Interview with Tom Mcloughlin, Founder at Travel Marketplace: SEO Travel

I’m Tom Mcloughlin, the founder of SEO Travel. We’re a travel marketing agency that offers SEO, PR, Email Marketing, Paid Social Media and Web Design to travel companies.

In April 2021 we celebrated our ten-year anniversary and celebrated by changing our business model to give away all of our profit on an ongoing basis to educational charities both at home and around the world.
 
 
Travel SEO Services, SEO for Travel Websites & Travel Companies | SEO Travel
 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
I had worked at a global PR agency and a growing SEO agency and felt their services had significant shortcomings because of the lack of specialism in a particular industry. I had my own travel website at the time which charted my travels over the years and had developed a lot of connections and relationships in travel and so it felt like a no brainer to start something which did just that.

Over 10 years we’ve grown from a one-man-band working at my kitchen table focused on SEO to a team of ten with a broad marketing offering. That development has come from word of mouth, requests for services from existing clients and a drive to become the very best solution out there for travel SMEs.
 

 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
We’ve had to diversify since the pandemic hit as travel was one of the worst-hit industries. We moved into other industries such as recruitment, architecture and interiors to offset the impact on travel and have seen some great results there as we’ve mapped our approach into those different sectors and immersed ourselves in what works for those kinds of businesses.

For SEO Travel the pandemic has caused a dramatic change. After 6 months of incredible stress and hard work, I came out the other side exhausted and questioning what the key drivers were behind running the business. I wanted to do more and have a wider impact, and this is where the idea for our 100% initiative was born.

To celebrate our 10 year anniversary we changed our business model to give away all of the profit we make to educational charities. We want to make an impact with our work and we believe that by helping these causes both on our doorstep and around the world we can help alleviate poverty by giving more children access to education.

Our goal is to give away a million pounds over the next ten years.
 

What can we hope to see from SEO Travel in the future?

 
Hopefully some fantastic progress towards our goal of giving a million pounds!

We’re continuing to evolve our offering so it is a no-brainer decision for a small travel business to choose us for their marketing, and we hope that as these changes roll out the results we get will continue to be the best in the business.

All the while, anyone who works with us can rest safe in the knowledge that their investment is being channeled into fantastic causes and making a real difference for people who truly need it.

Personally, I’m also going to be working hard to share the benefits of this kind of model so hopefully, we can convince more business owners and entrepreneurs to adopt it and exponentially increase the impact it has on the many great causes out there which need support.