Hey, I’m Brendan.
I’m a content marketing consultant, SEO, and freelance writer based in Ottawa, Canada.
I’d describe myself in two words: creative AND analytical. I have a strong ability to string together words, video or audio to tell compelling stories and communicate complex ideas, and a deep background in SEO and web strategy that helps companies generate traffic, awareness, and new business from their owned properties.
My specialty is in blending the two to create engaging and informative web experiences so that companies can capture more business.
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My life story
I went to ten schools growing up, split between three different countries. My #1 passion as a kid was hockey, but I wasn’t nearly good enough to make a career out of it. Instead, I decided to study my second favorite thing: media. Any media, really. I love films, TV, radio, and writing. I’m an equal opportunity media junky.
That led me to completing a film studies and music degree for my undergrad. But, unfortunately for my younger self, that combination was soft on career prospects. So, with guidance from my mom, I decided to study a masters degree in journalism to give myself some marketable skills.
If you’ve been paying attention, journalism is a tough game to be in today. Not many jobs. Not much pay. Very limited job security. So I pivoted to marketing—content marketing, specifically. Out of shear luck, I managed to get a job at a small marketing agency and began working on projects for local small businesses in Ottawa. That sparked a career-long love for working with entrepreneurs, and small businesses.
This also led to my first job at an international tech company, focusing on SEO and pay-per-click. I learned the craft on-the-job, and from generous co-workers who were much better and more knowledgeable about marketing than me. As the years went on (more than ten of them now, to be exact), I was given the chance to wear many different hats—like senior content marketing manager, senior copywriter, and SEO specialist—for some companies that I seriously admired (Shopify, Docebo, Corel, Halogen Software, to be exact).
The tech marketer chapter has been the longest one of my career, but my heart is firmly split between small businesses and big tech. I wanna do both.
In 2022, I decided to pivot from in-house to independent. Suddenly, I became a small business owner, a sales person, an accountant, and a content marketing consultant all rolled into one. I’ve loved every minute of it, and I want more.
This is where I am today, and I’d love to help you grow your business too. Sound like a plan?
Content marketing case studies
Here’s a summary of three career highlights that I’m particularly proud of. These were accomplished either as an in-house content marketer, or an independent content marketing consultant.
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At Corel, a multinational B2B and B2C tech company specializing in consumer software products, I led the content marketing and SEO strategy for MindManager.
As a primarily B2B product (and the second leading driver of revenue for the company), the MindManager team needed a healthy inbound stream of organic traffic to raise awareness for the product, support customer and prospect research, and systematically turn visitors into engaged leads.
Over a 2.5 year time period, I bootstrapped an SEO program for the MindManager blog with a $20k per year budget, and two casual freelance writers.
Within this time period, organic traffic to the MindManager Blog increased by 600%, and organic leads from the blog increase by 150%.
My efforts were publicly praised by a new CEO in 2020, leading to SEO becoming a top focus for the marketing department across all product lines.
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TELUS, one of Canada's three major telecom companies, hired me in 2022 to audit their internal intranet platform that is used by thousands of in-store retail workers across Canada to help them find important product, sales, and company information as they interact with customers.
In a company-wide survey the year prior, they received more than 150 complains that the search functionality on the intranet was poor to very poor. I was hired to audit the functionality of their intranet search, and to create a strategy that would help fix the underlying issues.
This project included a deep drive audit of the intranet search functionality, which included store visitors, stakeholder interviews, technical audits, UI/UX reviews, and a study of the underlying search algorithm to understand baseline functionality.
From there, I crafted and executed a comprehensive action plan that included updates to thousands of meta data fields for all content on the intranet, collaboration with the web development team to deploy back and front end improvements, employee training on content creation and search usage, instructions for ongoing monitoring and management, and a strategy to collect pulse feedback on an ongoing basis to iteratively improve the platform.
One year after this project wrapped a second survey of end users was conducted. Complaints about search functionality dropped from 150 to just three.
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At Shopify, the world's leading ecommerce platform for small to enterprise businesses, I worked as a Senior Content Marketing Manager on the Shopify Plus blog.
