# Search Valley: SEO built to compound. Mark Porter, SEO consultant, Reading, Berkshire, UK. https://searchvalley.co.uk/ · mark@searchvalley.co.uk This is the homepage of searchvalley.co.uk as markdown. Where the text says "I", the speaker is Mark Porter. ## Summary Traffic is easy to count. Enquiries are what pay the bills. For 14 years Mark has helped businesses get found by the customers they actually want, and reported on it in numbers that matter rather than vanity metrics (a vanity metric being a number that goes up without revenue following it). Search Valley is one consultant, start to finish. Mark keeps the client list short on purpose, so everyone on it gets his full attention. Some clients have stayed more than five years. ## The consultant Mark Porter has 14 years in SEO, agency-side and in-house, working with everyone from local shops to household names. The job is the same at every size: work out what the business actually needs, put the effort where it will count, and leave the rest alone. He takes on a handful of new clients a year, so he only says yes when he can already see what he would do and roughly how long it would take. ## The problem this solves Every week, people go looking for exactly what a business sells. They type it into Google. They ask ChatGPT. Some land on the site, cannot find what they came for, and move on. Plenty more never see it at all. The usual symptoms: - Competitors outranking you on your own product terms - Traffic that arrives, looks around, and leaves - Missing from the AI answers your buyers are starting to trust - Months of content that never found its audience This is rarely a budget problem. It is usually a "nobody has looked at this properly" problem, and those are the fixable kind. Finding them is where Mark starts. Every month it goes unfixed, that demand goes to whoever ranks above you. ## Modern search: two engines, one strategy Customers ask Google, and more and more of them are asking AI. Being found now means showing up in both, and giving the answer engines every reason to recommend you: rank where they search, get cited where they ask, one strategy for both engines. GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation: getting a business cited when people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Gemini as well as Google. It is the same groundwork as search engine optimisation, pointed at new engines. ## Services Take any one, or all four. Most engagements start with the top-line review and build from there. ### 01. Technical SEO Crawlability, indexation, Core Web Vitals, site architecture. The under-the-bonnet work that everything else depends on. Get it right and every page you publish works harder for you. Covers: CWV, INDEXATION, SCHEMA, ARCHITECTURE, LOG-FILE. ### 02. Content strategy Keyword research, gap analysis, and a plan for what to publish and why. Content that ranks because it answers the questions your customers are actually asking, and brings the right people to your door. Covers: KEYWORD MAP, GAP ANALYSIS, BRIEFS, EDITORIAL, ON-PAGE. ### 03. Modern search and GEO (visibility in AI answer engines) Search isn’t just ten blue links any more. Between AI Overviews and generative answers, the goalposts have moved. I help you keep up with how people actually search now, so that when they ask, your brand is the answer they get. Covers: AI OVERVIEWS, GENERATIVE, CITATIONS, LLM-READY. ### 04. Organic growth (ongoing SEO) The ongoing work. A monthly cycle of fixing, publishing, measuring and adjusting, so the audit turns into results and the results keep building. Covers: AUDIT, RETAINER, REPORTING, COMPOUND. ## Ways to work together - One-off audit: a clear, prioritised list of what to fix and why. - Monthly retainer: someone in your corner, building on the work month after month. Three-month minimum. - Fractional arrangement: Mark as, effectively, your in-house SEO without the headcount. There is no published price list. Every engagement gets a fixed figure before it starts, so there is never an open-ended bill. ## The process: from first email to first ranking ### 01 · EMAIL: Introductions Drop me a line about what you sell, what you’ve tried, and where it’s stuck. A few emails back and forth usually tells us both whether it’s a fit. If you’d rather talk it through on a call, that’s fine too. ### 02 · AUDIT: Top-line review A survey of your search landscape: what’s working, what isn’t, and what I’d do first. You see the plan, and a fixed figure for it, before you commit to anything. ### 03 · WORK: Engagement Audit, retainer, or fractional. Clear