Freelance SEO Consultant Surrey

I am quite agnostic when it comes to software, but like every SEO I like to use Google Search Console and Bind Search Console and Analytics as a minimum. Then we have crawling tools like Screaming Frog and Sitebulb, and I usually would use SEMRush and Ahrefs too. I have also used Majestic SEO which is a ‘nice to have’ if there are enough budgets. Of course there are many more great tools I have used. especially when it comes to enterprise SEO/ecommerce with larger budgets for more complex and expensive tools. 

I prefer to work with small to medium businesses where we can discuss with either the sole marketing person or the business owner directly. 

Project work may not need a monthly retainer. If you wish to improve SEO over time then a retainer for at least 6 months for example makes sense and then we can see where we are.

To start any project takes the most time to understand the business, issues and to set the strategy – this I like to include in a one-off setup cost. I do not like to waste time with fancy audit documents which a) do not get read b) do not get implemented and c) fancy presentations to impress. I like to focus on the actual needs and wants and which work we need to do to make a difference.

To monitor positions and issues there will be a regular cost based on size of the website. This is due to expenditure on tools and also time taken to review and make suggestions. Then I like to price based on the time needed to complete these tasks – I do not have huge overheads.  Each month the retainer would cover small fixes like broken links, content updates etc. 

I do – please get in touch with what you are thinking, but I can work to a set cost for a defined amount of work to be delivered by an agreed date. 

I began learning SEO back in 2002 where I followed a simple guide given to me by my boss at the time, who had given it a go himself. Things were very different back then, but the end goal is the same. Get the right traffic from search engines that will lead to leads and sales. 

I’ve worked for an agency which gave me knowledge by way of learning from others and also learning a wide variety of tools, systems, processes and also understanding a wide variety of clients. Since then I’ve worked in house for start-ups on both new and for established brands. Sometimes this involved implementing others strategy, sometimes my own. I’ve worked alongside consultants such as Joost of Yoast fame, with other agencies who provided support to the company I worked for. I’ve also worked freelance on a number of businesses and even for an agency on a group of their clients on a part time basis. 

As for qualifications, my Internet Engineering degree covered a lot of different technical areas, such as Java, Databases, HTML, Servers, Search Engines and even computer graphics. For specific SEO training, there are now many more courses out there. I have completed both BlueArray courses, the SEO Manager Certification and also the Technical SEO Certification. 

I also like to keep up to date with Google Analytics on a regular basis, follow search engine news, conferences and the debates which happen. 

But with SEO, the main learning is in the doing – not everything will work for every business due to what is actually possible. 

I’ve worked with large multinational corporations with a suite of household brands when at an agency, restaurants, high street shops, services based businesses, and many more. I take time to understand each business I work with and each service I provide is bespoke to what is needed. 

I’ve built websites from scratch using html and PHP, but I do not pretend to be a web designer or developer. However, I’ve used many CMS systems, Sanity, WordPress, Umbraco, Shopify, Webflow and more. I like to use WordPress and Webflow, especially for smaller projects and Shopfy for Ecommerce. I understand why developers may prefer to use other systems for security and other technical reasons and have worked with many teams to get changes made, fix errors and improve page templates. 

We’re based in Oxted, which is a lovely small town in East Surrey. Located in Tandridge, we’re near the Kent Border, the M25, Caterham, Redhill and Reigate. We’ve previously lived and worked in London. 

I feel like I have got results on most if not all websites I have worked on. Sometimes it is small wins, sometimes it is wins that last and are hard to topple. But the nature of the internet means they may not all be out there. Most of my early wins all involved promotional printing products and focussing on different terms there. I had built and maintained 7 websites by the time I left in 2005, all of them with a place. For the Agency I worked for I concentrated on ranking for some terms such as SEO Agency, PPC Agency and also ranking their simple tools which was a good way to get exposure and thus links at the time. They are still around and you may be able to ‘find’ them if you are lucky. I am sure they do great work! 

When I left the agency, I joined CoinDesk, well CoinDesk did not exist when I joined Shak on that project. But when the team pulled together to get the bitcoin news website live, I conducted research around the terms we could target. We developed a plan to get regular traffic from these evergreen topics like producing a guide/learning section to target question based terms like ‘What is Bitcoin’. The Price Index targeted ‘Bitcoin Price’ and the website itself was initially focussed on ‘Bitcoin News’. These were all high volume and fairly competitive, even in 2013. I worked towards this goal, and achieved P1 listings within 6-8 months, certainly helped by many links from the mainstream media and our reporters breaking some major stories. For monitisation, I devised a plan for ‘Where to Buy Bitcoin’ pages for different regions and paired with affiliate partnerships to drive some revenue to aid the fledgling website.

Of course, there are many more results out there, I will dig out some stats from the archives.