Disclaimer: This article is an experiment. It was entirely written by ChatGPT 4, with images generated in Midjourney v5. The speakers’ presentations and photos were used as source material. Only one prompt was used per presentation. If a speaker’s PDF was too brief or full of images, they didn’t make it into this article 😎
SEO Restart 2023 focused on AI, content generation, and the evolution of linkbuilding. Four talks stood out to me the most, and I’ve put together summaries of each one for you here. A big thanks to all the speakers — it was a brilliant conference!
Václav Brynda: Linkbuilding in 2023: Back to Basics?
In today’s digital world, linkbuilding remains an essential part of any SEO strategy. Václav Brynda’s talk explored how linkbuilding strategies have evolved for 2023 and why it might be time to get back to the fundamentals of the discipline.
What Changed in 2023?
Václav Brynda focused on the following key areas of linkbuilding strategies for 2023:
- Discussions with brand mentions.
- Blogging without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
- Topical and technical articles.
- Quality badges.
- Paid articles and guest posting.
Discussions and NoFollow Links
The value of NoFollow links lies in driving traffic, generating brand mentions, earning organic backlinks, and building domain authority. Václav stressed the importance of working through your own accounts, avoiding spammy link-filled posts, and evaluating results after 30 days.
Blogging and Brand Mentions
Blogging serves to generate organic traffic, increase brand awareness, create brand mentions, and build author authority.
Topical and Technical Articles
Václav recommended focusing on topical and technical articles, which can attract links from genuinely authoritative websites. The key is to leverage your contacts and offer exclusive information or expert-level content.
Quality Badges
Quality badges can be earned through reviews, mystery shopping, or by cultivating the right relationships and connections.
Paid Articles and Guest Posting
Václav Brynda emphasised the importance of finding websites with genuine traffic potential and working effectively with editorial teams. He recommended focusing on SEO-driven articles rather than PR pieces, which tend to be more expensive.
What Does a Typical Day in Linkbuilding Look Like?
Václav outlined the following methods for acquiring links:
- Link exchanges.
- Guest posts.
- Purchased articles.
- Offline linkbuilding.
- Interviews.
- Sponsorships.
It’s important to acquire links from a variety of sources — branded anchor text on homepages, naked URLs, and cited articles all play a role. Link exchanges, guest posting, and paid articles remain popular methods, but offline linkbuilding, interviews, and sponsorships also open up new opportunities.
Václav also highlighted the importance of 3-way and 4-way link exchanges, which should be implemented with expansions of at least 60 characters — not just at the point where the link appears. Citations and article updates can add further value for the linking page.
What Not to Forget
Václav Brynda stressed the importance of continuous improvement and learning from mistakes, as linkbuilding strategies are constantly evolving. Keeping up with current trends and adapting your strategy to the specific needs and goals of each project is essential.
Conclusion
Linkbuilding is a crucial part of SEO, and in 2023 it’s time to go back to basics — focusing on valuable content, link diversity, and brand mentions. Václav Brynda shared his proven methods and approaches that could serve as inspiration for your own projects. If you’d like to learn more about his work, you can reach him at Vasek.Brynda997@gmail.com or by phone at 731340322.
Vojtěch Fiala: Practical Uses of AI in SEO for Beginners and Intermediate Users
There are currently plenty of AI-powered tools available, including OpenAI, ChatGPT for Sheets, Jasper, AIPRM, Adcreative.ai, and more. These tools help with a range of tasks — from understanding your target audience and identifying suitable topics, to preparing article structures, FAQs, estimating user intent, crafting metadata, and writing regular expressions.
Understanding Your Target Audience
AI can help you understand your target audience by analysing their needs, interests, and preferences. This enables you to better tailor your website content to meet your visitors’ expectations.
Identifying Suitable Topics
AI can identify the right topics for your articles by focusing on the problems and questions your target audience is searching for. This allows you to create content that’s both relevant and engaging for your readers.
Content Hub
AI can help you build a content hub — a cohesive body of interconnected content that provides real value to users. This can improve your site’s SEO and boost its authority in the eyes of search engines.
