Q&A With Carl Hendy From audits.com
Carl is one of my go to SEO resources, he is one of the very few who truly understands organic search and how SEO connects to the wider business and more importantly how it connects to the long-term goals of the company.
Having known each other for well over a decade and collaborated on a project or two, here are a handful of quick-fire questions Carl offers considered answers (I bet you will learn a thing or two below) and highlights why he has had successful exits as a business owner and is trusted by many of the largest businesses with their most important revenue-driving channels.
Q1/ You recently launched audits.com, apart from how did you get the domain, what are the most frequently asked questions about audits and your services?
I’m quite a private person therefore I won’t share the cost, I might want to sell it one day 😃.
I played the long game and spent quite a bit of time tracking down the owner. Once a price was agreed the handover of the domain name was done pretty quickly. I acquired the domain name directly from the previous owner and no third parties were involved other than using Escrow to handle payment and exchange of goods. Outside of my SEO work I felt the domain name was a safe long term purchase as can be applied to many different markets, I wouldn’t have been that interested if it seoaudits.com etc
Rightly or wrongly, the first question I’m often asked is, "How much traffic do you think you can drive to the website?" This is a question that cannot be answered without conducting thorough discovery work and competitor analysis, both of which are time-consuming and require investment. The clients I work with typically have multiple products or services spread across various languages, with differing competition for each product or service in each language. It’s a significant undertaking. Be cautious of anyone or any agency that provides such a number with a quick turnaround. Many of the forecasts I’ve seen in proposals fail to filter out brand demand, meaning that like-for-like visibility comparisons often offer little genuine value.
In the last 12 months, I’ve noticed a definite increase in brands wanting to cap their PPC budgets or reallocate existing spend, while pushing their organic channels to work harder. Brands are finding PPC more expensive and, like SEO, increasingly difficult to quantify. PPC now faces a similar issue where spend is often funnelled into a 'black box' at Google. Additionally, there has been considerable frustration across teams with the introduction of Google Analytics 4, leading many to seek alternative analytics solutions or recreate their previous dashboards.
A lot of my work involves websites that have been affected, rightly or wrongly, by Google algorithm updates. Common questions include: “How long will it take to recover?”, “How much internal resource will we need?”, and “Can we regain what we've lost?” which doesn’t seem to be a problem for Reddit at the moment.
An interesting observation I’ve made is that while many brands are aware they may have been impacted by the recent Google Helpful Content Update or a Core Update and are keen to address it, they’re often unaware that their website has been struggling with algorithm updates going back over 5 years. There does appear to be a more widespread, public understanding of how Google algorithm updates impact businesses now than in the past, and some of the recent media coverage of the Google updates has been quite scathing.
Click here to audits.com and see Carl's brilliant offering and great branding
Q2/ What is unique about audits.com offering to ecom teams, SEOs and CMOs that others don’t?
Most brands or business owners I speak with are backed by either private equity or VC funding. Having recently built and sold a highly regarded SEO agency to private equity, I understand the process, accountability, and sometimes the pressures that come with those responsibilities of financial investment. Additionally, I am well-versed in concepts such as team structures, resource allocation, financial budgeting, and employee management. This is not usually the case for SEO teams.
My career spans across cybersecurity, IT support, financial services, web development, and marketing; therefore, I have a good understanding of how an ‘internet business’ operates at many levels.
A full discovery and opportunity assessment must take place before diving into traditional SEO recommendations. This approach typically differs from how a traditional SEO project might begin. Therefore, I rarely rush into new business opportunities with just my ‘SEO hat’ on. In fact, it’s often quite the opposite. I tend to evaluate feedback from clients and data to determine whether the ‘organic’ channel presents a realistic opportunity to drive acquisition and revenue. It’s easy to look at any website and identify traditional ‘SEO issues’; the real question is whether those opportunities translate into a financial return within the expected timeframe.
The reality is that many brands have an unrealistic expectation of how quickly SEO can generate returns. Many older websites, which have grown organically, undergone multiple revisions, and been modified by various stakeholders, are often affected by one of the many Google algorithm updates. As a result, significant change and patience are required before the benefits of those changes are realised. There will always be some quick wins, but for a long-term, successful SEO campaign, it requires a more all-encompassing brand, product, and channel strategy.
When auditing and reviewing a website's performance, I focus on recommending actions that will have a compounding effect on long-term performance improvement. For most websites, only a small percentage of recommendations will yield noticeable results. For a well-established brand in their industry, they may only require a few strategic changes or a clean-up of search signals to drive a significant increase in visibility and financial gain. You don’t need to implement every piece of SEO fluff out there. It really is about understanding which levers to pull, and in most cases, it's a compounding effect of many small ones.
I aim to work with clients in a way that simplifies their understanding of SEO, connecting it directly to their customers and products. This might involve improving existing processes, eliminating unnecessary activities, and, where possible, automating SEO housekeeping tasks. When you strip away the SEO jargon and focus on recommendations that relate directly to the client and their products, it’s much easier to gain stakeholder buy-in. Some of the SEO terminology can be off-putting and means very little to most clients-avoid using it, as they might just tune out. Most established brands need to return to SEO basics that align with their customers, brand and products-keep it simple.
I love working directly with business owners and stakeholders, and I often function as an internal stakeholder. This gives me a greater understanding of a client's business and customers than an external third-party agency might achieve. My experience with large, complex corporate structures within companies such as BlackRock, Aviva, O2, and Groupon has allowed me to understand and overcome the challenges in achieving SEO change and success within a corporate environment.
