At Brighton, I shared a truth that many in our industry aren't ready to hear: we've become masters at pleasing algorithms, copying each other's content, trying to make it one small step better than everyone else's, while forgetting the humans behind the searches.

My Slides:

The "Success" Story That Wasn't

We had a perfectly optimized post that brought in an additional 20,000 visits annually. By traditional metrics, this was a massive win. The traffic graphs were beautiful up and to the right!!

They came, they consumed, they disappeared. They weren't fans.

No newsletter signups. No social follows. No meaningful engagement. Just empty traffic numbers that looked good in reports but delivered little actual business value.

The "Failed" Post That Actually Won

In stark contrast, we had another piece of content that would make any SEO cringe: it ranked for nothing and had 92% less traffic than our "successful" post. But this content did something far more valuable - it resonated with actual humans.

The results? This "poorly performing" content:

- Drove significant newsletter signups
- Generated authentic LinkedIn engagement
- Was shared in private professional groups
- Sparked conversations in enterprise work tools like Microsoft Teams
- We even saw 4 referrals from calendar.google.com, someone had a meeting about this blog post
- Created genuine fans who became brand advocates

When we calculated the actual business value, this "failed" content was worth over twice as much as our highly optimized post.

Human to Human sites are growing like crazy!

What makes platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, and WhatsApp so powerful isn't just their algorithms - it's the human reputation system built into their core. As I observed in Brighton, "Social traffic comes with people's reputations attached to it." When someone shares content in these spaces, they're putting their professional credibility on the line.

Sites where humans connect creates a natural quality filter

- Poor content damages the sharer's reputation
- Valuable content enhances their standing
- Communities self-regulate based on genuine value, you spam us, you get booted.

The "Forbes Moment" of my Keynote

These are the 3 slides that made the moment you could hear a pin drop!

Slide 1:

Slide 2:

Slide 3:

Then I asked a room of 1000+ search professionals

1 - Who follows Leeron Hoory and Rachel Williams?

2 - Who shares this Forbes content with others in places where your reputation is attached.

Crickets!

Who was being outranked by this crap...me the keynote with 25 years experience writing on the same topic as these two lovely people.

It was a reminder that 70,000 fans can't save you from site reputation abusers with no reputation in your space but high domain authority, and this is part of their problem.

This is why we want answers from humans over algo's.

This is why traffic is growing in places where humans get answers from other humans, with expertise.

As we move forward, the most successful content strategies will be those that balance algorithmic performance with genuine human connection. It's time to stop optimizing just for search engines and start optimizing for the one metric that truly matters: turning visitors into fans.

Remember: A fan isn't just a metric - they're a business asset that compounds in value over time. Start measuring your content's success not by how many people find it, but by how many people come back, share it, and become advocates for your brand.

And whoever had a meeting about my post, I don't know you but I love you!