Who to see at BrightonSEO September 2017

Gerry White

Picking two is challenging this time (in fact it is every time) but purely from a geeky level I absolutely recommend Emily Grossman, who actually is talking about PWAs and some of the very cool stuff that is happening in the mobile space – it is actually lucky that being in the room at that time will also mean I need to see Bartosz and David Lockie (whose previously contributed to TakeItOffline as a WordPress expert). In the afternoon I will go to see an ex colleague – Rebecca Brown (no, not the one that sang Friday). Ammon Johns and Dawn Anderson are two of the legendary figures of SEO, who have been in the industry since there was an industry! And finally Aleyda Solis is one of the leaders on mobile SEO, so it is worth listening to what she says about AMP.

James Gurd (the digital Juggler, or half the ecomchat team )

"My challenge is to pick new speakers each time, otherwise I end up listening to the same amazing people and don’t broaden my horizons. So all the people Gerry mentioned are super smart and worth listening to but this year, if i can, i’ll be listening to Cindy Krum of MobileMoxie (have long respected what she says and writes) discuss mobile first indexing and a few of the talks about chatbots (Jonathan Seal, Hannah Jane Giles, Emilie Reynaud)."

1. The networking opportunities are unparalleled. Brands and agencies send their top people to BrightonSEO.
2. Every presentation is a keynote material. All speakers at BrightonSEO are carefully picked by Kelvin and he works hard with them to make sure every presentation rocks.

Arnout Hellemans

I’ve been to quite a few editions of BrightonSEO, but haven’t been able to make it to a lot of sessions due to bumping into old and new industry friends on my way to some sessions. But this year I’ll make sure to he following sessions:

• Duane Forrester (past Bing Webmaster spokesperson); great person with some awesome knowledge to share. In this case on structured markup and the future of search and since he used to work for the second largest search engine this should be an interesting session.
• Ammon Johns on the myth of DA (Domain Authority), In my opinion not only an amazing person but also so willing to share his extensive knowledge (he’s been optimising websites since the beginning of the web). And this is a must goto for anyone who’s relatively new in SEO.

Javascripts & Frameworks session with Bartosz Goralewitz and Emily Grossman because there is a lot happening with Javascript based sites and Progressive Web Apps (PWA’s) so interested in what they will have to say about this. And I’m going to head the the Analytics session by Tim Stewart, a good friend of mine and probably the best actionable Analytics ‘guru’ I know. This will be awesome with so many Google analytics tricks and tweaks. If you are loving what you do in digital; start measuring and attending this session. In the afternoon I’ll attend the Tech SEO session with Dawn Anderson, Peter Nikolow and Dominic Woodman. If you are into SEO this is a must with subjects like site architecture, speed tweaking and internal near duplication. Awesome knowledge being shared.

Hannah Thorpe

My favourite thing about BrightonSEO is the range of topics which are covered; it lets you breakaway a little from your day job and find out about things which might not be your exact specialism. As a result, I’m excited to try catch some of the Paid Search sessions which are going on – for example, Matt Beswick talking about Paid Social and Susan Wenograd from Five Mill. I caught one of Jon Henshaw’s talks a couple of years ago and was really impressed, so I’m also looking forward to his talk ‘Forget AMP- Make sites fast’ as he always has a great take on things.

Jono Alderson:

I’m really sad to say that I can’t make it to Brighton this year, which is particularly galling given how good these sessions sound!

I’d definitely recommend seeing Gary Illyes speak. It’s no secret that I disagree with him and what he says (or, at least, how he says it) frequently – but there’s nothing quite as useful as listening to what he doesn’t say, and watching him skirt around the lines of what he’s allowed to say about the inner workings of Google. Don’t go in expecting specifics about ranking factors and algorithms, but definitely go with an eye for catching him avoiding topics, answering with very specific wording, and going off-script! Speaking of Google employees, it’s always a good idea to catch whatever Fili Wiese is talking about. He usually talks hardcore technical SEO, but this time he’s talking link building – it’ll be really interesting to hear about the mechanics of penalties and quality assessment from a guy who spent his tiem at Google working in the team which managed that part of the ship.

The other hidden gem I’d draw attention to is Jess Stiles. Jess is consistently ahead of the game when it comes to emerging platforms (think, chat bots, VR and 360 video) and developing markets, and has delivered some of the most engaging and well-crafted talks I’ve attended in the last few years. She’s super-smart, and has challenged my preconceptions and opinions on these kinds of platforms multiple times.

There are so many speakers, sessions and options that you’ll be spoiled for choice. I’m just hoping that you all take plenty of notes, so that I can catch up on what I miss out on!