Spotlight On #3 – Edd Wilson, Senior SEO Manager at Laka

Welcome to the Spotlight On series, where we get to sit down with some of the most inspirational marketing leaders from some of the UK’s most exciting brands. We learn about their careers, their challenges and their achievements, all to inspire you to grow your own career. 

Transcript

00:19 – Introduction to Edd Wilson and his role

Mikey:

Edd, welcome and thanks so much for joining us on The Spotlight On series. You happen to be the first one in the chair, so thanks again. I know you’re gonna be a bit too humble doing your own intro, so to set the scene a little bit, Edd has dominated the search engines for a decade. You’ve gone from working as a programmer way back then to now leading some of the most forward-thinking, advanced and innovative SEO strategies in your current position. But for our viewers, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you’re currently doing?

Edd:

Yes, I work for an insurtech business called Laka and we’re aiming to flip insurance on its head. I lead the SEO strategy, so I engage in all things content related, but also in targeting audiences that are likely to convert.

01:10 – From agency to in-house

Mikey:

How have you found the transition from agency life to in-house?

Edd:

It’s good. I’ve had previous in-house roles as well, but I would say for certain that pace is a difference. I think working in an agency allowed me to prioritise impact and things that can deliver performance. A few people at Laka who have worked agency-side have said that they’ve noticed similarities as well, in terms of getting work done. It’s certainly a different environment now, as I have more time for storyboarding and research.

Mikey:

Now that you’re top of your game in-house, what does a typical day look like for Edd Wilson?

Edd:

I’m now more involved with people management, ensuring that everyone’s on board and aligned with what they’re doing. A lot of my time is focused on processes, because you can’t always oversee everything, but understanding the steps that can influence what you’re trying to achieve in the business is important. If you’re able to understand a step that influences what you’re trying to implement, you should be trying to get involved to ensure that step is included. Most importantly, it’s about understanding other objectives in the business and aligning that with what you’re trying to achieve.

02:30 – Staying relevant and innovative

Mikey:

Now that you’re shifting a little bit more into the people side of things and being more aligned with senior members of that particular business, how are you staying relevant and ensuring that you’re still creating innovative campaign strategies whilst also taking on additional responsibilities?

Edd:

The great thing about marketing, especially SEO, is that there’s a great community behind it. There are a lot of people that invest in case studies, blogs, etc. You should always keep up to date with them. There’s also a lot more video content now, which is super useful. I know that Impression invests in a lot of educational pieces, which is great for people like me to really keep on top of that. I also think that understanding companies in emerging areas, identifying websites that are growing well and looking at what they’re investing in is useful. It’s a mixture of self-education, keeping afloat on Twitter, and focusing on websites and technology that is emerging in the marketing space.

03:38 – Generalism vs specialism

Mikey:

Let’s look back at things from where you are now. There must have been points within your career where you had a choice to either specialise or generalise. Can you talk me through any of those moments where you made a decision to focus on the SEO side of marketing? Was this quite early on in your career or did you choose to specialise later on?

Edd:

Yeah, so I started as a failed web developer. I wanted to focus on development and coding, but then I saw SEO as a shiny object in the world of marketing. That was the first time I decided I wanted to specialise in a specific area. Later on, I wanted to specialise whilst I was at Impression, as at the time I was a generalist SEO and had experience across a lot of disciplines. Then I took a shine to what was a specific area where I knew I could learn a lot around that specific subject. I’ve always loved going down like rabbit holes and I saw this as an opportunity to do so. I wanted to specialise at the start of my career but also later on at Impression where I had the opportunity to focus on technical SEO for a good few years.

04:48 – Exploring marketing career paths

Mikey:

A lot of our watchers will be at various points within their careers and some may be starting out for the first time. Where would you go if you were to start out in marketing now? Where would be a realistic place to test or to learn if this is a particular career path for you?

Edd:

I think the industry is now much more accessible in terms of resources online, such as the introduction of YouTube videos and online courses. It’s becoming so much more accessible and there are also not-for-profit organisations that help people learn about marketing in general too. Something that I did early on was to just set up a website and to learn about the functions of a CMS, especially WordPress or web flow. There are so many great things out there, even with Shopify or setting up a webstore. Even if you don’t go through with it, testing and learning is a big thing. It’s appealing to companies as well, if you’ve gone away and set up a blog as your hobby and you’ve installed an Analytics tracking code or anything like this. I think it just allows you to start learning and establish a passion for these specific areas. So, just going out and setting up a website is my ultimate advice for anyone that wants to be involved in marketing.

Mikey:

Let’s have a look at your career as a bit of a timeline. As you admirably acknowledged, it was a failed start, but talk me through your first position and what were you doing? What were you interested in and what did that evolve into?

Edd:

I worked for a local agency in Nottingham which was quite small and I was working on small clients. So, I was involved in a general search marketing area, focusing on SEO and paid media. I loved SEO, so I just invested two years of my time learning about SEO within that environment. Then I moved down to London to work for a bigger agency that worked on bigger clients and I was working with people that had been working in that industry for about 10 – 15 years. It was great to absorb their information and experience and to learn a lot more about dealing with big clients in that environment too. I was fortunate then to get a senior position quite early on in my career. This was for a home interior company that is a leader in their space, where I was able to focus on the SEO area as the first member of that team. They were suffering at the time in terms of their organic performance, so I looked to reposition them in that space within 12 months. It gave me a lot of confidence.

07:43 – The experience of working agency-side

Mikey:

Talk us through the roles you had when you were agency-side here at Impression.

Edd:

I came in as a general SEO strategist, which was focused on all areas of SEO. I then took a shine towards the technical side of SEO, where I spent around two to three years focusing on enterprise websites and how they work. Due to my experience and performance, I started to pivot towards SEO strategy. So, then I took up a position within strategy at Impression, focusing on the organic area. I then became the head of SEO strategy, where I looked at how the team approached SEO strategy that delivers growth for businesses.

