Search engine optimisation is often discussed in terms of rankings, clicks and algorithms, yet for many growing B2B businesses the real challenge lies in understanding how SEO contributes to revenue, pipeline and commercial decision-making. As budgets come under increasing scrutiny and growth teams are expected to demonstrate clear returns, SEO can no longer sit in isolation from wider business performance.
In this TechBullion interview, Michael Ryan, the CEO of Ink Digital shares his authority insights on how SEO and digital marketing operate inside scaling organisations, from board-level investment decisions to day-to-day measurement and attribution. The discussion explores why structured, long-term strategies tend to outperform reactive tactics, how CRM and attribution models can reveal the true value of search, and what marketing leaders can do to justify SEO as a credible, revenue-driving growth channel rather than a purely technical discipline.
Please tell us more about yourself
My name is Michael Ryan and I am the CEO and founder of Ink Digital.
I started my career working agency-side in SEO, supporting a mix of B2B and consumer brands before moving in-house. That experience gave me a front-row seat to the gap that often exists between what agencies report and what businesses actually need from marketing.
During COVID, when travel and hospitality were hit particularly hard, I started a freelance SEO consultancy to help businesses adapt and recover. That consultancy grew quickly and went through a couple of evolutions, first as Mr SEO and later rebranding to Ink Digital as the service offering and team expanded.
Today, Ink Digital is an SEO-led digital marketing agency working with B2B, travel, and hospitality brands across the UK. What still defines our approach is spending time on both sides of the fence. We understand the pressure marketing leaders are under to justify spend, manage agencies, and deliver growth without always controlling budgets or timelines. That perspective shapes how we plan, measure, and communicate SEO.
In your view, how should B2B companies reframe SEO as a strategic revenue channel rather than simply a traffic generator, and what key indicators should leadership focus on to validate this shift?
SEO needs to be reframed around priority segments and commercial impact, not volume for the sake of it.
For B2B companies in particular, that means understanding which industries, services, or customer segments actually drive revenue and prioritising SEO activity around those areas first. Traffic only becomes meaningful when it is tied to the right audience and the right buying intent.
Leadership should focus on indicators such as lead quality, pipeline contribution, assisted conversions, and revenue attribution over time. In longer B2B sales cycles, it is critical to track how SEO influences opportunities across the funnel and how revenue is recognised, rather than judging performance on short-term results alone.
There is also a competitive reality to consider. If your competitors are investing in SEO and you are not, they are effectively taking market share and mindshare that could have been yours. As search behaviour continues to evolve, including more people researching suppliers through AI and large language models, being visible and credible in those environments will become even more important.
Many organisations still prioritise vanity metrics over business outcomes. What are the most common mistakes you see in how companies measure SEO success and ROI, and how can they correct them?
The most common mistake is reporting SEO in isolation.
Teams will often report on traffic growth, keyword positions, or impressions without connecting those metrics to enquiries, pipeline, or revenue. Another issue is treating all traffic as equal, when in reality only a small proportion is commercially meaningful.
SEO does not operate in a vacuum. People do not search in one place, convert in one channel, and buy in a straight line. In most cases, SEO supports awareness, consideration, and trust, while other channels such as paid search, email, or sales outreach help close the deal. When businesses try to attribute a lead to a single channel, they miss the reality of how buyers behave.
To correct this, businesses need to agree upfront what success actually looks like. That might be sales-qualified leads, pipeline value influenced by organic search, or revenue recognised over a defined period. Once that definition is clear, reporting should work backwards from those outcomes rather than forwards from rankings.
In B2B especially, longer lead times make pipeline tracking and revenue recognition critical when reporting back to directors. You also need to prioritise the right segments, whether that is specific industries, services, or deal sizes, and focus SEO effort where it will have the biggest commercial impact.
There is also a competitive reality. If your competitors are investing in SEO and you are not, they are effectively taking market share and visibility that could have been yours. Over time, that compounds and becomes harder to claw back.
How do you integrate attribution models and CRM data into your SEO performance reporting, and what challenges do businesses typically encounter when aligning search performance with revenue outcomes?
We start by ensuring the fundamentals are in place and consistent. That includes clean analytics, clear conversion definitions, and proper CRM integration so leads can be followed from first interaction through to opportunity and revenue.
SEO rarely acts as the final touchpoint, so multi-touch attribution and assisted conversion reporting are essential. We often position SEO as an early or mid-funnel channel and then measure its influence on lead quality, conversion rates, and deal velocity inside the CRM.
As a HubSpot partner, we are able to support clients where there are gaps in tracking or attribution. That includes showing which keywords and pages are driving clicks, enquiries, and pipeline movement, and how those leads progress through different stages.
We also support CRM automation to make sure leads are handled efficiently and that sales teams are getting the most value from the demand being generated. Alongside HubSpot, we work with platforms such as Salesforce and Pipedrive, depending on the client’s setup.
