Adapting To The SEO World
One year into my job, I’d finished my apprenticeship and stepped into a full-time SEO role, managing 19 client accounts plus still handling that £250k project from before.
But by this point, most of my real learning came after hours.
In true unfiltered fashion, I saw plenty of failure. Me and a mate launched a travel blog and went all in, testing backlink strategies (from high-quality guest posts to dodgy Fiverr links), content frameworks (AI-optimised mass pages vs. long-form, data-backed authority posts) and everything in between.
We tried it all. Most of it flopped.
We realised the golden days of niche blogging were dying fast. So we pivoted hard.
I dove deep into parasite SEO, Reddit ranking hacks, expired domains, and exact match domain testing. Not theory, actual execution. Late nights and weekends grinding through what worked and what didn’t.
That extra work gave me a huge edge at my day job. I wasn’t just doing SEO, I understood it and knew what worked.
As a result, I started getting better results. And those results got noticed.
Soon, I was handed bigger clients, larger retainers and global brands. I had the freedom to lead strategies and execute high-impact campaigns on my own terms.
Then came the turning point.
Two years in, I struck gold on one of the accounts I personally managed from start to finish – strategy, delivery, client calls, the lot.
I built and published a content strategy that exploded:
+1,094.16% increase in organic sessions
+319.61% increase in organic conversions (that’s 1,972 more phone calls YoY)
It was massive.
I submitted the campaign to the UK Search Awards 2024 under Best Local SEO Campaign (Large)… and I won.
It was the agency’s first ever UK Search Award win in the SEO department. And for me, it was the sign I’d been waiting for.
So I handed in my notice.
It was finally time to build my own thing.
Social Media Success
(The Real Start?)
We were 12. Our tactics? Shaky at best. Shoutout for shoutout, follow-for-follow, clickbait galore. Whack the account on private and boom—followers flew in. It was pure chaos… but it worked. Something you could only get away with in the early days of Instagram.
(Spoiler alert: it didn’t go well.)