BrightonSEO is the world’s biggest search conference. Held in Brighton, UK, and San Diego, USA, every year, its aim is to help search marketers meet, learn, and do their jobs a little better. It was founded by Kelvin Newman nearly fifteen years ago in a room above a pub, and has since expanded to the Brighton Centre, one of the largest purpose-built conference and entertainment venues in the South East of England.
Valuable Information
Whilst there were too many talks, masterclasses, and events within brightonSEO for one person to attend them all, I made the most of my time there and went to as many as possible. In the runup to the event, the team shared three sample itineraries which highlighted different aspects: links and content, tech, and new to search. As a copywriter and editor, my focus was on the content side of things, and I found this a really helpful way of finding talks relevant to me.
All the talks in the two main auditoriums were an hour in length but split into three twenty-minute sessions presented by different people, giving a wide range of insight into each topic. I went to talks that covered every aspect of content creation you could think of: auditing, strategy, production, optimisation, and more. Alongside these were talks on copywriting, social media, practical content, and conversion rate optimisation (CRO) and the user experience (UX). Look out for my next article which looks at the CRO and UX panel discussion in depth.
Different Opportunities
Not only did the brightonSEO conference provide numerous opportunities to increase your knowledge and understanding of your chosen areas, but it also provided other activities to encourage people to connect and network. These ranged from an early morning 5k (which I did not take part in!) and yoga sessions to tie-dying and group meetups. Some of these were at the Brighton Centre, whilst others were at local venues such as Horatio’s on Brighton’s famous pier after the conference had finished for the day. There was even free award-winning ice cream available in the breaks between talks!
There was a huge amount of information to take in, and I’m still sorting through all my notes (over 6,000 words of notes from 20 talks!). It was an invaluable event for learning new things, keeping up to date with the industry, and making new connections with people you may not usually meet. I would thoroughly recommend it.
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