BrightonSEO founder and all-round digital marketing sage Kelvin Newman knows a thing or two about Digital. As chief programmer of the biggest search marketing event in the UK, he’s on the frontline of the latest trends in the industry. Ahead of the next iteration of BrightonSEO in September, I caught up with him for the latest edition of our Call on me podcast. Listen to the full podcast above, but here is a quick summary of our chat. Spoiler: hover boards feature.

BrightonSEO is such a success because it’s agile

Yes it’s a buzzword, but Kelvin attributes his event’s success to being agile. It’s grown from a couple of people meeting over a pint above a pub, to 3500 attendees and tickets selling out in a matter of minutes. And Kelvin has listened to his customers, asking them questions about the direction the event should go in. An industry like digital marketing embraces this sense of community, along with a willingness to learn, another reason for the event’s success. We have first-hand experience of this- you can watch us in action at April’s BrightonSEO below.

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Forget the epoch-making dramatic changes in the industry

There haven’t been that many surprises in the past 10 years, despite the hysteria we hear around the pace of change in the space. The reality is that for lots of businesses, rather than worrying about big, disruptive shifts, they should really make sure they’re getting the basics right.

Getting it right and avoiding distraction

Businesses should be asking themselves some core questions. Do you have an effective, usable, mobile experience? With tracking and analytics- are you doing extensive user testing? Are you tracking phone calls? Do you understand where visitors to your website are falling out? This bread and butter stuff is where you need to make sure you’re getting it right. But as marketers we can get distracted.

Things haven’t changed that much in a decade

The recent explosion in tech has allowed us to do our jobs better. But 50% of the things in an SEO campaign are much the same as 10 years ago: understanding your customers and how they use your website. These things haven’t changed.

BrightonSEO 2020?

Links will still be important at BrightonSEO 2020. One of the biggest changes will be how people work with and understand algorithms and how search results work across platforms. We’ll also be talking a lot more about Amazon and YouTube. These are the places where high value searches are happening. Oh and we’ll also be using hover-boards. FINALLY.

BrightonSEO takes place twice a year, in April and September. ResponseTap will be exhibiting at the next event (stand D1!) in September.