🏙️ Join us at WTSFest Philly in 44 days—standard tix close end of month
🏙️ Join us at WTSFest Philly in 44 days—standard tix close end of month
We are beyond excited about hosting the latest edition of WTSFest Philadelphia. We designed WTSFest to keep you ahead of the SEO and marketing curve, while also ensuring you feel welcome, included, and comfortable.
“WTSFest really is one of my favourite conferences because the community is so welcoming. From the moment you walk through the door, you feel right at home. Areej and the entire team do an incredible job creating the event where everyone feels supported, included, and inspired. Every year I leave with new ideas, new friends, and so much excitement for the future of our industry.“
~ Krystal Taing - WTS member, WTSFest Speaker, WTSPartner, & all around wonderful human
Want to know more about the speakers and the talks we’ve lined up? Of course you do!
Read on for a full rundown:
Krystal has been a WTS member since 2020. Since then, she’s shared about herself and work through her WTSInterview, spoken at WTSFest Philadelphia 2024, represented Uberall at multiple WTSFests and helped spark the partnership between Uberall and WTS back in 2024.
We’re excited for her return to the WTSFest Philadelphia stage in 2026.
With more than 12 years in Local SEO, Krystal is a GBP Platinum Product Expert, and a faculty member at LocalU; and we’re so excited to hear her take on this topic:
AI Picks the Shortlist. Are You Even Showing Up Locally?
We're hearing so much about AI and how it's shifting discovery, but in Krystal’s view: AI is not replacing Local SEO, it is raising the bar.
In her session, she’ll be breaking down how local data, reputation, and context signals influence whether a brand is cited, trusted, and recommended; and will be sharing practical strategies that you can take back and apply right away to improve your visibility in AI search.
Lea has been a WTS member since 2020 - popping into conversations from our freelance & analytics channels to our thanks and jobs channels - sharing her expertise across SEO, content and accessibility.
Driving revenue via Search, AI, and content is baked into Lea Scudamore's DNA. With more than two decades of industry experience, her work for clients has won multiple awards, and she is passionate about delivering extraordinary results. Lea promises this will be “one comprehensive mother of a session” – and we can’t wait to see her deliver it:
Execute or Evaporate: The Elite Playbook for B2B Discovery
While many marketers are still reeling from vanishing clicks, elite practitioners have already moved to a new core consensus: brand authority over volume, and citation-worthiness over rankings. In this session, Lea will be sharing her framework for building discovery systems that serve both human buying committees, and AI agents. You’ll learn how to eliminate agentic friction, and engineer technical survival before the ground shifts again.
Celeste joined WTS in 2021. She’s extremely active in our analytics channel - sharing her expertise in building innovative tools to help SEOs - as well as in our thanks and amplify me channels - supporting her fellow WTSers. Celeste has been a part of our WTSMentorship programs and delivered her first in-person talk at WTSFest Philadelphia 2024. Most recently, she teamed up with fellow members Ana De La Cruz, and Catherine Kim to deliver a WTSTalk: From Scraping to Strategy: Turning Customer Reviews Into Content Opportunities.
She’s a leader in creating connection locally, building community through LA SEO Meetup.
Celeste crafts thoughtful, data-driven SEO strategies that turn visibility into real impact.
For WTSFest Philadelphia, Celeste will be demonstrating how to take sentiment analysis to the next level:
From Rankings to Reputations: Why Being Cited Isn’t Enough
In AI search, getting cited is just the start. Users still make purchasing decisions based on trust, and trust is shaped by sentiment across online reviews and brand conversations.
In this session, Celeste will be covering how to use LLMs to automate sentiment insights without building a huge product, and how to translate these insights into on-page improvements that increase conversions as well as visibility.
Grace has been a WTS member since 2020. She’s an extremely active member, helping answer questions throughout our Slack community and participating in our WTSMentorship program. She shared her expertise on multiple WTSFest stages - London 2024 and Philadelphia 2025. She returns to WTSFest Philadelphia in 2026 for her third WTSFest talk.
Grace specialises in SEO and AI search strategy and performance growth. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge via conference speaking; writing for industry publications; and the newly-launched Search Tea Podcast which she co-hosts with Laura Spink.
