In the heart of Thailand’s SEO capital, the Chiang Mai SEO Conference 2023 unfolded as a convergence point for the sharpest minds in the world of Search Engine Optimization. Hosted by Diggity Marketing, this annual gathering of SEO entrepreneurs, held from November 6th to 10th, wasn’t just a meeting; it was a melting pot of ideas, strategies, groundbreaking SEO techniques, and networking opportunities.
Many speakers organized side events and free workshops (originally running only for two days) for the global SEO community to gather and sharpen its SEO and networking skills alongside this must attend event.
The Attendees: The Faces Shaping SEO Today
Picture a room bustling with over 800 attendees – a mix of budding enthusiasts, seasoned professionals, and digital nomads in a lesser-known town of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Each participant brought their unique story, united by a common goal: to master the art of ranking on Google’s elusive first page.
The diversity here was in expertise and approaches, ranging from the strictly ‘white hat’ SEO experts, super-affiliates, and agency owners to those flirting with riskier ‘black hat’ techniques all coming together in the SEO capital of the world.
The Speakers: SEO Legends and Rising Stars Share Their Playbook
The conference featured 15 speakers, each a maestro in their SEO domain. They shared knowledge and real-life experiences, shedding light on the trials and triumphs of tricking Google algorithms and ranking websites.
The Workshops: Where Theory Meets Practice
Among the highlights were the hands-on workshops. As someone who thrives on practical learning, these sessions were a goldmine. Covering topics from keyword research to link-building strategies, the workshops provided a platform for attendees to apply theories in real-time, under the guidance of experts.
Networking: Building Bonds Beyond Business
What happens outside the formal agenda is often where the magic lies. The networking events scattered around Chiang Mai’s vibrant locales offered more than just business card exchanges. They were a space for forming friendships, sharing anecdotes, and even collaborating on future projects.
Agenda
The “official” agenda for the conference was scheduled for November 6-10 (Monday to Friday); however, the unofficial events started before that. The first party I attended was the Affiliate Lab Party. Here is my take.
The Affiliate Lab Private Party – Jay Yap
This private was hosted by Jay Yap (co-founder of the Affiliate Lab). It was the first meeting I attended. When I arrived, the place was already filled with 100+ SEOs. All of them were in deep conversations.
The room was full of energy and excitement. You could see old friends seeing each other after a long time and sharing their experiences both in life and business. You couldn’t even hear the music because the SEOs were so loud!
I met old friends and some of my business partners. This event paved the way for what’s about to come.
Holistic SEO Meetup – Koray Tuğberk Gübür
This was the first free workshop available for anyone willing to learn about semantic SEO.
Key takeaways:
- A topical map is not just a list of keywords or topics
- Take advantage of programmatic SEO
- Internal links matter
Koray is the top SEO in the world when it comes to semantic SEO. He talked about building topical authority maps and the semantic relevance of your SEO pages.
Revive Your Website: Mastering The Art Of Website Recovery – Kasra Dash
The first official pre-event was hosted by Kasra Dash – the website recovery magician.
In order to fully recover a website hit by a Google update, you need to take a holistic approach and address issues ranging from technical aspects to content pruning.
Key takeaways:
- Genghis Khan expansion
- Growth is not linear (get ready to get hit)
- Bad pages can drag down your website
- Understanding the search intent
- Diversity in EEAT signals
Kasra highlighted important aspects of leadership and growth. Even though you might have the necessary knowledge and expertise, your empire can still fall if you do not adopt the right mindset.
How To Become A High Earning Affiliate – Julie Adams
Julie’s talk was all about how to find highly profitable niches and how to maximize your earnings from affiliate SEO.
Key takeaways:
- Find profitable niches FIRST
- Passions ≠ profit
- Negotiate higher commissions with your affiliate manager
- Foster relationships for future success
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is critical to your SEO success.
Opening Night Party Presented By Surfer SEO – Tha Chang Cafe
The opening night party by Surfer SEO was the biggest party I’ve attended so far. Tha Chang Cafe was swarmed by SEOs. This bustling scene was nothing short of amazing. It’s here that I met Michal Suski, the founder of Surfer.
I met lots of great and positive people, made new friends, and talked endlessly through the night.
