I ended up recording a presentation used at two BrightonSEO events, and I haven’t stopped talking about it since. Three years later, there’s still work to be done. That’s why BrightLocal has supported me in writing this article all about how we can make the SEO industry more neurodivergent-friendly.

What actually is neurodivergence?

You may already know about neurodivergence or heard the phrase “neurodiversity”. Very Well Mind explains that “neurodiversity is the concept that there are a variety of ways that people’s brains process information, function, and present behaviorally.”

Within that, you have “neurotypical,” which refers to “someone who has the brain functions, behaviors, and processing considered standard or typical.” And then you have “neurodivergent,” which is the term for “people whose brains function differently in one or more ways than is considered standard or typical.”

There’s a growing group of types of neurodivergence, but some that you may be familiar with include:

• Autism
• ADHD
• Dyslexia
• Dyspraxia
• Dyscalculia
• Tourette’s
• Synesthesia
• Down syndrome
• Epilepsy
• Plus, chronic mental health illnesses such as bipolar disorder, OCD, BPD, anxiety, and depression.

This isn’t an exclusive list; the umbrella of neurodivergence is wide. However, I recommend reading about any of the forms of neurodivergence in this list that you aren’t familiar with so you can start understanding more of your peers. I’m still learning something new every day.

Neurodivergence in the SEO Industry

Back to SEO, more specifically. There are probably more neurodivergent SEOs in your network than you’re aware of! There’s now a whole community growing thanks to the founders of Neurodivergents in SEO, who have a Slack group and are starting to have a presence at industry conferences.

Let’s move on and look at different areas which could become more neurodivergent-friendly.

Working Arrangements for Neurodivergent People

In the past, I’ve found office spaces to bring on sensory overload or just have too many distractions. As a freelancer, I can now work from home, in a coworking space, or in a coffee shop, depending on how I’m feeling on any given day. This isn’t possible for everyone with a permanent role, so a bit of flexibility can make a world of difference for some neurodivergent folks.

Flexibility may come in the form of hybrid working (some days in the office and some at home) or in working hours. I’m an early bird and like to get going in the morning, but over half of people with ADHD experience sleeping problems, so others would benefit from a later start to aid productivity.

In the office itself, providing adjustable lighting, soundproofing, ergonomic furniture, and designated quiet areas where employees can retreat for focused work or sensory breaks could be welcome additions. Some individuals also need noise-canceling headphones or earplugs, so take a look at current office policies and make sure there isn’t a blanket ban on using these in communal spaces.

Freelancing as a Neurodivergent Individual

Of course, not every professional in the industry works in a permanent role within an agency or in-house; we have a great number of freelancers and consultants, too. Having only gone freelance myself in early 2024 after 13 years agency-side, I asked one of my neurodivergent peers to give me their more informed insights as a longer-term freelancer in the industry. Meet Lois Neville, a freelance SEO copywriter:

Lois Neville

Freelance SEO Copywriter at Lois Neville SEO Copywriter

“Having gone from in-house SEO to freelance, I’ve experienced different working perspectives in our industry. I’m keenly aware not to generalise my personal experience as to what it’s like to be neurodivergent working in SEO. But I’m hoping that, by participating in this conversation, action can be taken to make SEO a far friendlier place for neurodivergent people. And, importantly, give them a safe space to be their authentic selves.

Disclosure is one of the biggest hurdles I’ve encountered. Weighing up whether to share my autism with a client is something I am still navigating. It takes an emotional toll to continuously say, “Hey, I’m autistic, and this means x, y, and z.” With the start of every new client prospect or relationship, it feels like a 50/50 gamble. You’re never quite sure what their reaction will be or whether you’ll even hear from them again. 

Having processes in place that make working with SEO freelancers generally more accessible—regardless if they’re neurodivergent—would relieve a significant amount of this pressure. If accessibility initiatives are in place from the get-go, people like me wouldn’t have to feel like they have to disclose to get the working conditions they need. 

Clients can be more proactive in ensuring that all SEO freelancers have everything they need to do their work. Such steps can include asking how a freelancer likes to work and their specific processes, agreeing on clear expectations from both sides, discussing suitable communication methods, factoring in scope for flexibility, and generally taking a more collaborative approach.”

Neurodivergence and Job Interview Needs

In the section above, Lois mentioned disclosure. I’m not here to tell anyone whether they should disclose their neurodivergence to an existing or prospective employer, as that’s a personal choice. But what I can help with is if someone has chosen to disclose this information before a job interview.

Regardless of neurodivergence, there’s one thing you can do for all candidates: offer clear instructions about the interview process, including what to expect, how to prepare, and any accommodations available upon request.

If you’re able to offer flexibility, let candidates choose from a range of interview formats, such as in-person, virtual, or asynchronous options, to accommodate individual preferences and needs. You should also provide candidates with detailed information about the interview format, structure, and questions in advance.

During the interview, think about offering extended time, breaks, or alternative communication methods. If you’re setting an interview task, send this in the candidate’s preferred format and let them send it back in the same way. For example, a dyslexic candidate may feel more comfortable sending a Loom recording than a written answer.

Networking Events and Conferences Need Considerations for Neurodivergent Folk

On LinkedIn, I’ve shared a whole post just about being autistic at conferences, award ceremonies, and events. Many of the same things apply to office spaces, particularly regarding the environment and sensory overload.

Some events already have quiet rooms, which is a great first step. But more could be done to offer more accessible routes that don’t have toilet queues, coffee/beer hurdles, or exhibition stands in the way.

Networking can be hard for many people, so innovation in this area would benefit a large number of attendees, whether neurodivergent or introverted. Having alternative forms of networking could cater to more people, whether it’s building LEGO, playing video games, or maybe even a round of chess. Some people need to burn off energy, and others need to preserve it.

This is Just the Beginning

It’s important that we understand the benefits that neurodivergent people bring to the industry without avoiding the necessary conversations about accommodations we should be making for them too.

In the past, I’ve spoken about neurodivergent superpowers (the areas where neurodivergent individuals can have certain strengths), but I do that much less now in the fear that it over-glamorizes any form of neurodivergence and diminishes the struggles that individuals may face.

But theoretically, neurodivergence should work well in SEO; we have roles that span analytical to creative, roles that are client-facing, and others that are not. Some people are managers, and others are consultants. Some are great at sharing stories on stage, others by podcast, text, or just through their day-to-day work.

To turn that theory into reality means staying curious and informed and then making changes to nurture this and the next generation of neurodivergent talent in the industry. This article can be your springboard, but the next move is up to you.

If either of my “sales pitches” above reached you, then let’s move on to discuss how to get started with publication diversity (which is what I will be referring to this process as throughout this guide).

Diversity supports performance and perception

“A diverse team can represent the diverse audiences that the publication serves. When readers see themselves and their ideas represented, they are more likely to trust and engage with the publication. This, in turn, enhances the publication’s reputation and credibility.” 

— Veruska Anconitano, International and Multilingual SEO Consultant

Branding can be an incredibly potent business driver, and how your business is perceived is central to all your branding efforts. If your “About Us” or “Authors” page is completely homogeneous, then you may only be appealing to members of one sliver of your target audience. 

For most businesses, the potential consequences of treating your audience as a monolith include:

• Alienating potential customers of diverse backgrounds
• Limited opportunities for collaboration with other brands
• Foregoing all the associated revenue that could come with these efforts

Now that I’ve briefly touched on the risks associated with ignoring diversity in your publication and brand messaging, Iets focus on how incorporating diversity supports your business.

The impact of diversity on brand perception

If you do something well, you generally want people to know about it. The same should be true for your diversity efforts within your marketing campaigns, whether that means authors on a traditional company blog or featuring people of diverse backgrounds within your imagery and messaging. 

Earn industry coverage

While brand perception is a somewhat intangible aspect of marketing, one of the concrete benefits is mentions from reputable sources.

For my publication, the Wix SEO Learning Hub, diversity was non-negotiable from the outset (I’m a person of color and so is our publication’s chief SEO, Crystal Carter). Though the main objective was never industry coverage, our results were highlighted in The Freelance Coalition for Developing Countries’ Race Gap in SEO Authorship report for publishing the most BIPOC authors, as well as in SEO Consultant Lidia Infante’s Gender Gap in SEO Publishing analysis for a near 1:1 ratio of female to male authors. We aren’t the only brand making positive change here, and we couldn’t be more grateful that our peers share our passion.

“When thinking of company interactions with the Women in Tech SEO community; the top 3 listed in [the Gender Gap in SEO Publishing analysis] are the most engaged.

Moz has active members in our community that share opportunities with us before they are public. OnCrawl always sponsors our initiatives and invites our members to speak in their podcast. Wix finds writers within our community and they always amplify their pieces, mostly through Crystal Carter, their head of SEO Communications.

The companies at the top of this list are the ones that engage with diverse communities and share opportunities directly with them. It truly makes a difference.”

—Areej AbuAli, Founder of Women in Tech SEO

Audiences and communities share industry narratives widely. If you’re mentioned favorably, you can generate a lot of good will for your brand—and more diverse professionals will be attracted to that. 

If your diversity efforts lag behind your peers, you can expect to be known for that as well, which can add to the inertia that holds you back from reaching your goals.

Attract new audiences and collaborators

An engaged readership is the dream for just about any publication. But, creating a community from scratch can take a very long time. 

