All posts by Steven Wilson-Beales

About Steven Wilson-Beales

I'm Head of Editorial at Global Radio, London looking after a fantastic range of websites including Capital FM, Capital Xtra, Heart, XFM, LBC, Classic FM and Smooth. Find me on and Twitter. Please feel free to email me here.

Brighton SEO Conference 2021: My talk on helping teams go the extra mile for SEO

General, News SEO
Me and Vincent Vega hang out at Brighton SEO

This week I spoke I had the enormous privilege of speaking at the Brighton SEO Conference – and it was fab. I’ve been going for a number of years now and I’ve always been impressed by the general vibe of event – it really embraces the idea that if you are passionate about a subject and you want to share your learns with others, then there’s a good chance you’ll get a slot. It’s also been an event where you can build up a lot of contacts, and I’ve certainly benefitted through the years from the people I’ve met each time I’ve been there.

This year was extra special because I had the opportunity to speak on stage about the ways in which you can work with internal teams to deliver your big SEO projects. You can access the slides here and I’ll be posting the video after the Brighton SEO Virtual event on September 23rd. I really enjoyed the whole process of preparing my slides for the event with support from the conference team, alongside a WhatsApp group they provided with the other presenters – we certainly helped each other get psyched for the big day itself!

Thanks to everyone who attended and we had some great questions afterwards. I’ll be posting some notes once the video is available, but in the meantime you can register for the virtual event here: https://www.brightonseo.com/

WANTED: Freelance SEO Editors

General, News SEO
We’re currently looking to expand our team of SEO specialists to help increase our audience from search. These specialists could have either worked previously as part of an SEO team advising editorial teams OR are journalists with proven examples of optimisation with a particular focus on News SEO. If you’re interested in working across a variety of brands for a publisher that creates amazing content every day – please get in contact via editorial-Jobs@global.com with CV and examples of your work. The duration of contract would be between 3-6 months minimum working both from home and from our London office.

Tasks and responsibilities:

  • Act as a daily go-to person for journalists and reporters seeking advice or improvements to articles
  • Report each morning on the top SEO keywords driving traffic
  • Make recommendations to journalists for relevant keywords and keyword combinations to target on articles
  • Report each morning on top pages/articles driving SEO traffic
  • Work with editorial teams to pre-plan for future articles and events by building out topics and doing keyword research for upcoming exclusives or events.
  • Optimise top pages for relevant keywords
  • Forward link top traffic driving pages to other more recent articles to encourage circulation
  • Edit and/or complete metadata on topics and articles

Experience:

Editorial background with experience in a digital publishing environment

  1. Good understanding of the principles of SEO
  2. Experience of optimising websites for SEO
  3. Familiar with a range of SEO tools

Some lingering thoughts about Bo Burnham’s ‘Inside’

General

It’s been over a month now since I watched Bo Burnham’s ‘Inside’ and, I must admit, it’s made quite the impact. Like most people in the UK (and perhaps over a certain age) I randomly clicked on a thumbnail in Netflix without knowing exactly what I was going to get. 

This is what it felt like when I realised what it was I was getting.

So, yes, it’s provoked some pretty deep existential thoughts that haven’t been entirely resolved by watching Harry Kane smashing a penalty on repeat. Perhaps, what I’ve found most disturbing is how well Burnham predicts his film is going to be processed by the internet once it’s been released – like the endless commentaries on YouTube that don’t seem to add anything other than pleasing our algorithmic overlords. Well, at least ‘Inside’ has more Lols…

A very purple screenshot of Burnham commentating on himself commentating.

The other thing I am finding hard to process is the fact that one of his tracks in the film is shaping up to be an absolute SUMMER BANGER. I mean, look folks – it’s even been included on the New York Times’ ‘At Home and Away Summer Playlist.’ 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥  I honestly can’t really think of a track less summer ‘feel-good’ than a person sharing their experience of panic attacks over a sick beat. Not that I’m knocking the tune, or Bo here.

So those are the things I’m currently thinking about at the moment. And then I’m also thinking about all those exceptionally clever parts of the film, LIKE MOST OF IT. Like when Bo apologises for ‘not being able to play the guitar very well, or sing’ – and then goes on to both play and sing very well. Because you’re then left thinking ‘did he just say that off the cuff or did he rehearse that?’ And then you start to realise you are watching an onion of many, many layers.

Lastly, I can”t finish without saying just how great the songs in this film are. Like really good and ‘my gosh that must have taken a fair bit of time to get that right.’ As someone who’s written many ‘this is so bad I can’t upload it’ songs, I just need to doff my pitiful music-making cap here. Especially, when you get words like:

“The livе-action Lion King, the Pepsi Halftime Show
Twenty-thousand years of this, seven more to go
Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul
A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall.”

So, I’ll end there with just the recommendation that if you haven’t watched it yet, watch it – even if it’s just for the BANGERS.