ReadingSEO Master Deck - 23rd January

@ReadingSEO Website: ReadingSEO.org
Karen Julia
(SEO Consultant -
PhotoSEOLab)
Helen Pollitt
(Managing Director - Arrows
Up)
Nat Arney
(SEO Manager - Alternative
Airlines)

SCHEDULE:
● Take your seats
● Niche down vs Numbers up! - Karen Julia
● In House vs Agency. Fight?! - Natalie Arney
● *Break*
● Standing on the shoulders of giants: beating the big companies at
SEO - Helen Pollitt
● Questions
● Finish up all the food & booze
Karen Julia
(SEO Consultant -
PhotoSEOLab)
Nat Arney
Airlines)
Helen Pollitt
Up)

House Rules:
● Mobile phones on silent please!
● Questions not comments
● Don’t interrupt the speakers
● Don’t leave half way through a talk
● Fire exits & Toilets
Karen Julia
(SEO Consultant -
PhotoSEOLab)
Nat Arney
Airlines)
Helen Pollitt
Up)

Up First: Niche down vs Numbers up!
Karen Julia
(SEO Consultant -
PhotoSEOLab)

Niche Down, Numbers Up!
The beneﬁts of embracing an SEO niche

Niche Down, Numbers Up
It’s easier that ever to start an SEO
business.
The easier it is to set up any type of
business, and the lower the entry
requirements, the more saturated a market
becomes.

Niche Down, Numbers Up: Marketing in 2020
Recent research by Hubspot shows that generating traﬃc and leads was the biggest
challenge faced by marketers, followed by proving ROI.

What if there was a way to:
● Reduce your competition
● Make lead acquisition easier
● Increase proﬁts
● AND have more fun?

Niche work, if you can get it!

Hey! I’m Karen!
I Specialise in working with
photographers. Speciﬁcally wedding
photographers.
● Wedding photographer since 2005
● Photographed 423 weddings
● Started learning SEO in 2007
● Hit by ﬁrst roll out of Panda in 2012
● Started over in 2014
● Providing SEO services to the
photography industry since 2015

Wedding Photography Niche Stats
Research by SLR lounge est. the number of wedding
photographers in the USA alone at approx 50k.
Based on:
● 2.4 million weddings
● 50% of the weddings having a photographer
● 21 weddings per photographer.
I work with clients in the USA, UK, Europe, New
Zealand, Australia and Canada.

Finding Your Niche
Now that you know niching down with
help your clients and reduce your
competitors, how do you decide on a
niche?
● Choose an area you have a personal
interest or expertise in.
● Find the pain points in that industry
● Create solutions to solve those
problems with SEO
● Deliver value to the community

Reduce Your Competition
A quick Google Search shows:
● SEO Services: 479,000,000 Results
● Local SEO: 291,000,000
● Photography SEO: 324,000,000
● Wedding Photography SEO: 20,300,000
● Wedding SEO: 49,600,000
● Cycle shop SEO: 11,600,000
● CBD SEO: 13,700,000
● Cannabis SEO: 4,310,000
● White label SEO: 32,600,000

Niche to see you, to see you, niche!

Those key beneﬁts again:
● Reduce your competition
● Make lead acquisition easier
● Increase proﬁts
● AND have more fun?

Make Lead Acquisition Easier
Being an expert in your niche:
● Makes marketing and networking easier
● Allows you to connect with a potential clients risk
aversion
● Makes you the least risky choice
● Means that clients come to you after having
negative experiences because you’re seen as a
trusted option
● The risk of NOT booking you becomes too high

Increase Proﬁts
The harder you niche, the better your proﬁt margins
tend to be. By niching down, you:
● Reduce variables
● Can create simpler systems
● Simplify individual tasks
● Make outsourcing admin tasks easier (I’d
recommend a company called Freeeup to source
talented contractors)
● Avoid the ‘feast or famine’ cycle by creating a wait
list, that in turn creates more demand.

Turnover for vanity, proﬁt for sanity
Duncan Bannatyne

Increase Profits
When designing your niche SEO business:
● Design with profits first
● Create systems that support outsourcing
● Create systems with built in time efficiency
● Track time precisely
● Review financials regularly
● Build cash reserves
● Know your profit margins!
● Aim for 50% margin as a minimum
● Margin calculator tool: https://www.omnicalculator.com/finance/margin

Learn more at: photoseolab.com/reading-seo-2020

Up Next: In House vs Agency. Fight?!
Nat Arney
(SEO Manager -
Alternative Airlines)

Hi, I’m Natalie (Nat)...
Natalie Arney @__nca

I’ve worked agency side and in house, for brands
including...

Let’s Talk About In
House vs Agency...

