The team had an amazing time at BrightonSEO last week and we’re so excited to share what we’ve learnt!
Attending BrightonSEO not only gives us a chance to listen to incredible talks, but it also gives us the opportunity to gain insights into new and emerging topics. This allows us to keep up to date with SEO trends, ensuring our clients receive the best service and achieve great results.
BrightonSEO April 2025 Highlights
As always, all of the talks at BrightonSEO this year were insightful and informative. However there were some that were particularly thought-provoking, so we thought we’d share them with you.
1. How Multi-Channel Content Captures Intent & EEAT Signals to Drive Growth – Ray Saddiq
Ray Saddiq, the Head of Marketing at Rise at Seven, spoke about his experiences working within different companies and sectors, and discussed that “SEO isn’t dead, the 3 pillars of SEO are”.
Saddiq discussed that the reason the 3 Pillars of SEO are dead is because they only serve the website. He discussed demand (making people search for your business) and discovery (making sure they find you when they do). To achieve this, he encouraged the use of a multi-channel content strategy to drive growth and make more people search for your business.
In order to drive demand through a multi-channel content strategy, Saddiq recommended optimising brand campaigns, utilising content and UGC (User Generated Content), establishing high quality social media campaigns and implementing paid social/shopping ads.
To increase discovery, he recommended improving offsite Digital PR, optimising on-site SEO, enhancing social media presence and implementing a strong PPC campaign.
This multi-channel content strategy could also include short form video, creative content features, optimising for new SERP features, optimising on-site content and diversifying channels.
Ray Saddiq’s talk was not only highly informative, but also incredibly well-delivered, keeping the audience engaged and intrigued throughout the duration of the talk.
2. Mindset Based Targeting – Achieving 5x more with 5x less – Sarah Pokorna
Sarah Pokorna, SEO Manager at Whitepress, gave an informative and eye-opening talk, discussing that demographics don’t always work and that we should instead turn to psychographics, to allow us to better segment an audience and understand their needs.
Pokorna discussed theories about the two different types of mindsets, ‘Fixed Mindset’ and ‘Growth Mindset’.
People with a Fixed Mindset tend to dislike feedback, are threatened by others’ success and believe that talent and intelligence are innate. People with a Growth Mindset tend to love challenges, have a passion for learning and want to explore new opportunities.
These factors shape how consumers respond to different stimuli and we should be aware of the general mindset of our target audience so we can adjust language and messaging accordingly.
For example, people with a Fixed Mindset respond better to messaging that focuses on high performance, attractiveness and getting proven results, while people with a Growth Mindset respond better to messaging that focuses on improvement, progress and embracing a journey.
The perspectives that Sarah Pokorna discussed in this talk were enlightening and highly beneficial to anyone who is aiming to influence consumer behaviour.
3. Using Content Clusters for Human Centric Conversions – Carl Poxon
In this talk, Carl Poxon, SEO Director at Reflect Digital, discussed what content clusters are, how they can be used to improve site structure, how they can help existing users and how this can all improve conversion rate.
Poxon began his talk by addressing that content clusters require research, time & effort, and are a big win, not a quick win.
Content clusters are a strategic SEO and marketing technique that groups sub-topics around a central idea, giving us the opportunity to internally link between different pieces of information, improving navigation around a site as well as user engagement.
Poxon discussed that, in order to create effective content clusters, you should start by researching keywords and search intent. By researching how a certain audience speaks, thinks, feels and acts, we can target personas rather than demographics, allowing us to better optimise for user experience.
An efficient content cluster strategy can improve conversion rates by making a site more intuitive and quicker at providing users with the information that they are searching for.
4. Is AI Having a Negative Effect on Your SEO Customer Trust? – Collette Masso Del Llano
Collette Masso Del Llano, Co-founder of Contextful, explored whether or not the increased use of AI is having a negative effect on customer trust and what we can do about it.
Masso Del Llano discussed that customer trust is indeed declining due to a number of factors, including poor customer service, no human contact and a lack of authority. Studies have predicted that by 2028, traditional search will lose 50% of its traffic to AI chatbots.
She stated that, as 65% of customers expect companies to adapt to their changing needs, we should be more aware of our customers, through customer journey mapping and journey loops.
Masso Del Llano explained that, in order for businesses to maintain customer trust while AI is on the rise, we should regularly review marketing touchpoints, find out where the gaps are and build fixes into our processes.
Rather than completely rejecting AI (because it isn’t going away), businesses should focus on delivering conversational content that is relevant and accurate, as well as building their brand’s reputation through positive reviews and customer success stories.
The key focus of this talk was to ensure that, even with the integration of AI, the customer should always be at the heart of everything we do. We should strive for human connection through regular check-ins, customer feedback loops and great customer service.
5. Fake EEAT until you make EEAT – Emma-Elizabeth Bryne
Emma-Elizabeth Bryne, Director of Publishing at Gentoo Media, delivered a compelling talk about EEAT and how to ‘fake it until you make it’.
EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness and it is the criteria that Google uses to establish website credibility and ultimately determine rankings.
Bryne encouraged breaking this criteria down, collecting resources which will help you establish better credibility and actioning these principles.
The ‘fake EEAT until you make EEAT’ strategy involves mimicking elements of a site which demonstrates high levels of authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
Linking posts to knowledgeable ‘authors’ who appear to have expertise in the subject matter and creating high quality content will demonstrate expertise and trust to Google, likely resulting in better rankings.
Displaying widgets for social media accounts, along with quality assurance badges and graphics helps you build trust, not only with Google but also with potential customers.
This talk was insightful, thought-provoking and demonstrated that, once again, Google is prioritising content that shows Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
General Takeaways from HeroConf at BrightonSEO 2025
Whilst the talks in the main auditorium were fantastic, there were also some great key takeaways from the smaller, HeroConf talks. These included:
- Optimise for alternative search engines – Several HeroConf talks explored how search engines like Bing and Search GPT are gaining traction and that we should consider implementing strategies that involve these, alongside Google in order to establish better visibility.
- Use multi-channel SEO strategy – As Google tends to favour large companies in the SERPs, small businesses should consider implementing a multi-platform strategy, in order to increase reach. Optimising for platforms like Instagram and Tiktok, with short-form videos and incorporating this into written content, will help smaller companies compete with the larger companies that Google is favouring.
- Utilise chat forums to increase reach – Whilst it isn’t usually part of an SEO strategy, utilising question and answer forums such as Reddit and Quora could help businesses stand out in the SERPs. These platforms are regularly appearing in Google search results above the 10 blue links, meaning that getting involved in conversations may improve credibility and increase organic reach.
- Target user intent for PPC & Ads – Aligning ad messaging with user intent and history is a crucial factor, in order to display the right ads, to the right people at the right time. Nobody needs an ad for getting 50% off a membership when they’re already a member!
- Understand Quality Score – Quality score is just as important than ever when it comes to ad strategy and our focus should be on landing page alignment, keyword intent matching and ad copy relevance.
The Final Say
Year after year, BrightonSEO brings insights from highly experienced speakers who share bitesize chunks of knowledge, helping our team stay informed about the latest trends in SEO.
To find out more about our SEO services and how we can help your business grow, reach out to our friendly team today!
