Lumen SEO’s purpose is to empower small businesses and they claim that SEO is the way to do that. With 93% of all online experiences beginning with a search engine, Aled Nelmes, the company’s founder, believes that improving your website’s visibility on Google is essential in reaching new customers.

Aled chats with Business News Wales about Lumen SEO’s attitude towards sustainability.

Lumen SEO, which has recently been nominated at the Wales Startup Awards was started last year.

Regarding the company, Aled said:

“It’s easy to assume that if you don’t physically produce a product, it’s easy to be sustainable. Having only started the business last year, I quickly realised that was not the case.”

Aled describes how Lumen SEO used a ‘Before, During & After’ process to evaluate how the company could be more sustainable.

“We looked at our working day, before, during and afterwards. We wanted to have zero emissions and how can we have zero waste.”

• Before – “How were we getting to work? We made sure the staff were walking or taking public transport”
• During – “As we worked, we wanted to ensure that we didn’t use resources that created waste. One of the biggest one’s is paper and pens! We bought digital notepads instead. We also made sure we were in a co-working space.”
• After – “One of the biggest things that I believe in is, people can’t be environmentally-minded unless they take in and enjoy that environment! For a lot of out of work socials, we often do hiking and outdoor pursuits. It ingrains that sense of wanting and enjoying outdoor space and therefore creates an inherent want to protect it.”

Aled is a 24-year-old SEO Consultant, based in Cardiff. He describes his purpose as wanting to empower micro-businesses whilst working for Google’s Digital Garage programme. He says that he has spoken to and coached 4 to 5 businesses every day and loved making their dreams come alive through digital marketing.

Aled claims to have identified hundreds of startups and micro businesses who cannot yet afford staff but need an expert helping hand with their digital marketing and SEO. He therefore, decided that he could provide exactly what micro and small businesses need: affordability and clarity.

And it’s that affordability and clarity that have granted Lumen SEO their Startup Award nomination , and saw the organisation gain recognition for their journey so far.