I’ve talked a bit about my first ever agency experience before on Twitter/X.

It sucked.

But I had no experience whatsoever, so I had to deal with it until I could get onto freelancing.

During my time there working as a Junior SEO for local home service companies (think HVAC, electricians, plumbers, etc.), our “Head” of SEO:

• Reported fake results to clients

• Didn’t build any backlinks

• And often underspent on the monthly budget, which then went back into the company’s fund, of which she sat on the board of

Convenient, right?

Anyways….

One other thing that the company did for prospective clients was provide “Free SEO Audits” to drum up business.

But what is an audit, really?

They plugged the domain into Semrush and once the website was crawled, downloaded the generic PDF and sent it over to the prospect.

We didn’t even bill for it because it took 5 seconds.

As far as our finances were concerned, it was worthless.

So in essence, it was worthless to prospects.

Which is why we never signed any new clients while I was there (huge L).

Anyways, if you’ve ever been given a “free audit” from a freelancer or agency…

You should run in the other direction.

And instead, you should just watch this video I made.

It’s the audit process we use at our agency for the Shopify brands we work with. It’s simple, actionable, and most importantly, focuses on pulling BIG LEVERS.

You will not find anything about how to improve your pagespeed, because that’s a microscopic lever — it will not help you rank higher.

Anyways, here’s the video — curious to hear your thoughts.

(I won’t tolerate any slander on the thumbnail image btw)

See you on Monday,

Kai Cromwell