SEO, design and brand in the age of AI | Search With Candour

About this episode

Candour’s Principal SEO Consultant, Brendan Bennett and Design Lead Mark Salisbury join Search with Candour to discuss the growing overlap between SEO, design, UX, and brand, and how AI/LLMs and emerging agentic experiences affect the way we build and use websites. The Candour trio also explore what brand means beyond just a logo, how third-party signals like reviews, Reddit, and search results shape perception, and how SEOs measure brand through metrics such as brand search volume, sentiment, and frameworks like Google’s HEART. The conversation covers trust signals, page clarity, semantic HTML, the tension between brand-led copy and keyword-focused headings, and the risk of AI-generated “slop” versus human differentiation. Follow Mark and Brendan: • Website: https://withcandour.co.uk/ • Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-salisbury-701b8911/ • Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanbennett1989/ Chapters 00:00 Welcome, Brendan Bennett and Mark Salisbury 01:09 Design vs SEO No Versus 03:01 Why Brand Matters Now 09:45 Defining Brand Beyond Logos 17:17 Brand Metrics and Frameworks 22:40 SERP Signals and Trust Issues 27:19 When Brand Beats SEO