Nathan Elly

This article is a part of our encyclopedia, and is editable by you. Edit ➜

---

Nathan Elly is an Australian entrepreneur. Nathan started Digital Next in 2014 and is based in South Melbourne.^[1]

Career

Early Career

No early career info added yet...

Digital Next

Nathan started Digital Next in 2014. They detail the beginnings of their company in their Starter Story interview: ^[1]

Q: How did you get started on Digital Next?

Studying Business and Entrepreneurship at Huddersfield University, on this course it is required that you complete a year in industry. At the time, a friend I’d played cricket with in Manchester had just launched an SEO company.

Not knowing much about this marketing channel, but understanding the importance of search, I asked whether I could do my placement with him. During that year of industry experience, I began in account management and later moved onto a business development role.

Working in both of these roles provided me with a useful perspective on SEO and the important role it plays in a modern marketing mix. The account management aspect taught me the mechanical side of SEO and provided me the data to confirm the growing interest from consumers towards digital marketing.

Selling SEO services to businesses gave me a first-hand account, from business owners, of the importance SEO plays in their marketing. And, during this time, which was at the beginning of a big shift to online marketing, an insight into the changing customer behaviour for even small businesses. Google Analytics was still in its infancy, however, the ROI reported from SEO as a standalone channel was greater than anything I’d seen before. There were reports from some clients of multi-million pound revenue wins off the back of no.1 rankings. Account management from this era of SEO was a fascinating experience as a business could be transformed massively over the course of a few months.

After this experience, it was clear SEO would become an essential part of the marketing mix. Taking this knowledge and first-hand experience into my final year of studies, I completed my dissertation, focusing on the effects of SEO on SMEs.

Post-graduation, I was keen on developing my digital marketing skills and pursued the goal of taking the Digital Next brand from the UK to Australia.

Source ^[1]

References