I’ve attended BrightonSEO for 10 years, but this year’s conference was one of my all-time favorites for three simple reasons: good vibes, great speakers, and (surprisingly) good weather. Ahrefs team posing for a picture If you’re not familiar with BrightonSEO, it’s a search marketing conference created by Kelvin Newman. It’s pretty much the U.K.’s “must attend” search conference. It’s been running since 2010 and was originally hosted in a room above the Quadrant pub in Brighton, U.K. When I first attended 10 years ago, it was hosted in a smaller venue at the Brighton Dome. There were fewer people (and the swag was a little different back then).
Day zero: Sunshine, seaside, and our first SEO workshop
The U.K. is not the first place you think of when it comes to the sun. But we got lucky and had great weather the whole time we were at BrightonSEO. Brighton SEO with blue skies From the outside, the BrightonSEO venue doesn’t look big. But inside, the scale of the event hits you (especially if you are a speaker). Auditorium 1 has a 3,000-person capacity—so it’s big. One of the things that makes industry email list BrightonSEO special is that it’s managed to keep the “small conference” feel, despite becoming much bigger than when I first visited 10 years ago. Small stages keep talks intimate (the Skyline stage holds just 300 people).
One: Everything in its right place
The Ahrefs booth had two huge words stamped across it: swag giveaway. So at 7 a.m., before the conference opened, we hauled armfuls of T-shirts, water bottles, books, bags, and—most importantly—a coffee machine to our stand. Ahrefs’ fully stocked exhibitor stand BrightonSEO got very busy, very quickly. Within minutes of the gates opening, the conference hall was buzzing with activity as SEOs and marketers navigated the venue. Busy crowds at Ahrefs’ exhibitor Mobile Numbers stand The freshly ground coffee at our stand proved popular. (We even spotted John Mueller having a cup.) Ahrefs’ coffee cup As well as the coffee, visitors to our stand could grab some Ahrefs swag: books, bags, T-shirts, bottles, stickers, and more.