Digital transformation takes many forms, but few consultants bridge the gap between SEO and user experience quite like Brian Oddo. As the founder of Oddo Digital, Brian has mastered the art of connecting businesses with their future customers through a unique blend of technical expertise and user-focused strategy. Serving both enterprise giants and local businesses across industries from cybersecurity to fitness, Brian's holistic approach to digital strategy proves that sometimes the best entrepreneurial playbook is the one you write yourself.
Hi, Brian! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?
I'm the founder of Oddo Digital, an SEO and UX solo consultancy.
My customers are split pretty evenly between large enterprise clients and small local businesses. I've helped businesses in almost every industry - cybersecurity, B2B SaaS, fitness, finance, eCommerce, and professional services.
Simply put, I connect businesses with their future customers. It's not only about driving traffic via search engines, it's about creating a message that reaches the right user at the right time. It's also about making your customer's website experience simple, enjoyable, and valuable.
I work closely with internal teams to improve their search engine visibility along with messaging, branding, and user experience.
My typical process is to audit the existing state of a website, understand their user's pain points, learn my client's competitive edge over their competition and then execute through specific and detailed project sprints. These sprints remove technical barriers, improve content roadmaps, provide ideas for A/B user testing, and more.
The impact is simple. More qualified users visit your website at each step of their user journey. This extra visibility turns into more customers for your business driving revenue that's scalable and sustainable. Once we improve the amount and quality of traffic, then we double down on improving the user experience on the site and lean into other distribution channels to amplify our efforts.
Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.
I was juggling both my full-time job and my consultancy at the same time working 14-16 hour days for several months. I told myself I would keep that up until I either matched my existing salary or burned out trying. Seven months into working two jobs, I finally exceeded my 9-5's salary by signing on my fifth client. The very next day after I signed the contract, I put in my two weeks and it was official. I was on my own!
Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.
When I was in the second grade, I learned how to use a copy machine and made homework pass dupes to sell out of my locker. It's been in my blood forever.
I've also been fortunate enough to be surrounded by like-minded people. Several of my childhood friends are self-employed and seeing how they've handled and enjoyed their journey made it feel like it was a possibility for me.
Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?
- Notion: I use their Kanban board view for task management and prioritization
- Otter.ai: Records transcripts from my video calls with clients and generates next steps
- Loom: I record videos for my clients when I don't think setting up a meeting is necessary and an email would be too long
- Screaming Frog: Specific to SEO. Helps me crawl and gather website data at scale
- Google Analytics / Search Console: Free website analytics tools
I probably use 15-20 tools at the moment lol. The common thing I need with any tool is that it either frees up more time for impact activities or improves the quality of my output.
We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.
In my freshman year of college, I was headed in the wrong direction. I wasn't handling being on my own well, didn't have much direction, and unfortunately dealt with a lot of loss.
Before things got really ugly, I met someone in my second semester who helped turn everything around. They transferred into my school to try and walk into the Division One football program. A very lofty goal!
We met on campus and became quick friends. He left a huge impression on me with his passion, focus, and dedication to this one goal.
We hung out mostly by training at our local rec center, and while he tried out for the football team, I decided to try and walk on to the basketball team.
Long story short, and a rocky montage later, I made that team and played my last three years while I was in school through my senior year. I even won a few awards and started a few games! The discipline that it instilled in me never left.
It was the perfect thing I needed to learn about the bigger picture and trusting the process even if the day-to-day is filled with obstacles and uncertainty. It made me mentally ready to own my own business.
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?
I'm coming up on three years now and I really don't want to focus on being different, I want to focus on improving and providing the best service possible.
I'm still living on mostly referrals and my own network. 2025 is the first year I'll really be putting much effort into my personal brand and client acquisition.
I constantly work on my deliverables, presentations, and adding in things like Loom videos to provide great service. I update my clients on industry news. I'm really flexible with my scope. I constantly pitch new strategies and deliverable ideas to try and make an impact.
I think by nature my service is unconventional because there aren't too many consultants out there who feel comfortable providing SEO recommendations, while also doing heat mapping for UX, writing eBooks, designing logos, modifying website code, etc. Wearing a lot of hats, while honing in certain specialties might make me unconventional, but I don't think my strategies necessarily are. I'm big on fundamentals.
What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?
I told Brian this on our podcast episode: live life with a spaghetti strainer. The only people that have to taste your pasta are the ones you're cooking for.
It's goofy, but what I mean is that your life and business do not need to look a certain way. There is no official report card in this life.
You don't have to follow the exact playbook of the business owners you look up to.
Take a bit from everyone, apply it to your own life, and leave behind the ideas that don't work for you.
For example - you do not need to grow for the sake of growing. Guess what? It's okay to make a comfortable salary, focus on profitability, and spend a ton of time outside of work doing the things you love.
You don't need to scale, hire employees, and obsess with existing your business. If that's what you want, great! But remember, the best part of self-employment is doing it on YOUR TERMS.
Also - create more than you consume. It doesn't mean don't consume. There's a lot of helpful advice out there. But the only way to get better is to take that advice and actually try it out in the real world for yourself. You learn 10x faster that way.
Want to dive deeper into Brian's work? Find more info in the links below:
- Visit Oddo Digital's website oddodigital.com
- Connect with Brian on LinkedIn: Brian Oddo
- Subscribe to Brian's newsletter Free at Lance