Through publication diversity, you can reach members of various communities that may never have otherwise paid attention to your content:

• When you invest the time to develop and publish experts from underrepresented groups, those professionals are generally happy to be your brand ambassador within their community (or even speak up against detractors).

• Your experts’ colleagues and followers will see their contribution to your publication and become familiar with your brand, making it more likely that they’ll visit your publication again in the future.

• If you do a good job, your contributors may refer more experts to you, which can help you further your diversity and build stronger ties with professional communities (more on this later). 

Additionally, members of underrepresented communities are looking to make the most out of opportunities that come their way. In the SEO industry, publishing an article is typically seen as part of the path to more publication and conference speakership opportunities. These professionals often have the talent or experience, and are simply looking for a platform. If that platform is yours, you could be making foundational connections with future thought leaders.

“When I host programs like The SEO Story Series or The FCDC Expert Series, having diverse guests is a strategic move that brings fresh, innovative ideas to our audience.

In the same way, when you have a diverse team, you escape the echo chamber of recycled strategies and tap into a wellspring of creativity that’s good for business and the community.”

— Chima Mmeje, Founder of The Freelance Coalition for Developing Countries

The impact of diversity on performance

The advantages of diverse teams have been well documented. According to an article published on the Harvard Business Review, diverse teams:

• Are more likely to constantly reexamine facts and remain objective

• May outperform homogenous teams in decision making because they process information more carefully

• Allow you to dodge the costly pitfalls of conformity, which discourages innovative thinking

But, these realities haven’t moved the needle for many, many businesses—namely all the ones you can see that have no diversity in their campaigns.

Instead of asking you to imagine these positive outcomes (which will manifest differently for every business), I’ll discuss the performance gains associated with the perception benefits I spoke of in the section above.

Build relevant links

If you’re just starting to focus on diversity, partnering with communities and their leaders helps you distribute your content and build links to it. Your contributors should link back to your content on domains they control (like the community’s official website or their individual portfolio site).

As your contributors continue to publish on industry publications, they’ll link back to relevant content they’ve created for your domain. This bolsters their authority as an author, and your brand will get the backlink.

As your diversity initiative becomes a permanent part of your content workflow, you might also start attracting industry coverage (as mentioned above). This, too, should result in more backlinks, which can bring in traffic and help you rank better.

Superior content

“It is literally impossible to address confirmation bias without diversity. There’s a need for unique voices and experiences in order to have a full understanding of any topic.”

— Petra Kis-Herczegh, SEO Consultant

Different audiences may view your product/services/industry from entirely different perspectives, and a homogeneous team is unlikely to understand (let alone address) those needs. 

Homogeneous teams won’t even know the value of the perspectives they’re missing out on due to their own shared biases or perhaps simply because of a homogeneous upbringing (for example, as a child who was fortunate to grow up with two parents, I have no idea how to address the needs of an audience of adoptees).

From an even more “common sense” angle, businesses in high-competition niches need every advantage, and that certainly includes comprehensive content.

“The world is diverse and not monolithic. Diversity has value for its own sake, as a moral value, but also as a mechanism to ensure a broader range of ideas, experiences, and perspectives are taken into account and reflected.”

— Greg Sterling, Co-founder of Near Media

What you’ll need to get started

At first, publication diversity might seem straightforward, but think about how many of your competitors have actually done a good job. To lift perception and/or performance, you need to sustain that diversity over the long run and enact a plan that produces content as well as brand advocacy. 

There are countless potential ways to do that, but I’m going to focus on the core elements that will help you get started and make diversity sustainable for your publication. You will need to:

• Understand why most publications aren’t diverse, as well as the nuances of working with diverse experts

• Secure buy-in from stakeholders

• Partner with diverse experts

• Obtain a budget (optional but ideal)

A fundamental understanding of why most publications aren’t diverse

Onboarding diverse expert writers to work on a publication led by a homogeneous editorial team may introduce power dynamics and communication issues. Freelancers may feel uncomfortable expressing feedback that could improve your publication because of:

• How it might be received
• The opportunity to get a byline on your publication 
• Losing out on compensation for their work and/or future opportunities

Your internal team(s) need to get the best out of your freelancers, which is especially true if those external experts are going to represent your brand in some capacity. This means the editors that communicate with your experts need to not only be advocates for diversity, they must also be educated (or have experience with) the issues that diverse professionals deal with.

Fortunately, there are many resources available online to help you educate yourself on these issues. If you’ve got a budget to work with, then you could (and should) also increase your in-house editorial team’s diversity. 

But, know that without education or experience on these issues, your initiative is still likely to fail over the long run as schisms form due to disparate motivations across all parties involved.

Buy-in from stakeholders

Stakeholder buy-in is absolutely essential. They don’t need to be champions of diversity, but they do need to support your diversity initiative with understanding, patience, and hopefully, budget. 

If your managers and C-suite don’t recognize the value here, then they will likely redirect you to a more “business-critical” task the instant they have to decide between diversity and… well, unfortunately, most other things.

If your business tends to focus on short-term goals, then you have more moving targets that will divide your time (and team). Publication diversity is already a moving target—and, like SEO, it’s not necessarily the right choice if you need to showcase wins to your stakeholders in the immediate future.

On the flip side, a strong advocate in your leadership (and resources) will empower you to publish at the highest levels of your industry, without sacrificing quality in favor of diversity—a fallacy that many marketing decision makers use as a crutch when speed takes precedence over values. Unfortunately for those businesses, publications, and their audiences, when speed takes precedence, quality also generally takes a backseat.

Diverse experts

Most SEOs, editors, and content marketers either work in-house for a brand or agency side with multiple clients. This distinction influences whether your publication should rely on freelancers or in-house writers, which in turn influences how you approach diverse experts to partner with and the dynamics of the relationship.

A highly regulated industry, like finance, would likely be easier to cover with in-house writers because you can continuously educate them on compliance. A consumer technology blog, on the other hand, could more easily choose between in-house or freelance authors.

In either case, I highly recommend partnering with engaged communities within your industry to identify diverse talent for your publication. Word-of-mouth referrals can prove very fruitful, but that depends on the strength of your existing network. And, while networks like LinkedIn can give you access to experts worldwide, I’ve experienced very mixed results. 

Partner with diverse professional communities to:

• Discover potential guest authors and contributors. Community leaders will know what their members’ strengths are, which can help you save time if you’re looking for someone to cover very niche topics, for example.
• Showcase topical knowledge through content, quotes, and links. Traditional blog posts are just the beginning. A reciprocal partnership should enable you to access a wide pool of experience, which you can quote in relevant content. The experts you feature are typically happy to link back to your content, or even potentially from the community’s website.
• Promote collaborations with the community. Communities can help promote your content, creating familiarity with your brand across its members and their networks.

If you’re diversifying your in-house team, you’re working with business and diversity requirements that should guide your recruiting process. Since these factors can vary, I’ll leave you with one basic piece of advice on where to start: it can be incredibly helpful if your writers resonate with your audience (or the audience you aspire to reach). 

Don’t limit your thinking to just ethnicity and gender—learn more about your audience to understand their circumstances to find the best fit. It could be that your audience includes a large proportion of single parents, or live in a multi-generational household, for example. This type of diversity can be incredibly important for certain businesses and their audiences.

Budget

To be clear, you don’t need a generous budget to run a successful, diverse publication—and no amount of budget is going to make a publication magically diverse. But, if you understand and embrace the need for diversity and have stakeholder buy-in, then a decent budget can open a lot of doors and dramatically speed up your progress.

I’ve worked to diversify publications with and without a budget.

How to sustain your diversity initiative

Notice that I’ve chosen the word “sustain”—not “maintain.” You’ll need to continuously invest energy and resources if you want diversity to help generate business outcomes and differentiate your brand. 

Measure your progress

I’m not suggesting that you approach experts according to rigid diversity criteria (the kind you have to tick off on the government census or standardized testing). But, even if you’re not monitoring your progress, other players in your industry likely are. As I’ve already mentioned, this is already the case in the SEO industry.

Companies with plentiful resources (like Salesforce) are able to study and publish their equality data, which enables it to:

• Showcase their annual progress
• Plan for the future by understanding where the business needs to increase representation

The vast majority of businesses don’t need to publish equality reports (but mature industry leaders should). Nevertheless, every diversity initiative benefits from an understanding of where you’re starting and how you want to improve.

As a first step, confer with your team to agree on what diversity means for your publication. Then, benchmark your publication to understand where you’re starting from (avoid benchmarking first, as that may heavily influence the goals you set and ultimately lead to results that don’t move the needle).

If industry benchmarks for diversity are available, seek them out and evaluate your publication against that standard. This can help you understand whether you’re currently lagging behind your industry or helping to lead it.

The system you develop to measure and ensure your progress can take many forms. It could be a spreadsheet that contains data about what your authors identify as. Or, it could be as simple as “every other article needs to be written by an expert from a member of an underrepresented group in our industry.” It all depends on your goals and, to an extent, what you’re comfortable with. 

Here are some criteria that are commonly used by publishers to understand and improve publication diversity:

• Author gender
• Whether an author is BIPOC
• Whether an author identifies as LGBTQ+
• Whether an author is a member of another underrepresented group

It’s helpful to figure out the ratio of content written by members of these groups—a common KPI for diversity initiatives. 

From another perspective, measuring progress also helps you take stock of the good work you’ve already done to diversify your business blog. For example, I once received critical feedback via social media for appearing on a webinar with two other males—in a vacuum, that homogeneity doesn’t look good. However, over half of the articles on the Wix SEO Learning Hub were written by women (which industry coverage substantiated), so we were able to take that context into account when receiving that feedback.

