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Posted 8 years 11 months ago
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Connecting SEO and content marketing trends and strategies with the people that execute them
At BrightEdge, helping our customers succeed is at the heart of everything we do. And this year, we continued to build and expand our programs and events to help our customers thrive in the fast-paced and ever-changing digital marketing landscape. In 2017, our investment in our users is reflected through success in three pillars: SEO Conference Share Global Insights Tour, SEO/Content Marketing User Groups, and the SEO and Digital Marketing Webinar Series. These three types of events were designed to inspire through thought leadership, promote best practices that deliver real results, and provide networking opportunities with other leading marketers to fuel personal and professional performance. Let’s dive into these events and see how the BrightEdge Community pushed the boundaries of the SEO and Content Marketing landscape in 2017.
The BrightEdge SEO Webinar Series: Taking SEO and Content Marketing to the Next Level
If you haven’t joined the 30,000+ community members engaging with our webinars this year, you are missing out! In 2017, BrightEdge hosted 27 public webinars featuring community speakers on a wide range of subjects including:
- Developing Pre-Optimized Content
- Debunking the Myths: Organic and Content Marketing Convergence
- Beyond SEO: Connecting Content to Conversions
- SEO, The Heart of Digital Marketing
On24 put it best in their recent 2017 Benchmarks Report: “Webinars have the ability to deliver deep and engaging content at a time when so many other communications are superficial or 'snackable.'” Webinars dive deep into the subjects’ marketers care about most and are a convenient means to access the best thought leadership in the business. Here’s what the community had to say about #brightedgewebinar: 
There are still five webinars coming up in the Fall Webinar Series for both B2B and B2C tracks. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to further develop your SEO and Content strategy! Don't forget you can always access these webinars on-demand here.
BrightEdge User Groups: Connecting with the very best in SEO
Regional BrightEdge User Groups are a popular new element of the community in 2017. These customer-led groups meet to network and keep ahead of the latest trends impacting search sharing best practices to elevate the role of SEO across their organizations. So far, there are 11 user groups in the following cities: New York, London, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Austin, Dallas, Seattle, and San Francisco, with groups in development in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. Nearly 400 customers have joined the community and the momentum is growing! Sam Khandelwal, senior director of marketing strategy and business development at Position 2, spoke about his experience with the local User Groups:
“The User Group in San Francisco has helped connect me with a lot of different ideas and insights and all of the ways we were not using the BrightEdge platform, and helps connect with folks who have similar ideas.”
If you are interested in joining the BrightEdge User Group near you, sign up to join today. 
Share Global Insights Tour 2017: The Leading SEO Conference is a Wrap!
On October 4, BrightEdge concluded its Share Global Insights Tour with the final SEO conference in Chicago. Share, a series of four one-day SEO conferences for digital marketers, by digital marketers, stopped in New York, London, and San Francisco. This year’s tour saw even greater attendance than our three-day event in 2016, a great sign of community momentum. Read more about the first half of the tour. This year’s tour was centered around The Convergence of SEO and Content Marketing. At BrightEdge, we believe that performance starts with Smart Content and Smart Content starts by understanding consumer intent — which is possible through search. The Share Global Insights Tour aimed to give digital marketers actionable takeaways on how SEO and Content Marketing work together to deliver better marketing results. Great examples included:
- Scott Mowery, director of digital marketing for Cleveland Clinic, explained how site redesign helped drive both the general public and patients seeking care to the Cleveland Clinic site for general health tips and urgent medical needs [Share Chicago]
- Laura Ann Mitchell, Cisco, shared her journey and best practices around extending the value of search beyond the SEO channel and how to move SEO upstream in an organization by leveraging search to develop messaging, persona mapping and ultimately drive deeper engagement with your audience. [Share San Francisco]
A huge takeaway from the SF and Chicago stops of the Tour was the introduction of BrightEdge Content. Avi Bhatnagar of WhiteHat Security gave a live demo of the new product, showing just how easy it is to identify profitable topic opportunities and create new content that’s tuned for user experience and search success. Avi encouraged the audience to replace the traditional content marketing waterfall model with a new Smart Content methodology that focuses on customer intent, content optimization prior to publication, and embedding CTAs and dynamic content recommendations for maximum content performance. In his article for Search Engine Watch, digital marketing strategist and Share speaker Clark Boyd recapped key conference takeaways including his vision on teamwork and SEO.
“Working in SEO in 2017, therefore, requires a broad range of skill sets, from the technical through to the strategic and the interpersonal. Frankly, SEO fails if it exists in a vacuum and it requires input from across departments to reach its full potential.”
We would like to give a big “thank you” to Clark and the other 32 speakers who lead breakout sessions, spoke on panels, shared (pun intended) their valuable insights on stage in 2017. Check out the agendas and full lists of speakers New York, London, San Francisco, and Chicago.
What’s next? Plans for 2018
BrightEdge is excited to announce that the Share Global Insights Tour is returning in 2018 and our flagship SEO conference, Share San Francisco, will take place October 9-10, 2018, at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. This two-day event will be packed with persona-based breakout sessions, dynamic keynotes, and a BrightEdge Certification course. Read the press release. Make sure to check our events page for updates on Share San Francisco and the other stops on the 2018 Global Insights Tour as they are announced! Specific questions about the Global Insights Tour can be sent to events@brightedge.com. This year, the BrightEdge Community has become an impactful network that shares insights, platform best practices, and, most of all, elevates the role of SEO and Content Marketers across the industry. We look forward to building on our community success in 2018 with more engaging events! Are you a part of the BrightEdge Community? Share your favorite moments of 2017 in the comments below!
