London Based SEO Consultant
My name is Hemanth Balaji and I am a freelance SEO consultant based in London, working with clients in the UK and around the world to help them increase their organic visibility. My extensive portfolio includes small & large retail businesses including Sports Direct, New Look, House Of Fraser, Flannels, Game, Sofa.com, Evans Cycles, Wrappz, iSmash, Smart Lighting Industries and more...
With over 10 years of experience specialising in SEO within both start-up environment and large matrix organisations, I strategically focus SEO efforts on driving commercial success and increasing organic visibility.
Focus
Recommended Providers
Portfolio
Group SEO Manager (in-house)
Responsible for designing a long-term Sports Direct group SEO strategy with consideration of individual brands' positioning (Sports Direct, House of Fraser, Flannels, USC and Jack Wills)- SEO technical roadmap development + content creation + site audits + providing strategic SEO recommendations and supporting their implementation across the group.
SEO Manager (in-house)
Took full ownership of the SEO channel, setting the strategy and managing the SEO team (in-house and agency) to successfully achieve key KPIs. Created the content strategy to capture customers at all stages of their awareness, consideration and purchase journey to drive more bookings.
SEO Expert (in-house)
At wrappz.com, was responsible for the development of brand SEO Strategy and website traffic growth. The site had lost rankings, traffic and sales as a result of Blackhat SEO conducted by the previous SEO agency. Developed a plan to identify and clean up close to 35,000 unnatural links and created a white hat SEO program
SEO Marketing Manager (in-house)
Oversaw the Natural Search performance and led the global SEO programme managing a 6-figure budget. I led the SEO team (in-house and agency) whilst managing a range of inter-company stakeholders that include leadership and other internal teams. In 2018, New Look topped the fashion leader board for the most commercially viable search terms on Google UK.
Reviews
the project
SEO & Design Consultancy for LED Lighting Specialist
"Our visibility has improved considerably since we started working with SEO Consultant."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
We’re a B2B and B2C LED lighting specialist. I’m a product manager for the company.
What challenge were you trying to address with SEO Consultant @ HB Freelance?
We were looking to improve our SEO opportunities. We’d been doing the work ourselves, but we decided to work with a specialist.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We’re working with SEO Consultant strictly on organic search. Most of their work has been focused on SEO. They’ve done a technical audit, which involved removing some bad backlinks and identifying issues. We then worked with our developers to make the improvements they recommended.
They come up with many design change proposals and explain how those would affect our page speeds — they give us insights on the possible implementation results by comparing its estimated performance to that of the current site. To develop ideas on how to stay ahead of competitors, the team looks at industry players' design strategies.
What is the team composition?
I’ve worked only with Hemanth (SEO Consultant).
How did you come to work with SEO Consultant @ HB Freelance?
He was introduced to us by our email advertising agency as a highly experienced SEO provider.
How much have you invested with them?
Our monthly spend is $600.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with SEO Consultant in October 2020, and it’s ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Our visibility has improved considerably since we started working with SEO Consultant. We went from ranking high on only five keywords to being in the top three positions for 20–25 keywords. Our site is also in the top 100 for about 500 keywords, whereas we only appeared in 70 keywords before. The results have been pleasing.
How did SEO Consultant @ HB Freelance perform from a project management standpoint?
We keep track of all our activities through monday.com, which works really well. Hemanth gives us regular reports, and we have weekly calls with him to discuss the results. We also communicate via WhatsApp — I can message him anytime I have a question, and he’d quickly jump on a call to happily explain anything technical.
What did you find most impressive about them?
SEO Consultant is very skilled and flexible, but he’s cost-efficient compared to other organizations. He fulfills his promises quickly and gets results. We’ve had some bad experiences with other freelancers before him, but Hemanth always delivers what he promises.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I can’t think of any weak points.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
My advice is to be open and trust Hemanth. He can jump in and help in any situation, and he’ll happily explain any technical issues if the client doesn’t have experience in the area.
The client’s visibility improved significantly after engaging with SEO Consultant @ HB Freelance. The site is now in the top three results for 20–25 keywords and also ranks highly for 500 keywords, proving the team’s expertise. Their strong communication skills foster a healthy partnership.