Give back to diverse communities

Unlike the communities I referred to previously, these don’t have to be professional groups (although they certainly can be). 

If you want diverse experts or audiences to support your brand, you need to show them that your commitment goes beyond optics. While sponsorships and compensation certainly help, it’s too easy for profitable businesses to throw cash at the problems they play a part in creating, instead of taking accountability for the good that they could be doing.

Examples of ways to express your commitment include (but obviously are not limited to):

• Exclusive internship or mentorship opportunities
• Free or discounted access to your products/services
• Implementing diverse hiring practices
• Free training sessions/education led by your expert employees

The best strategy depends on what your business does, your budget, and the needs of the communities you’re serving. 

Diversity work is never “done” because the world is an inequitable place

You may feel like the header above this sentence is a blunt statement. I’ve written it that way so that it evokes an emotion in you, the reader. Explore that emotion—if you resent the statement, ask yourself whether that’s because “diversity work” doesn’t benefit you, or because you disagree with the sentiment that the world is unfair.

For the diverse communities at the center of your initiatives and in your target audiences, these are simply the truths of our lives. Only once you accept that can you begin to understand the ocean of identity, emotions, and humanity that you’re actually attempting to tap into with your diversity initiative. Execute it well and you can begin to appeal to some of those human elements—or, botch it and alienate your brand from swaths of the population entirely.

Special thanks to Areej AbuAli and Crystal Carter
for their help in shaping this article as well as for their advocacy,
which has helped me find my own voice on this subject over the years.

What is greenwashing?

Greenwashing refers to the deceptive marketing and communication tactics used by businesses and brands to portray themselves as environmentally friendly and socially responsible, even when their practices and products may not genuinely align with sustainable values. 

It involves misleading claims and exaggerated statements about a company’s eco-friendly initiatives, aiming to create a positive public perception and capitalize on the growing demand for eco-conscious products. 

Essentially, greenwashing is a manipulative strategy that seeks to exploit consumers’ desire to make environmentally responsible choices, making it crucial for individuals to be discerning and informed to avoid falling for false claims.

The Origins of Greenwashing

Do you know where ‘greenwashing’ comes from?

The use of the term started when environmental activist Jay Westerveld was staying in a hotel in Fiji. In the hotel bathroom, he saw a note with a green recycling symbol on it. It said: 

“Save Our Planet: Every day, millions of gallons of water are used to wash towels that have only been used once. You make the choice: A towel on the rack means, “I will use it again.” A towel on the floor means, “Please replace.” Thank you for helping us conserve the Earth’s vital resources.”

Unconvinced by the claim, the idea stuck in Westerveld’s head until 1986, and he ended up writing a critical essay—the first place where the term ‘greenwashing’ was actually used.

However, it was way before this situation and Jay’s essay, that greenwashing had been used as a marketing method.

The Rise of Corporate Greenwashing

Despite Westerveld’s essay in 1986, the general public wasn’t aware of the term until very recently. Many people often feel foolish when they are deceived by corporate greenwashing, but is it really an unsuspecting customer’s fault?

Early offenders in the greenwashing sphere include the following:

BP

Did you know that the term ‘carbon footprint’ stems from a marketing campaign BP ran with the help of Ogilvy? Back in 2005, the polluting giant ran a campaign asking people to calculate their own carbon footprint—pushing the onus on the individual rather than corporations like BP.

Chevron

Another oil company guilty of early-stage greenwashing, Chevron actually won awards for their greenwashing campaigns. In the mid-1980s they ran TV and print ads with the aim to convince the public that they have green intentions as part of their ‘People Do’ campaign.

They continued to greenwash through the years, attempting to repair their public perception with the “We Agree” campaign. The ads didn’t directly address their poor environmental record, nor the billion-dollar lawsuit that they were facing at the time.

Keep America Beautiful

Founded in 1953, Keep America Beautiful was founded by The American Can Co. and the Owens Illinois Glass Company. It was later supported by brands such as Coca-Cola and the Dixie Cup Company. Aired in 1971, their infamous Crying Indian commercial was not only a form of greenwashing, but it was also guilty of being culturally appropriative when it was discovered that the protagonist in the commercial wasn’t played by a Native American person, but instead an Italian-American.

It’s not just campaigns between the 70s and mid-10s that have been guilty of greenwashing. Brands that have recently been guilty of greenwashing include Ryanair, Innocent Drinks, Oatly, Ikea, H&M, Unilever, HSBC, Hyundai, Zalando, Decathlon, Boohoo, Asda, and ASOS.

In 2021, a global review coordinated by The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) found that of the random websites reviewed, 40% were making green claims which could be misleading to customers.

Differentiating Greenwashing from Genuine Sustainability

The key differences between eco-friendly claims and authentic sustainability efforts lie in their genuineness and long-term impact. 

Eco-friendly claims often refer to specific products or actions that are marketed as being environmentally friendly or less harmful to the planet. These claims may have some positive aspects, however, they may not necessarily encompass the entire lifecycle of the product or the overall practices of the brand or its parent company.

In contrast, authentic sustainability efforts involve a holistic approach where businesses integrate environmentally responsible practices into their core values, operations, and supply chains. These efforts extend beyond individual products and focus on reducing the company’s overall environmental footprint.

Authentic sustainability efforts also involve transparency, accountability, and a commitment to continuous improvement, demonstrating a genuine commitment to safeguarding the environment and making a positive impact on the planet in the long run.

The Impact of Greenwashing on the Environment

Greenwashing isn’t just guilty of deception—in fact, it has a negative impact on the environment through this deception. Customers are misled into believing that the products and services they use and consume are more environmentally friendly than they are.

This then leads to a number of different consequences, including:

• Waste generation
• Misuse of resources
• Delays in genuine sustainability efforts
• Natural resource depletion
• Stifling progress

Alongside this, it also contributes to loss of trust, which can have a negative impact on the environment itself due to consumers becoming disillusioned and making less effort due to being let down.

How to Spot Greenwashing

Want to know how to spot greenwashing? It can often be challenging to do so, however, there are clues to look for and questions to ask that can help you to become a more informed consumer—and better marketer, too:

• Check for third-party certifications
• Look for specific claims
• Research the company’s track records
• Scrutinise advertising and packaging
• Look for transparency
• Be cautious of overstated claims
• Consider the entire lifecycle
• Be aware of price and quality
• Dissect marketing language

Greenwashing and the Law: Is Greenwashing Illegal?

In the US, there are the Federal Trade Commission’s ‘Green Guides’. However, these are non-binding and billed as suggestions to businesses “designed to help marketers avoid making environmental claims that mislead consumers,” meaning that there are currently no US laws against greenwashing.

Similarly, in the UK, there are currently no laws or legislation that specifically outlaw greenwashing, however, new powers for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to impose direct civil penalties on companies will include greenwashing.

In September 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published the Green Claims Code, followed by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and Committee of Broadcast Advertising Practice (BCAP) publishing guidance on environmental claims and social responsibility. Since then, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has refreshed its guidance and issued rulings for misleading environmental claims and social responsibility.

In the EU, the European Commission proposed a regulating directive for ‘Green Claims’, which would complement the 2022 proposals to update EU consumer protection laws to tackle unfair commercial practices that mislead customers into thinking that certain choices are sustainable when they aren’t. There is guidance on what this would entail ensuring that businesses can substantiate their “explicit environmental claims”.

China doesn’t have a specific greenwashing law, but misleading marketing practices are regulated through advertising and consumer protection laws. In Canada, there aren’t specific greenwashing laws, but there are advertising standards codes, consumer protection acts, The Competition Act and the Trademarks Act which can cover misleading claims. Similar to China and Canada, Singapore does not have specific greenwashing guidance yet, but misleading advertising is covered by consumer and advertising acts and practices.

Certifications and Eco-Labels

Did you know that not all green certifications and eco-labels are genuine? You’d be surprised to know that many are greenwashing tactics, devised by brands and collectives to deceive consumers into thinking they are buying into something that’s eco-friendly, when in fact, it’s almost the same as a product without the same label?

Greenpeace released a report in 2021 where they’d undertaken an investigation to assess the effectiveness of certification schemes—it was found that ‘too many certified companies continue to be linked to forest and ecosystem destruction, land disputes and human rights abuses’.

How can you know whether the label you’re looking at is really ecological?

Check to see whether the label:

• Covers the entire product lifecycle, or just one or two stages
• Has been inspected by an independent control body
• Includes specifications with strict, clear criteria

Even then, there might still be greenwashing involved, so make sure to check the brand’s website for support on these claims, or the Labelinfo website, which gives detailed descriptions of various certification labels.

How about carbon offsetting? Will buying trees help?

Carbon offsetting is one of the most popular forms of greenwashing around. Rather than decreasing your own carbon emissions, carbon offsetting is designed to either cut theirs or decrease yours. Offsetting is riddled with flaws, especially since carbon offsetting projects overestimate the amount of carbon saved by their projects. Plus, there is simply not enough land to offset the carbon produced.

Those who offer ‘nature-based solutions’ state that more than 678 million hectares of land (the size of Australia or Brazil) need to be reforested to offset the amount of carbon we produce. Alongside this fact, the space doesn’t exist in the Global North, mainly due to expense (as planting trees will drive land prices up), and the decision to take this to the Global South would exacerbate negative impacts on livelihoods, land rights, food production, and ecosystems. This will lead to huge land grabs, human rights violations, biodiversity loss, and the expansion of large monocultures.

