The Targeted SEO Journey
Thanks for taking an interest in me; it’s good to meet you! I actually starting writing this article way back in August 2023 as I travelled around Jordan on holiday with my family (there were a lot of long journeys). I wanted to share some history into my SEO career and the amazing journey that I’ve been on so far with our agency Targeted SEO. 😎
I wasn’t sure if visitors of our website would be that interested, but I thought what the hell! It’s my website and I can do what I want with it!
Anyway, I hope you find it interesting and an enjoyable read!
Career before SEO
I now consider myself a seasoned SEO professional with a strong background in developing and marketing online brands (over 20 years!). My expertise ranges from branding, web design and development to content marketing and, of course, my passion – search engine optimisation!
Back in formal education, I enjoyed design and always approached my work with a graphic style. Deciding on a creative career was easy, and after studying design at Southampton Institute (now Solent Uni… showing my age!), I secured my first role at a local printing company. Designing artwork for print and generating print plates for press was a solid grounding for an early career in graphic design (we’re talking late 90’s here!).
A few companies later, and after a year long career break backpacking in Australia and Southeast Asia in 2005, I landed a graphic design role at Garmin, the American GPS company. This was a valuable experience as I progressed into web design and development, and eventually held a senior digital manager position. This involved working across many online marketing channels, including brand development, product launches, and Ecommerce SEO.
My introduction to SEO
It wasn’t long before I discovered the value of increasing website visibility in organic search as a way to generate sales. I started to dabble in building and monetising my own content websites by recommending products linked to Amazon Associates and using display advertising to generate passive income. My SEO journey had begun.
Leaving Garmin, having been there for just short of 10 years, was an emotional experience. However, by now, I could see the earning potential of SEO not just for myself but for others too. I continued to build my own content sites which were monetised. I still have several sites I own personally for SEO testing, and for lead generation purposes!
As I grew into SEO further I realised the potential of lead generation for other businesses using the power of organic search.
Launching Targeted SEO
At that time it was unusual to find a local SEO consultant who can design a great website with quality SEO built-in. What’s more, my wife, Emma, has a background in marketing and advertising, plus strong skills in content creation and copywriting. We realised we were a formidable team! Emma came up with the name Targeted SEO, and we registered the business soon after in 2018.
I’d spent months studying SEO and how to rank a website for local search terms. It made total sense to try and rank for all the local SEO search terms, such as SEO Agency and SEO Consultant for the Southampton area. We actually achieved it quite quickly, much to the frustration of other more established agencies, I’m sure! Within a month, we’d secured our first retained client on a healthy budget of £1,000pm, and we grew organically from there.
Scaling the SEO agency through a pandemic and beyond
With Emma by my side, we worked extremely hard to grow our client base and maintain fantastic results. Things were moving nicely, and we scaled quickly, soon surpassing £10k per month in revenue. It wasn’t easy. We had great skills and experience, but we’d never run a business before. We learned as we went along, from VAT registration to Xero for bookkeeping, invoicing to corporation tax, and so on. Still, to this day, I’m not sure how we did it and managed to service our clients to a high standard at the same time.
Then COVID came along, and, like thousands of other small businesses, we feared the worst. Perhaps our business journey was going to go bang! I’m relieved to say that it was quite the opposite: With face-to-face meetings and sales no longer possible, more businesses needed to source customers online. That meant they had to increase their visibility in Google search results by optimising their websites. Enter SEO.
Another huge challenge was juggling two young children and homeschooling 😩. By this point, we did have a small office nearby, so I was able to escape the chaos at home and make sure our clients were still being serviced to the best of our ability. But Emma’s time was severely impacted.
Despite all of this, we continued our rapid growth. Post-COVID and around 30 clients later, we found a fantastic business coach and mentor, Andy Hollands, from Mint Performance. Andy provided valuable guidance through the early startup stages. He helped us realise that we needed more staff and resources to continue taking on new clients.
From that moment, we set out to create a fully-fledged SEO agency.
Growing the SEO team
I was lucky to work with a very technical chap at Garmin, who I knew could help with in the early stages of setting up some of systems and processes. Tim worked for us part-time to begin with, successfully setting up our new dedicated hosting servers, migrating websites, and deployed new systems, as well as providing support to our growing client requests.
Caroline was our first full-time hire. During her interview, I had a lightbulb moment as she presented her work and ideas which were focussed around content. I could see her potential to become an excellent SEO consultant.
To our great pride and pleasure, Caroline has excelled in her role and continues to impress us as her confidence and experience expand (as do all our employees!).
Establishing strong processes
Several hires later, we have a strong team of eight with disciplines across all areas needed to build a successful, strong online presence for our clients. We have also worked extremely hard on processes and integrated software, including Asana (project management), Notion (content planning for clients), and Hubspot (client comms, sales). Finally, we also have Slack and Google Workspaces. Our operating procedures are constantly evolving and being fine-tuned.
Building a great SEO Agency culture
Over the years, I’ve experienced a mix of office cultures and management styles, some very good and some very bad! Emma has also been on the receiving end of poor management and negative working environments. So, we were determined to create a great employee culture, and we have put a lot of effort into making Targeted SEO an enjoyable place to work.
We do offer a hybrid approach, but we find our team enjoys coming into the office. There’s a great buzz in the office when everyone is in, which I love! Also, the ability to talk things through in person and bounce ideas off quickly is very valuable to a small team.
We are a very open and honest team. No subject is off the table, and no opinion isn’t welcome. This makes us stronger and more agile and keeps morale high.
Among her many hats, Emma is also Head of HR and is on the ball when it comes to introducing team benefits and initiatives. We’ve enjoyed some great team events, including climbing Mount Snowdon, which the whole team achieved despite taking one of the more difficult ascents, and even more recently a corporate wine tasting event!
We’re really proud to have created a well-bonded and happy team and look forward to growing it further!
Nurturing SEO talent
So far, we have built a wonderful multidisciplinary team that allows us to deliver a wide range of services, including SEO consultancy, local and national SEO services, search-optimised web design, content strategy and creation, and branding among a few!
It’s very important to me to continue nurturing new talent as we grow. By continuing to create a supportive culture of continuous learning, we can ensure our team stays sharp and adaptable to industry changes.
Finding the right clients
Since Targeted SEO launched, we’ve worked with many different types of businesses, from accountants to pest controllers, energy experts to boat builders! It’s been a learning curve to discover which clients are the right fit for our culture and who also have the appetite for organic SEO. We’re always careful to inform potential clients about the long-term nature of what we do.
Those that have stuck with us and been consistent have seen outstanding results and return on their website investment.
Future SEO Agency plans
Continued growth is always on the horizon for Targeted SEO – we’re not a standstill SEO agency, and we never will be. Besides, considering the number of referrals and leads we generate, growth is inevitable! Our goal is to grow sustainably so we can continue to deliver great results and provide amazing service.
Award-winning SEO agency…?
At the time of writing Targeted SEO has been nominated twice in the UK Search Awards 2024 in the categories of Best Small SEO Agency and Best Low Budget SEO Campaign.
I know it’s extremely competitive to win agency awards, but given our journey so far, I’m delighted and proud just to have been nominated alongside other fantastic agencies.
Pick Ben’s SEO Brain 🧠
I could talk about SEO all day long – can you tell? If SEO has sparked your interest, then why not get in touch to apply for an SEO consultation?
We also offer advanced SEO audits to uncover how your current website is performing in the search results.
Thanks so much for reading! For further insights and updates, follow me on LinkedIn and keep an eye on our blog.
