Why Me?

Self-proclaimed SEO experts are like grains of sand at the beach. This page explains why I’m different from any of the previous “gurus” you’ve encountered.

Chess, Not Checkers

You may notice I use the term “long-term strategic advantage” quite a lot. That’s not an accident. I believe this is the core of what makes my approach unique as an SEO professional.

Different digital marketing channels serve different purposes in your digital strategy, and a coherent digital strategy must include a long term plan to build as much organic search traffic as possible, on the right keywords, at the lowest cost achievable.

This reduces reliance on paid ads and labour-intensive “hustle marketing” to keep your business humming. It diversifies your lead streams and helps you weather the unpredictable storms that any business can face. A strong organic lead stream built on stable rankings is itself an asset that helps maximise the value of your business.

Restricted Onboarding

There are only so many new campaigns that can be taken on at once without quality of work slipping and shortcuts being taken. Getting familiar with a new website takes time. I only onboard a maximum of three new clients at any given time.

Personal Touch

I design all client campaigns personally, direct all work carried out by my team and monitor results myself to adjust and iterate. You can have confidence the owner of the business is the one running your campaign.

5 Star Reviews

I have a 5-star rating across all my reviews and in my case, you know these reviews relate to me personally. With a large agency you never know if their reviews will be reflected in your own experience due to the luck of the draw of exactly which team members end up running your account.

SEO Is About More Than Building Rankings And Traffic.

It’s About Risk Management, Defending Your Territory, Diversifying Lead Streams, And Maximising Asset Value.

I borrow many concepts from the world of investment management, which I believe provides many applicable insights for SEO and digital strategy in general – concepts like diversification, risk management, allocation and compounding all apply to SEO but I have never seen another SEO expert mention an investment term outside of “ROI.” Even that term is often used incorrectly because it doesn’t include a long term view (whether you maintain your rankings for one year or 10 years is a key part of the ROI equation – arguably the biggest part!).

Rising Lead Volumes / Fixed Costs = Lower Long-Term Acquisition Costs

The beauty of SEO as a channel is the volume continues to grow over time while costs stay relatively fixed (unlike paid ads where costs naturally scale up as you scale volume). Of course, an intelligently constructed SEO strategy will include ‘quick wins’ and the goal is always to achieve growth as quickly as possible without taking unnecessary risks – but the real ROI from SEO comes 1 year, 2 years, 5 years down the road when your business is in a position where you have permanently lowered your cost of acquisition relative to competitors.

That is long-term strategic advantage. That is playing chess, not checkers.

Case Studies

Smart SEO & Google Ads helped PsychologyCare grow to 28 associates2024-10-21T08:54:54+00:00

Smart SEO & Google Ads helped PsychologyCare grow to 28 associates

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PocketSmith – from #29 to Top 5 in the US for ‘personal finance software’2024-10-17T07:38:36+00:00

PocketSmith – from #29 to Top 5 in the US for ‘personal finance software’

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Taking The Healing Centre from zero to #1 for ‘Auckland chiropractors’2024-10-18T12:54:58+00:00

Taking The Healing Centre from zero to #1 for ‘Auckland chiropractors’

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80/20 SEO Strategy

The problem I see with most SEO services and why they just “don’t work” is that the agencies or consultants behind them do not understand the weighting of factors in the algorithm well enough to make smart 80/20 decisions about how to allocate scarce resources. In short: they aren’t able to answer: “What is the ONE next-best use of resources that will have the biggest impact on the rankings that matter to our business objectives?” Answering that question over and over again is how good SEO works in practice.

Strategy, Vision, & Understanding The Algorithm

If your SEO agency doesn’t understand the Google algorithm well, your results will be poor no matter how much you spend. It doesn’t matter how many hours go into your SEO if they are going towards factors that have little to no weight in the algorithm.

I’ve managed SEO campaigns across hundreds of websites in dozens of industries across New Zealand, Australia and international markets. I won’t say I’ve seen it all, but I’m getting pretty close.

You wouldn’t trust your retirement fund with someone who doesn’t have a long-term mindset – so why do that with your SEO and digital marketing? Especially when 90% of the payoff from SEO success comes after the first 6 months.

The problem I see with most SEO services and why they just “don’t work” is that the agencies or consultants behind them do not understand the weighting of factors in the algorithm well enough to make smart 80/20 decisions about how to allocate scarce resources. In short: they aren’t able to answer: “What is the ONE next-best use of resources that will have the biggest impact on the rankings that matter to our business objectives?” Answering that question over and over again is how good SEO works in practice.

It’s shocking to even have to mention it, but basic literacy in statistics and probability seems to be absent form a lot of skillsets in this industry. In my opinion, if a “guru” doesn’t understand the stats and probability behind SEO, they don’t understand SEO. This is critical for being able to analyse results and draw insights from analytics in order to decide on the best next step and to understand the timelines and short-term unpredictability involved in building rankings. Rankings rarely go up in a straight line.

‘Checklist SEO’ packages don’t work well because SEO is iterative – by which I mean the next step needs to be decided in real time based on the current results and a thorough understanding of the algorithm.

“Highly recommend Tom! He’s very professional, experienced and continues to lead our SEO strategy for ADInstruments. AAAAA+++++”

Justin Cashell

Digital Marketing Manager, ADInstruments

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