For B2B clients, we are also rolling out LinkedIn as a complementary channel to SEO. Using tools such as Fibbler, we can understand how organic and paid LinkedIn activity supports pipeline creation and influences decision-making alongside search.
The biggest challenge is usually not the technology, but alignment. Marketing, sales, and finance often work from different systems and definitions. Getting everyone aligned around shared metrics and language is often harder than the technical implementation itself.
For marketing leaders who need to justify SEO investment to their executive teams or finance function, what frameworks or narratives have you found most effective in securing budget and strategic buy-in?
The most effective approach is to frame SEO as efficiency and risk reduction, not just growth.
Rather than promising aggressive short-term returns, we focus on how SEO compounds over time, lowers blended acquisition costs, and reduces dependency on paid channels. Comparing SEO investment to alternatives, such as continually increasing paid media spend, often makes the value clearer to finance teams.
Forecasting also plays an important role. Even conservative projections help challenge assumptions and allow finance teams to understand timelines and trade-offs. Being honest about what SEO can and cannot deliver builds far more credibility than overpromising early results.
Another useful narrative is resourcing. To build a strong in-house SEO function, a business would typically need people across strategy, technical SEO, content, digital PR, web development, and design. That often means eight to ten roles. An agency provides a ready-made, cross-functional team that can plug in quickly and understands the commercial realities of the business.
Long-term SEO strategies often outperform short-term, reactive tactics. From a commercial perspective, how do you balance near-term performance targets with long-term strategic investment in search?
We separate activity into two clear streams.
One stream focuses on short-term wins and performance improvements, such as fixing technical blockers or improving high-intent pages that already convert. This helps demonstrate value early and gives the business confidence in the direction of travel.
The second stream is strategic, focused on site structure, content depth, and authority building. This is the work that compounds over time and creates sustainable growth.
Every strategy we build is bespoke to the business, its goals, and its setup. Template-driven SEO, such as committing to a fixed number of blog posts each month, often leads to wasted budget and limited impact. Some keywords and initiatives will take longer, but they also tend to deliver the strongest results over time.
Short-term wins create breathing space to invest in that longer-term work properly.
In your experience, what are the key factors that make collaboration between in-house teams and external SEO agencies work well, and conversely, what tends to derail productive partnerships?
Strong partnerships are built on clarity and trust.
That means clear objectives, shared access to data, realistic timelines, and open communication when priorities change. The best results come when agencies are treated as strategic partners rather than task executors.
We use tools like ActiveCollab to give clients full visibility into what is being worked on, why it matters, and who is accountable. That level of transparency benefits both sides.
Partnerships tend to derail when expectations are misaligned. This often happens when success is not clearly defined, when agencies are briefed tactically rather than strategically, or when simple bottlenecks such as access, feedback delays, or internal resourcing issues are not addressed.
Given the evolution of the digital landscape and tools like AI and CRM integration, how do you see the role of structured SEO strategies evolving for growth-oriented businesses over the next three to five years?
SEO is becoming less about chasing individual keywords and more about building clear, trusted entities that search engines and AI systems understand.
Structured strategies that combine strong technical foundations, high-quality content, brand authority, and CRM insight will become the standard. Businesses that can connect search behaviour to real customer journeys and revenue outcomes will have a significant advantage.
AI will accelerate this shift, but it will reward clarity and consistency rather than shortcuts. Many of the factors influencing AI results, such as brand mentions, authority, and PR, are things SEOs have been working on for years. Research from platforms like Ahrefs reinforces that these fundamentals still matter, they are just being interpreted in new ways.
Can you share an example where SEO directly contributed to measurable commercial outcomes, such as lead quality, sales pipeline growth or customer acquisition efficiency, and how that impact was quantified internally?
A good example is our work with Girls Guide to the World, a travel brand where the goal was not broad traffic growth, but increasing bookings within a specific niche.
We restructured the site around search intent, aligned content more closely to the booking journey, and focused on reducing friction at key decision points. The result was not just improved visibility, but higher conversion rates and stronger enquiry quality.
Internally, success was measured through assisted bookings, improved conversion performance, and clearer attribution between organic search and revenue. That campaign went on to win a UK Search Award for Best Use of Search in Travel and Leisure, with judges highlighting the clear strategic thinking and commercial impact achieved on a modest budget.
What advice would you give to growth or marketing leaders in fintech and B2B sectors who are still sceptical about the commercial value of SEO, especially in highly competitive digital markets?
Start small, but start properly.
Focus on a clearly defined segment, product, or audience and measure SEO’s impact there. Make sure tracking and CRM alignment are in place from day one so performance can be judged fairly.
SEO is rarely an instant win, but when it is planned and measured properly, it becomes one of the most reliable and defensible growth channels available. It also diversifies risk. The longer you wait to invest, the further you have to climb while competitors build momentum.
Work with partners who understand your world, including CRM, lead cycles, and commercial pressure, not just rankings and traffic.