My primary responsibility was to create a ground-up strategy and content program with the goal of systematically identifying, auditing, and refreshing blog content that showed signs of traffic decay (or was at risk of future decay).
I worked closely with cross-functional teams across global content marketing, SEO, and content operations to craft a strategy that would be scalable and sustainable in the long term, while also meeting a monthly refresh quota of 10 or more blog posts per month.
This included a centralized dashboard that was used to flag posts showing signs of existing or future traffic decay, a tiered-approach to content refresh that included full re-writes, partial re-writes, and recency updates, and a freelance management strategy that allowed the program to scale more than 10 posts per month.
I stood up a prototype refresh strategy within his first three months at Shopify, which was praised by leaders up to the Senior Director level. Execution on this strategy began in Q1 2021 and results in double-digit improvements in organic traffic for refreshed blog posts.
Unfortunately, this program was cut short due to mass layoffs at the company in 2022.
My content marketing CV
Senior content marketing manager
Shopify, Remote
Position made redundant in large-scale layoffs at the company in July 2022
Created and executed content programs to help build the Shopify Plus organic audience
Created and began execution of a scalable, systematic, SEO-driven content program to refresh 10+blog posts per month to combat an ongoing issue of traffic decay on the Plus blog
Spearheaded an effort to refresh and repurpose a 65-page Global Commerce Playbook into a 5-asset Toolkit to improve reader experience and diversify lead generation opportunities
Created and began execution on 2x integrated content marketing campaigns to target users interested in migrating to Shopify or expanding internationally. Content included refreshed and net new assets at each stage of the buyer funnel (TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU)
Achieved Positive impact status just three months into my tenure, despite being new to the company and ecommerce industry
Senior copywriter
Docebo, Remote
Lead copywriter on a marketing team of 30+ people, responsible for longform lead generation, sales enablement, SEO, and product marketing assets.
Made an immediate impact by re-writing and refreshing a high-value sales enablement toolkit containing 7 eBooks and 1 slide deck.
Worked closely with members of the Acquisition Team to craft compelling email copy, audit and revise advertising copy, and up-level core landing pages to drive better conversions.
Recognized publicly as a top performer on the marketing team just three months into my tenure at Docebo.
Content marketing manager
Corel, Ottawa
Editorial lead, growth strategist, and primary writer for the MindManager Blog
Drove 600% YoY organic traffic growth to the MindManager Blog between 2019 and 2021.
Drove 130% YoY lead growth from blog traffic in FY2020
Managed four external freelance writers, hitting a twice weekly blog publication goal
Led the strategy, writing, creation, promotion and repurposing of ebooks, whitepapers, and webinars across all web channels, including the website, social media channels, blog, and paid advertising
Collaborated with the web development, creative services teams, and product marketing to create high-converting landing pages for content assets and demo requests.
Developed and executed a 24-month SEO and blog editorial strategy to target high growth keywords at each stage of the top of funnel buyer journey (Attract, Convert, Close)
Liaised regularly with external thought leaders to create high value content for readers, including guest posts and commissioned videos
SEO and SEM specialist
Halogen Software (now Cornerstone Ondemand), Ottawa
A hybrid role that straddled search engine optimization and search engine marketing.
Search Engine Optimization:
Audited the Halogen Software and Saba Software websites post-merger to determine opportunities for growth as we transitioned toa single website
Owned the ongoing keyword strategy for blog posts and organic traffic growth
Provided SEO intelligence, support, and guidance on best practices to the marketing team to support content creation
Conducted regular technical SEO audits to ensure website health
Search Engine Marketing:
Managed a $4-million per year paid advertising budget, targeting markets in North America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific
Provided analysis and strategic guidance for funnel optimization, landing page conversions, and cost efficiency
Monitored and reported on web traffic and campaign performance to company executives
Multimedia and web content specialist
Marketing Breakthroughs, Ottawa
Acted as the lead writer, researcher, and content strategist for allclient files
Created all multimedia content for the firm, including text, videos,and audio
Collaborated closely with web development and design teams on WordPress website creation projects to help with building pages and navigation, writing copy, and QA testing UI/UX before launch