SEO Week is my WrestleMania. The biggest event of the year for the people actually moving the SEO and AEO industry forward. After attending its debut event last year and returning for all four days this year, I’m comfortable saying it plainly: SEO Week is America’s most cutting-edge conference for AI search experts.
I’m Connor, Co-founder and CEO of Cairrot. I attended the first SEO Week in 2025 and returned for a second time in 2026 because my experience was so great. This is my honest, opinionated review of Mike King and iPullRank’s follow up to my favorite marketing event from last year (2025).
To follow my real-time thoughts on SEO Week and other top marketing conferences around the world, follow me on LinkedIn. I also talk about US-based conferences like SMX Advanced in Boston, Brighton SEO in San Diego, and international events like Search SEOul in South Korea and FOUND Conference in Tokyo.
This is the first in a series of event reviews. I attend a lot of marketing conferences, and people seem to enjoy hearing my thoughts.
What Is SEO Week?
For anyone who hasn’t been: SEO Week is a multi-day SEO and AEO conference held in New York City, run by iPullRank (Michael King’s company). Each day has a theme. Day 1 was “The Science,” and the rest of the week covered content, analytics, competitive landscape, and the future of AI search.
It has a real reputation as the premier US conference for serious practitioners. Not the vacation-with-a-badge crowd. People show up to actually get better at the work.
If you’re figuring out the best SEO/AEO/GEO conferences to add to your calendar, this is the one to plan around.
SEO Week Agenda
SEO Week 2026 · Agenda
| Day | Theme | # of Speakers | Speakers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Science | 9 | Mike King, Krishna Madhavan, Jori Ford, Andrea Volpini, Annie Cushing, Dale Bertrand, Metehan Yeşilyurt, Jeff Coyle, Noah Learner |
| 2 | The Psychology | 8+ | Wil Reynolds, Bianca Anderson, John Doherty, Garrett Sussman, Alex Halliday, Amanda Milligan, Ian Lurie, Azeem Ahmad, Brittan King, Angele Clark |
| 3 | The Ecosystem | 9 | Ross Simmonds, Carrie Rose, Brie Moreau, Ray Martinez, Angela Skane, Brian Cosgrove, Zach Chahalis, Brie Anderson, John Shehata, Samantha (Sam) Torres |
| 4 | The Future | 9 | James Cadwallader, Christian J. Ward, Ilana Fraines Gershteyn, Ryan Jones, Crystal Carter, Paul Shapiro, Jordan Leschinsky, Ruth Burr Reedy, Lisa Paasche |
After parties are solid (as they should be in NYC). The usual DemandSphere meetup was tempting again (loved it in 2025), but Peec kindly invited me to theirs on the same night.
The entertainment offering isn’t like any other marketing conference I’ve ever seen… Wednesday night featured a rap concert featuring Method Man (Wu-Tang Clan) and even Mike King himself! And yes, Mike is actually a good performer. Not what I usually do at night but it’s a good time.
Why SEO Week Is My “WrestleMania” of Marketing Events
A few things you don’t fully appreciate until you’ve been twice:
- The production quality is inspiring. iPullRank has the best multimedia design team in NYC, full stop. Presentations look dynamic without being distracting. Speakers who might be hard to follow get supported by clean, intentional visuals.
- The energy and networking hit different than any other big SEO conference. Hallway conversations, post-talk huddles, speakers staying late to coach people instead of bolting for dinner. It’s a working event as much as a networking one if you come prepared. That’s why I keep coming back.
- It pulls in the best SEO thought leaders from around the world. Not just the northeast or New England area. You’ll meet industry experts from every part of America, Canada, Europe, and even Asia at SEO Week.
Best Presentations and Most Helpful Speakers
Some of the speakers who impressed me this year include:
- Krishna Madhavan (Microsoft) dropped a nuke in the opening talk by announcing the next phase of Bing Webmaster Tools “AI Visibility” features.
- Mike King did Mike King things without any restraint, and it was music to my ears. His presentation mainly called out legacy SEO tools (and VC-funded AEO platforms) for failing to innovate or even be all that useful… he then provided several examples of what people should be building. It was awesome.
- Jori Ford and Noah Learner are some of the industry’s most helpful speakers. I bought a Search SEOul ticket just to catch her again. I will be stealing her language around “optimization scoring” for organic channels. Her language around ROI tracking for organic search is totally aligned with the revenue-focused dashboards we’ve been updating for Cairrot customers.
