ countries (Poland, Russia, etc). It is clearly automated, clearly not real or genuine to website tracking of user experience. It is an inconvenient mess, making month on month (MoM) and year on year (YoY) comparisons difficult, often invalid. Techniques were shared to block in GA (Google Analytics), but alas the effectiveness in tackling this issue can be low without reasonable attention. Cressive shared hints and tips to deal with bot traffic, but one inevitable consequence is greater reliance upon GSC (Google Search Console) as a reliable source of data – no bad this arguably for SEOs. It is less affected compared to GA, however not immune. 

Google Results and Congested SERPs

The landscape, format and content of Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) continues to change, and it is becoming increasingly cluttered considering both paid and free results such as products, FAQs, mobile scrolling, news etc – a collage of fragmented snippets. This creates both challenges and opportunities. To make the best use of Google Results latest updates for digital marketing promotion, maps, business listings, videos and Wikipedia, and all the wide variants and options require consideration. Wikipedia is often overlooked, but it is one of the best ranking websites for many searches. Additionally, you can target Featured Snippets. Google says, “Featured Snippets are special boxes where the format of a regular search results is reversed, showing the descriptive snippet first.” The increasing complexity of SERPs demands management and this can be automated using Cressive DX’s reporting, to record and highlight visibility in responding to and managing all search results.

The Forced Shift to GA4 and End of UA (now aka “GA3”)

One of the most significant events of the year is the transition from UA (Universal Analytics) to GA4 (Google Analytics). This shift changes the way data is collected and interpreted. Much has been, and is being, written on this subject so the focus on the briefing was on the more surprising impact and options. Many businesses didn’t have trouble with this transition, many others faced challenges, and few switched to alternative analytics tools such as Matomo or Adobe Analytics because of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) – a European Union regulation on information privacy. The limitations and enforced changes to digital marketing analytics interpretation caused by this shift to GA4 are found in every SEO engagement currently and will be ongoing impact. The demise of UA/GA3 at the end of June necessitates a change in focus and management.

Read our article “GA4 and UA – What’s the Difference?” highlighting the shift to GA4 in more detail. 

AI, AI Overview and the Impact on SEO

Perhaps the fastest trending topic of the year is AI & SEO and its impact. It is changing often and rapidly, that by the time you finish reading this article, there can be a new AI update or release… The evening before the briefing meeting saw Google announce the new AI Overview ‘search result snippet’.

Google rolled out AI-Powered Overviews (SGE – Search Generative Experience) to US search results, powered by the new Gemini model. We can be certain of some immediate responses to interpreting SERPs and result snippets – by both users and for SEO, and Cressive shared actions that can be employed today to deal with and better manage SEO in response. We proactively research and incorporate AI into both the consulting SEO services and SEO software so we harness the latest innovations as well as react to the constant changes. The next wave of SEO has begun and Cressive remains determined to stay at the forefront of changes in digital marketing, and share these to the benefit of our clients.

At Cressive DX, with more than 3 decades of combined experience we guide businesses through these difficult transitions and challenges. We use our proprietary software and proven industry expertise, to turn your data into insights and insights into high value solutions. Best-practice brand control leads to better Digital Brand Performance. 

This was the first Breakfast Briefing organised by Cressive DX offering comprehensive information on 2024 SEO hot topics to attendees, but it won’t be the last. See you in the next event in Q3.

Originally published 25 June 2024 on LinkedIn.

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Sue Stuart-Smith’s book The Well Gardened Mind on gardening and mental health reminds us how important it is to reconnect with nature. Especially during the current testing times, keeping mentally well has been a challenge for all of us. Discovering the glorious restorative powers of nature combined with brilliant story telling by Sue is exactly what we need for a well gardened mind. Sue together with her husband, garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith, has designed gold medal winning gardens and created The Barn Garden, one of the most spectacular and well reputed gardens around the world.

The Kanneh-Masons need little introduction. Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason is mother to 7 exceptional children and a former lecturer at Birmingham University. Her memoir House of Music is her story as a mother and what it took to raise a musical family facing class and racial division. Sheku, third eldest of the seven, was the first Black musician to have won BBC Young Musician in 2016. Their life and continuity musicality in lock down shown on the BBC was an inspiration. We are thrilled Kadiatu will be joined on stage by daughter Konya who will give a short recital.

We ‘hope’ to host these two special authors on October the 8^th, pending Boris rules. The Guildford Book Festival 2020 runs from 4th till 11th October, with tickets available now.

