BrightonSEO talk roundup April 2025

Marcus Tober explored the differences between AI search and Google search, to explain how keywords are not dead but are instead changing. The context of keywords and their search intent vary across platforms, with users making informational queries on AI-powered tools such as SearchGPT and Perplexity, and more transactional and commercial searches on Google, Bing, etc. 

Key Takeaways: 

• Google is still relevant as it continues to be a trusted source, so keywords remain significant. 
• Search depends on the use case. Google is predominantly used for transactional and commercial searches, is brand-focused, and is typically used by older generations. Your search strategy needs to take into account these changes in search.
• As AI crawlers don’t render JavaScript, optimising for AI means making sure that all of your content is accessible to appear as a source in AI tools such as SearchGPT.

In this session, Megan Roberts drew our attention back to the user. She explained how, with so much focus now on optimising content for SEO through adding keywords, it is easy to forget about the user experience of a website. Content needs to be user-friendly above all else because users notice when content has been worded for search engines and AI, and this affects their likelihood of staying on a website. 

Key takeaways:

• Ensure your content and websites are optimised and targeted at users rather than solely search engines and AI.
• It is easy to project your own knowledge and self onto a project and disconnect with consumers of clients. Be aware of this and take into account your client’s needs. 
• 61% of users will leave your website in 5 seconds if your website’s user experience is not useful. 

Akash J Hashmi covered the idea that SEOs have ruined the internet by optimising content for SEO and algorithms, and contributing to a dead internet. As a result, users are becoming increasingly interested in user-centric and user-generated content which is more personalised to them. 

Key takeaways:

• User behaviour is changing, with people seeking user-generated content as opposed to content that targets search engines. 
• Google has tried to change with users through the use of forums such as Reddit. 
• Only bad SEO is dying. Those who keep up with the trends are much more likely to perform well across search engines 

Alexandre Hoffmann’s talk reinforces the idea that search is now about the entire journey, not just singular keywords. We now need to look outside traditional search as social media features more heavily in SERPs, zero-click searches are increasing, and users migrate to social media platforms (such as TikTok) as search engines.

Clients may think their customers are not on social media, but those on social media are your clients – you just don’t know it yet!

Key Takeaways:

• Social media works on a push and pull basis – with one search (“pull”), platforms will serve an endless amount of relevant content (“push”)
• On social media, success is not about volume but discoverability
• Discoverability is driven by hashtag strategy, engagement rate, trending topics, algorithm signals and user behaviour
• Focus on identifying the correct platform for your goals (e.g. brand awareness, community building, lead generation, direct sales, etc.) for the most successful social media strategy

Clive Loseby outlined how digital accessibility is important for both legal, financial and moral reasons – and yet in 2024, 95.9% of the top 1 million websites failed even the most basic accessibility requirements. Digital accessibility should be measured against WCAG 2.2 guidelines, ensuring this is done before 28th June 2025 when the European Accessibility Act needs to be complied with. Clive’s talk reinforced the principle that accessibility does not need to constrain creativity, and outlined some key accessibility requirements to check for.

Key Takeaways:

• Contrast ratios for your text and backgrounds should be 3+ – but logos are currently exempt from this requirement
• Your navigation should be accessible via keyboard tabbing – it is important to note that as menus get larger, tabbing should move along the top-level items (which should then expand when the user presses enter) to increase efficiency
• Pop-ups should be coded to send alerts directly to screen readers, so they serve the same function for all users
• It is important that when a pop-up is displayed, keyboard tabbing should only navigate between the elements on that pop-up (and not on the main page) – this is known as a “focus trap”

Liam Cumber’s talk focuses on the importance of alt text, and how to best write this with the ultimate goal of being a friend to the user. Alt text is important not just for those with a permanent disability, but for times when we can all be situationally impaired. Google also cares about alt text, and if image search is part of your SEO strategy, alt text should be too 

Key Takeaways:

• The most important thing for writing alt text is empathy – put yourself in the user’s shoes and think about what they may require
• Alt text needs to reflect both the content and context of the image, not just one or the other
• Alt text should be curated towards your content goals – the same image will have different optimum alt text depending on what website it is hosted on, and that specific page’s goals
• AI cannot match humans’ ability to write alt text, due to its limitations in empathy, understanding cultural/ social significance, and the meaningful connotations of images

Nicole Storey highlights how GA4 can be used as a powerful tool for Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) by focusing on meaningful data explorations. She emphasised the importance of asking the right questions and segmenting users to uncover actionable insights that drive performance.

Key takeaways:

• Companies that leverage better data make better decisions — GA4 can guide CRO if used intentionally.
• Start by defining what you want to improve; GA4 is most effective when led by focused questions.
• Use explorations to segment users by behaviour (e.g. landing on vs. viewing product pages) to identify CRO opportunities.
• Analyse landing pages by category type rather than individual URLs to reveal broader performance patterns.

Anna Lewis emphasises the importance of clean, accurate data for trustworthy decision-making in Google Analytics 4 (GA4). A thorough audit ensures that data flows correctly, helping you avoid misreporting, wasted ad spend, and misinformed business strategies.

Key Takeaways:

• Ask critical questions before starting the audit: Who will use GA4? What business questions are being answered? What concerns exist about data quality?
• Use the right tools like Google Tag Manager (GTM), a data layer, and server-side tagging to ensure data is properly tracked and debugged.
• Be selective with event tracking — focus on valuable interactions and avoid unnecessary data noise.
• Stay up to date with changes like GA4’s Consent Mode v2 and Google Tag updates, and make sure your consent banner respects user choices.