Barbados SEO 2022 Speakers

Inaugural Speakers at

BarbadosSEO 2022

We’re committed to bringing the best digital marketing conference to the Caribbean!  This were our selected speakers for the 2022 edition of Barbados SEO. Read on to see the full list of speakers and session topics.

Mike King
CEO

iPullRank Inc.
New York, USA

Keynote Session:


Whether you like it or not, Google has moved beyond keywords. So if you’re an SEO purely focused on keyword search volume or ranking on page 1 organically, you’re doing it wrong. Rank tracking the old way? Yeah, you’re wasting your time and your company’s money.

In this presentation, Michael King, founder and CEO of iPullRank, will explain the tech behind developments at the intersection of AI and NLP.

He’ll show you how Google uses complex neural networks for information retrieval to analyze text, images, video, and audio. He’ll explain how Google uses that analysis to understand your queries, and the context around it to actually provide you with the results you’re looking for. In fact, Google wants to provide you with information you didn’t even know you were looking for. He’ll tie all of that into how you should be rank tracking in 2022.

Heather Physioc
Managing Director

VMLY&R
Kansas City, MO, USA

Competitive Advantage in the Commoditized SEO Industry

SEO isn’t dead — it’s commoditized. In a world where search companies are a dime a dozen and brands tout bland “unique selling propositions” that aren’t unique at all, how can you avoid drowning in the sea of sameness? What are you doing that’s any different from every other SEO firm?

In this talk, you’ll learn how to find, activate, and articulate your competitive advantage.

Learn how to identify unique strengths and innovative offerings that equate to competitive advantage through these real, working examples so you can bring them to life in search.

You’ll leave with actionable tips and homework to help your search business stand out — and that you can use with clients to help them find their competitive edge, too.

Maria Amelia White
Global Search Lead

Kurt Geiger
London, United Kingdom

SEO Strategy for Successful Global Expansion

The talk will include:

  • Aspects to consider before the expansion: New sites, migrations, planning, budgeting, and team).
  • Feasibility Study phase: Study the markets and online behaviors of the countries we plan to expand. Can we provide what they are looking for? Are we bringing a new product? Or both?
  • Translation and localisation.
  • International SEO.
    International Digital PR.
  • Global SEO strategy.
  • How we got to work with Paris Hilton and turn a new product into a sold out piece!

Rohan Ayyar
Co-Founder, CEO

99 Stairs
Ahmedabad, India

The Really Advanced Technical SEO Audit

A collection of solutions and things to check during a technical SEO audit.

Google keeps evolving and there is a lot of confusion around best practices for Core Web Vitals, HTTPS, helpful content (smirk), and so on.

This presentation aims to address as many as possible. While it might seem like a collection of random issues (as opposed to a theme), that will make it interesting to more folks, who might have faced at least 2 or 3 of these issues themselves.

I will also show a case study of a particular site I manage that faced all (or most) of these problems.

Kristine Schachinger
Co-Founder, CEO

Sites Without Walls
Las Vegas, NV, USA

Machine Learning in SEO

Machine learning in Search is one of the least understood aspects of SEO.

Google has added more and more machine learning to all aspects of the organic results including language understanding, post scoring SERP page build, and now with the Helpful Content Update — the core ranking signals.

This session will go over just what machine learning Google is using, how it is applied, where it is applied, and why that matters to you.

So what it does and more importantly — what it doesn’t do.

Takeaways will help attendees understand how to incorporate what Google is doing with machine learning into their SEO strategies.

For instance when a person leaves the session, they will know what Rank Brain is, what triggers it, how it is applied, & how they can use it to their advantage.

They will understand its companion algorithm Neural Matching and how to Neural Matching can guide your content strategy and increase your site visibility.

Machine Learning is here to stay, and this session will give the attendee a good base understanding of how these additions of machine learning applies to the search results and everything we do in SEO.

 

Martin MacDonald
Founder, CEO

MOGmedia Inc.
St. John, Barbados

Solving SEO: an SEO Developer Approach

Martin has spent much of the last five years building an SEO software solution initially to be used in house at his agency, MOGmedia.

Over the years, this has developed into a product with some proprietary features that promise to move technical SEO audits forward like never before.

In this session, Martin will look at the factors that lead to his SEO tool developing the way it did, and how this might impact audit analysis in future.

Full data, access and assistence on the product will be offered to all attendees at BarbadosSEO 2022.

 

Jenny Halasz
Director, SEO

Lumber Liquidators
Raleigh, NC, USA

When Lazy Loading Goes Wrong!

Learn how lazy load can go terribly wrong, how a single image change can wreak havoc on your entire site, and why you should never be satisfied with “good enough.” Jenny will show you how simple and not-so-simple changes can result in significant improvements in conversion rate, revenue, and site performance.

After this session, you’ll be able to:

Identify the most common pitfalls in eCommerce SEO (and ways to avoid them)
Increase customer conversions and revenue with changes to your eCommerce SEO

Grant Simmons
US Ambassador

Inlinks Ltd.
Virginia, USA

Semantic SEO + Entities = Humanitics 

In this session, Grant will look at how entity SEO is changing the industry in 2022 and beyond.

With a focus on data provided via the InLinks Platform, Grant will discuss the latest case studies on entity optimization for organic search.

Charlie Whitworth
Founder
, WhitworthSEO

Manchester, UK

Working in Fast Fashion SEO During a Takeover 

Technical SEO

From mega menu changes to internal linking on PLP and PDP pages, there were things that had almost instant impact and others that I was sure would, but didn’t.

SEO Governance

The trials and tribulations of an SEO in an organisation such as Missguided, particularly around SEO governance. With e-comm teams, buyers, trade, copywriters and UX/CRO’s all jostling for power – getting your SEO recommendations implemented can be easier said than done. A glimpse into some methods I used to get things live and how a solid process can help to achieve that. Also SEO education within the organisation.

Buyouts

Some advice on what happens when a firm such as Frasers buys the company and tries to replatform your site with little or no consideration for SEO. Some tips on how to handle this politically/diplomatically and perhaps some examples of my SEO Migration master checklist and generally how you should approach such a migration or replatform for such a large e-commerce website.

Stacey MacNaught
Founder
, MacNaught Digital

Oldham, UK

Generating Links with Content Assets

A practical session on understanding what sort of assets generate links passively online and how to go about creating them.

I’ll talk to about tactics to identify relevant queries where the search intent appears to be to find a source to cite (link to) and how to go about creating the assets and maximising the link value allowing you to spend more time creating assets and less time cold pitching bloggers!

Rishi Lakhani
Founder
, FastFWD Digital

London, UK

BlackHat vs. WhiteHat SEO in 2023:

In this session, Rishi will debate the usefullness of blackhat SEO practices in 2023 and beyond.

With a two decade career at the forefront of digital marketing, Rishi is a globally known SEO expert.  He has previously spoken at and keynoted some of the largest events in Europe including BrightonSEO.