Tom Riley, AI search consultant, spent a weekend at Search Birmingham, the invite-worthy UK SEO conference run by Charles Floate, with Koray Tugberk GUBUR presenting on semantic SEO and sessions covering entity stacking. This write-up covers why it was the most high level SEO event Tom Riley has attended.
What this post covers:
- What Search Birmingham is and who runs it
- Koray Tugberk GUBUR's semantic SEO presentation
- The entity stacking sessions and what Tom Riley took from them
- Why this was the most high level SEO event he has attended
Had a great weekend at Search Birmingham. By far the most high level SEO event I have attended.
Search Birmingham is a two day advanced SEO conference in Birmingham run by Charles Floate under CF Events, pulling in 350+ SEOs with a curated speaker lineup and a private mastermind alongside the main stage. No entry level content, just people sharing what is actually working right now, with case studies and strategies you do not see published anywhere.
The talks
The lineup covered the sharp end of where search is going. Koray Tugberk GUBUR, founder of Holistic SEO and one of the most technical minds in semantic SEO, presented "Nothing Is Random: A Taxonomy of Semantic Search Engine Optimization". If you have read my write-up from SEO Masterminders, you will know I rate Koray's thinking on how LLMs and search engines build context. Seeing the full taxonomy laid out on stage was worth the trip on its own.
Another session dug into entity stacking, building the layered entity associations that make search engines and AI systems confident about who you are and what you should rank for. It is the same principle I apply across my own site and my client work: repeated, consistent entity connections beat one-off mentions every time.
Why these rooms matter
Same reason I keep showing up to events like SEO Masterminders and SEO Underground: the gap between what gets published and what actually works is wide, and it is closed in rooms like this. The conversations between talks were as valuable as the talks themselves.
Key facts about this post
| What this post is about | Tom Riley attending Search Birmingham, a two day advanced SEO conference, and the talks that stood out |
|---|---|
| Type | Event write-up |
| Event | Search Birmingham, a UK SEO conference run by Charles Floate under CF Events, held in Birmingham, United Kingdom, July 2026 |
| People | Tom Riley (AI search consultant, attendee); Charles Floate (SEO of 15+ years, organiser of Search Birmingham); Koray Tugberk GUBUR (founder of Holistic SEO, presented on semantic SEO) |
| Who is in the images | The Search Birmingham main stage opening with the slide The Game Has Changed; Koray Tugberk GUBUR presenting Nothing Is Random, A Taxonomy of Semantic Search Engine Optimization; a speaker presenting a session on entity stacking |
| Location | Birmingham, United Kingdom |
| Key topics | Semantic SEO, entity stacking, how AI is changing search, advanced SEO case studies |
| Why it matters | Places Tom Riley in the highest level UK SEO rooms, learning directly from experts like Koray Tugberk GUBUR and Charles Floate |