Riley Hope

My purpose is to help small businesses thrive by devising organic marketing strategies with not just an SEO basis; but with a research-backed basis. My academic background has consisted of social sciences. During my undergraduate degree, I studied both niche and broad topics in the communications, sociology, and anthropology sectors. This enabled me to write my first thesis. 

   My motivation for most of my life has been supporting and uplifting small businesses, entrepreneurs, and artists from a young age. At 15, I started working with several startup nonprofits as a freelancer and quickly got promoted to head of department. My mom had to sign off on my employment contracts. I built out site content, I created social media marketing strategies, I learned spanish for one nonprofit to post on social media, I ran reputation management and events- all solo or I led a team of 1-4 people under me. At 17, I decided that 10-15 hours capped with minimal pay (nonprofit often means pro-bono or minimum wage work for marketing positions due to exacerbated agency rates). I reached out to a thriving digital marketing company that had stellar posts coming through from happy clients in a Facebook group for entrepreneurs known as ‘The Rising Tide Society.’ 

    This company was performing comprehensive Search Engine Optimization to clients sites at a far lower cost than what agencies would charge, which I knew was an essential part of an organic marketing strategy; I just didn’t know how to optimize sites for search engines. I reached out to the owner, messaged him on Facebook asking for an internship as I wanted to learn the skills to optimize sites for search engines and sent him my resume. He was impressed and wrote back asking if I’d like a part time position as a contracted employee. Once again, my mom had to sign off on my employment form. I never had any formal training. I learned everything based on experience and what my manager taught me (not the owner). I failed, I made some clients mad, I made some clients happy, and over the near two years I worked with that company- I learned a lot. After two years, the owner had to shut the company down due to personal reasons. We were laid off- effective immediately on the week before Thanksgiving in 2018. Between the start of my work with Turner Web Services to the end of my work, I went through many life events; I graduated high school, learned to drive, bought my first car, went to my first semester of college, went abroad alone for a month, moved to Los Angeles for a few months alone, among others. 

   Turner Web Services tried to focus on client education, something I was passionate about before I started and will always keep dear to  me. We recorded and uploaded videos of us doing each task to teach clients what’s being done, why it’s being done, etc… It’s something I carry with me now as I am an SEO Coordinator with the current company I work with and plan to stay with. I was hired as an SEO Coordinator for the company I work with the following week I got laid off. Black Friday for an agency that works with large auto clients threw me into an entirely different ringer, especially for SEO. We work with a broad spectrum of clients and are a full service agency. I lead the organic (SEO) department. I work for a small agency based out of Ormond Beach that’s women owned and women led. I’ve had the opportunity to devise strategies from beginning to end and see projects through in addition to educating internally to our own team on SEO and educating clients, as well. 

   Seeing success for small businesses and seeing how it helps their business and hearing from clients is what brings me joy. I have always wanted to work with small businesses and help them thrive. With COVID-19 devastating the SME sector, my mission has become even more vital. I believe in small businesses across the globe. Your business shouldn’t have to go into debt on advertising to succeed, that’s why I focus on providing SMBs with curated organic marketing and SEO Strategies