SEO Chinwag London event: a PR's round-up

There were some interesting insights at Chinwag's Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) event 'Search is dead, long live search'.

Chinwag had once again assembled a brilliant panel, all who contributed their expertise and opinions, including: Alan Patrick, Nick Garner and Teddie Cowell. It was chaired by Jon Myers.

As well as covering and debating current ground, the panel were asked to look into the future, and the following points were highlighted:

• Discount Bing at your peril: definitely one to watch and is growing share quite dramatically at the moment,
• the future of search is about conversations i.e. PR, and these conversations must be helpful and truthful,
• real time search is growing in importance: Google was taking four to six days to index Twitter, now it is six hours,
• hyper local relevancy is going to gain in importance,
• there are many people focusing on tackling filtering / relevancy of search results – these will lead the game,
• the war on spam from affiliates has only just begun,
• ignore mobile at your peril: markets such as Korea and Africa where mobile penetration is at 120% will be leading the charge imminently,
• there is currently a changing of the guard re: Google – they are the incumbents: innovation is being driven by the new kids on the block.

The event delivered lots to think about, but interesting that the SEO sector is moving ever closer towards PR. Therefore, an understanding of SEO is a vital skill for any PR agency to embrace.