Building A 7 Figure Agency – Everything I Wish I Learned Earlier – Jacob Kettner
Jacob talked about the importance of building high-performing teams and properly structuring responsibilities within a company. You need to hire A-players for your agency to succeed long-term
Key takeaways:
- You need great people to have happy customers
- Clear communication is key
- Answers lie in data and systems
- Building trust takes time and effort
If you are looking to grow your customer base, you will need to adopt new frameworks and incorporate new technology to get ahead.
CMSEO Workshop Wednesday by Internet Marketing Gold
A very interactive workshop revolving around the latest SEO techniques.
The day was filled with presentations from Kyle Roof, Olesia Korobka, Will Wang and Jared Codling with a mystery speaker – Koray Tuğberk Gübür.
Key takeaways:
- Map your funnels
- Boost your SEO strategies with AI insights
- Taking the time to understand your audience is key
- Negotiating is not deal making
At the end of the workshop, we had a group exercise where we tried to negotiate an exit deal for an imaginary company. This is very eye-opening and a lot of fun!
Conference Kickoff: We’re Back, Baby – Matt Diggity
The opening speech by Matt Diggity.
Lorem Ipsum Strikes Back – Kyle Roof
The On-Page SEO wizard strikes back with SEO secrets that leave Google itself puzzled.
Key takeaways:
- Testing matters – set up your own tests
- Fix indexing issues with Google’s API
- Clever internal linking boost
Kyle once again highlighted that proper keyword placement (URL, title, H2, body) can get you top rankings if executed correctly. Don’t sleep on controlled variable testing as your own knowledge is irreplaceable in this digital game.
It’s Not So Easy, Bro – Robert Niechcial
Robert Niechcial talked about the importance of learning to how to talk to AI.
His focus was on effective communication with large language models (LLMs), understanding what truly impacts results, and how to contribute meaningfully to Google’s knowledge graph.
Key takeaways:
- Learn how to talk to AI
- Garbage in and garbage out
- Use AI to gain momentum
He took us on a journey through integrating engineering and data with programmatic SEO, and how to use LLMs to build momentum and triumph in the era dominated by AI.
What’s New In Ahrefs? The Best New Features You Should Know – Tim Soulo
The good old Ahrefs still stands as the industry leader in SEO intelligence. Despite the recent critique about the new credit system, Tim delivered a great speech about the competitive tool’s features that help SEOs around the world.
Key takeaways:
- New credit system
- GSC integration
- Growing database
Zero To Hero: The Power of Affiliate Commissions – Chi Khanh
Chi Khanh is a super affiliate from Vietnam. She builds marketing and assets as well as invests in new projects. She talked about how to build a diversified portfolio that withstands the turmoils of Google updates.
Key takeaways:
- Recurring commissions are very powerful
- Building a diversified portfolio is key
- Due your due diligence
- Participate in affiliate contests
Chi also shared how to stay ahead of the competition by building and managing successful teams.
How AI Shapes The Next Level Of Enterprise SEO – Kevin Indig
Kevin Indig rocked the stage with insights on AI, programmatic SEO, and Search Generative Experience (SGE). Being an advisor for big brands, he explained the difference between text and key information pieces that exist on a web page.
Key takeaways:
- AI doesn’t replace jobs, it makes your work faster
- Make your AI prompts better by providing more context
- Train LLMs with docs and pdfs
Kevin also touched upon the idea of using AI tools to drive conversions.
What 10 Years In Casino Affiliate Niche Taught Me – Kristoffer Holten
One of the most popular talks so far. Kris shared his invaluable knowledge and experience in the affiliate casino niche. Nothing is more enticing than the high-risk, high-reward lures of the gambling industry.
Key takeaways:
- Expired domains can be a significant advantage if used correctly
- Link toxicity is different in casino
- You can build all kinds of links if you have a strong domain
- More is better
So You’ve Built A Successful Portfolio – What Next? – Dom Wells
Dom Wells is one of the greatest success stories of Chiang Mai SEO Conference. He is the owner of Onfolio – a portfolio of websites that went public. Now that’s a story to tell!
Key takeaways:
- If you are going to take risks, the reward should be big
- Push yourself to think bigger
- Become an Operator
- Build businesses to sell
Dom emphasized the importance of working smart and taking calculated risks. Starting a business is hard enough, so why not start something that is highly profitable?
