Last Friday we attended the BrightonSEO conference- a definite ‘must-go-to’ for anyone working within the digital marketing sector. It would seem that BrightonSEO grows year on year – starting out in a room above a pub in Brighton, this year they managed to pack-out the Brighton Centre!
Every inch of talk space was packed with engaging Digital Marketers, Sales Personnel and general Digital Enthusiasts eager to learn the very latest in Search Engine Optimisation. It was a well planned event, with talks stretching throughout the day, covering varying topics such as content and the future of SEO.
With so many informative talks and presentations, it’s difficult to evaluate such an epic day.
Here’s what our team had to say:
Simon Cooke
BrightonSEO is so important for our digital community, the halo effect gives all Brighton tech companies a boost. Kelvin has done an astonishing job of pulling together expert speakers from around the world for a day packed with valuable content. In particular I really enjoyed Raj Nijjer’s talk on Al and structured data: How voice search raises the stakes for businesses. My generation has grown up using keywords as a search technique, but knowing that natural language and voice queries are growing at a huge rate, it seems obvious that we should now optimise sites for this type of search. Our Amazon Echo has been ordered and dispatched!
Tom Chute
I haven’t been to BrightonSEO since the Corn Exchange days, so it was with great expectations that I arrived at the brilliantly branded Brighton Centre. I was amazed at the scale of the event now, and there were thousands of digital peeps scurrying off to their next talks. My highlight session was on SERPs, including how to get in the Google answers section of the search results page. This session was typical of all that I attended: practical, thought provoking and full of useful ideas to present to clients.
I’m not sure if I felt heart-warmed or nervous by the emphasis on the humanisation of search, where search algorithms are able to get inside the head of what the searcher is actually looking for. But it was clear that as Google continues to release tweaks and changes to deliver better search results, there is no shortage of enthusiastic SEOers to try and crack the code and ensure their content is visible.
Harriet Pankhurst
This was my first conference since joining the marketing team in March 2017. I really didn’t know what to expect from the experience. However, the turn-out was insane, and I gained invaluable information about Marketing and SEO techniques that I’d never considered before. My particular highlight was Raj Nijjer talk on Al and structured data: How voice search raises the stakes for businesses. It was both refreshing and informative to learn about how the industry is slowly moving away from type search, and engaging in the newly formed voice recognition software. Overall, I found the conference very educational and inspiring, and I’m excited to attend the next one in September 2017 – if I’m lucky enough to get a ticket!
Tom Still
Being my first BrightonSEO event (I’ve never managed to get a ticket before!), the first thing that struck me was the sheer scale of the event, with an amazing amount (and variety) of talks on offer to the 3500 attendees.
The Regulation talk by Lesley Tagell Foster was particularly interesting, proving to be both engaging and informative- a rare combination for such a topic. There were a lot of useful takeaways in terms of data protection / data control, and the talk was successful in generating an awareness of the recent changes to legislation that will impact us all operating within digital marketing. The format of the talk itself was appealing. BrightonSEO had created what could be considered ‘pop-up’ stages within the venue offering easy, low-commitment access to talks that you perhaps would not have considered before.
Attendify (a phone app) was used throughout the event for users to engage with the organisers, speakers and with each other. BrightonSEO was a great opportunity to see Attendify in action, especially at scale, making our integration all the more exciting.
Finally, from a local perspective it was great to see small businesses, from within the Brighton & Hove area, active at the event. Our friends at Posture People and Small Batch had stands, and many local agencies were in attendance – a great advert for Brighton & Hove. All in all, a brilliant conference and I’m looking forward to going again in September.