- Brie Anderson and Annie Cushing are the analytics A-listers. A GA4 view Brie demoed pushed a real change to Cairrot’s product roadmap. Annie Cushing is literally too smart for me to keep up with in real-time but she is easily the most interesting follow on LinkedIn from this list… if you’re an AI and analytics nerd like myself.
- Garrett Sussman outdid his 2025 presentation when he proved on stage that direct mail can influence AI search results. He proved that with science. I also think he is the best multimedia content marketer in the AEO/GEO space right now.
It was great seeing so many of my favorite SEO educators in one place again, as well as discovering several new ones to follow from now on.
I came for the latest version of the Mike King show. I was not disappointed.
I’ve seen Mike King present at conferences and debate on SEO panels for years. Long story short, I respect his work and admire what he has built for himself between his personal brand, iPullRank, and now SEO Week.
Mike’s presentation covered glaring problems that SEO/AEO/GEO platforms are failing to solve for. Realize how cool (and bold) that is when almost all of your event sponsors are AEO/GEO platforms.
So I respect him for talking about real problems that he would like to see solved by AEO platforms like us, even though it had to have made many event sponsors uncomfortable. But he didn’t bring problems without solutions, and his examples for where software providers should focus on serving search marketers (relevance engineers, as he likes to say) were extremely insightful for leaders at SEO/AEO/GEO platforms to hear, myself included.
Mike got the whole room fired up about real problems and then handed people a free solution. True promoter energy. I enjoyed watching his vision come to life on the presentation stage, and then again when he performed as part of the headline entertainment event (a rap concert on Wednesday night. Method Man and Red Man were there, so that’s pretty cool).
Krishna Madhavan (Microsoft)
If you only had time for one newsy talk, this was it.
Krishna from Microsoft opened the event and dropped a nuke: he announced the next phase of Bing Webmaster Tools’ “AI Visibility” features. One of my favorite tools since launch. His 2025 talk was good. His 2026 talk blew the roof off at 10am.
I noticed several “SEO influencers” rush to their phones as they scrambled to be the first to report this news on LinkedIn and X. While it’s funny, it made the whole event feel like an even bigger deal right off the bat.
Krishna deserves praise for his actual presentation skills, the quality of his content, and the amount of time he spent networking with attendees throughout the week. But most importantly, I am grateful to Krishna and the whole team behind Microsoft Webmaster Tool as they are forcing every competitor, especially Google, to improve their search analytics offering in order to keep up.
Everyone enjoying the momentum of SEO/AEO industry right now owes a little something to Krishna and his team.
Want to understand Bing Webmaster Tools AI Visibility? Follow Krishna.
Jori Ford (FoodBoss)
As an SEO speaker and thought leader, Jori Ford is so damn good I bought a ticket to Search SEOul in September just to catch her follow-up.
It would be tacky to call her the absolute best speaker working right now, but she’s easily one of the most helpful. Her sweet spot (marketing KPIs that actually tie to revenue, plus holistic/hybrid search-led strategies) is near and dear to me. Pragmatic. High-confidence. Zero fluff.
She’s as technical as it gets, yet she turns complex systems into simple visuals. For enterprise reporting use cases, nobody gives more practical advice and frameworks.
She also puts in the work on the floor: 1:1 mentoring and small-group conversations every single day. Two years running. Her next talk on International SEO and revenue ops for global teams is one of her strongest. Book her while she’s still this accessible. She’s about to level up big time.
Garrett Sussman (iPullRank)
You can use direct mail to influence AI search results, and it’s actually pretty easy.
Don’t I sound like an idiot saying that?
Garrett Sussman of iPullRank said it on stage and proved it with science and real experiments that took weeks to set up. The presentation was visually stunning and rigorously designed. Exactly what you’d expect from the best content marketer and demand generator in our space.
Reasons I want to give Garrett extra shine:
- He’s a workhorse.
- Good to people and expects nothing in return (like Jori).
- I respect him as a man, and so does everyone around him.
- I legitimately think he’s the best content marketer / demand generator in our space.
I want to be more like Garrett. You should too. Follow Garrett’s content on LinkedIn ->
Brie Anderson (BEAST Analytics)
Generating tons of revenue through search channels is fun. Generating it but not being able to prove it is hell: no credit, no money, no peace of mind.