Instead of offsetting, the problem needs to be addressed at its foot; fossil fuels and ecosystem destruction. Pristine ecosystems need to be protected—Indigenous and local communities are already good at this, and they need to be further supported in being the guardians of biodiversity, while the rest of us put pressure on governments and corporations to actually do something, rather than continue with corporate greenwashing.

Best Practices for Businesses

So how can your business avoid greenwashing? Here are some tips:

• Back up all of your environmental claims with data. Make sure that data is kept up-to-date and is easily accessible to consumers and consumer bodies.
• Be honest about how green your band is—and if you have any goals, stick to them.
• Don’t use exaggerated, fluffy language with your environmental claims—ensure they are detailed and specific and use language all consumers understand.
• Check your language—make sure labels are clear, and campaigns and packaging don’t include misleading messages. Don’t use too many buzzwords without evidence to back them up.
• Don’t rely on carbon offsetting, including buying trees. Instead, be proactive in your activities to improve the eco-friendliness of your brand, products, campaigns, and messaging.
• Think about your manufacturing process and whether your products can be recycled and are free of toxic materials.

Greenwashing, and its ever-growing consequences, highlight the need for marketers to be vigilant and aware of greenwashing beyond its definition.

We need to think beyond shallow statements, meaningless certifications, and carbon offsetting.

We need to concentrate more on the data behind and the impact of claims, proactive practices, and authentic sustainability.

The battle against greenwashing is a shared responsibility, advocating ethical choices, and responsible business to prioritize true sustainability.

Each time I hear this, my heart sinks. It sinks because it feels that every week, the term imposter syndrome seems to be getting stronger, more prominent, and in the process, my clients appear to be downgrading their own abilities. 

I’m not suggesting the pain they feel isn’t real. I know it is—I have felt it too. In fact, it was in a meeting about how to tackle imposter syndrome that I experienced it last! How ironic. I was on a Zoom call, with a group of very intelligent people, all speaking very knowledgeably, and I started to question what I was doing there. What value could I add?

And then I reminded myself that I had been invited to this meeting, and certainly not imposed myself. I reminded myself that if I showed up as myself, respectfully and authentically, no one could ask more of me, not even me. And by being true to myself, and not caving into the feeling of “not being enough,” I navigated the meeting with grace and dignity, listened and learned, and when it felt right, shared my knowledge. It led to me being invited onto an exciting project, a great privilege.

It left me thinking, what if I had caved into those first feelings, of not feeling enough? I would have sold myself short and missed out on the many wonderful opportunities. 

Maybe it is time to reframe the imposter syndrome situation and rebalance the power dynamic. In this article, I hope to provide some ideas for individuals and organizations on how to do just that.

What does imposter syndrome feel like?

Most people will say it feels like you do not belong. That you do not deserve to be part of that meeting, that discussion, and you are only there by some fluke. And any moment now, you’ll be found out as the fraud you feel you are. 

But in the meanwhile, you sit there, frozen, too scared to speak, and too scared to leave. It can zap you of your ability to think or to contribute; the minutes feel like hours, and all the time, you can feel you are being rendered powerless. Self-doubt and incompetence take hold of you—a hold so strong, you can’t seem to break free.

But break free we must. Here’s how.

What can organizations do?

1. Recruit for diversity rather than cultural fit.

Too often as part of the interview process, there is a stage that assesses if the interviewee will be a “good fit.” And as they often really want the job, they will adjust their personality in order to “fit in.” However, what is more important is that team members should feel they can be themselves, authentically, and be valued as such.

So from the get-go, organizations should take steps to enhance a sense of belonging through diversity.

2. Invest in emotional intelligence training for those who manage teams.

Helping leaders feel equipped to have empowering conversations at 1-to-1 and team levels is essential. Help them be more open about their experiences, be more vulnerable, and in doing so, create a culture that encourages the same.

3. Have open conversations about imposter syndrome.

This is an extension of the previous point, but having open conversations, even from leadership, about experiences of imposter syndrome is crucial. The more these feelings are normalized, the less power they have. When individuals see that they are not the only ones feeling these feelings, the shame associated with it can be dispelled.

4. Invest in the team’s personal development, and not just skills-based learning.

A lot of the tackling of this topic is an inner game—challenging your beliefs, adjusting your inner dialogue, and optimizing your mindset. This type of training often is not budgeted for. And yet, this is exactly what is needed.

5. Foster a culture where people feel comfortable saying they’re stuck.

Creating a community culture where people feel safe in saying they don’t know what to do and that they are stuck can be a real help; a culture where asking for help is the norm, and no one feels stigmatized.

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In fact, helping each other out and having each other’s back is a core value of the organization, because the team that does this will be stronger and more resilient. And it’ll also be the type of culture that retains great employees.

6. Reward actions and behaviors, and not just outcomes.

If a team member takes a step outside of their comfort zone, one that requires dealing with feeling uncomfortable, reward that, no matter if they “succeeded” or “failed.” Maybe instead of asking “What went well this week?” ask, “What did you learn this week?”

What can individuals do against imposter syndrome?

1. Understand it’s completely normal.

The first thing I tell my clients is that this feeling of not being good enough is completely normal. Maybe you have been promoted, maybe you’ve been given an opportunity to work on a new project; of course it feels new, unfamiliar—you feel out of your depth.

And that is ok.

There is nothing wrong with you—this is what growth feels like. We all go through it, so embrace that feeling.

2. Be kind to yourself.

In this unfamiliar setting, do not make it worse by being harsh on yourself. Listen to how you are speaking to yourself—is your inner dialogue making the situation worse for yourself? Be as kind to you as you would be to a friend.

3. Challenge your beliefs.

Often we will say things like “I always mess up,” or “I don’t understand anything,” but the reality is probably not as bleak. Ask yourself for evidence to back up these claims; you’ll probably find you know more than you think.

4. Document your wins. Consider a “Win Jar” by your bed or on your desk.

It is always a great idea to document your wins, and often I suggest to my clients to journal their accomplishments. But sometimes it is nice to have this visual right in front of you. A win jar is something that sits on your desk or by your bed, and each day you write down something you have learned or achieved on a piece of paper, and place that paper in your win jar.

As the month progresses, you’ll see the “Wins” growing, helping you feel good about your progress.

5. Link your self-esteem to being a learner.

Often, our self-esteem is linked to other people’s opinions of us, rendering us vulnerable. But if you link it to something that is in your control, such as lifelong learning, not only will you learn something new daily, you will become emotionally stronger.

Just the Beginning 

Of course, these lists are not a comprehensive set of ideas. They are starting points for discussions that leadership and team members can use to have great conversations. What do they want the culture to look and feel like? How does leadership want their team members to feel supported? What steps will the organization take to play its part in combatting imposter syndrome in our industry? Because the reality is we are stronger together.

What if I told you the boat is an illusion? 

What if I told you, it doesn’t matter whether you learn how to turn AI prompts into crypto NFT gold? Or gold into crypto? Or crypto into Google Search Console (GSC) metrics? What if I told you that the best thing you could do in the AI space right now is to stop reading and start doing?

From Childcraft to AI: A Journey of Doing 

I’m fortunate enough to have grown up with Childcraft: The How and Why Library. It was an encyclopedia set for kids with volumes like “World and Space”, “How Things Change” and “Life Around Us”. If you treated the volumes well and actually read them, your parents might buy the more grown-up World Book when you were old enough. “Make and Do” was my favorite and I still have it. It’s completely covered in grime and glue.

I attempted every project in that book. My favorite thing to make was shoes. Actual shoes. Our garage was littered with various iterations of them. It was a revelation to 5-year-old me that if I followed the instructions, I would end up with shoes I could possibly wear. Spoiler: I was not allowed to wear the shoes.

How does this relate to ChatGPT? My friends, it’s the same thing! AI isn’t smart. ChatGPT isn’t smart. It’s just predicting the next word in a series. Sure, it’s the Babe Ruth of that kind of thing, but it is absolutely, positively not smarter than you.

I’m not a scientist and I don’t know how large language models work. That is also part of my point. Back in 1975, when I was an aspiring cobbler, did I know what a printing press was? OK, I did, but did I know how to operate one? Did I understand bookbinding or how the words that came to live in my Make and Do book got there? Nope. It never even crossed my mind. I just started making and doing. This is the same. 

The AI Rollercoaster: Keeping Up with the Pace

I may not be able to understand how large language models work, but I’ve been interested in AI, have been using it, and following the research for years. Conversion, which became Jarvis, which became Jasper. MidJourney. Duplex (lol). And who can forget Libratus, the system that Carnegie Mellon built to play Texas Hold ‘Em?

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But when ChatGPT became the new hotness this year, it took me exactly one week to feel like I was late to the party, and nothing would ever be good again. I was overwhelmed with information and advice being provided by “experts” and none of it seemed relevant to me, but all of it seemed like something I needed to know right now. 

A Helping Hand from ChatGPT: The Birth of the AI Assistant 

If speed dial had existed for 5-year-old me, the Greenville County Library would have lived at spot number one. I was told you could call them up and ask them anything, so I took that at face value and pretty much called them daily.

It dawned on me that I might be able to get ChatGPT to act in a similar way. If I told it I was overwhelmed with new information about large language models and that there were many things I wanted to know and do, but I didn’t know how to get started, what would it say? Imagine my delight when it replied with a question.