Q3/ We have spoken about the issues most in-house teams have with limited dev resources to be able to complete recommendations made from audits and make the number of optimisations required to improve search performance, what are the 3-5 work streams Marketing teams can do to help themselves most?
Simplify - SEO really isn’t that confusing if you always factor in your customers and provide content that matches the intent of the query. Keep your website clean and declutter every few months. Make sure you have Google Search Console setup so you can get some top level insights and recommendations.
Integrate - Historically, the SEO channel has been quite isolated from existing marketing channels, development teams, and product. For the SEO channel to succeed, the team needs to be integrated within marketing and product channels. Although SEO is given more consideration within large corporations, there is still a lack of additional resources allocated to the channel, as it will struggle to succeed on its own. Greater integration of the channel will help demonstrate its value and how SEO complements all channels. It is the responsibility of the SEO team to educate and demonstrate the monetary value of the channel. The SEO channel overlaps with almost all elements of a website and can help support growth for those channels.
Tooling - Depending on the size and complexity of your website, there are many tools and services available that can perform basic SEO housekeeping and offer recommendations for content improvements. While AI content writers can suggest frameworks, it’s important to use these tools with caution. Any recommendations made should always be aligned with overall company goals and customer requirements.
Expectations - If you don’t invest in the organic channel, don’t expect consistent growth. When reporting to the business, avoid setting unrealistic expectations that the channel will grow without any investment or additional resource support.
Resource Allocation - Allocate the appropriate resources to high-priority requests and ensure all teams remain informed. When budgeting for the organic/SEO channel, consider including developer, content, UX, product, and SEO expertise within your plans.
Q4/ The organic search landscape has changed massively over the last 2 years, many are overlooking the tried and tested methods of improving performance, what is still critical for SEO and improving organic performance?
Correct internal resource allocation from the client / brand at project start or correct budget allocation if they need support in providing that resource. A realistic expectation of what is required by the client for a successful SEO project.
Budget allocation to match required ROI from the organic channel. Most brands I have worked with over the last 20+ years may receive anywhere between 30%-70% of their traffic from ‘organic’ yet a fraction (and I mean tiny) of their marketing budget goes to this channel and almost zero allocation of resource internally with development teams or interconnected channels to fulfil an SEO teams requirements.
SEO tends to become a priority for a business only when traffic is declining or revenue has experienced several months of consistent decline. By this point, it is likely that Google has been negatively impacting the website for many months, if not years, and it will require a shift in SEO strategy, budget, and resource allocation to turn the fortunes of the SEO channel around. Consistent, compounding positive changes are what is required in search.
I generally try to avoid discussing traditional SEO techniques, as nearly all websites have unique requirements to succeed in their respective markets. One area that has been around for a long time, but where Google has tightened its focus in recent years, is user experience. It’s about giving users what they want - removing clutter, noise, and years of over-optimisation. Keep it simple. Fortunately for myself and other SEO practitioners, websites are rarely lean or efficient, and years of bloat are often in play.
Other key signals, such as links, brand demand, website experience, and having content that aligns with user intent and expectations, are essential. What's crucial is knowing which elements need to be compounded for long-term, sustainable SEO success. Picking and choosing your battles versus throwing mud at walls wins in the longer term. Historically (many years ago), throwing mud at the wall would have no negative effect; however, that is not the case now, and this approach can have a long-term negative effect on organic visibility and revenue.
Equally important is understanding when and when not to rely on SEO tools or third-party SEO data. This helps avoid wasting resources, both on your side and the client’s. Far too many SEO recommendations are presented to clients that ultimately deliver little to no real value. SEO teams need to spend more time with clients, gaining a deep understanding of their business and customers. Tools should then be used to complement first-party data and the internal experience of the client. Clients, in turn, need to work harder to integrate their SEO teams across the business for a more aligned strategy.
Q5/ You share some incredible insights and data on LinkedIn around keyword rankings across key search markets, are there any common patterns you spot or come up while working with brands in organic search?
When onboarding with clients, one of my requests is often to review their existing keyword ranking data. Typically, they present a small number of top-tier (often vanity) keywords. Often brands are placing all their eggs in one basket when it comes to driving traffic from search engines. It doesn’t take much to lose those positions, which can result in a significant drop in acquisition and revenue. By understanding your Share of Search (or Share of Voice) across topics and entities, you can address content gaps across the website and reduce your exposure to search position volatility, reducing risk to website revenue.
Top-performing websites often provide users with exactly what they need to answer their query immediately upon page load. The user is presented with a solution straight away. The experience is further enhanced by catering to how users might interact differently, for example, travel or ecommerce websites that have extensive UI features around filtering and sorting, allowing users to efficiently find what they want.
For highly competitive queries, these websites are typically supported by strong (and sometimes manipulated) backlink profiles. The main landing pages are further strengthened by related supporting content. These websites ensure their landing pages are aligned with user intent and often benefit from a combination of brand and service/product search demand.
For larger global brands, or multi-brand and multi-product websites, an often overlooked opportunity is to saturate the search results and dominate a significant share of Google’s real estate. This can be achieved by understanding where each brand is winning or losing from a Share of Search perspective and leveraging each website to align with the type of content and search intent presented.
Google doesn’t want to show the same type of content across the entire first page and that provides opportunity. There are many large publishing groups that do this activity pretty well.
Connect With Carl
Audits.com → https://audits.com/
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlhendy/
Read the other quick fire Q&A
With Beth Gladstone providing several instant and actionable social media recommendations and talking through her social media masterclass
With Paddy Moogan talking about improving management & his new leadership course