Brie E. Anderson (BEAST Analytics) is one of the analytics A-listers who fix that problem. Shaolin masters on the mountain that revenue-reporting nerds like me climb for training.
Brie exploded onto the scene last year. I first saw her at SEO Week 2025 and according to Google Trends, that is when she picked up a ton of traction online.
Her stage presence this year was significantly improved (and it was already excellent in 2025). Like last year, her presentation was one of the most pragmatic and useful ones of the week because it gave instructions for so many easy wins… One of the GA4 views she demoed pushed a meaningful change to Cairrot’s product roadmap in the next six weeks. Thanks, Brie!
Follow Brie Anderson on LinkedIn →
Annie Cushing (Annielytics)
Going beyond revenue attribution and into the deepest weeds of analytics as you can handle is one of my long-time favorite influencers in the SEO space, Annie Cushing.
Annie is like a shaolin master of data science that experts like me go to when we need to level up something about our game. She is elite with massive datasets and complex enterprise integrations. I’ve followed her since 2021 when I used her Google Sheet templates in-house. Polished work that screams enterprise experience.
I’m an Annie fanboy, and highly recommend following her on LinkedIn – she is one of the more interesting thought leaders in our industry.
Noah Learner (Sterling Sky)
Noah gave away some of the most useful tools and templates. Developers in the room were loving it. But what impressed me most was his consistency. He arrived early, stayed late, and was always coaching attendees or supporting other speakers.
Polite, kind, zero ego. Rare. Noah makes conferences better just by showing up.
Follow Noah Learner on LinkedIn →
Samantha Torres (Pipedrive)
Samantha’s talk was one of my favorites because it felt written for me. Agency and B2B SaaS background, same as mine. Focused on content (my specialty) with two concrete workflows you can actually use the next day for better, more personalized outputs.
She also invested real time networking and following up afterward. Real content plus real relationship-building is harder than it looks.
Follow Sam Torres on LinkedIn →
Jeff Coyle (SiteImprove)
Jeff did pretty good last year and fantastic this year. I love how revenue-attribution focused his latest presentations have been.
Some of my most colorful commentary from SEO Week 2025 was about Jeff, and it’s worth repeating here as nothing I said then has changed:
Besides the quality of his presentation, Jeff deserves compliments for work ethic and accessibility all week. Like Noah, Jeff was easy to find on the floor most days and was eager to answer any questions that attendees had with a smile on his face.
Follow Jeff Coyle on LinkedIn →
Other Great Speakers Worth Watching
Three things I deeply respect: talent, work ethic, and willingness to help others. Combine two and I like you. Show all three and I’ll give you a public shoutout.
Wil Reynolds is saying the most important thing right now: use your head, do better, stop cranking out slop. He says it harshly and beats you over the head with it. I hope it’s landing. He also mentors up-and-comers like few others.
Other thought leaders from SEO Week worth following:
- Amanda Milligan. Top-tier content talk, I will definitely borrow some of her language around “Trifecta Content” going forward.
- Brian Cosgrove (BrainDo). Great presentation focused on quality content. I spoke with multiple members of his agency and was impressed by their expertise and professionalism.
- Ross Simmonds. His agency, Foundation, is my favorite new agency that I discovered at this conference. His team’s Reddit marketing service is the best I’ve seen. Shoutout Meghan McKenzie and Andrea Carrigan for taking the time to walk me through it.
- Bianca “Binks” Anderson. Beautiful and hilarious slide deck, strong stage presence.
- Christian J. Ward, Ian Lurie, Ilana Fraines, Jordan Leschinsky, Dale Bertrand, John Doherty, Lisa Paasche all impressed me during their presentations and with the knowledge demonstrated during networking events.
Disclaimer! I surely missed some killers, as I only have two eyes and ears. A speaker not being listed here does not mean I didn’t like their presentation.. I may have just missed it.
The AEO Tool Landscape
I sized up the competition in person. Honest but brief takes.
Peec AI
The “scariest” competitor. Wildly talented, fast-moving, and unreasonably likable. The team feels like they’ve worked together for a decade even though they’re young.