Diﬀerent Types of In Housers...
● Fully In House (no agency support)
● Small in house (agency does ‘the work’)
● Agency support
● Soft touch agency

Why do both exist?
Why not?!
● Cost
● Efficiencies
● Location

What Delivers ROI?
… it depends!

Beneﬁts of Agency
● Strategies have been tried and tested
● Tasks are prioritised over the people’s skillset (ie if someone can’t do
something, someone else can)
● Ease of handover if someone leaves
● Wider talent pool
● Tools
● Cutting edge, up-to-date
● Support from other channels

Downsides to Agency
● Slow communications
● Communication barriers - eg account management teams rather than direct
access to specialists
● Too many cooks
● Not enough time
● Expensive
● Other clients may take priority
● Clients expect the world for their money
● Competitors
● Ownership of content and data

Beneﬁts of In House
● Agility
● Ability to form close relationships with stakeholders and internal teams
● Full understanding on the brand and products offered
● Have full control over process at all times
● More time to spend deep diving
● You own your work

Downsides to In House
● If things go wrong - it’s down to YOU!
● You might be the only SEO within the whole company
● You may have to do non-SEO work to help out
● People won’t know or understand exactly what you do
● Same eyes on long term projects
● Strategies vs skills
● Employment gaps

In house agency

How Can the Two Work Together?
● Training and workshops
● Use technical advisors to win over stakeholders and decision makers
● Making connections with others within the business (eg dev)
● Spending time together - agency specialists to spend time on site with client,
and client to spend time at the agency

How About Moving Roles?
What’s different when moving in house from agency?
● Timesheets!
● Accountability
● Less paperwork (depends on the company)
● Direct influence on your work
● YOU and your team are the experts!
It took me a little while to adjust to in house culture, but once I got here, I took it and
ran with it!

The Answer?
… it depends!

Want a new in house role?
Alternative Airlines is recruiting for an SEO Manager
More details here: https://www.alternativeairlines.com/work-with-us
…. Or feel free to speak to me!

Up Next: Standing on the shoulders of giants:
beating the big companies at SEO
Helen Pollitt
(Managing Director -
Arrows Up)

Standing on the shoulders of
giants: beating the big
companies at SEO
Helen Pollitt
@helenpollitt1
@ArrowsUpUK

SEO training | Consultancy | Team building
Helen Pollitt
Managing Director
10+ years in marketing
SEO with a tech and strategy focus
Want to change the world (of SEO education)

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
Small business vs giant competitor

@helenpollitt1@ArrowsUpUKwww.arrowsup.co.uk
Lacking resources

Lacking focus

@helenpollitt@ArrowsUpUwww.rrowsup.co.uk
Lacking budget

THE LIES WE’VE BEEN TOLD?
What doesn’t matter

@helenpollitt@ArrowsUpUwww.arrowsup.co.u
Doman age matters

PPC makes
a difference

Google favours
big brands

WHAT MAKES THEM GIANT?
What do they have that you don’t

Brand name

Brand
association

@helenpollitt@ArrowsUpUwww.arrowsup.co.u @helenpollitt1@ArrowsUpUKwww.arrowsup.co.uk

Digital PR

Marketing teams

Experienced
leadership

They’re rich

HOW ARE THEY NOT ALL THAT?
All giants can fall

Slow

Stuck by
bureaucracy

Legacy mess

Restrictive
brand tone

THE STRATEGY
How you’ll make your mark

Move when
they can’t

Learn from their mistakes

Bring the ﬁght to your turf

Don’t be afraid to
iterate and experiment

FINDING YOUR SECRET WEAPON
What will differentiate you

Link analysis

Content audit

Gap analysis

What to compete on

Format gap analysis

SHOWING UP IN THE SHADOWS
Being seen in the SERPs when you can’t
rank ﬁrst

Make more
of video

YouTube
time stamp

Audio

Images

Optimise for Google Images

What formats are
ranking?

Make your meta better

Dominate the
real estate

Organic e-commerce
listings
“popular products”

Featured snippet

Wikipedia

@helenpollitt@ArrowsUpUwww.arrowsup.co.u @helenpollitt1@ArrowsUpUKwww.arrowsup.co.uk
Optimise for local

Favicons

Re-use and
improve content

STAY IN FORMATION
Keeping your team on track

Close the silos

Spend time researching what your
audience wants

Learn how your audience talks

MAKING IT TO FIRST PLACE
Outranking the outrankable

Keep an eye
on trends

Optimise for future searches

Longtail for
the win

Keep niche

Hyper-relevant backlinks

ReadingSEO Master Deck - 23rd January

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ReadingSEO Master Deck - 23rd January