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<\/p>\nBrighton SEO is an event for the UK search marketing industry and after attending the last successful conference we once again took the trip down to Brighton to hear from some of the leading lights in the SEO industry. Attending the event were Head of Online Marketing, Darren Bond and Online Marketing Consultant, James Fairweather who had the following thoughts.\n<\/p>\n
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Brighton SEO was a great day, with some excellent speakers and some very entertaining presentations. The event provides our national search marketing industry with a unique opportunity to share knowledge<\/b> and discuss pertinent issues. My hat must go off to Kelvin Newman<\/a> and the team for their excellent work and hospitality throughout the day.<\/p>\n The presentations were on the whole brilliant, although after the strong line up at the last event, I felt that the presentations didn\u2019t have the same edge as before. Also, the lack of structured debate this time around was slightly disappointing<\/b> as this was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the previous conference for me.<\/p>\n Overall I couldn\u2019t recommend Brighton SEO enough<\/b> for those working in the search marketing industry as the insight delivered in the sessions is always useful. As well as being useful however, the presentations and conversations which took place during the event clearly demonstrated the increasing professionalism and maturity of our industry.<\/p>\n For me, the day was great and a testament to the hard work that Kelvin Newman and his team<\/b> put into arranging it. Some great characters took to the stage and a few juicy tips and tricks were shared with the audience.<\/p>\n With any event like this, it\u2019s hard to cater for the masses and with an event that was at least double the size from the previous one, for me the trade-off was in the technical detail of some of the presentations. Perhaps it\u2019s to do with my advancing length of service in this industry but it seemed that some of the presentations lacked the technical depth that I\u2019ve seen from conferences (and Brighton SEO) in the past.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say that the day wasn\u2019t a success; there were plenty of interesting sessions on more agency-specific issues<\/b> that I\u2019d not seen covered at events before; account management, selling and pitching SEO and some points on client relationships.<\/p>\n In contrast to Darren I felt that the 20 slide, 20 second rule at the end of the day did some presentations, and subjects a disservice. The following presentations were excellent and warranted far longer than the prescribed 6 minutes<\/b>.<\/p>\n Strangely, there was a lot of talk on twitter about the morning sessions advocating black hat tactics<\/b> (very tentatively so, might I suggest) and a blog post live by 2pm (I won\u2019t allow the pleasure of an inbound link) criticising the event for encouraging \u2018unethical\u2019 link behaviour.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a fair point to raise, but as SEOs, it is vital to know what the rest of the marketplace is doing to achieve results<\/b>, regardless of an individual or an agency\u2019s stance on any kind of less-than-white-hat practise. People are using it to some effect, it is important to know how, why and what you can do to keep up and compete in the most appropriate way.<\/p>\n In summary; Brighton SEO was good, the standard of presentations was high, the venue was top quality and the take-out tips were, perhaps less plentiful, but indicative of a more mature industry than that of a couple of years ago<\/b>, with more focus on quality of service, the account process and long term benefits for clients.<\/p>\nHighlights of the day<\/h4>\n
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Thoughts from James Fairweather<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nHighlights of the day<\/h4>\n
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