Non-executive director and consultant

Stephen Kenwright

Stephen is a non-executive director and consultant for marketing agencies.

He founded SEARCH-FIRST creative agency Rise at Seven in 2019 and served as Chief Commercial Officer, growing annual revenues to more than £7m; hiring 110 staff; opening offices in Sheffield, Manchester, London and New York; and winning more than 70 industry awards – about one every two weeks – before exiting after three years.

Stephen held board positions at £15m turnover/200-strong content production agency Ride Shotgun; digital marketing agency Branded3, which he helped to merge into £22m/250-strong data business Edit after its acquisition; and served on the Edit board as Sales and Marketing Director. He was also Head of Digital at £4.7bn turnover automotive retailer Pendragon PLC.

He’s delivered talks on more than 100 stages in 10 countries and founded SearchLeeds, a digital marketing conference that attracted more than 2,000 delegates to the first direct arena in its most recent edition. He’s one of Business Insider’s 42 Under 42 and The Drum once turned him into a Top Trump card.

Google Ranking Factors
4. January 2019
We were asked by one of the most well known SEOs in the UK if we wanted to write about the Google ranking factors. Rather than write an article, and more in line with our general philosophy, we asked some of the best known UK SEOs to discus the ranking […]
SEO for Extensive Websites
24. May 2018
Behind every extensive website there is a large treasure trove of know-how. At SISTRIX we always have the goal of sharing first-hand SEO-insider-knowledge. Four UK SEO experts with extensive experience in working on large websites will exclusively share their insights with you.
17. Ranking Myths
13. February 2017
With Will, Ned, Gerry, Barry, Stephen, Dawn and Dixon. Dixon Jones – Majestic Marketing Director – Receptional Founding DirectorOk, so I’ll start, and I’ll go with “more links does not necessarily mean better rankings”. The myth is, that you get more links you’re going to get better rankings. That doesn’t […]
16. Social Signals are Not a Ranking Factor but Social Media is Important To Spread Your Content
13. February 2017
With Gerry, Stephen, Ned and Dawn. Dawn Anderson – Director Move It MarketingFor me, it is access to the linkerati, effectively. It’s just access to those multipliers. That can actually impact ranking for you. It’s much easier to build those relationships. I know it’s cheesy to say, “build a relationship”, […]
15. Voice Search: How Will Voice Search Change the Way We Search?
13. February 2017
With Ned, Stephen, Will and Dixon. Stephen Kenwright – Director of Search Branded3So, I think the common misconception about Voice Search is that it’s another way of searching Google and it just isn’t. So, if you use, Alexa on Echo you’re searching Bing, if you use Siri you’re searching Bing, […]
11. Personalization: Google’s Personalized Search Results
13. February 2017
With Will, Stephen, Ned and Barry. Barry Adams – Founder Polemic DigitalEvery search result that you do on a search engine like Google is personalized to a certain extent. Based on your location, your search history, your click history and all the other factors – your social graph – that […]
10. Brand traffic: What Are Brands and How Can You Utilize This Traffic?
13. February 2017
With Will, Stephen, Dixon and Barry. Will Critchlow – CEO & Co-Founder DistilledI think the first thing here to realize is that we’ve gone backwards in data. Because pre not-provided, you were able to tell where your brand’s search traffic was going, you knew what your keywords were, you were […]
08. User experience: How Important Is User Experience for SEO?
13. February 2017
With Gerry, Dawn, Stephen and Barry. Stephen Kenwright – Director of Search Branded3I think, when we are talking about machine-learning and we are talking about it more and more. We gotta ask, what are they actually learning from. It’s not about a growing link graph, it’s not about trying to […]
06. Link Strategies: Which Link Strategies Are Recommended?
13. February 2017
With Dixon, Stephen, Kirsty and Will. Will Critchlow – CEO & Co-Founder DistilledIt’s our priority, when we are developing a strategy to improve the authority of a particular domain, or to generate links to a particular piece of content, is increasingly moving towards making sure that we don’t only get […]
05. Paid Links: Are Paid Links a Viable Strategy?
13. February 2017
With Barry, Stephen, Kirsty and Will. Kirsty Hulse – SEO / Digital TypeSo when we say paid links, there are very different currencies. So there is giving a blogger a product or giving a blogger a voucher or literally just exchanging cash for money or content, so the moment you […]
01. The Three Most Important Things in 2017 for Google Are: “Mobile and Mobile and Mobile”
13. February 2017
With Ned, Stephen, Gerry and Dawn. Ned PoulterCEO & Founder Pole Star DigitalI’ve never heard that before. Dawn AndersonDirector Move It MarketingI have, I have yeah. Gerry WhiteSEO Consultant Just EatIt’s incredible that we’ve been talking about the year of mobile since 2011? Ned PoulterIt’s before that. It’s definitely before […]
03. Does Content Need External Links in Order to Rank?
10. February 2017
With Dixon, Dawn, Stephen and Kirsty. Dawn AndersonDirector Move It MarketingIt’s got to be discovered. So you need something ,somehow linking to it, somewhere along the line. If it’s brand new content, it’s probably not going to rank immediately for anything, other than if is a massively popular page. Because, […]