Preparing Article Structure
AI can suggest an optimal article structure that’s easy to read while incorporating the keywords and phrases that matter for SEO.
Preparing FAQs
AI can also assist with creating FAQ sections on your website by analysing the questions and answers most relevant to your target audience. This helps you provide valuable content while simultaneously improving your SEO.
Estimating User Intent
Artificial intelligence can help estimate user intent by analysing visitor behaviour on your site and identifying patterns. This allows you to better understand what users expect and adapt your content to meet their needs.
Preparing Metadata
AI can also help prepare metadata — titles, descriptions, and keywords that are critical for SEO. Optimising metadata can significantly improve your website’s visibility in search results.
Writing Regular Expressions
Artificial intelligence can simplify the process of writing regular expressions, which can be incredibly useful when analysing and filtering data for SEO purposes.
Watch Out For
When using AI in SEO, it’s important to be aware of potential pitfalls — such as relying on external connections, blindly copying and pasting text, working with outdated information, or accepting definitive answers without proper context.
Key Resources
If you want to stay up to date with the latest news and trends in AI and SEO, follow key sources such as company profiles on LinkedIn (OpenAI, GenerativeAI, GPTAI) and industry experts.
Conclusion
AI offers a wealth of opportunities for improving SEO strategies, whether you’re a beginner or an intermediate user. Leveraging artificial intelligence in SEO can help you better understand your target audience’s needs, identify the right topics, create effective content, and optimise metadata. However, don’t forget to stay cautious and watch out for potential pitfalls when using AI in your SEO workflow.
Martina Zrzavá Libřická: Challenges and Obstacles in the World of SEO: How to Overcome Difficulties and Succeed
At SEO Restart, Martina discussed the challenges and obstacles that SEO professionals face in their day-to-day work. Her talk focused on practical solutions that can help you achieve success in the SEO field.
Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills
Hard skills — such as technical SEO, content marketing, keyword analysis, image optimisation, link building, and more — are essential for SEO success. On the other hand, soft skills like integrity, reliability, effective communication, teamwork, and problem-solving are equally important for achieving your goals.
How to Keep Up with Industry Developments
SEO is an ever-changing field, so staying informed is crucial. To keep pace, it’s important to continuously educate yourself, plan and organise your work, automate processes where possible, and learn to delegate tasks effectively.
One-Wo(man) Show
Many SEO professionals work solo — either in-house at companies or as freelancers. It’s important to find a community of peers where you can share experiences, advice, and support. Additionally, finding a mentor can prove invaluable for your personal and professional growth.
Balancing Tasks
Solid project management is key to running successful SEO campaigns. You need a clear task hierarchy, proper resource allocation, and strict deadline adherence. SEO project management also involves providing clear reports for managers and ensuring smooth collaboration between teams.
Building Trust
Trust is fundamental to SEO success. You need to build trust with your clients, colleagues, and managers. This means analysing the organisational structure, finding allies, and developing relationships with key stakeholders.
How to Stay Sane
- Accept the situation Recognise what you can’t control and focus on what you can.
- Plan ahead Create plans and have backup strategies for different scenarios.
- Adapt Be flexible and willing to adjust to changes and new situations.
- Communicate Maintain open communication with your team and clients.
- Keep learning Follow industry trends and continuously educate yourself so you’re ready for change.
- Learn to say no You don’t have to take on every task or project. Learn to say no when something exceeds your capacity.
- Manage your emotions Learn to handle stress and frustration so you can better cope with situations beyond your control.
Milan Zeman: SEO Done 3 Different Ways: Case Studies with Real B2B Business Impact
Let’s look at three fascinating case studies from Milan Zeman of mytimi.cz, who shared his perspective on SEO and content marketing. These studies demonstrate how different SEO strategies and tactics can deliver significant results for B2B businesses.
1. Case Study: B2B Lead Generation
Goal: Increase organic traffic by 20%.
Strategy: Milan Zeman designed a strategy based on consistent content creation and acquiring 3 to 4 backlinks per month. The core components included opportunity research, keyword analysis, content gap analysis, distributing content to industry, technology, and business websites, and regularly publishing blog articles.