Biggest obstacles: SEO/AEO depth is still developing, so branding and priorities aren’t always obvious. They’re leaning into “technical SEO” (the old Ahrefs playbook from eight years ago), which I think is a losing play in 2026. People want content and on-page SEO done for them. They also lack a Tim Soulo-style market educator yet. When they figure it out, they will move fast.
See how Peec AI compares to Cairrot ->
Profound
Strongest enterprise offering, period. They should be. They’re spending 5x what others are and still aren’t far ahead.
I love their look. They dress like the bad guys in a Karate Kid movie and every team member looks Ivy League or Big 4. Solid moat with enterprises and their accreditation program.
Key issues: product updates too slow, heavy on finance types over SEO experts, aggressive burn rate. We’ll see how the runway holds.
See how Profound compares to Cairrot ->
AirOps
New on my radar. Smart to lean into content and on-page early. Not deep enough in SEO/AEO yet to execute perfectly, but being early builds perceived expertise. Leadership and sales team impressed me.
Most of what I said about Profound applies here. Replace “finance bros” with “SaaS frat.” And I say that with love.
Scrunch AI
I paid to test it out before SEO Week and was unimpressed. I won’t harp on it (because I already did in our comparison of Scrunch AI), but I don’t see anything particularly interesting or competitive there despite the funding.
DemandSphere
This is the AEO/SEO analytics competitor I respect the most, and one of the only pure analytics tools in the space that I think is reasonably priced. Founder Ray Grieselhuber earns major respect for his intelligence, obsession with product improvement, dedication to customers, and work bridging SEO/AEO professionals between East and West (like FOUND CONF in Tokyo).
The Best Part Wasn’t on the Agenda
The best thing I did differently at SEO Week 2026 was to include my family in the fun! My fiancée Kaitlin flew out with me to represent Cairrot on the floor. Turns out she is way better at sales than me… and it was beautiful seeing her represent Cairrot while speaking with leaders of cutting-edge SEO agencies attending the event.
After the conference, we spent an extra weekend in New England visiting my family in the area. Conferences are great, but conferences with people you actually love to see? That’s the move. I’m grateful to be in that situation.
Is SEO Week Worth It?
Yes. Easy yes.
Between Krishna, Mike King, and Jori Ford alone (about 12% of the schedule), I was satisfied. Add the rest of the lineup and it’s a no-brainer. If you’re past beginner level in SEO or AEO, SEO Week is worth it. I would also recommend it to beginners willing to drink from the firehose and level up their skills quickly.
Top Events Competing with SEO Week in 2026 and 2027
This is the first in a series. Here’s what’s on my radar:
- Search SEOul (Seoul, Sep 2026): Already booked. Catching Jori again plus Kyle Roof, Aleyda Solis, and my new friend Danny Park. Message me if you’re going!
- SMX Advanced (Boston, Jun 2026): The next SEO event on my schedule after SEO Week. This is one of the best events for SEOs to network all year.
- FOUND CONF by DemandSphere (Tokyo, Feb 2027): Strong potential for international SEO/AEO. Watching the lineup closely.
- MozCon (NYC): Moz metrics are included among Cairrot’s top-rated AEO reports and that company is full of people who LOVE SEO. Those two reasons alone have me excited to see their conference in-person for the first time in 2026.
Brighton SEO is always an excellent conference for beginners to learn and thought leaders to network, I will likely attend again in 2027.
Other top-rated SEO conferences on my hit hit list in 2026-27 include Chiang Mai SEO, SEO Spring Training (Arizona, already happened in 2026), and possibly the Shenzhen SEO event in China (if I’m not too exhausted from Search SEOul the week before).
I’ll publish reviews on LinkedIn and X as I go.
SEO Week FAQ
Is SEO Week worth the price?
Yes, for serious practitioners. Speaker quality, production, and floor mentorship more than justify the price. And as far as networking opportunities, it is among my top three marketing events of the year.
Who should attend SEO Week?
In-house leads, agency operators, content marketers leveling up to AI search, analytics pros, and founders. Not beginner-friendly, but great for motivated people.
When is SEO Week 2027?
Dates not confirmed yet. Watch iPullRank.
Let’s Connect at an Upcoming Conference
If you’re heading to any of these, reach out. I’d love to meet, talk shop, or grab coffee.
The way to reach me is on LinkedIn. Follow for real-time takes of global marketing conferences, search news, and pragmatic tips for SEO and AEO.
See you out there!
