Engagements typically fall into four types:
- Embedded SEO Expert (Monthly Retainer)
- Project-based SEO Support (Set fee)
- SEO Strategy
- Site Migration
- Traffic Reduction/Google Penalty Analysis
- Adhoc Consultancy (Hourly fee)
- SEO Expert Witness (Hourly fee)
Embedded SEO Expert (Monthly Retainer)
Many organisations struggle to gain cut through or momentum in organic growth due to low level of internal expertise and/or ineffective support from agencies.
Delivering organic growth requires an understanding the landscape, the business, people and product – both now and in future-state. Being deeply integrated and embedded within the organisation facilitates the rapid definition of an SEO roadmap that can be delivered over time within the organisation.
Day-to-day this means Im either directly onsite sitting within your team (limited availability) or working remotely with teams across marketing, content, UX and development to create and deliver on the SEO roadmap and well as general ownership of SEO for issues and opportunities as they arise. Also includes creation of SEO dashboards for measurement and reporting on progress.
Example: SEEK hire me to provide direction and support across various areas of the business, mostly focusing on career & learning products. I work both onsite and remotely with product, marketing, content, ux & dev.
Example: A leading Real Estate Portal tell me they work with me because I don’t BS and actually deliver results…which I guess is a compliment! Again, I’m on and offsite working directly with their teams and reporting to leadership on progress and opportunities.
Project-based SEO Support
A once off engagement with set fee/time limit to deliver a defined objective.
SEO Strategy
Popular with startups or those just starting out in SEO looking to understand the SEO landscape and general direction.
Generally includes;
- SEO Landscape analysis
- Competitor analysis & insights
- SEO Roadmap of key priorities to increase market share
Typically these result in an ongoing retainer arrangement to support delivery of the roadmap however it is of course entirely optional.
Example: A large classifieds site hired me to provide insight to their current market share vs competitors + key risks and opportunities to increase market share.
Example: A popular clothing brand hired me to better understand what was working for competitors, what was working for them and what the business needed to stop, start and keep doing to increase organic visibility.
Site Migration
I’ve supported hundreds of site migrations over the years, helping organisations to minimise the risk of moving to a new site structure as well as identifying new opportunities for traffic growth.
I work closely with both internal and external teams (E.g. design/dev agencies) to ensure we minimise traffic loss and maximise growth where possible. My process includes;
- Baseline & post-launch reporting to measure success and identify any issues
- Pre-migration content auditing/cross check (I.e. what content can/should we migrate/not migrate)
- SEO checklist for best-practice optimisation based on your business and product
- On-page optimisation
- URL mapping for redirects
- At migration live support (important! I’m there when we push the button!)
- Post-migration support to iron out any issues and report to the team on SEO status and next priorities
Example: Nine Digital hired me to provide SEO advice on the merger of drive.com.au & caradvice.com.au following acquisition of the latter.
Example: ArtsHub hired me to provide support and advice during the design and build process for an entire re-platform and migration from custom CMS to WordPress across two sites and two geo-locals.
Traffic Reduction/Google Penalty Analysis
I work with organisations who have expeirenced either an abrupt or gradual decline in organic traffic and provide answers and proactive steps to the questions of;
- What happened?
- What did we do?
- How do we fix it?
- How do we avoid it happening again?
Example; a well known magazine experienced an instant 30% decline in traffic without any clear reason. Initial investigation identified this was not a result of a penalty and more related to overall site quality.
Extensive forensic analysis of the site dove into each aspect of the site with steps to drastically improve quality signals to algorithms as well as improve overall user experience.
Adhoc SEO Consultancy
Just want to ask questions sporadically? I’m available to hire on an adhoc basis for 30/60 min consultations to answer any and all questions you have.
Example: The founder of a US-based startup in the device management space had a series of questions centred around content creation, platform choices, third-party analysis tools and SEO myths.
SEO Expert Witness
I’m available for hire as an expert witness to assist with all things SEO/organic search for your client matter. I’ve a wide breath of deep knowledge of SEO algorithms, Google guidelines, best practices and the strategies employed by sites to improve their rankings.
Example: A large law firm hired me to meet and work with their team to answer their questions resulting in the creation of a report to support their client’s dispute surrounding purposeful mis-use of their client’s brand name as part of an SEO play.
My report contributed to the matter being resolved prior to trial.
Example: I was hired by a law firm to advise their client on the SEO consequences of the early termination of a commercial agreement providing both pre-emptive SEO strategy for the client on how to minimise impact to SEO in a worst-case scenario.
My report and advice resulted in the client having added security and comfort to proceed further with the matter.
My Approach
My approach to SEO is based on proven belief that SEO isn’t something you necessarily ‘do’ in isolation – it’s an outcome of bringing together the capabilities within orgnanisations to thrive in the organic space;
- Technical – working closely with your dev/ops team to ensure search engine bots are efficiently able to crawl, understand and index your content.
- Content – helping you understand what content to write, how to structure it and how to get ongoing growth and ROI from this activity.
- Links – leveraging your brand and content assets to continually improve your backlink profile.
Day to Day
I work with you to understand our objectives and, following analysis of the above levers, create a prioritised SEO Roadmap.
I then work closely with your Development, UX and Content teams to roll this out through Zoom, Slack, Email, Trello/JIRA/Asana and provide dashboard reporting so everybody has visibility on our progress.
Key Brand History
- ANZ
- Fairfax Media
- Medibank
- News Corp
- Nine Digital
- SEEK
- Telstra
- Victorian Government
I’m happy to provide current client references upon request so you can get some real feedback on me and how I work.