Results: This strategy led to a 33% increase in organic traffic, an 11% rise in conversions, and an 18% decrease in the conversion rate.
2. Case Study: The Highest-Performing Blog
Goal: Improve blog metrics.
Strategy: Achieving this goal required several foundational fixes — repairing the sitemap, resolving 404 errors, optimising metadata, and implementing a linkbuilding system. Beyond that, article fine-tuning was needed, which involved internal linking, creating specialist info boxes, and establishing an article update process.
Results: After implementing these changes, annual visits grew from 60,000 to 150,000, annual leads increased from 67 to 200, monthly newsletter subscribers went from 0 to 20, and the number of first-page keywords jumped from 80 to 500.
3. Case Study: Optimising Acquisition Costs
Goal: Increase organic traffic, reduce acquisition costs, and achieve a 2x return on investment within 2 years.
Strategy: This included an SEO audit, supporting main service pages through backlinks, optimising meta descriptions, creating educational content across 4 key areas on the website, and establishing a blog publishing schedule. A critical component of the strategy was also improving the conversion performance of product pages.
Results: This strategy delivered remarkable improvements — organic traffic surged by 173%, customer acquisition costs dropped by 80%, and ROI reached 500%. An interesting side effect was also increased search visibility for unsolicited call-related queries.
Conclusion
The three case studies presented by Milan Zeman demonstrate that SEO and content marketing can have a real, tangible impact on B2B business. The keys to success are a well-thought-out strategy, consistent content creation and optimisation, and thorough implementation of SEO fundamentals.
These examples show that SEO isn’t just about driving the highest possible number of visits — it’s also about conversions and return on investment. Successful SEO strategies therefore require a holistic view of the entire process and its connections to other aspects of the business.
If you want to improve your B2B business through SEO and content marketing, finding the right partner to help design and implement an effective strategy is essential. We hope these case studies provide you with ideas and inspiration for your own business.
Links to All Speakers and Their Presentations:
- Jan Tichý: Keynote: Quo vadis SEO?
- Vojtěch Fiala: Practical Uses of AI in SEO for Beginners and Intermediate Users
- Pavel Ungr: Transforming Content Creation and Optimisation with AI for SEO: New Opportunities
- Lukáš Kostka: AI and R Studio – Optimising Meta Tags in One Click!
- Milan Zeman: SEO Done 3 Different Ways: 3 Case Studies with Real B2B Business Impact
- Zdeněk Nešpor: Titanic Websites
- Radek Kupr: How to Use GA4 for SEO
- Zdeněk Dvořák aka Linki: Ahrefs Weaknesses: What Are They and What to Do About Them in Linkbuilding?
- Václav Brynda: Linkbuilding and How Strategies Changed for 2023 – Back to Basics?
- Richard Klačko: Compared – Do Tools Have Accurate Keyword Search Volume Data?
- Martina Zrzavá Libřická: Challenges and Obstacles in the World of SEO Professionals
- Filip Podstavec, Marek Prokop, Pavel Ungr, Martin Pichlík: Panel Discussion: Quo Vadis AI?
Space for Links to Other SEO Restart Summaries:
Tips and Tricks for Your Vacation
Don’t Overpay for Flights
Search for flights on Kayak. It’s our favorite search engine because it scans the websites of all airlines and always finds the cheapest connection.
Book Your Accommodation Smartly
The best experiences we’ve had when looking for accommodation (from Alaska to Morocco) are with Booking.com, where hotels, apartments, and entire houses are usually the cheapest and most widely available.
Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Good travel insurance will protect you against illness, accidents, theft, or flight cancellations. We’ve had a few hospital visits abroad, so we know how important it is to have proper insurance arranged.
Where we insure ourselves: SafetyWing (best for everyone) and TrueTraveller (for extra-long trips).
Why don’t we recommend any Czech insurance company? Because they have too many restrictions. They set limits on the number of days abroad, travel insurance via a credit card often requires you to pay medical expenses only with that card, and they frequently limit the number of returns to the Czech Republic.
Find the Best Experiences
Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can book guided walks, trips, skip-the-line tickets, tours, and much more. We always find some extra fun there!
