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November 2025

The year really is flying by! It’s hard to believe that we find ourselves quickly approaching winter, with the nights drawing in and the leaves falling from the trees! Despite October flashing past us in a blink of an eye, here at Fanatic, we managed to pack it full of exciting projects & activities. We took a trip down to Brighton for a leading SEO conference, created some excellent design work for our clients and went bowling for our team social.

Team Social: Bowling

This month brought yet another fun (and equally competitive) social in the form of bowling at The Lanes. Those who went split into teams of two and battled it out to see who would be crowned the next Pin King of the Fanatic office and who would find their bowling hopes and dreams in the gutter! After that had been decided, the competition continued with some games of pool over a refreshing and well-earned drink. There were some impressive shots, and if we are being honest, some baffling ones too… but a lot of fun was had in the process, before heading out to enjoy some delicious burgers!

West Country Water and Environment

This month saw the completion of a major five-month project for our client, WCWE. Our team designed a suite of collateral to support their two public consultation events, which were held to give residents the opportunity to raise any project-related questions or concerns. The brief was to create designs that reflected the professionalism of the brand, whilst presenting highly technical information in an accessible and engaging way.

Our approach balanced clarity with creativity. We developed a cohesive visual style that aligned with WCWE’s identity and made complex data and engineering maps easier to interpret. Through clear layouts, engaging illustrated graphics, and a carefully considered hierarchy, we transformed dense information into user-friendly and digestible content. The result was a set of consultation materials that upheld WCWE’s credibility and encouraged public understanding and engagement.

Accessibility as a Service

This month, the team have been doing some great work on furthering the digital accessibility service that Fanatic provides to clients. They are currently developing some content that examines the crucial elements of accessibility from a top-level perspective. For many website owners, the idea of digital accessibility can feel overwhelming, with the WCAG guidelines containing what can feel like a million rules, so this aims to provide some clarity on a wide and growing subject. I guess you could say the objective is to make accessibility, well… a whole lot more accessible!

Entitled ‘LACKS’, which is a clever acronym that encompasses the most significant areas of Digital Accessibility:

Labels
Alternative text
Contrast
Keyboard Accessibility
Screen Reader Friendliness

By including these features companies can make their digital content more accessible to people with a wide range of impairments, including vision problems, learning disabilities, hearing issues, and more.

Matt Abé Goes Live

Recently, the digital team has been working on an exciting project alongside Matt Abé, formerly Chef Patron at the three Michelin-starred Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, as he opens ‘Bonheur by Matt Abé‘, located in the former Le Gavroche site in Mayfair. We worked closely with their brand team to build a sleek, modern and sophisticated website that reflects the classically rooted cuisine that celebrates British produce. We’re excited to see the opening of the restaurant and how it grows in the future.

The Digital Team Attends the BrightonSEO Conference

At the end of October, our digital team took a trip down to the south coast to attend one of the world’s biggest SEO conferences, BrightonSEO, to gain some exciting insights into the rapidly evolving SEO landscape. Over two days, the team attended a range of presentations given by leading figures in the industry. The talks covered various SEO topics, including “Search Fundamentals”, “Practical SEO”, and “Crawling & Indexing”, to name but a few.

Unsurprisingly, the elephant in the room at almost all the talks was AI, which has brought both excitement and uncertainty to the industry. As it’s such a revolutionary technology, consensus was split on the best ways to optimise for LLMs. Some within the space believe that the fundamentals of SEO broadly remain the same, whilst others — such as keynote speaker Mike King — argue that AI is radically transforming SEO as we know it.

Despite this uncertainty, the majority of speakers agreed on a few key points regarding AI searches:

Best of the web – AI is more likely to cite opinionated content that directly answers users’ questions. Therefore, content creators should aim to be authoritative sources on their chosen topics. This means keeping content up to date, including dates where relevant, and understanding what questions consumers want answered before creating content that directly answers them.
Tables & lists – Making content easy for LLMs to interpret is essential. Using clearly laid-out lists and tables, where helpful information can be easily extracted from the page, increases the likelihood of being referenced in an AI search result.
It’s not just about webpages anymore – AI searches now draw from a wide range of sources, including media and forums such as Reddit. Developing a digital strategy that leverages these platforms can increase the likelihood of a company being referenced within an AI search.

Away from the conference, the team also had some time to explore the city. A highlight of the trip was being invited to an evening event with canapés and drinks at Brighton’s i360 — a large observation tower on the seafront offering incredible 360-degree views of the city and the sea. A canapé favourite among the group was the mushroom arancini, of which we had plenty!

Thanks for having us, BrightonSEO — we hope to be back soon!

Dan Attends the Change Collective Conference

Dan spent last week in Baltimore for Change Collective’s National Change Lab, which is a conference focused on connecting with local leaders from Chicago, Detroit, and beyond! Whilst there he explored how bridge-building can spark stronger collaboration in our workplaces and communities. His key takeaway from the event was that bad process wastes time. In order to combat this before every meeting, you should prep your 5 P’s:

PURPOSE | PRODUCT | PEOPLE | PLACE | PROCESS

Sometimes it’s not what you discuss…it’s how you approach the conversation.

Mary and Harry Visits One Big Circle

In early October, Harry and Mary visited One Big Circle at their Bristol office to deliver a presentation on the company’s current SEO performance and a strategy proposal outlining the next steps for the coming months. As OBC are based just around the corner, the meeting provided a welcome change from the usual remote presentations and a chance to meet our clients in person. It was not only refreshing to step away from Zoom, but also a valuable opportunity to strengthen relationships and get to know the team in a more personal way.

Harry and Mary are pleased to report that the meeting went very well, with both our SEO team and the clients feeling confident about a strong finish to the 2025 strategy. They are looking forward to continued success.

The State of PHP 2025

This month, Craig has been exploring developer languages to ensure Fanatic stays on top of the latest advancements in the field. To do this, he delved into a report by JetBrains, a company synonymous with software and web development. The report focused on developer ecosystems — in layman’s terms, the network of tools, platforms, and documentation that support and enable developers to build on top of a company’s technology or product.

As part of the report, JetBrains examined the current state of PHP. A key finding was that the development community continues to rely on PHP as a long-standing language that is modernising and improving through better tooling and streamlined frameworks. The report confirmed that PHP remains a stable, professional, and evolving ecosystem with a strong global developer community.

With regards to CMSs, the report also noted that Laravel and WordPress continue to dominate the PHP framework and CMS landscape, accounting for nearly 90% of the market share combined.

Out of office

See what the team has been up to this month in their free time