With over 5000 attendees, digital marketeers flock to Brighton twice a year, for a 2-day global search marketing conference, which has the aim of helping search and digital marketers meet, learn, and do their jobs better. Tom Vaiughton is a regular speaker at Brighton SEO and after 25 years of working in search and digital marketing, Tom is frequently asked to share his ideas and thoughts on how search, Google, website visibility and SEO is evolving and impacting brands and businesses. This October 2024, Tom Vaughton, founder and CEO of Varn, delivered an insightful talk on the main stage at Brighton SEO, on the future of SEO in the AI era titled “How ‘Awesome’ will define SEO in the New Era of AI-Powered Search.”

Drawing on 25 years of experience in the SEO industry and having worked with over 400 clients worldwide, Tom shared a thought-provoking reflection on the evolution of search and the impact AI is having on SEO strategies today.

In his talk, Tom explored how AI-powered tools like natural language processing (NLP), voice search and image and video recognition, are transforming the way search engines interpret and rank content. He emphasised the importance of staying ahead of these shifts while remaining true to the core principles of great SEO—high-quality content, strong user experience and an unwavering commitment to long-term success.

One of Tom’s key takeaways was the need for SEOs to stop relying on shortcuts and to fully embrace the concept of “awesomeness,” a term borrowed from Google’s John Mueller, meaning businesses and agencies should aim to be exceptional in all aspects of SEO; whether it’s content quality, user experience or technical optimisation. He encouraged attendees to test, learn and evolve their SEO strategies, highlighting the critical role of innovation, thoughtful content creation and a clear understanding of user intent in the age of AI. Tom emphasised the importance of creating exceptional, user-focused content that delivers true value over time, rather than simply chasing algorithms. As AI becomes more adept at understanding nuanced queries, SEOs must prioritise personalisation and relevance in order to capture and convert users at every stage of their search.

Tom’s talk provided a thoughtful, forward-looking take on SEO in a new AI era, urging SEOers and marketers to stay adaptable, experiment with new approaches, don’t take shortcuts and always prioritise your end user.

The Varn team also attended many other insightful talks this year. Read on to hear our key takeaways…

Tom Winter: A Fool with a Tool is still a Fool

Tom shares examples of errors that AI makes, that his young children were able to easily identify correctly. His example shows that while AI is powerful, it’s not flawless, emphasising the need for human insight.

Tom cautions against over-relying on AI in SEO and highlights the value of human experience and judgment. His proposed “cybermethod” blends AI’s efficiency with human expertise to produce higher-quality results by combining their strengths.

Key takeaways:

• • Divide the content creation process into multiple tasks.

• • Give AI as much context as possible.

• • View AI as your human colleague.

• • Never forget to use your brain.

Carla Dobson-Elliott: Is SEO Killing Curiosity?

Carla offers marketers a unique way to approach their target audience research. Rather than categorising by demographics such as age and gender, she suggests categorising by five ‘curiosity cohorts’.

This approach encourages marketers view their audience through a fresh lens. This can potentially drive greater ROI, and results in content that truly speaks to the consumer’s interests, increasing brand loyalty and engagement.

Key Takeaways

• • Set the right tone of voice which aligns with the curiosity type.

• • Have the right format for the content.

• • Decide on what your CTA will be.

Nikki Halliwell: How to Overcome SEO Challenges in Website Migrations

In her talk, Nikki provided a thorough guide to overcoming website migration challenges, focusing on common blockers and how to address them. She highlighted the importance of asking the critical questions and strong communication throughout the process of migration to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Key takeaways:

• • Make sure to ask clients important questions, for example: What parts of the site are going to be migrated? Why is the migration happening? What are the KPIs?

• • Fluctuations are normal and you need to be patient and inform your client of what to expect in the process.

• • Migrations are much easier with good communication between everyone involved in the process to make sure you all know who’s doing what and when.

• • Make sure you understand what type of migration is happening and why, to ensure the correct steps are in place.

Yasmin Burchill: The Digital Generation is Here: Why You’re About to Overhaul your Online Strategy

In this talk, Yasmin drew our attention to Gen Z: how they are changing search, and how do we adapt to this? As the younger generation have grown up with technology and are more tech savvy, there are 3 priorities we need to consider to make SEO more accommodating:

Key takeaways:

• • Digital first. As users are diversifying from Google, using other platforms as search engines (e.g. TikTok, the new search engine for Gen Z), the typical channel of conversion is not really followed anymore. Therefore, Yasmin suggested that marketing should be considered as an ecosystem, looking at the bigger picture rather than relying on ‘old’ marketing strategies to be successful.

• • Authenticity. Gen Z are more driven to a website which is genuine and shows individuality, i.e. they are more likely to interact with content which is tailored to them based on sequential creatives, so including this in your SEO content strategy is important.

• • Sustainability vs price. Gen Z are socially conscious, caring more about managing finances, physical health, well being, and sustainability because they have been exposed to new information regarding these areas. Therefore, it is key to have a sustainable message on your website and market this to the younger generation to gain their attention.

Nathan Ifill: How Smart Bidding Really Works Behind the Scenes

Nathan began by explaining the importance of Bayes Theorem in SEO, in particular paid ads. Essentially, when you are testing a hypothesis and making changes to your SEO strategy, you need to assess the impact in order to know if this hypothesis was successful or not by keeping track of changes such as levels of organic traffic.

Key takeaways:

• • “Feed the beast” – give Google all the information it needs so that it can make the right decisions for its users and direct them to the correct landing page. But make sure this information is updated regularly.

