BrightonSEO October 2026: the Connective3 Roundup

C3 talk

“The New Search Journey: Why Influence Is the New SEO Metric”

by Rosa Mitchell

In this session, Rosa explored why influence was becoming the most important SEO metric. She looked at how brand visibility across AI search, social media, digital PR, and traditional search was shaping discovery, consideration, and demand, and why relying on rankings alone no longer told the full story.

Using real-life examples, her talk showed how marketers could measure brand influence across the modern search journey, connect activity across channels, and prove the value of SEO in a world where visibility increasingly happened without a click.

Our very own Ewan Whitaker attended this edition of BrightonSEO, and has compiled his thoughts on the standout takeaways from the conference: 

Getting your brand recognised by AI search

Understanding how to make sure your brand appears in AI search is becoming more and more important, as the user journey continues to evolve to include an increasing number of research touchpoints. But how can you do this, and what did the fabulous speakers at BrightonSEO this year have to say about it? 

Well, after over 20 different talks and a range of different perspectives, one thing was ultimately clear: search is no longer just a page of links to scroll. It’s become a lot more about answers curated by AI agents, so understanding how to make your website or content appear in those answers is a crucial part of successful GEO. 

1. Building a brand worth recommending

One of the speakers, Jean Sarunporn, offered some amazing insights with her speech on “A Practical Guide to GEO”. She immediately set the stage and highlighted that SEO is about retrieval, and GEO is about recommendation. Here, she wanted to emphasise the idea that successful GEO relies on building a brand that is worth recommending. 

One question she asked the audience that particularly stuck with me was: “If you were to remove your website from the internet, could AI still recommend you?”. She conveyed the idea that consistency across all platforms is key to appearing within AI search; including if your website was to disappear, your brand’s presence across different social media should be enough for you to still be recommended by AI.  

2. Establishing a strong USP

Continuing her discussion, Jean noted that a key part of becoming recommended is a strong USP; one that is strong enough to sit on homepages. In her experience, the brands that are recommended the most offer a distinct brand message that’s plastered across all search platforms: a message that stood out from the crowd. AI doesn’t want to see generic content that it can find anywhere – it wants unique perspectives and a brand that is well-defined and understandable. 

The importance of Reddit

Though ChatGPT has recently reduced its reliance, many AI search platforms pull information predominantly from Reddit; followed by Wikipedia and YouTube. This demonstrates just how social is now considered a serious search layer. Carmen Dominguez, Director of Organic Growth and Partnerships at Welltech, wanted to emphasise the value of Reddit within GEO.  

With a strong core of AI answers coming from Reddit, it should be used in SEO and reputation strategies, to help increase visibility across Google; while also influencing how users talk about your brand. 

“The problem is this: Reddit is full of haters. It is aggressively anti-marketing, and success relies heavily on community-first value”.  

What’s meant by this is that it’s no use to you or your brand to try and infiltrate this platform and fill it with positive reviews, as Reddit users will be able to smell it from a mile away and this will only lead to negative comments associated with your brand. 

What you can do instead is focus on users’ problems and build a credible presence that solves human problems. For instance, if users are posting negative comments about your brand, then start a conversation and try and solve their concerns in an approachable and professional manner.  

It’s also interesting to note that only open threads show on Google AI search, not archived posts, so it’s crucial you keep up to date and be as transparent as possible! 

While you can’t control the conversation everywhere, but you can create a credible place where your side of the story exists. Discover which are the best LLM visibility tracking tools in our guide. 

Making your content accessible

On the second day of the conference, our first four presenters all focused on making content accessible – one of the most important foundations of modern SEO. 

Damien Robert, web accessibility activist, was up first and made an important point of saying that we spend all day making content accessible…to robots. But what about humans?  

Making content accessible for people with accessibility and disability needs, for instance, is important not only from an empathetic side, but also from a tactical SEO side (organised, well-structured, and readable content benefits both users and SEO performance). Notably, in keeping with the common theme of the conference, AI search also loves concise and accessible content! 

Damien’s talk was then followed by an insightful presentation from Tania Gerard, Founder and Consultant of Tania Gerard Digital. Her discussion was titled, “If Your Website Isn’t Accessible, AI Search Will Make You Invisible”, which encapsulates this portion of the conference.  

She elaborated that accessible content goes hand-in-hand with effectively-optimised content, and applies to all platforms – not just your website: from adding image descriptions to distinct headers, accessibility touches every channel you run and can be a quick win for brands.  

If we can take anything away from these expert presenters, it would be that we can’t control the algorithm, but we can control the content and structure it relies on.  

A quick summary

As always, there was so much to learn at BrightonSEO – however, if you’re in a rush and need a quick breakdown, take a look below at our top takeaways: 

• Consistency is key: make sure your content is consistent across all platforms, as this will help AI search recommend your brand above others.

• Create a strong USP: AI loves a strong USP that it can find quickly on your website’s homepage, so make sure your brand message is well-defined and unique.

• Reddit is a fundamental part of AI search: as Reddit is one of the top sites AI search pulls from, it’s important to tackle this platform by solving human-centred problems to make sure your threads stay open.

• Keep your content accessible: accessible content works hand-in-hand with optimised content, so pages should be clearly laid out with specific and concise language.

• GEO is about recommendation: unlike SEO, GEO is often centred around recommendation, which moves away from the traditional strategy of keywords and links.

Want to learn more?

If you’re looking to learn more about how search is evolving, take a look at our detailed whitepaper on the state of search in 2026, or get in touch to see how Connective3 can support your brand. Otherwise, we’ll see you back in Brighton in October!