Slay Your Link Building Goals With Creative Prospecting & Outreach (with AI sprinkles) – Bibi The Link Builder
No one likes outreach? Well, here comes Bibi Raven with useful tactics on how to get past the gatekeeper. Crafting a beautiful outreach template doesn’t require sorcery. Instead, you can use simple tricks to get ahead of the curve.
Key takeaways:
- Generic messages don’t work at all
- Showing genuine interest in your prospect can be game-changing
- Email = copy
- Showcase industry expertise with a witty subject line
- Entertain your prospect = human connection
Bibi delivered a very enthusiastic speech on a quite boring topic of outreach. With the help of AI and creative thinking, you can not only get more responses from email outreach but also build lasting relationships.
From AI To Authority: Why AI-Generated Content Isn’t Created Equal – Michal Suski
Michal Suski addressed the major challenges of generative AI. With the help of AI, you can remove the guesswork of selecting topics. If you want to succeed in your SEO campaigns you will need master topical authority. You can do this in a calculated way with AI.
Key takeaways:
- Relationship between keywords is critical to understand
- Cluster your topics correctly
- Semantics + data = win
One thing Michal hit home was that long gone are the days of trying to rank with one single article. Focus on “neighborhoods” or “topics” rather than individual keywords. You CAN publish entire interlinked silos for maximum benefit.
The Best of SEO Notebook, Automation, AI – Steve Toth
Steve Toth’s SEO Notebook is a unique, weekly newsletter offering exclusive SEO strategies and tips. With a readership of over 15,000, it now incorporates AI to enhance previous insights. Steve’s talk uncovered innovative strategies that you can use for your own team to scale fast and drive innovation.
- Use GSC to extract valuable data and make it work for you
- PDF opportunities are real
- Find trending topics – no more wandering in the dark
- Use ChatGPT API to evaluate your content
Steve’s creative use of ChatGPT prompts showcases how to use them to evaluate your content and extract critical entities.
Black Hat SEO Tips And Tricks – Craig Campbell
Craig’s speech was the funniest and most presentation by far. From the differences in cloaking for humans vs robots, to running ads to dead pages and reviving them, Craig delivered heaps of knowledge about black hat SEO tactics.
Key takeaways:
- Ads help with CTR manipulation
- Anyone can become an author on IMDb
- Always be aware of what the competition is doing and try to replicate it
In the end, white hat or black, taking care of the basics of SEO will get you ahead of everyone else who is too slow to take action. If you play your cards right, you might even become a movie star!
SEO in the Machine: Lessons From Secretly Working as a Google Quality Rater – Cyrus Shephard
In the age of AI and mass content production, it is critical to understand search intent, Machine Learning and AI. Cyrus took a peek under the hood and explained the intricacies of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
Key takeaways:
- Most pages fail to meet the intent
- Use AI to read Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines
- Page quality determines the purpose
- Your page should be helpful for the reader; otherwise, it will get a lower rating
Google’s Quality Raters Guidelines guide you to better understand the purpose of your content and how to serve your audience better. Take advantage of this important piece of information.
Closing Night Party by Ahrefs
The closing party hosted by Ahrefs was the culmination of the week’s intense knowledge-sharing and networking events. We partied hard until the early hours of Saturday. It was well worth it!
Looking Ahead: The Future of SEO
In conclusion, the Chiang Mai SEO Conference 2023 was a life-changing experience. It has surpassed all my expectations and lit a serious fire under my ass.
The wealth of knowledge, from technical SEO to content strategy, and insights into the industry’s future trends, was unseen anywhere else. The people who attended the conference are true SEO nerds who can’t stop talking about SEO and are some of the friendliest and most caring people you will ever meet.
I left the conference with renewed inspiration and a deeper understanding of the complexities and opportunities in the SEO world. The possibilities in the SEO industry are genuinely endless.
The lessons and connections I’ve gained here will fuel my strategies and approach in the coming years as I continue to help everyone I can get their website to the top of Google.
An excellent event and a great summary!
Thank you so much!
Detailed and well structured!
Thank you Ashish! It was great meeting you in Chiang Mai!