It feels like only yesterday that Marta (my wife and co-founder) and I were sitting in our small office, turning over the idea of starting an SEO agency. Ideas for the name, fears, plans… It all seemed so far off and now it is all real. It has been 12 months since those moments, and that is why we wanted to put together a short recap of this wonderful and intense first year of SEO Alive.
Table of contents
The beginnings
Even though we had already spent several weeks mulling over the idea of starting an agency, it was not until Marta came up with the name that we decided to take the plunge. Despite having plenty of candidate names, SEO Alive was the winner because it captured so well the philosophy we wanted to give the brand.
Marta Adell and David Kaufmann, the founding team of SEO Alive.
- SEO Alive stands for a global brand that is not limited to a single country but aims to become a worldwide benchmark.
- SEO Alive stands for the fact that search engine optimisation (SEO) is more alive than ever and that, no matter how many updates come along or how much SEM shows up in the search results, this wonderful profession will always be there.
- And finally, SEO Alive stands for our goal of using SEO to keep companies alive and visible in the market.
SEO Alive had been born!
Growth
Madness! That is how I would describe the first months of SEO Alive. As we started out with our own resources, Marta and I had to do absolutely everything. The website, articles, finances, client proposals, meetings… Those days were exhausting, but we loved what we were doing so much that we did not mind sleeping once every two days.
Day and night, moving forward together to grow SEO Alive.
Little by little the clients started coming, and at a much faster pace than we expected. Our methodology, our results and above all our commitment meant we expanded quickly both in Spain and, especially, in the United States. As a result, we had to grow the team fast, hiring one person a month right from the start.
Clients
One of the things we have been clear about since the very beginning is that we wanted — and of course we still want — to bet on quality. We were tired of seeing ads and offers like:
- «All-in-one SEO for €100/month»
- «Top Google positions for €75/month»
At SEO Alive we have always bet on quality, on people and on high-performance results. As a result, and despite being a young agency, big brands have put their trust in us.
- Chess.com (the #1 chess platform in the world, with over 35 million users): we have gone from 0,9M organic visits in 2017 to +10 million a month in 2020. (Documented Success Story)
- Holded (ERP software for SMEs, recognised as one of the best startups in all of Europe): we have doubled organic traffic in 6 months.
- Freshly Cosmetics (one of the leading brands in the natural cosmetics world): coming very soon, a success story on the SEO strategy we have put in place…
- And of course, dozens of other incredible brands that we are deeply grateful to for trusting our team and our values!
The numbers
In 12 months, going from a brand that did not exist, SEO Alive has become a benchmark SEO brand, both as an SEO agency for companies and as a Blog for the Spanish-speaking SEO community.
That is why we want to share some numbers to thank the whole team that has made this possible.
- 250k€ in revenue
- +50 clients among small and medium-sized businesses
- Website translated into 4 languages (Spanish, English, French and Italian)
- +50k unique users who have visited our website in 1 year
- Ranked 600k on Alexa worldwide
- 81 articles published on the blog
- And everything that is still to come!!
COVID-19
Of course, SEO Alive has not been immune to COVID-19. It has been a hard blow that slowed our growth. However, thanks to the work done over all the previous months and above all thanks to the team's commitment!, many new opportunities have come up and, 2 months after it all started, we are back to the same growth rate and with even more strength.
We are deeply grateful for the effort all our clients have made and are still making, keeping their SEO strategy going and their trust in us, despite the current situation!
Current situation and future
What do the next 12 months hold for SEO Alive? Great and incredible things that would not be possible without the wonderful team we have built!
Thank you Rocío, Alonso and Jesús for everything you do day after day!
Right now we have a lot of fronts open, but they could basically be summed up in the following points:
- Double our revenue
- Grow the team to cover all the projects coming our way
- Increase SEO results by 20-30% for our clients
- Reach 200 articles published and 200k unique visits a year
And last but not least… launch our own SEO tool!
We have been working on it for many months now and it is about to see the light of day…
