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Matthew Woodward and his blog have received quite a bit of attention in the past few years, particularly in the digital marketing world.
It goes without saying that a lot of the content on Woodward’s website is incredibly useful for beginner marketers — and it’s all free to read. But who is Matthew Woodward exactly, and are his paid services worth it?
In this in-depth review, we’re going to break down everything you need to know about Woodward’s work, his services, and whether or not they’re worth investing in.
Matthew Woodward is a UK-based marketing and SEO guru. He offers a variety of services for businesses and brands through his website.
He is known for penning high-quality and easy-to-grasp tutorials on everything from blogging to SEO. He also writes reviews for products, services, and tools in the industry.
Woodward has been publishing tutorials as well as case studies on business growth since 2012.
With humble beginnings as a shop manager for NEW Computers in 2006, Woodward steadily grew his career after working as a web data analyst for Dextra Solutions until 2008.
He also worked as the head of online marketing for 2020 Mobile Group until 2009 before diving head-on into the online marketing world with CompareMyMobile.
There, Woodward was responsible for everything from online marketing to SEO strategy to general growth, specifically in the mobile recycling niche.
In 2009, Woodward launched his blog.
Since then, his blog has won multiple awards and has served as a great resource point for helping business owners and entrepreneurs increase their search traffic and overall sales.
Several million visitors later, MatthewWoodward.co.uk could be considered one of the leaders in digital presence tutorials.
In 2014, Woodward launched Search Logistics, where he currently serves as lead director.
The company designs bespoke SEO strategies for businesses and entrepreneurs.
Clearly, Woodward has extensive experience in online marketing.
But what exactly is his business, Search Logistics, doing to help brands improve their digital marketing? Are their services worth it?
Matthew Woodward's website's home page
We’re going to look at two key things that Matthew Woodward offers. One would be his very successful blog, and the other would be his somewhat new SEO agency Search Logistics.
Let’s start with the blog.
Matthew Woodward's blog's home page
Woodward’s blog is an offer within itself. There's so much useful content here that could be relevant to any business that is interested in improving its marketability.
Some great blogs posts to check out from Woodward’s blog include:
When it comes to the tutorials and advice he presents, Woodward’s content is extremely useful and well-written.
The only downfall of Woodward’s content comes down to the products he promotes.
As an expert affiliate marketer, it's very difficult to decipher whether or not the products and tools he promotes are actually decent products or he's just marketing them for the affiliate commissions.
There is no way to tell, truly, if these products are the result of a partnership or sponsorship.
However, in a recent interview with Brian Jackson for Kinsta, Woodward makes it very clear that sponsorships and partnerships are not the deciding factors in whether or not he will tout a product.
“My values are still as strong now as when I first started affiliate marketing,” says Woodward.
He continued on by saying:
“I will only promote tools and services that I would have no hesitation in using myself (such as Kinsta who hosts my blog). I am completely open and upfront about all my affiliate links and when making recommendations I always look for the best tool for the job whether I am an affiliate or not.”
This ultimately comes down to whether or not you want to believe Woodward, but that’s beside the fact. The content that he produces is overwhelmingly useful and not necessarily riddled with promotional material.
Some of his content involves tutorials on how to use certain products or tools, which can be useful if you were planning on trying those products out anyway.
The free blog has its pros and cons, but he also sells actual services and tools. Woodward’s main “product” could be considered his business Search Logistics.
Search logistic's home page
Search Logistics is a specialist SEO agency. There are 5 main services that this company offers:
Let’s break down what each of these services is supposed to provide.
With service would essentially allow Search Logistics team members to take total control of a brand's search traffic. According to them, they "could increase your search traffic by 14x."
This will be done by defining client goals, auditing the brand’s website as a whole, utilizing keyword searches, and creating a custom plan or SEO blueprint.
They will also work on on-page optimization to help build a better foundation that search engines will be more compatible with.
Search Logistic’s outreach team will also acquire links from other websites through targeted outreach. Just as well, they'll also take on conversion rate optimization.
Search Logistics acknowledged that SEO for ecommerce brands is difficult — which is true. They boast a “creative approach” to link building for such brands.