“What do you want to do with a large language model?”. Dang it Cheshire Cat, you’re right!

Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, it didn’t really matter how I got started. It turned out, just like most things, I needed an end goal. 

My AI Assistant’s Debut: A Technical SEO Trivia Game 

After a little back and forth with my new digital assistant, I determined that I wanted to create something fun to show off to my coworkers. A trivia game about everyone’s favorite subject: technical SEO! I thought the easiest and quickest way to accomplish this was to create a very simple website that had a trivia game embedded in it. I had been developing websites for years but decided to forget everything I ever knew and let ChatGPT tell me how.

I ended up with an extremely simple site with questions and answers completely written by ChatGPT. We played the game in our team meeting, and it was fun. The game took me less than 30 minutes from start to finish and that was only because I tweaked the CSS for vanity’s sake. So, what came next? What did I “need”? 

The next project kind of fell into my lap. Because I wouldn’t shut up about ChatGPT and MidJourney, I was voluntold to do an Office Hours session about it. So now I was going to be one of those people who tells other people how to leverage AI for fun and profit. How could I do this but make it lighthearted and not boring or scary and make it absolutely clear that I wasn’t an expert?

I decided to let ChatGPT do all the heavy lifting. It wrote the entire presentation and MidJourney provided all the images. I used carrd.co to park the site and at the time it almost seemed like magic. 

The Personal Concierge of Awesome: ChatGPT in Daily Life 

I’m not going to pretend that at this point my main goal was using AI professionally. I used it to write scenarios for my partner’s D&D sessions, to create music based on famous chess games, to find out where the best places to retire will be based on climate change data. The possibilities are endless when you treat these tools as your own personal concierge of awesome.

Bored while waiting in the doctor’s office? Tell it you’re bored and ask it to entertain you.

Having a panic attack and need a distraction? Ask it to tell you something good.

Hear an interesting line in a song, movie or show and wonder what that would look like as an image? MidJourney it! [The best lyric from one of the greatest songs ever written, Wichita Lineman.]

Dinner party hits a snag and you need to lighten the mood? Get MidJourney to show you “are birds fish”.

Or “lizard man, but he’s here to help”. 

But wait. I thought we were supposed to be thinking about how AI tools can make us money and leverage the widgets and circle back on the strategery. Sometimes the progress is the profit and if progress means you use these tools to get through the day with some levity, you are leveling up.

The Freedom to Use AI, Your Way 

Are there a million tutorials out there offering you secret sauces to optimize your prompts for these tools? Sure, there are. I won’t say that I never dip my toes into those waters. They’re a part of the expansive and exciting landscape of AI, and they can lead to some amazing results.

But here’s the truth that I’ve come to embrace and want to share with you: you don’t have to go down the rabbit hole of optimizations to get value out of these tools. There is an inherent power and potential in AI, and it’s accessible to all of us, even at the most basic level. You may barely know how to use them, and they can still transform your personal life and your work life in ways you couldn’t have imagined a few months ago. 

Don’t let the noise of “experts”, the litany of articles, or the pressure of “getting it right” intimidate you or keep you from exploring the AI realm. These tools are your allies, ready to assist, inspire, and amplify your efforts. They can turn a mundane task into an exciting project or convert a daunting challenge into an achievable goal. Or, they can simply make friends and family laugh around the dinner table.

Give yourself the freedom to use AI, your way. Step in with curiosity, engage with openness and don’t get swept away by the tidal wave of AI complexities. Instead, enjoy the ride. Embrace the technology that’s here to help you make, do, and achieve more. Remember, the journey with AI is not about reaching a destination; it’s about the possibilities you discover along the way. So, start where you are, use what you have, and dive into the incredible world of AI–one prompt at a time.

• Want to know how to fix a broken zip? Google it.
• Want to go on a riverside walk in a new part of town? Google it.
• Want to do a sponsored run for a charity of your choice? Google it.
• Want to buy bubble tea near you? Google it.

Chatting with my daughter I’ll find that I’ll quite naturally use Google as a verb in terms of solving any conundrum—from ‘do sloths explode if they don’t fart?’ through to ‘is there a Studio Ghibli world in Japan?’ to name just a couple from the last week.

In a professional capacity, to say I’m ‘cemented’ in the Google infrastructure would be an understatement. Let’s gloss over the reliance on various Google hardware and software and focus on my primary professional offerings—the things that pay the bills, and keep my mental cogs whirring.

On each and every work day, I without fail, think about Google Search, I read about Google Search, I write about Google Search and I work with businesses to ‘make the most of the opportunities provided by Google Search’.  

I encourage businesses to think about their customers and potential customers and how they search on Google. I work with them to improve their rankings on Google, and to improve their visibility in the search engine results page (SERP) in terms of rich elements. I encourage them to have website content that will meet the needs and intent of the visitors that they get from Google, and website content that can be crawled and indexed by Google.

And I don’t need to describe to you the focus that I give to Google Business Profiles (GBPs) and their importance at all stages of the customer journey. This is my bread and butter, this is what I DO!

And for good reason. Every day Google processes over 8.5 billion searches (source) and Google is the most frequently used search engine worldwide, with a market share of around 84.69% (source).

But wait a minute. Did someone mention eggs and baskets, and how one should not place all of their zygotes in the same receptacle?

Is the Sky Really Falling Down?

As SEOs, we’re pretty used to the at least annual ‘SEO is dead’ conversations. Voice search killed it, and now AI. But we’re still here, aren’t we?

But what if Google pulls the rug out from under the businesses that rely on GBP as a low-cost option for reaching their customers—either by monetizing the product or doing something else that means GBP is no longer a viable option for the masses of small businesses that it currently ‘serves’.

But what if Google does lose the monopoly on search?  What if our potential customers start to (or continue to) commence and continue their purchase journey somewhere other than Google when they’re looking to meet their ‘know, go, do, and buy’ needs?

Various Google antitrust concerns and their related investigations rumble on—the most concerning of which (to us as local SEO and local business owners) is that related to Google’s ‘sprawling mapping service’.

In my monitoring of the local knowledge panel in the SERP, on some devices and browsers, I started seeing a pared-back panel for the business—a click to call, a click for directions, and a click to the website only, rather than the plethora of GBP features and functionality we have come to expect (and indeed rely on):

The ‘European Digital Market Act’ could also spell huge changes in the SERP. 

This piece suggests that the visibility of Google Business Profile listings could be impacted from 90% to 95% (in terms of not actually being visible in the SERP), as in the example below:

Source: Journal Du Net © Nicolas Chevallier. Image translation: Current Display > March 2024

Moving forward the likelihood of a less rich SERP experience in Google, or indeed a move away from Google altogether, should be considered and planned for.

So, let’s get to it!

People Before Platforms

Reliance on the behemoths of online platforms (Facebook, Google, YouTube, and the like) can often be a ‘default’ setting for many small and medium-sized businesses and their marketers who, in my experience, often mistake tactics and channels for strategy.

We need to revisit some of the primary marketing tenets before we dive into thinking about life beyond Big G. 

In order to consider which platforms and channels could replace Google we need to get back to the ‘people’.

Who Are the People? 

In the first instance, they’re our customers and potential customers. They’re the people for whom we solve problems; they’re the people that have, and could have, their wants and needs met by our products and services.

We need to know what these people are looking to solve. What is the itch that they need to scratch? What are the factors that will influence their choices? Which of the features and benefits of your product or service will be most attractive to which types of customers and potential customers?

Another set of people are our competitors. They’re the people we are up against when we compete for the hearts, minds, and wallets of our customers and potential customers. What do they do better than us? What do we do better than them? What are the features and benefits of their products and services?

Where Are My People?

When you’ve attended to the above you’re going to be in a much better position to explore channels and platforms that might be new to you as a business, or that you’ve explored a little but know that you’ve not totally made the most of the opportunities.

A Few Tried and Tested Ways to Connect With Your Customers

Take it Offline

Not everything needs to take place online. Go old skool and start to think about how people go about solving their problems and finding a product or service provider that can make their heart sing, or at least fix their car’s suspension. I’m thinking of word-of-mouth referrals, I’m thinking of loyalty schemes, I’m thinking of ‘refer a friend’, I’m thinking of local pamphlets, posters, and community newsletters. I’m thinking about leveraging offline relationships to explore partnerships, and dare I say it, ‘synergies’.  It just feels so damn wholesome!

Other Search Engines are Available

I’m not sure if you’ve heard of Bing? I joke.

Seriously, make sure you have at least the basic and correct presence in these places, and keep an eye on any new opportunities as new features and functionality are added—maybe we’ll even see an Apple Search Engine at some point in the future?

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Your Website

If you’ve been treating Google as ‘your new home page’ (hat tip to Mike Blumenthal, for that phrase, though of course he never suggested that you don’t need a website!) and letting your actual business website gather dust like a succulent on a window ledge, it’s time to dust that thing off, give it a drop of water and expose it to some sunlight.

Your website is your business entity’s ‘home’—and you need to treat it as such, keeping it up to date in terms of the products and services you offer, your important business details, and anything else that is essential to help your potential customers choose you, and your existing customers continue to choose you.

Referring Sites

When I talk about ‘referring sites’, I’m talking about websites that refer traffic to your website.  

