SEO & AI Search Roundtables - Brisbane SEO Collective September

Overview

Forget sitting through slides. This SEO Collective is built around you and the problems you are trying to solve.

We are running five tables, each hosted by an expert in their corner of search: local, content, technical, AI automation, and the internal politics of SEO. You pick the tables that matter to you, pull up a chair, and dig into real questions with the person best placed to answer them. When the bell rings, you move to the next one.

No lectures. No death by slide deck. Just small-group conversations where you can ask the awkward questions, compare notes with other SEOs, and work through the stuff that has been stuck on your list for months.

In-house, agency-side, freelance or running your own show, there is a table for you.

Venue: Dimbin-Mil, Level 1, The Precinct, 315 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane 4006

Prior to the event, we will reach out with a form for you to pick your top 3 tables.

• Local SEO Isn't Just One Thing. It's Five Things Wearing a Trench Coat with Bek Drayton, BeKonstructive Marketing
• Content in the age of AI with Despina Gavoyannis, Ahrefs
• The AI vs SEO narrative in organisations with Barry Loughran, Compare the Market
• Technical and crawling for AI with Destiny Flaherty, Princess Polly
• AI Automations with Raghave Gupta, SideKick Studio

Bek Drayton started her marketing career in 2010, fresh off a Bachelor of Communications, as a copywriter at an agency. Three years later she was made redundant, so she went in-house. Nine months later she was made redundant again, so she did the only logical thing: moved back in with her mum, went back to uni to finish her Masters in Business (Marketing), and started a freelancing gig on the side. Fast forward to 2026, and that little freelancing gig is now BeKonstructive Marketing, a Brisbane-based agency specialising in SEO and organic social media (though honestly, if it's got an algorithm, we'll work with it). At the end of the day it comes back to the same thing: helping businesses get found online, no matter where their customers are looking.

LinkedIn

Raghave founded SideKick Studio, an Australian AI automation agency building custom workflows that K*ll manual admin for businesses. He also runs in-person AI training, teaching founders and their teams to build those systems themselves.

LinkedIn

Despina Gavoyannis is a Senior SEO Specialist at Ahrefs and an SEO consultant with over 10 years in the field. Alongside her work at Ahrefs, where she writes on content, AI search and search visibility, she advises in-house and agency teams on revenue-driven strategy. Working with UX designers, developers and marketers, her strategies have generated more than $125 million in additional annual organic revenue for the brands she has partnered with. She has written a book, built two SEO courses, and been featured in Search Engine Journal, Wix, Crazy Egg and Learning SEO.

LinkedIn

Barry Loughran leads the SEO and AI program at Compare the Market Australia. He previously ran the UK search and experience team at Dentsu, a group of 400 people, across national and global clients. His strength sits in team leadership and executive communication: getting SEO understood and backed at the top of an organisation. That makes him well placed to run a table on controlling the AI versus SEO narrative inside a business.

LinkedIn

Destiny is shaping the future of ecommerce SEO at Princess Polly, where she oversees the global SEO campaign across US, UK and AU. Named in the Top 15 marketers leading AI, Destiny helps brands stay visible as search evolves from keywords to conversations.

LinkedIn

BeKonstructive Marketing is a Brisbane-based agency helping service businesses get found online, wherever their customers are looking. We specialise in SEO and AI Search Visibility, alongside content marketing and social media management, and offer white-label SEO for agencies looking for a reliable local partner to outsource to. Everything we do comes back to transparency: honest conversations, real numbers, and no checkbox SEO. If it's got an algorithm, we're across it.

Running sheet:

5:30pm - 6:00pm Arrive, Food & Drinks

6:00pm - 6:30pm Introduce SEO Collective, Roundtable Details & Latest in SEO News

6:30pm - 7:00pm Round Table 1

7:00pm - 7:30pm Swap to your Round Table 2

7:30pm onwards Networking

R SVP and grab your free ticket!

Sally Mills - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally--mills/

Yacine Khouzami - https://www.linkedin.com/in/yacinekhouzami/

Lauren Schwartz - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-c-schwartz/

Bre Davis - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bredavis/

David Tait - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drtait/

Carter Douglas - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carterdouglas/

Nik Ranger - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nik-ranger-06086a27/

Peter Macinkovic - https://www.linkedin.com/in/inkovic/

Regan McGregor - https://www.linkedin.com/in/regan-mcgregor/

Dejan Mladenovski - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dejan-m/

Peter Mead - https://www.linkedin.com/in/petermeadseo/

Paula Glynn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-glynn/

SEO Collective is an extension of the Melbourne SEO Meetup, which started when the Brisbane SEO group first met up at the Ship Inn, Brisbane Southbank, 7th Nov 2008.

The feedback we've had is that the Collective events have been a great way to meet others in the industry in a relaxed environment and share some tips and hints on what you might know that can help them become a better web marketer or developer. It's about asking those tough questions and getting group consensus on what is the possible implications or complications on a particular method or technique you're thinking of using.

We encourage a mix of business owners, web developers, affiliate marketers, SEM and SEO professionals as we all have small tips that will help you perform better online and play smarter.

SEO Collective is just a relaxed and informal session on digital and web marketing, come along and meet others in your community no matter if you're a business owner, consultant, in-house or part of a larger agency.