Mikey:

The time here at Impression was particularly fun, right? I remember when you joined the company, your desk pretty much had to be lifted up every time anyone wanted to leave the room to go to the toilet. You were part of the journey right the way through to where we grew to 70 – 80 people. You worked on lots of different accounts and you experienced lots of different scenarios, right?

Edd:

I think a big thing I took away from being agency-side was not just dealing with the clients that I worked with, but also the growth of the agency and how the teams evolved. Even watching people, such as yourself, and other members of the team grow into their roles, it was a really exciting time. So, whilst it was great to work with the clients, it was great to see the actual growth of the business too.

09:03 – The key to learning and development

Mikey:

You mentioned a couple of really interesting points around things that helped you progress. You mentioned, you started off in a small agency working on small budgets, and then moved to a larger agency with larger budgets. But, you also mentioned that you had senior and more experienced people to learn from. How important was that for you in terms of your progression and having those people that you could look up to or that you could learn from?

Edd:

I like to go into a business and act like a sponge. So I’d basically absorb all the information and learn from it. In a smaller agency, there wasn’t as much senior expertise that I could necessarily lean on. Whereas when I went into the big agency, there were people that had been in that industry for 10 – 15 years, and I was automatically able to understand and learn so much more. It was challenging because everyday was kind of new to me and all the information I was learning was new. You can feel fatigued by it but after six to seven months, you’re thinking, wow, I’ve learned so much stuff in this space.

Mikey:

Are you now trying to play that role in your company that you’re working at now? Are you trying to bring everyone along with you and try to act as that person that can offer the advice?

Edd:

Absolutely. I think curiosity is such a big key feature and as a senior person looking at it now, you also learn so much from the people around you who are learning from you, going away and testing new things to bring to the table. So it’s kind of a two way street, as they can be enticed by what you’re teaching them and then they’ll be going away and discovering things to share as well.

10:57 – Career defining moments

Mikey:

A bit of a big question for you, but can you talk me through any career defining moments for you, something that really helped you level up and progress faster than perhaps you would have done if you hadn’t taken that role?

Edd:

It’s a tricky question. The one my mind goes back to is my transition from the agency in London and going to the home interior company in Nottingham. At the time, the home interior company was suffering a lot from their loss in organic visibility, it was having a huge impact on their financials. It was my first role in leading that channel, whereas previously, I was hiding behind someone at a company in an executive role. When I was able to turn things around within 12 months, that was the first time I actually believed in myself and thought, wow, I can actually do this. So, I’d say that was when I grew to have the confidence in what I did.

11:58 – Working in-house vs agency-side

Mikey:

There’s lots of discussion at the moment in the industry around whether you should work agency-side, and have that fast paced environment with the opportunity to learn, or to work in-house, and have slightly better pay potentially, but also the opportunity to focus on one particular brand. Talk me through the values of working agency-side at the moment.

Edd:

I’m a huge advocate of working at an agency as it’s taught me so much. In terms of pros of working at an agency, the first and foremost important aspect is the experience you learn from others. If you’re going into an agency that has people across so many disciplines, you can learn from so much not just within your channel, but other areas of the business. A key pro would be that you will be dealing with a wide range of clients. So, you’re not just working on ecommerce, you’re working on SaaS, or you’re working on a client in a completely different industry. From this you’ll also be learning a lot from those specific industries and areas as well. And also its fast paced, which could be classed as a con, but I think certain people will enjoy the fast paced environment. What that does, is allow you to really focus on your time and determine where you should spend it. So, if you are working on a specific task, you have to really analyse it to see if it is actually driving value towards the client that you’re working on. I’d say there are my biggest pros.

Mikey:

And just to make sure this isn’t too biased, talk to me about the benefits of working in–house.

Edd:

When you’re working at an agency, you’re so obsessed with the overall marketing side of the business, where you learn less about the business’ financial side. When in-house, you learn more about business priorities so you’re more outside of a bubble. Whilst it’s great learning about marketing areas in an agency, in a business, you’re learning more about products, data and other teams as well. I’d say that’s a big positive. When in-house you have more time and projects tend to move a little bit more slowly which allows you a lot more time to research, think about things more thoroughly and plan, allowing you to be a bit more strategic with your time. I’d say that a pro is just having more time to do things.

14:31 – Advice to boost your marketing career

Mikey:

If you could go back to your 16 year old self, what advice would you give yourself?

Edd:

Test more, like I said, I started to get my confidence in a later role. Within marketing especially, I think you always feel like everything you do is going to succeed. Whereas many of your investments within marketing will fail. It’s just the one or two things that perform well that you can double down on. So, definitely test more and be more curious with other things out there in marketing. That will be one of the things I would tell myself.

Mikey:

Today is obviously a very different landscape from when you perhaps started. What about someone looking to enter into the industry now, or someone that’s early on into their career? What advice would you give them to follow a similar path as yourself?

Edd:

It’s always good to get a general view of everything, once you’ve covered different areas across the board, you’ll then take a shine to a specific area. Then just throw yourself into it. What helped me, was being curious in my career and testing things out. I think marketing technology is so accessible now, you can set up websites using WordPress, or anything similar to that and you can set up testing tools as well. I would say just throw yourself at it. I think it’s great to get a general view of everything marketing, then spend one to two years getting an understanding of how that functions. If there’s any channel or anything within marketing that you enjoy, hopefully that will shine out and then you can follow that path and really throw yourself into it.

Mikey:

That’s some really great advice. Edd, I can’t thank you enough for making this so easy as our first episode and hopefully we’ll see you again soon. 

If you want to hear more from Edd, follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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