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Cressive DX was one of the first companies to step forward and Guildford Philanthropy is delighted to announce that they are the first to renew their association for another year. Peter Cluff, Chairman of Guildford Philanthropy commented “With Guildford Philanthropy being heavily involved during the Covid19 crisis, supporting local charities and other voluntary organisations, the support of our Corporate Ambassadors is much needed and appreciated. We know that it is not an easy time for businesses either and we are therefore very grateful to Cressive DX for signing up to being a Corporate Ambassador for another year and also for all the help they have provided this past year”.

Richard Game, CEO of Cressive DX said “While our business is partnering global brands, we pride ourselves in being a local team, conscious of our local footprint and brimming with community spirit. We have been based on the research park for 6 years and we are delighted to continue our support of Guildford Philanthropy’s fantastic work. As we adapt to lockdown as a team, we are acutely aware of the challenges posed to the local community, and are not only proud but cannot think of a better way to contribute. We would encourage other local companies to support Guildford Philanthropy and their excellent initiatives, collaborating and committing together to help alleviate poverty in the local area, making Guilford a better place to work and live.”

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After enjoying a full-spread breakfast, the event kicked off with Gavin from Kyan giving an intro to what WXG is all about, after which Robert from Wirehive took over to be the host for the day (and an excellent one at that).

The rest of the day involved listening to a series of very interesting speakers, who shared their stories of how they are doing some good in the world (using technology). I can’t do their talks justice in this short post, but let me highlight a few nuggets that we heard about.

Dr Tamer Shahin from mimitec shared his company’s development: a smart mirror which can learn your behaviour and monitor it to pick up subtle cues that hint at deteriorating mental health. The subject of mental health is very topical and with many of us knowing people who suffer from mental health issues, it is a widespread issue and often goes unnoticed. How cool is it that a mirror can evaluate your appearance and even monitor your heart rate to raise a flag for an expert to look into?

Staying on a related theme, Steven Woodgate from Microsoft came next, talking about the accessibility features available in Office 365. It was great to see how Steven was using these accessibility features in his own life and work. Something he stressed, which I admittedly hadn’t thought of myself either, was that these accessibility features aren’t just for those who need them, but are accessible and can make everyone’s lives a little bit easier.

One of the most interesting speakers was Chris Dowling from Unmade – a fashion brand. Chris’ talk was titled “Saving the world with SVGs – but he wasn’t wrong. He and his team have developed a fantastic web-based platform that allows their customers to design their own team sportswear, which can be sent to printing machines and the fabric gets printed and stitched exactly how the customer wants it. It doesn’t sound like much, but when factoring in the reduced setup times and taking away the need to print 1000s in stock to maximise efficiency, it all adds up and contributes to reducing a lot of waste.

It wasn’t all just neat tools and products though; Chris Todhunter from Studio Republic shared how his company, a small design agency, decided to go green and has since made it part of their company’s identity. Every decision is made considering the impact it has on the world, society and the planet. Chris is one of the bold businessmen who will turn down a client, if the project is related to anything that contributes to harming the planet.

Daniel Harvey from The Dots Global also used the stage to bring awareness, but this time on the negatives that technology can bring and how to counter them. From social media scandals, to data leaks, to kids getting exposed to things they really should not be, Dan’s talk was an eye-opener. My favourite talk of the day, you can read more about it on his Medium post on the same subject.

We also got to hear about how the World Wildlife Foundation has used technology to raise awareness about conservation efforts, and even produce a nature series released exclusively on Netflix: Our Planet (narrated by none other than Sir David Attenborough). We also got to hear how technology is bringing good change to the sports industry ,from Rebecca Hopkins from Sports Technology Awards; where one good eye opener was that sports is larger than just the big name clubs and athletes, which are a small drop in the big world of sports.

The event ended with a demonstration by Seb Lee-Delisle, a digital artist and laserist. He talked about arcade games and how those used to have a display which can only be mimicked by lasers; and then gave us a spectacular demonstration of how lasers worked and a re-creation of classic arcade games like Space Invaders! Not really revolving around the tech for good theme, but LASERS! How cool is that?!

All in all, I think it was a fantastic event and all of the speakers deserve a (virtual) shout-out for their excellent talks and the work they do. Kyan and Wirehive did a great job organising this year’s WXG and I look forward to attending it again next year.

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