Riddle me this: it's the flagship event of the "made in France" SEO scene. It took place on June 29 and 30 at the Palais des Congrès in Versailles. It brought together search marketing experts from all over France to share their common passion for SEO. A time for exchange and learning. I am, I am... SEOcamp'us of course! 😉 As Fasterize launched an EdgeSEO solution this year to help you roll out your roadmap, it was the perfect opportunity to meet the SEO community!

On the menu for this year's event were 40 conferences featuring some of the world's best speakers, workshops and an Awards Ceremony which honored the Peyronnet brothers. And let's not forget the networking aperitif on the first day. Well done 👏 to the organizers.

We were there and learned 

Of course, we couldn't resist listening to a few lectures, from which we learned a few things:

Data science for SEO consultants - Gregory Florin and Rémi Nestasio

It's an element that's increasingly present in the SEO profession. Data. For several years now, we've been hearing about tools that will be able to analyze a SERP, gather data and list the actions to prioritize in order to reach the top positions. This talk was an opportunity to remind us that data is an important element in prioritizing your SEO actions. In fact, " data driven " is often found in conference titles 😉.

Feedback on SEO, Discover and AI - Paul Sanches

He was scheduled early in the morning, but he was there! Paul once again brought the audience on board with his talent for talking about Discover and AI. " Trafic is new backlink ", he told us, and time will tell! But it seems that this signal will be increasingly exploited by Google. On the AI side, Paul mentioned that he proofreads all the articles he generates. We'd expect nothing less from the man who's been proclaiming for 10 years that you've got to give your site some love! 😉

Webperf et SEO: En finir avec les mythes - Alexandre Pinat and Patrick Valibus

The subject of webperf drives us every day at Fasterize. We've been fighting milliseconds for 12 years! We couldn't miss this talk. Beyond Core Web Vitals, an important metric to track is the TTFB. As a reminder, this is your server's response time. If you have a site with millions of pages to be indexed by Google, it's important that your TTFB is optimized to maximize your crawl budget.

Generative AI, an opportunity or a threat for SEO? - Vincent Terrasi

That's the debate that's been occupying the corridors of SEOcamp'us! And we found that this conference provided some interesting answers. There's a lot of talk about #ChatGPT, but the future of generative AI probably lies in tools that will enable you to specialize your AI on your sector and with your own data.

The other talks covered a wide range of subjects: editorial strategies, internal linking, netlinking and the EEAT concept proposed by Lili Ray... You can find all the talks in the program. They will all be available in 6 months' time, free of charge, on the SEOcamp channel!

As you can see, there was a lot of talk about AI. Whether in the conferences, where everyone made reference to our new friend chatGPT, or in the informal discussions between conferences! If the content of the conferences is anything to go by, there's not much debate left. What's more, Google is following in Bing' s footsteps with BARD and Search Generative Experience (SGE). 

The question now is how to seize this opportunity. Whether it's in our day-to-day SEO work or the impact of AI in search results, you need to get to grips with the subject now or risk losing ground to your competitors.

Focus on our presence at SEOCamp'us

As you might have guessed, with the release of EdgeSEO, we also had some things to share with attendees! During this edition, we had a booth, and many of you visited us to find out more about the EdgeSEO concept. We were probably the first to mention this concept, which flew off the radar in 2018. 

In addition to this, we also had the pleasure of running a workshop: How to adopt a "Test & Learn" approach. Test & Learn "approach with EdgeSEO? As an SEO, you're no doubt familiar with the culture of testing. Unfortunately, few of you manage to fully deploy your roadmap... so allowing yourself to test strategies isn't really on the agenda!

While testing is crucial, you also need to overcome certain obstacles and, above all, have the right tools! After deciphering the case studies, we had some enriching discussions with the participants. This gave us some great ideas for the future, so stay tuned.

And what did you think of this edition?

Finally, we leave the floor to the participants.

Pierre SauvéTechnical Manager at Digimood

At Digimood, we usually go to several events dedicated to SEO. As far as SEO Camp is concerned, some of our teams are involved in the association (members of the board or members): it was an opportunity to meet up with colleagues, discuss current issues and meet new people!

Rémi NestasioSEO consultant at Performics

As a member of the jury, I couldn't miss this edition! But, as an added bonus, I was invited to speak alongside Grégory Florin. I led a conference on a particular topic: data science as a lever for SEO. Even if it's not the core business of SEO, with the growing importance of AI, data has a lot to teach us. And if there was a risk of losing the audience, the subject interested many and the exchanges were rich. Feedback and questions during (and even after) the conference were positive signs.

In fact, AI is the subject of much debate in the...

Pierre: It was expected, but there have been a lot of conferences on AI. The ones I attended led me to the following conclusion: it's a subject that's going to become increasingly important. At the very least, SEOs will have to educate themselves on this trend, if they don't use AI as an assistant on a daily basis. What's more, if Google was a little "behind the curve" on this subject, they are now catching up. We can therefore expect many changes over the next few years.

Rémi: As we work a lot on data science in-house, I went to see a few conferences dealing with AI (Lilly Ray and Cindy KRUM, in particular). I wanted to hear what English speakers had to say about the Search Generative Experience. They have more features than us at the moment, and it was enriching to see the impact on search results. It gave me something to look forward to, and it goes without saying that these are issues we need to be concerned about!

3 +1 good reasons to go to SEO Camp'us

1. It's a good event for exchanging ideas and learning from other SEOs. And the event itself is well organized!
2. If you like technical conferences or are a technical manager, there's sure to be a conference for you.
3. What's more, if you understand English, you'll be able to share the content of English-language conferences with your colleagues, in-house for example. What's more, whatever the time slot, there are several conferences and at least one workshop, so you can choose the topic that interests you most.
4. Not to mention the fact that the topics covered are varied and can be adapted to any type of profile: advertisers, website publishers, e-tailers...

SEO Camp, in a nutshell... 

Pierre: The biggest event (in terms of audience), accessible to the general public and with conferences adapted to all levels. If you're a beginner or very interested in SEO, there's bound to be a conference or workshop for you. It's also an opportunity to meet customers, network, meet advertisers or simply socialize and catch up with colleagues!

Rémi: What's more, over the past few years, the event has evolved considerably, particularly in terms of participants: advertisers, publishers, consultants. But above all, it's the best opportunity to meet up with colleagues.

While you're waiting for the next edition of the French-language event dedicated to SEO and search marketing professionals, you can still discover the concept of Edge SEO and some practical case studies!

At the event, we opened a barometer dedicated to SEO. The aim? To take stock of the current challenges and concerns of SEO professionals. We'll be revealing the answers at our webinar with SEOCamp in September! In the meantime, don't hesitate to take part, or share the survey with others.

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