About freelance SEO consultant Guy Willett

How I came to be a freelance SEO consultant

My background

My entire career has been spent in various forms of marketing. Having reached Commercial Director level in my last couple of positions I had the unenviable task of determining how to go about optimising the company website. Like you, I considered employing an SEO specialist. Perhaps like you, I was left frequently hugely confident by almost every SEO account manager's pitch that I met (I say 'met', face to meetings were very much a rarity). However, after subsequently hiring each SEO agency, after numerous months of expectantly waiting, I was left thoroughly underwhelmed by the results that were delivered. Over-promised and under-delivered would summarise my every hire.

My typical SEO agency experience

If you've ever used a typical agency your experience may be similar to mine. After wholly convincing pitches made by a charismatic Account Manager, you plump for 'guaranteed results' and 'astronomical rise in site traffic'. A month or so passes and very little has been made of access to many assets and you're told they are still 'setting up'.

A couple of months further pass and you're wondering where any ranking improvements are. You're assured that it very much a case of being patient because, of course, 'SEO takes ages to work'. A further few months later where you get a gnawing feeling that things aren't happening and results aren't forthcoming so you call the SEO agency in if they are prepared to do this which in most cases they aren't.

The meeting or call normally goes one of two ways. Questioned about the activities undertaken I was either fobbed off with 'you wouldn't understand the complexities' or 'our conscious is clear since we got some keywords to rank'. So then questioned about the results the former's response is, just hang in there and magical things will happen.

The latter's response is often 'we got you to page one for some phrases so it's not our fault if you're not getting the enquiries or sales'. What is frequently omitted from their response is that the search volumes for what they did have success with were practically negligible so the chances of getting enquiries or sales were always going to be low. Of course, perhaps if the SEO agency had shared these search volumes at the proposal stage maybe they wouldn't have been chosen. That's why I always share this vital information with the client as part of my free SEO audit.

The end result. The contract ends with the obvious notice period having to honoured despite the poor performance. The SEO agency has made its money and walks away with a deluded sense of probity. And the client. The client is left with frequently very little other than a jaded feeling that maybe SEO isn't for them and maybe the warnings they received prior to hiring an SEO about it being all 'smoke and mirrors' was right.

Of course, this isn't everyone's experience. Some people experience improvements straight away and things look great. Then a few months or longer pass and out of the blue their rankings plummet without any warning. This is frequently the calling card of 'black hat' techniques employed by their SEO agency which have come to roost with the most recent Google algorithm update. Then follows a long period of Google disavowals and lost sales or maybe even no longer appearing on search engine results. For many purely online companies, this can be armageddon.

Born of frustration

So after suffering the above experiences and hearing about other people's SEO misfortunes, it left me thinking. Could I do SEO myself and do it better? So I set about consuming every podcast, tutorial and YouTube video I could find. It turned out that 'white hat' SEO isn't something that is mystical and unknowable. In fact, what it turns out to be is largely following good business practice and just a lot of sheer hard work. Good SEO doesn't simply happen, it requires thought, planning and continual updating. There are very few short cuts and frequently short cuts will contravene SEO best practice guidelines or won't be that effective. 

However, despite the steep learning curve, the unrelenting workload, and the odd cul de sac I found it terrifically rewarding and enjoyable process. In fact, I found it much more intuitive and creatively rewarding than the rest of the sales and marketing remit I was doing. You may think it odd I say creative, rather than say analytical, which it also is, but there's so much more to SEO than cold calculations. In fact, it comes down to some very deep questions about what is at the core of what a company does. What is it that makes prospects choose to be your customer.

I determined that I would do my own SEO. SEO in 2016 is a very different beast to several years ago, Google now rewards you for building natural links within your local and trade community. Additionally, I was getting a real buzz from delivering real-world results using ethical SEO techniques to build significant ROI. In one position the results were so significant it meant that a telemarketing team of 3 making outbound calls was reduced down to just 1 who was largely reassigned to dealing with inbound calls generated from internet traffic!

The rest, as they say, is history. Over the last 4 years, I've worked with over 75 fantastic clients that have been a real privilege to work for. Suffice to say, I'm looking forward to the next 4 years working in the challenging and ever-changing world of SEO consultancy.