Norwich digital agency Candour is celebrating the landmark success of its inaugural full-day conference, SearchNorwichXL, which brought over 170 marketing professionals from 12 different countries to our fine city.
Housed at the Maddermarket Theatre, the event marked the biggest all-day SEO event of its kind in the East. It has filled a regional gap in the SEO conference landscape while cementing the agency and region’s reputation as a driving force in the UK’s digital marketing sector.
Organised and delivered entirely by the team at Candour, SearchNorwichXL delivered a world-class schedule of expert speakers, networking, and a panel with “excellent discussions” about the future of online search. The talks featured Google’s Martin Splitt as keynote speaker and covered topics such as:
- How businesses can get noticed on Google
- What AI knows about your business (and how to fix it)
- Looking at where the web is heading
The event also attracted significant backing from major global search-industry software platforms and brands, including headline sponsor WhitePress, technical SEO tool Screaming Frog and keyword research tool AlsoAsked.
Speakers and sponsors alike praised the agency’s seamless organisation, hospitality, and high production value. Bengü Sarica Dinçer, a speaker at the recent event and SEO Manager at Designmodo, noted that Candour “set the bar almost irresponsibly high”.
She added: “SearchNorwichXL was one of those rare events where you could feel how much thought had gone into every tiny detail. Everything was carefully designed, but never at the expense of fun. Speaking there made all the pre-talk nerves worth it!”
Attendees took to LinkedIn to congratulate Candour for a great conference. Praise was given to the hosting, teamwork, line-up of speakers and topics of discussion.
Posting on the platform, Eva Mermingi said: “#SearchNorwichXL was my first time in the city and it went the way the good ones go: brilliant talks in the morning, a panel that produced an excellent discussion with unique questions, and a room full of lovely people. Every talk left me with a thing to go and check, test and nerd out, and that’s my measure of a good conference.”
The event aimed to provide digital marketers in the East of England, including students, freelancers, in-house marketers and agencies, with the same standard of SEO conference as you would experience in a major city.
And this isn’t Candour’s first venture. SearchNorwichXL is a larger-scale version of SearchNorwich, which launched in 2019 and become the region’s longest-running search marketing meet-up.
Director and co-organiser Mark Williams-Cook, said: “Bringing an international conference of this scale to Norwich has been a long-held ambition for us at Candour. To see so many people travel from all over to our small city in Norfolk is proof that our region has the draw, the talent, and the infrastructure to host world-class tech events. The feedback from attendees and global sponsors has been overwhelming, and we are immensely proud of what our team achieved with this event.”
Marketing and Partnerships Manager Jack Chambers-Ward said: “The event exceeded my expectations. I’d seen all of the speakers present before, and even seen their slides ahead of time, but every single talk blew me away.”
Following the overwhelming acclaim from delegates and global sponsors, Candour continues to build on its mission to put SEO firmly on the East Anglian map and create world-class learning and networking opportunities within the region.
Jack added: “It’s not official yet, but I think we’re already excited to begin planning for SearchNorwichXL 2027”