scope, regular check-ins, and reporting that tells you what changed, why, and what’s next. Every email goes to Mark, and every reply comes from the person doing the work. ## Frequently asked questions Answers are in Mark's own words. ### How much does it cost? It depends, but you'll always know the number before we start. Every site is different, so the figure depends on its size and what the top-line review turns up. Once we know that, you get a fixed quote for the work, so there's never an open-ended bill. Audits are a one-off. Retainers run monthly with a three-month minimum, because search needs a little time to show what it's doing. ### What happens after I email you? You hear back from me, within a day. I'll come back with a few questions about your business and what you've tried so far. From there it's a short exchange to see whether we're a fit. If we are, the next step is the top-line review. If we're not, I'll say so and point you somewhere more useful. ### How long until I see anything? Technical fixes show within weeks. The bigger gains build over months. Search rewards consistency over speed, which is why the results compound rather than spike. I don't put a date on page one, but I do keep you in the picture: what changed, why, and what's next, every single month, including the quiet ones. ### I've paid for SEO before and nothing moved. Why would this be different? More often than not, it's a focus problem. There's always a long list of things you could do in SEO, and only two or three that will actually move the needle. The top-line review exists to find those first. And because you'll see what was done and why every month, you'll watch it working rather than take my word for it. ### Do I need to be in Berkshire? Not at all, though it's a nice bonus. I'm in Reading, and my clients are spread across the UK and beyond. Everything runs on email and shared docs, so distance has never got in the way. ### How much of my time does this take? As much or as little as you want. Some clients are completely hands-off, others like to be involved in every decision, and both work fine. I'll need an hour or two at the start for access and context. After that, it's your call. ## What clients say > "Getting Mark on board to manage my accountancy firm's SEO has been one of the best business decisions to date." > JAMES CLAYTON, DEAD SIMPLE ACCOUNTING > "We're the most visible site in our vertical, where leads are very valuable to us, and can directly attribute substantial amounts of business to our SEO efforts." > TOMORROW IFA > "As a small business, the financial commitment was a potential barrier. However, without question, employing Mark has been one of the BEST investments I have made. My leads have gone through the roof." > LUKE WILLIAMS, PERSONAL TRAINER, READING > "The growth of my business from 2023 to 2024 has certainly been due to a lot of Mark's input." > STACEY HOOPER > "Transparent. Jargon-free. Measurable results." > SAM MORRISON > "Mark has demonstrated that he can tailor his services to meet our requirements, which change from time to time, and budget considerations." > MATTHEW HOPKINS > "Mark has made huge progress with our website and failing Google Ads campaign, which has resulted in a huge pick up in enquiries. I would highly recommend Mark." > SIMON MCKENZIE ## Clients, a shortlist Halfords · Dead Simple Accounting · Layla.ai · Prospect Estate Agents · Strongpoint · Box Logic · Tomorrow IFA ## Tools in daily use - CRAWL & DATA: Screaming Frog, DataForSEO - RESEARCH: Ahrefs, Semrush - MEASURE & REPORT: GA4, Data Studio - AI: Claude, Gemini ## Field notes Mark's writing on technical SEO, content and AI search. Index: https://searchvalley.co.uk/blog/ (markdown: https://searchvalley.co.uk/blog/index.md). - [The two-line email](https://searchvalley.co.uk/blog/the-two-line-email/): A habit of poking at interesting websites, an indexing problem full of personal data, and the two-line email that turned it into a £6k project. ([markdown](https://searchvalley.co.uk/blog/the-two-line-email.md)) ## Contact Email: mark@searchvalley.co.uk (read and replied to within 24 hours). Based in Berkshire, UK, working with clients across the UK and beyond. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcporter/ Website: https://searchvalley.co.uk/ · Field notes: https://searchvalley.co.uk/blog/ · RSS: https://searchvalley.co.uk/rss.xml --- Mark Porter, SEO consultant, Reading, Berkshire. mark@searchvalley.co.uk · https://searchvalley.co.uk/ · Field notes: https://searchvalley.co.uk/blog/ · Site summary for agents: https://searchvalley.co.uk/llms.txt