There’s a lot of fluff under this service page, and it’s somewhat vague on what the agency will actually do for ecommerce SEO.
What they are clear on is how they measure and optimize SEO traffic for ecommerce businesses. The main areas that they measure include new traffic, conversion rate, and visitor value.
Audits are definitely vital for properly assessing the marketing game plan for a website. Search Logistics heavily pushes on-page SEO, which certainly makes sense.
On-page SEO tends to get neglected when it comes to SEO management, so it would definitely be very helpful if this agency could apply the right know-how into improving on-site SEO through a thorough audit.
A Google penalty occurs when Google’s algorithms update, as well as if one’s manual review is failed. This can be quite detrimental to website traffic.
Penalty removal can be quite difficult to do correctly. Search Logistics outlines their approach to penalty management: They begin with a technical audit, create a plan, and execute the plan.
That’s about as in-depth as they get, which is very disappointing.
They do, however, offer support and reporting through the penalty removal process. Not many SEO agencies do this.
Their partnership program seems just a little too good to be true. If you manage to refer a client to Search Logistics, they'll “pay you a $400 acquisition fee plus 10% of every future payment.”
That’s steep, and they guarantee a minimum of $3,150 per year.
They also boast a white label SEO referral program, which doesn’t appear to be anything particularly unique when compared to similar plans. At the very least, it doesn’t seem worse.
According to the company’s About Me page on their website, Search Logistics “have assembled an elite team of SEOs and aligned them with one core mission — to increase search traffic."
Whether that’s helping clients, mentoring in the UK’s top universities, on stage at international conferences, or Matthew’s SEO blog.”
The company itself employs a range of specialists in outreach and SEO analytics.
When it comes to the blog — sure.
Woodward offers a handful of free educational videos on his site, which can be a big advantage for those who want to purchase his services.
In addition to this, his blog is genuinely a good resource for a lot of different things. Most of his content may not necessarily be ideal for experienced marketers — however, beginners may find significant value in his reviews and tutorials.
It's difficult to tell whether or not the products and tools Woodward reviews in his blog actually are genuinely good products.
Affiliate marketing can have its less than trustworthy underbelly in some cases. However, the content he produces outside of the reviews can actually be very helpful to newbie marketers.
Woodward has a great way of using language to make his tutorials approachable — not littered with jargon, not full of useless fluff.
If you’re willing to overlook the possibility of secret sponsorships and leading reviews, his blog is worth reading up on if you want to learn more about improving one’s SEO and marketing tactics.
When it comes to Search Logistics — probably not.
If you check out the business’ About page, they boast in plain language what kind of clientele they’re bringing in. In November 2019, they had around 142 clients and approximately 25,000 links built.
That may seem like a decent enough number, but this business has been around for almost six years. In that context, the quality of services provided may leave a lot to the imagination.
One could look at the testimonies on the website and think differently. To quote one comment:
“I’ve worked with many SEO agencies in the past and this is the one I am sticking with. The whole team works towards your goals & is always very responsive. They put together extensive audits & don’t waste time on unnecessary stuff just to get another box ticked. The knowledge their team gives has value for our business at every level.”
Of course, you can’t really trust testimonies on the actual company’s website. But if you look elsewhere on the web, there aren’t a lot of testimonies for the business itself.
You’ll find some less than savory comments about how truthful Woodward is about his affiliate marketing, but that’s about it.
We’re not crying “scam!” here, but for an SEO agency to have so little reach online despite the fact that it is run by an experienced online marketing guru is a little disheartening.
Matthew Woodward’s blog is a useful resource for burgeoning marketers and entrepreneurs, especially if you wish to learn how to use specific products or how to improve their digital marketing practices.
However, Woodward touts a lot of products in his tutorials and reviews, and it's difficult to know if those tools really are what he himself uses, or they're simply the result of a sponsorship and affiliate marketing.
If Search Logistics is being honest with their clientele numbers, the business itself hasn’t brought in a lot of users. And it’s been around for nearly six years, according to LinkedIn.
It may be worth sending in an inquiry and looking at demo options if available — but as it stands, the investment risk outweighs the potential benefits.
Especially since there is very little information about the agency itself from clients outside of the company website.
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