Drawing from her years of agency experience working directly with enterprise teams, Grace will be sharing a new way to approach technical SEO audits as strategic decision-making tools:
Beyond the Crawl: Building Technical SEO Audits That Actually Ship
In this talk Grace will explain how to layer human judgment, business context, and page-template weighting on top of crawl data in order to prioritize recommendations, and turn your technical audits from static reports into roadmaps that drive measurable growth.
You’ll leave with an enterprise-ready framework for running technical SEO audits that teams can actually execute, plus a template you can apply immediately.
Kelly Stanze joined as a WTS member in 2020. You can find her all over our WTS Slack community - including in our tech SEO channel, motivation channel, and showing her gratitude in our thanks channel. This year she wrote a fantastic WTSKnowledge article on the range of career options open to search professionals.
Kelly has explored the search marketing industry from just about every angle. She’s worked as an enterprise SEO strategist, an e-commerce search specialist, a marketing manager, an organic search director, and more!
At WTSFest she’ll be digging into Agentic Shopping:
Shopping with Robots: Preparing Product Feeds for Agentic eCommerce
The robots are everywhere, and now they’re in our shopping! While product feeds have historically been considered a paid media tool, with the release of Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), and Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), product feeds are taking on a new life in the world of organic search and AI discoverability.
In this talk Kelly will explore the evolution of catalog product feeds in search, and share how to prepare for the future of agentic shopping.
Wil and Seer Interactive helped bring WTSFest to the US by hosting its first Philadelphia edition in 2023, with Seer later supporting scholarship tickets for our following WTSFest Philadelphia editions.
He also whole heartedly supported WTS Managing Director, Erin Simmons, in making the transition out of Seer and into WTS - even using his platform to amplify them and support their next step.
In 2002, after his then-boss wouldn’t let him volunteer on his lunch break, Wil founded Seer with a mission. He set out to create a company driven to succeed for clients and communities. This drive to be better, and do better is what fuels Wil’s approach to strategy, innovation and life.
Back in 2023, Wil welcomed us into his space. In 2026, we’re excited and grateful to welcome him into ours and hear his talk on:
AI Forward vs AI Foolish: How I See People Losing Brand Trust for Speed & What to Do About It
Are you stuck in a “build trap” – measuring marketing success based on output and speed? Is what you’re doing even working?
Using the Seen → Believed → Chosen framework, Wil will break down what it actually takes to win in AI search. You’ll leave with the tools to enable you to move from content production to true authority-building, control your AI narrative, and measure what really matters.
Niki’s been an active member of WTS since 2019 – they have hosted a WTSWorkshop, arranged local meet-ups, taken part in the WTSMentorship program, (and more!), and we’re delighted she’ll be sharing their knowledge in Philadelphia:
With over 15 years of SEO experience across agency, freelance, and in-house roles, Niki specializes in technical SEO, content strategy, and data-driven growth. She recently launched Confidence Fly Search, where you’ll find the SEO and content templates and frameworks they use day-to-day in their own work.
We can’t wait to hear Niki’s talk this October:
Transform Content Creation: Using AI Prompts to Generate 10X More Ideas in Half the Time
If you’re frustrated by the beige output your LLM prompts return, this session is for you. Niki will be breaking down how to train an LLM on your brand, and structure your prompts to generate high-quality content ideas tailored to your audience.
You'll leave with proven prompt frameworks that turn AI into your personal brainstorming partner, and see real examples of how marketers are using these techniques to maintain consistent content calendars while reducing burnout.
Hana has been working in SaaS for more than 8 years, and leads the Solutions Consulting team at Profound. In her role she works with marketers at some of the world’s most forward-thinking enterprise brands, and fastest-growing startups across retail, tech, finance, and consumer goods.
If you want to know how these companies are marketing in the AI era, you won’t want to miss this session:
Marketing in the Age of AI
The rise of AI search and advancements in AI tools have catalyzed the most significant shift in marketing since the dawn of the internet. How are marketers navigating this change?