• • Don’t mess with the past – so don’t remove data exclusions, otherwise you will get undesired fluctuations in your campaigns, and this will mislead your SEO analysis. So make sure decisions are evidence-driven (i.e. Bayes Theorem).

• • Model the model – use Google tools to your advantage and track how your campaigns are doing.

Liv Day: How to Find the Relevance Gap Between Your Site & Its Link Profile

Liv Day opened the conference with a deep dive into the critical role that relevance plays in a site’s link profile. She highlighted the impact of irrelevant backlinks on traffic and rankings, detailing how such links can skew the perceived topicality of a website, potentially causing search engines to misunderstand a site’s focus.

Her team removed toxic and irrelevant links pointing to the site, including those leading to 404 pages. The results? A surge in traffic in August 2024, the best organic performance in five years. These results led Liv to emphasise that relevance should be treated as its own metric. She urged brands to use data to close relevance gaps between their content and backlink profiles. She shared her process, using tools like IBM Watson’s natural language processing to help analyse website content and links to confirm their alignment for link building success.

Key Takeaway:

• • Relevance is key to SEO success, and digital PR should focus on building highly relevant backlinks, not just quantity.

Darren Jacobs: The Growth of Retail Media

Darren Jacobs explored the explosive growth of retail media and the convergence of e-commerce and digital advertising. Retail media systems are created by brands to advertise directly on retailer websites, to create an end to end customer journey from browsing to purchase.

With 20% of global ad spend going to retail media, driven in part by the post-COVID shift to e-commerce, retailers are turning their own first-party data into a powerful tool for closed-loop attribution and personalised customer experiences. Jacobs explores how companies like Walmart and Tesco are leading the way, by building sophisticated retail media networks to make the most of their revenue streams.

Key Takeaway:

• • Retail media is growing rapidly and becoming an integral part of the digital ecosystem, driven by data and a desire for more personalised shopping experiences.

• • Companies are missing a trick if they are not informing their digital marketing strategy with customer data to inform it.

Sophie Coley: Audience-Centric Planning & Creative Personas – A Strategic Approach to Relevancy

In the third talk of the online PR section, Sophie Coley emphasised the importance of boundaries in fostering creativity and maintaining relevance. Drawing on her journalism background, she shared how she uses a persona-driven approach to content creation. By doing so, she aligns with the daily lives and emotional triggers of the audience.

She shares how important it is to understand key life moments when products or services are needed. This way, brands can create more meaningful and resonant content. She recommended using tools like Google Suggest, Reddit, and TikTok to dig deeper into audience personas. She also suggests creating buyer personas to map user journeys to align organic strategies with.

Key Takeaway:

• • Focus on the “who, what, when, and why” of your audience to ensure your content is framed to their needs and triggers.

Jonathon Roberts: How to Speed Up Content Audits Using ChatGPT

Jonathon’s talk provided valuable insights into automating SEO content audits, helping to extract key on-page SEO elements such as meta titles, descriptions, H1 tags, and word counts. Given how time-consuming content audits can be, this approach offers a much more efficient and scalable solution.

Key takeaways:

• • By using Google Sheets for documentation, Google App Script, and ChatGPT, you can streamline the content audit process and speed it up significantly.

• • This method ensures a consistent and accurate audit format, allowing it to be applied across multiple clients and projects.

• • There’s no need to fear the use of AI and embracing tools like ChatGPT can make the auditing process faster, more efficient, and ultimately more manageable.

Jo Cameron: Should You Start a Podcast?

Jo Cameron’s talk explored the potential benefits and challenges of starting a podcast, building on her experience of creating 20 episodes of MozPod in just seven days with a budget of $20k. She demonstrated that starting a podcast doesn’t require a huge budget and can be highly effective in reaching new audiences.

Jo left the audience with an inspiring message from one of her podcast episodes. A guest shared how she and her partner reflect on three things they are grateful for each day, especially on difficult days. This was a reminder that even in SEO, recognising small wins can help maintain motivation and focus on long-term success.

Key takeaways:

• • Batch recording episodes can help maintain productivity, with the flexibility to record episodes on new trends as they emerge.

• • Focus on telling interesting stories and reaching new audiences. Avoid making your podcast overly promotional, as this tends to put listeners off.

• • Use elements such as thumbnails, timestamps, and end cards to boost visibility and engagement and by making it user-friendly.

• • Ensure your podcast has a core message that stands out and resonates with listeners. Including human stories can create a deeper connection with your audience.

Jenna Kamal: How to Grow Traffic with a Site-Wide Spring Clean

Jenna’s talk emphasised the importance of “letting go,” linking this idea with the concept of a site-wide clean-up. She took the audience on a journey through the gradual decline of their organic blog traffic over the years. Through various discoveries and a deep-dive process, her team managed to identify the root of the issue and transform their approach to improve site performance.

Key takeaways:

• • Don’t be afraid to experiment with different strategies and, most importantly, be open to listening to feedback and data.

• • Refreshing content regularly and ensuring it remains relevant is key. This includes fixing URLs with dates, redirecting old or thin content, and maintaining an overall clean structure.

• • Take a gradual approach—rushing the process can negatively impact not only your teams but also how Google views and ranks your site.

Our team had an insightful few days at BrightonSEO, with helpful insights for our Future Talent Graduates from some of the SEO industry’s leading experts. Thank you to all the speakers this year, it was great to hear from you.

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About Varn

Varn is an expert & specialist SEO search marketing agency. Technical SEO * AI & Data Analytics * Offsite SEO * Paid Search