I’m not explicitly talking about ‘links’ here or the value of links from an algorithmic perspective. I’m talking specifically about websites that link to your website that refer visitors (AKA the actual people that are looking for a solution to a problem that you can solve via your products and services) to your website where they’ll be able to find the information that they need to make a decision about whether or not they want to do business with you, and then take the next steps in actually actioning that decision.

Make sure you know which sites already refer visitors to your website, and how those visitors convert, and always be thinking about building and developing relationships with other websites that could also refer potential customers.

Get on the Socials

TikTok is the new Google anyway, supposedly. Except it’s not. Jokes aside—social channels can be a useful way to connect with people that are looking to solve various problems. Just make sure that you adhere to good social etiquette—don’t spam platforms with self-congratulatory or over-promotional content. Listen first. Be helpful. Be real. Be a friend.

Email

After the flurry of creating a ‘newsletter sign up’ option on your website and sending a few half-arsed, overly promotional emails, many smaller businesses that don’t have the luxury of a dedicated marketing team decide that email marketing just doesn’t work for them.  

Think again. Email is your chance to develop relationships with your existing and potential customers through on-brand personalized messages that will meet the needs of these engaged users—users who are likely to be at all stages of the buying journey, but who have actively ‘opted in’ to receive your messages. Through email, you get to have conversations and be authentic with people who have signed up and have given you access to their inboxes. 

And There’s More

Amazon, Reddit, Meta, Nextdoor, Video, YouTube, Influencer Marketing, Sponsorship, Display, Events, Content Marketing, Online Ads, Offline Ads, Public Relations, and Partnership Marketing—there are a plethora of channels and platforms that any business (small or otherwise) can employ to help them reach their target market.

Google hasn’t gone anywhere… yet. If organic search is delivering for your business—great stuff. Make the most of the organic opportunities offered by Google, but I suggest you have a little think about diversifying your marketing efforts so that if things do go tits up you’ve distributed your marketing eggs between a range of promising baskets.

Final Thoughts

Before you dive in, make sure that you have the answers to these questions:

• Will my customers and potential customers use this channel or platform to seek out solutions to their problems and is there a place for me to promote my products and services accordingly?
• And in a way that is going to be likely to help people choose my products and services over a competitor?
• And a way that is likely to lead to a long-term relationship with this person?
• Are my competitors already using this channel, tactic, or platform successfully, and if so what can I learn from them?
• Is there a way for me to measure the efficacy of this tactic, channel, or platform—even at the most rudimentary of levels?

When it comes to marketing superpowers, small and medium-sized businesses can win big beyond Google and beyond those behemoth platforms we mentioned.  

The power of ‘actually giving a shit’, the power of knowing (and I mean REALLY knowing because you meet them day to day) your customers, the power of caring, the power of being committed to building authentic relationships in your niche and geographic area, the power of being committed to listening to feedback, to continuously improve your product and service offerings and to staying agile in a changeable marketplace where ‘doing a Google’ might not always be the first step on a potential customers purchase journey, are the superpowers that I encourage you to explore and develop.

Go forth and diversify!

As the inimitable Ruth Burr-Reedy always says, “it’s called show business… not show friends”—but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t important. Most agencies completely forget that they can’t do anything without their employees. Digital marketers have been commoditized.

I’ve worked at several agencies over the last 20 years—and for most of them, people didn’t matter. Everyone was just a number on the P&L sheet:

• Someone wants more of a raise than the pathetic 3% that was company policy? “F ‘em—let ’em leave, there are thousands of people waiting in line to replace them.”
• A rock star applies to join the team but wants a few thousand more than our standard salary? “Ha ha, what idiots! Who do they think they are?”
• Someone on the team is privately struggling with a mental health issue and asks for a day off? “Sorry, man, you’re out of PTO.”

I’m not going down the “it’s cheaper to pay more to retain employees than hire and train new ones” road. I’m not going to spout the standard BS about how company culture matters. I’m not even going to share self-care tips to help y’all be in a better headspace.

I am going to tell you how to get into the right mindset to make all this stuff work.

I’m incredibly blessed to work for a visionary agency owner. Mark Bealin, founder of SearchLab, is not your standard agency owner. He puts his people before anything else.

Not only has he built a stellar agency based on hiring the right high-level talent—he’s done it with the right people-focused core values. I’m here today to share a little about how our agency does things differently, and why I think it’s the key to long-term success…

But even if it’s not, it’s the key to doing things the right way.

As you read through this brain dump, don’t holler at me about how you do the same thing. If you do things as we do, this post isn’t meant for you. Virtual high five, amigo! Thanks for being awesome.

Really, this is meant for all the other people out there who are either doing it wrong on purpose, doing it wrong without realizing it’s wrong, or who are thinking about building an agency in the future and want to do it the right way.

It’s worth mentioning that COVID-19 and the explosion of remote work has only made the problem of poor agency management worse.

For a lot of agencies, as long as the work’s getting done, employees are out of sight, so they’re out of mind. There’s a ridiculous amount of research that’s been done in recent years that shows that remote workers are prone to high anxiety, feelings of isolation and loneliness, depression, distraction, lack of motivation, and general malaise.

Again: not really going there with this post. It’s all been covered ad nauseum.

I’m here to champion the fact that there’s another way. I’m here to share that a people-first mentality actually equates to better results for clients… and a better bottom line for your agency.

If you’ve seen me speak at any event before, you know I’m all about sharing actionable tactics—so I want to try to steer away from the 10,000-foot view here. I want to share real-world examples from my own experience. So that, hopefully, you can either shift your perspective and start to give a shit about your team or, if you’re building a team in the future, that you start with the right foundation.

It’s Not About Culture, It’s About Mindset

A few years ago, I worked at an agency that was a sub-section of a larger company. The SEO office was at a separate location, and it was built out to be “cool” so it would contribute to a great “culture” (please read the words in quotations with sarcasm).

We had a massive break room, a huge couch with an Xbox, a shuffleboard table, and even a nap corner. We had a huge drop-down screen to run team events and training. From the outside, it seemed like an awesome place to work.

But the owners wanted a better bottom line, so we were forced to hire cheaper team members with less (or no) experience. Some of those people truly were rock stars and are still killing it in the SEO game today. But we started to have a big problem: we were training other agencies’ employees.

It was a revolving door of team members. The cheaper we skewed on hiring, the more likely it was that those people left once they finished training and got a bit of experience under their belts. Raise percentages dropped, and the problem got even worse. Every time I brought it up, the owners told me to deal with it, because we had no problems hiring new people to replace them.

Clients got frustrated at the turnover and morale dropped. It wasn’t a good situation.

They didn’t care about the people, they just cared about the bottom line.

And that wasn’t an isolated situation—it happens all the time with agencies that grow. The more you grow, the easier it is to lose sight of who’s allowing that growth to happen.

Mental Health Shouldn’t Be a Scary Topic

Isolation does some crazy stuff to your brain. Why do you think they have isolation cells for misbehaving prisoners? They’re already in prison, but being shut in a cell by yourself is far worse. Now that most agencies have gone remote, everyone’s in their own isolation cell.

As agency owners and leaders, it’s our obligation to understand that and to help people lessen the impact of not being in a face-to-face office situation every day. Yet, so many agencies don’t care about mental health, or at best are terrified of talking about mental health. If the topic is even vaguely alluded to, it’s “hey, you need to go talk to HR about it” (and then it’s lost forever in the HR black hole, and nothing ever changes).

That’s why SearchLab has been such a shocking departure for me. I had just been suddenly let go from a new agency (through more non-people-focused leadership decisions) and was looking for a new home. One of the guys who was going to be speaking at the State of Search conference in Dallas reached out and asked if he could take me to lunch the day before the conference to chat about coming to work there.

That lunch changed my life.

Mark Bealin is the kind of guy that pretty much anyone who knows him would take a bullet for. Within maybe three or four minutes, it was obvious that this was a totally different approach to running a business, much less a marketing agency.

He talked about true work-life balance.

About how money wasn’t as important as having happy employees that truly enjoyed their jobs.

About how he wanted to be the one to change people’s lives, help them get houses, help send their kids to school. 

It wasn’t about hiring me to build the agency to make bank. It was about hiring me to build an agency of awesome people who love what they do and enjoy doing it—but to also give people a better life outside of work.

About a year into COVID, we had one of our rockstar employees suddenly resign with zero notice, effective immediately. We were shocked, and it seemed utterly out of character, so Mark called and talked to them to see what was going on. It turned out that they were really mentally stressed with trying to maintain work and dealing with a few personal issues.

Instead of shying away from the conversation or just giving up, Mark asked if they’d rather just take a leave of absence and come back in a few months when they felt more comfortable. They were shocked that it was even an option, and took us up on the offer.

Most agencies wouldn’t have asked, they’d be upset that they lost someone with no notice, and more importantly, that employee wouldn’t have been welcome back in the future. Instead, we helped someone through a difficult period and welcomed them back with open arms.

So now that I’ve rambled for a lot longer than I probably should have, let me get to the point:

You have to focus on your people. Period.

Top-down or Not At All

Managers and team leads can talk about culture and inclusion all day long, but if it’s not part of the lifeblood of your agency, it doesn’t make much difference. Everyone from the top down has to be a part of making that change.

I’m not talking about the normal BS of touting that you’ve got work-life balance. Or that you’ve got a “sweet culture, bro”. I’m talking about a complete shift in point of view.