In this session, Hana will be sharing real-world examples of how some of the world’s biggest brands are leveraging AI Agents to scale their marketing efforts without compromising on quality. You’ll gain fresh perspectives, and a bunch of new ideas to implement in your own work.
Britt has been an active WTS member since 2022. You’ll find her all over our digital PR channel in our Slack community - sharing advice from her 16 years of PR experience. Britt has secured thousands of pieces of coverage across the world’s most highly-trafficked websites and news outlets including: Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, Forbes, Fortune, NBC News, Time, and USA Today. She has worked closely with SEO teams throughout her career, and she’s interviewed more than one hundred journalists for her podcasts: Digital PR Explained, and We Earn Media.
We can think of no one better to deliver this session:
How SEOs Can Work With PRs: A Practical, Repeatable Collaboration Playbook
Thanks to the rise of AI search, now, more than ever before, SEO teams are being asked to “work with PR” to generate citations, links, and mentions that improve visibility. The problem is, many teams are trying to do this without a clear understanding of how PR actually works, and without the necessary processes or frameworks. This often leads to disconnected workflows and missed opportunities.
In this talk, Britt will be sharing a practical, repeatable way for SEO, PR, content, and social teams to collaborate on campaigns. You’ll leave with simple frameworks for aligning teams, testing ideas, and turning shared insights into measurable results.
For more than 20 years, Melissa built her career inside complex organizations, leading teams, navigating change, and earning opportunities that many people spend years chasing. She didn't follow a perfectly mapped career path. She created it. Today she helps others do the same.
In Philadelphia she’ll be focusing on the importance of building influence, not just expertise:
From Specialist to Strategic Authority: Designing Your Career for Influence, Not Just Promotion
Most people think they’re failing to secure a promotion because of a skill-gap. But the truth is, skills are almost never the issue. What’s actually holding them back is a lack of visibility, identity, and narrative.
In this session Melissa will share a practical framework to enable you to identify what you want from your career, define the type of impact you want to make, and increase your influence, visibility, and perceived value.
Where do we even start with Heather Hamilton? She’s been a WTS member since 2023. Heather has volunteered at countless WTSFests, spoken on our stage, and can be found amping up WTSers throughout our Slack community.
At WTSFest Philadelphia 2024 - she was one of the six WTS members that got matching WTS tattoos.
At WTSFest Philadelphia 2025 - we called her the evening before the event when our emcee dropped out, asking her to take the role. Her response: “I was born for this.” Since then, Heather has been our official US WTSFest emcee.
We’re honestly on the edge of our seats to see what Heather brings to WTSFest Philadelphia 2026 as both our emcee and our closing talk.
Heather describes herself as a recovering serial entrepreneur, former side hustle queen, and a late 30s career pivoter. But she’s had a lot of fun along the way because she’s learned how to follow what sparks her curiosity, and embrace imperfection – and that’s the focus of the talk she’ll be giving:
Progress not Perfection (or, How to Get Out of Your Own Way)
We live in a society that is obsessed with hard work and hustle; but Heather believes in order to find our way we need to set aside any expectations for where we should be in life, or where we should be going next. Instead we need to trust and follow our own inquisitive natures.
In this talk, Heather will share practical frameworks to help you identify what’s working for you and what isn’t; make decisions without overthinking; and use curiosity as a compass to guide your next move.
WTSFest is intentionally relaxed, with plenty of time and space for conversations to happen naturally over coffee, lunch, and drinks.
Speakers and attendees spend the day together, so it’s just as easy to connect with someone who’s taken the stage as it is the person sitting beside you.
Past attendees have described the atmosphere as “welcoming, inclusive, and safe” and said it put them at ease from the moment they arrived.
Come as you are, ask questions, meet brilliant people, and leave with new ideas, new friends, and connections that continue long after the day ends.
Find everything you need to know about WTSFest Philadelphia, including the location, timings, FAQs, pricing and group discounts.
Heads up - WTSFest Philadelphia prices change soon!
If you're planning to join us, this is your reminder to book now before the next ticket tier.
Standard tickets are $499 until August 31.
Final call tickets priced at $699 after that.
Thursday, October 1st 2026 · Rittenhouse, Philadelphia