At SearchLab, we have several core values that we live by daily:

• Continuous drive for learning and self-improvement
• Have integrity in all that we do
• Relentless pursuit of exceptional results
• Demonstrate accountability and responsibility
• Contribute to a positive, supportive, and collaborative environment

That’s five core values, and really only one has anything to do with the standard “snappin’ necks and cashin’ checks” mentality that most agencies have.

So before this becomes a blog post that’s got more content than the entire BrightLocal site, let me share some of the things we’ve done.

Tactics for a People-focused Agency

When COVID hit, we went remote, like everyone else. Before COVID, everyone but me and our developer worked in the Chicago office. We adjusted quickly to remote life and realized we could hire remote workers without any problems. Pretty quickly we became a widely distributed team (we tripled our headcount during COVID, so it was a lot of growth).

We realized pretty quickly that we had to invest a lot of time and effort into recreating the in-person-ness and connection that we were lacking. We’ve honed it over time, and while I’m positive that there are improvements we can still make, I think we’ve got a pretty good system in place. 

True Focus on Work-life Balance

Volume isn’t important to us. Could we make more money if we made our people work longer hours? Sure. But life isn’t all about work. We make sure that workloads don’t exceed 35 hours a week. Standard hours are 8 to 5 central, five days a week. We even tell our clients that we’re only available during that window.

Some agencies let people work whichever hours they want, as long as work gets done. We tried that, but then saw people splitting their workload to a few hours a day, but working every day. Breaks are important, so now we don’t let people work over the weekend. At SearchLab, you actually get in trouble if you do weekend work. That’s you-time, not work time.

We also close the business completely from Christmas to New Year’s – again, that’s you-time and family time, so why make some people work while most of the office is enjoying a break?

Unlimited Time Off, Done Properly

We’re always looking for ways to make our employees’ lives better, so last year we switched to unlimited time off. We already had an incredibly generous time off policy when I started: from Day One at SearchLab, employees would get three weeks of time off and unlimited sick days (that didn’t count against time off days). But we knew we could do better, so we switched to unlimited days off. 

(Personally, I’m most excited about this because it’ll make it much easier for me to be on Survivor someday soon…)

But then we noticed something… people were actually taking less time off. When it’s a “use it or lose it” situation, you feel like you have to take the time off. When you can take off whenever you want for as long as you want, it becomes less of a priority.

I’m actually building a system right now to monitor when people take time off. Once I get it finished and working, we’ll actually require employees to take time off if they’ve gone too long without doing so.

Hiring the Right People for the Right Seats

It’s hard to hire without bias. Sure, we look at skill sets, but your own personal biases will influence who you hire. For example: if you’re a more social person, you end up hiring people you want to hang out and have a beer with. That doesn’t always work out, though.

About two years ago, we started churning employees. Even with the focus that I’ve talked about so far, people were leaving at a pretty high rate. We’d get comments like “you worked me too hard” or “you micromanaged my schedule” or “tracking hours is too controlling”.

We didn’t understand the comments, so we found a solution that helped us be better at hiring the right people.

We started using a system called Culture Index to help us hire the right people for the right seats. Far beyond the personality tests a lot of companies use, it’s a system that uncovers how people’s brains are hardwired.

Thanks to Culture Index, we now know how to better communicate with applicants, and more importantly, we know if someone is hardwired for success. If someone’s hardwired to be more of a “go with the flow” person, they’re probably not a great fit for the repetitive, task-based nature of agency life—even if they’re super social and interview like a rock star. It’s one of the biggest game-changers we’ve implemented.

We’re Not Afraid to Pay More

Dollar-focused agencies look to hire cheap. We look to hire expensive. We’re responsible about it, obviously, but we typically pay more than other agencies pay for similar roles. Experience is worth paying for, and I’m not interested in SearchLab being a training ground for other agencies.

If we pay better, we get a higher quality of people to join the team, and they’ll typically stick around longer.

… and We’re Not Afraid to Keep Paying More

We’re not afraid to keep paying more, either. I read the other day that the standard raise in today’s world is something like 3%. That doesn’t even cover the increase in the cost of living. We give aggressive raises to reward people for rocking awesome work. And again, that makes people happier and keeps them around longer.

Zappy Hour and Goofy Get-togethers

We wanted to figure out how to recreate those watercooler moments while remote working. Those random conversations that happen that aren’t about work really help connect team members and help everyone to get to know each other better.

Since everyone is remote, we can’t do the “let’s all go to happy hour together” thing. So instead, we have a weekly Zappy Hour (‘cause it’s happy hour on Zoom… get it?). People can grab their beverage of choice and just hang out together. We even had some team members start curating playlists for each week’s Zappy Hour, so everyone’s involved in the background music.

We try to schedule goofy meetings periodically as well. (I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty awesome at most of the Jackbox games.) We purposefully mix up the groups and teams each time so everyone gets to hang out and have fun with different people.

And yes, all of this is scheduled during work hours—not after hours, where we’d take people away from personal time.

Weekly One-on-ones and Team Meetings

Getting work done matters, too! We couldn’t do any of this if we didn’t have happy clients. So we have weekly meetings for each team, along with weekly one-on-one meetings for each team member and their direct supervisor. A face-to-face chat over Slack or Zoom is so much better for personal connection than a typed email or Slack message.

Sharing Profits with the People Who Helped Us Get Here

I mentioned before that our owner isn’t only focused on profits, and he’s serious about that. We set up a profit-sharing bonus with the entire company: every month, a set percentage of the profits is dropped in the bonus pool. Every June and December, that bonus pool is distributed among the team, based on a simple seniority-based point system.

Everyone gets extra money for summer vacations and Christmas presents, but more importantly, everyone has skin in the game. Hard work and happy clients mean more money in everyone’s pockets.

Handing Out Even More Money

The salaries, generous raises and profit sharing weren’t enough for Mark, though… he still wanted to do more.

So last fall, he and I worked out a retention bonus program for our employees. We’re a boutique setup, so each team member “owns” a set number of clients and does everything for those clients.

For each month that they don’t lose any clients, money is funded to a separate bonus pool (which also pays out in June and December). Team leads and managers get to play here too, even though they don’t have accounts—they get funded when the team members they’re in charge of don’t lose any clients.

Not only did this help us give even more to our team, but it’s also refocused everyone on customer retention. Keeping clients happy keeps them around longer, which puts more money in everyone’s pockets. 

We’re Not Stopping There…

Like the movie Popstar, we never stop never stopping. Because our team is more important than anything else, we’re always looking for ways to make our team’s lives better, both in the (virtual) office and at home (the “at home” after the home office).

At the end of the day, we’re only around for a short period of time, and there are a million-bazillion things that are more important than work.

Like Myles said in the first piece in this series:

“Never, ever, lose sight of the people, as without them, what are you?”

BrightLocal Spotlight is a brand-new series exploring the human side of digital marketing. This month we’re hearing from BrightLocal CEO and Co-founder, Myles Anderson, about his personal experiences dealing with the crisis in Ukraine, going head-to-head with Google, and what he’s learned about leadership.

BrightLocal itself was born out of my own personal crisis. Losing my job resulted in an all-time personal low, and it was a huge learning experience for me. In the time since BrightLocal was born, we’ve had four instances of true crises. Each of these has helped shape both who I am as a person and BrightLocal as a business itself.

The crises I’ve worked through since starting BrightLocal have made me acutely aware that people look to you much more in these times to see how you react and behave. I’ve had to accept that responsibility.

Now, a year on from the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, I wanted to reflect on what leading through a crisis means for me.

And it’s simple… it always comes back to the people.

When I think about the crises we’ve been through over the last 13 years, there are four distinct moments or periods of time that come to mind.

The first of these came when Google made major changes to how they work. Many in the SEO industry worry about algorithm updates, but for us as an SEO tool provider, the important part is access. Rarely, Google changes how scraping happens on their platform, and on two of these occasions, they’ve completely blocked us out.

As we go to Google to provide data, not only for rank tracking insights and monitoring but also for reviews and Google Business Profile audits, you can imagine how much of a nightmare this was

None of our tools worked.

No data was coming through because of bot detection. That’s an instant crisis.

We had to work out:

• How could we get this data back?
• What did it mean for our customers?
• What does it mean for our business and people?

To better focus our efforts, and to avoid butting up against future Google changes, we diversified our data sources.

These are crises that, while predominately technical, have a big human impact, which to some may not be easy to see.

The other two times of crisis are more immediately obvious for their human impact. And, while the Google fixes could generally be resolved in a few fractious days, these have taken huge chunks of time.

First came COVID-19. While there were rocky days early on (we lost a full 15% of our customers in the first three weeks), we were lucky to be working in an industry that thrived during the pandemic. After eight weeks we’d already regained what we’d lost, as local businesses turned to their websites, offered curbside pickup, and other workarounds.

We were lucky that this crisis allowed us to play specifically to our strengths, offering market-leading local marketing tools when people were pivoting to online, during a time of digital transformation.

Finally, and most critically, there’s the Russia-Ukraine invasion and subsequent escalation into war: a crisis that we are still well within. With 30 members of our team based in Ukraine, this introduced a completely different set of circumstances that affected us and our wider team directly. It has led to intensely personal and professional stress for them and those within BrightLocal.

Not only that, but the war itself has caused wider shockwaves across the marketing world and economy, with price increases all over the world.

Each crisis provided its own unique set of challenges and stresses. Each offered me the opportunity to step up and lead in a way I’d not had to before.

Being a Leader During Times of Crisis

If I’m being honest, these times really bring out the best in me.

I functioned well during these periods. I’ve discovered that I function at my best with time pressure. I always did university papers last minute and thrived in time-pressured exams. Having all the balls up in the air lets me dial up my skills to their maximum potential.

I completely understand that this way of working isn’t for everyone. It’s perfect for me, but understanding that there are all sorts of different types helps me lead more effectively.

Personally, though, I come alive and deliver my best work when under pressure.

It’s imperative not to try and manufacture these situations though. While pressure brings out my best qualities as a leader, it’s not something I seek out.

The crises I’ve worked through as a leader since starting BrightLocal have made me acutely aware that people look to you much more in a time of crisis to see how you react and behave. I’ve had to accept that responsibility. This focus means you need to take a lead and assess how bad the situation is.

I have a habit of internalizing my panic and fear. The concern is very real and something that impacts me—my sleep and my stress levels in particular. While this is the case, I know I can’t panic everyone around me.

I have to moderate my own outward behavior to be much calmer. While I will make sure I don’t completely hide my stress and concern, I strive to make it clear that I’m not visibly shaken. I exude calmness to keep the team steady.

The theory goes: if the people around me see I’m not panicking, then they’ll have faith that they’re okay and that the situation is fixable.

For example, on the two occasions that Google effectively shut down our key tools, members of the team were naturally questioning their immediate and long-term employment.

What if Google blocking the scrapes simply meant “that was it”, and we’d have no other way to find the data? I had to show my team that I understood the situation and that I shared some of their stresses. But, at the same time, I had to show I was calm and that I was working toward a solution.

Communication is key to successfully navigating any crisis.

Regular, detailed, and clear communication is imperative, especially internally within the business. You can’t let people feel like something major has crept up on them. Control your own narrative and you’ll stop people from creating their own myths about what’s going on.

Be open. You never want hidden skeletons suddenly emerging from the closet. 

I’ve always found that you need to make sure you work with a group to solve key issues, too. You want to involve enough people, but not everyone. If you’re not careful, you burden everyone with the responsibility, and the rest of your business can grind to a halt.

You need to let most people carry on doing what they do best, to help keep everything running, then dedicate the right focused resource to fixing the problem.

All of this allows for trust in leadership. It shows you have at least some element of control over the situation at hand. Trust and authenticity are key.

Be truthful. Don’t hide anything. Show that you understand the situation.

Communicating with our customers during a time of crisis is also critical. It’s important that we make sure we’re open and honest, but, it needs to be said, it does work a little differently.

We don’t always give our customers the full insight immediately. We don’t want to panic them, or cause alarm. We want to show them that, whatever the situation, we can rectify or minimize the impact of it, and that we are always able to find a solution and get back on track.

It’s essential to make sure they aren’t impacted.

We’re lucky that we have an incredibly loyal customer base that has supported us through thick and thin over the years—especially during those early issues with Google, as I mentioned earlier.

The key, we’ve found, is that you can be a lot more open in a retrospective sense. Once you’ve found a solution, you can talk about a positive future and avoid causing customers completely undue concern.

Company Culture Is Essential at Times of Crisis; Don’t Let It Slip

We’ve been big on culture at BrightLocal right from the start. It’s always been about treating individuals as individuals and caring on a personal level. We are generous and considerate to each other, and to our customers and suppliers.

We’ve always wanted a combination where we offer long-term value to our customers that provides great value, while we create a good environment for people to work in.

Time and effort go into recruiting and developing our people. We have to make sure we get stronger with each addition to the team.

In good times, it’s very easy to maintain this and to invest in culture, whether that’s training, coaching, expanding your benefits, or company socials.

But, when bad times come along, it’s easy for panic mode to kick in.

It becomes easy to lose sight of the culture you’ve been building. It’s when a good company culture is tested the most. Can you be as strong and true to your culture when you’re grappling with major issues? When the sun isn’t shining, and everything isn’t rosy, are you still investing in your culture?

A great test of our own culture has been when people have really come together around a challenge or problem. It’s been excellent proof of our investment in culture paying off. People are willing to put in hard shifts to solve problems. The openness has made communication and collaboration smooth and made people willing to put in the effort to solve challenges.

The way our team dug in to solve the Google blocking issue is one example of this, as is our transition to virtual teams during COVID-19.

There’s no greater example, however, than how our teams have reacted to the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022—how we rallied and came together.

When the invasion began, we helped people to flee. We had to get properties in western Ukraine to give them a safe place to go, and we had to help them get there. We supported our Ukrainian brothers and sisters to do what they needed to do.

We had to help in every way we possibly could.

On the other side of things, we also had to keep the lines of communication open with our customers to show them that not only were we still operating, but that we were keeping our people safe.

It was a true test of, and proof of, our strong culture.

When the bad times hit, we still saw investing in culture as valuable. We never stopped providing training and coaching. We continued to support our team members in whatever ways we could. We leaned into the strongest parts of our culture.

Never Forget the Human Aspect of a Crisis

Dealing with a crisis can make you laser-focused on a solution, especially if it’s a technical problem. You want to instantly know what’s gone wrong and how you can fix it. It makes it easy to ignore the human impact and the toll it can have.

The instant urge is ‘to do anything’ to get a fix in place. This can put intense pressure on team members: asking them to do extra hours, drop other tasks, skip breaks, and all sorts of other things. Leaders at these times can forget that there are always people they’ll be impacting.

Niceties can go out the window. They shouldn’t.

It can be simple to find a solution that resolves the crisis at hand but that has huge human capital damage. When this happens:

• People lose faith in the leader
• There’s no trust left in you or the business
• You’ve likely acted in complete contrast to the culture you preach

People will think, justly, “Well, you didn’t look after me during a testing moment. My humanity was thrown out the window. Why should I trust you?”

You must recognize their contribution. And recognize if something is too much for someone. Don’t put them in a situation where they can’t cope. At these times, pressure can make people reluctant to speak up as they feel the need to go “all-in”. You need to make sure they aren’t put in this position to begin with.

Keeping an eye on the long term allows you to recognize the human impact. If you let it slip, it could tarnish people’s view of you and your relationships with them.

Focus on teamwork and collaboration. Understand this is a real test for your culture. You must keep doing what’s important. People around the crisis will see that culture means something to you when they can see you’re focusing on the human aspect.

Morale is important and should be protected.

Don’t Ignore the Impact on You as a Person

Each of these crises has impacted me on a personal level, particularly during the Ukraine war, which began a year ago this week.

During the Christmas of 2022, I took a long break. I hadn’t realized just how exhausted I was. I’d taken holidays, and had time away from work over the year, but at the end of it, I was truly shattered.

What I worked out was that even though I’d taken time off, I’d never truly disengaged from the crisis.

I realized that my daily routine had become update-centric. I’d wake up earlier than usual. Often 5 or 6 am. First things first: check the news and social media stories. Work out what’s going on in Ukraine and see whether our colleagues are affected.

Across the day I’d be taking any chance I could to get updated. It would also be the last thing I was doing before attempting to sleep. It took a big emotional toll.

It was always in the back of my head.

Of course, it hopefully goes without saying that this was nothing compared to the realities of our colleagues in Ukraine. But, when you can’t switch off, it’s constantly chipping away at your energy and undermining your mental and physical health. It makes it harder to lead.

Even when I’d take holidays, I’d be checking in, or arranging some aspect of our Local SEO for Ukraine supply trip. I simply wasn’t having a real break.

When Christmas finally came around, I slept. Finally.

I spent some time reflecting on how I dealt with the crisis and came away with some key learnings.

Next time I’m in such an intense crisis, I’m going to properly manage my energy levels and make sure I maintain what’s important to me. I realized that sleep and exercise are key to my own wellbeing, and I’d let those slip.

I didn’t exercise for the first three months of the Ukraine war. I slept horrendously, often getting to bed at 1 am and waking up at 5 am.

And I’d go from that straight into the news cycle…

I left myself no chance to recuperate. It made me a bad husband and father. It reduced my effectiveness as a leader. All this took a remarkable toll on me.

I learned that while I am desperate to be engaged, you have to take breaks occasionally. If I’m not careful, being consistently “on” actually makes me less effective. I have to understand that those around me can also provide support.

Self Belief is Key

Each of the four crises I’ve mentioned in here has shown me that people can, and will, come through these things. Maintaining that belief is important.

BrightLocal was born out of this deep, personal crisis.

Before Ed [Eliot, BrightLocal Co-founder] and I jumped off the deep end and founded BrightLocal, I’d just been made redundant. I had been working at eHarmony for 11 months, looking after business development in the UK. I loved it all, from the ethos to the culture, but unfortunately, it just didn’t work out.

When I lost my job, I questioned everything about myself. It hit my self-esteem hard. I felt like a total failure. Hated myself. Hated the experience. I had two young children and was desperate that they wouldn’t look at their father as a loser, and say “you can’t do this!”. What if they thought I’d never amount to anything?

At this point, I decided I had to do something for myself. I had to put myself in control of my life to make my kids proud of me. And so BrightLocal was born out of this deep, personal crisis.

The truth is, we tend to come out the other side. We always have done.

This means I always have faith that the good times will come and that better things lie ahead.

I’ve learned how important it is to let others in, and to share responsibility with the right people. Not everyone needs to be involved in solving a problem directly. Make sure you keep enough people focused on what they’re good at too.

But, and I cannot stress this enough, do not do it alone. Share the responsibility. Done properly it will provide real empowerment for others.

And finally: never, ever, lose sight of the people, as without them, what are you?