Next in our Meet the Team series, we hear from Carly: one of our newest hires, Carly has been instrumental in growing our SEO department and changing the direction of how we approach marketing for our new and existing clients.
Jem Turner, Managing Director
Hi, I’m Carly. I handle SEO here at Ultimately Better, blending strategy, storytelling, and a lot of data to help brands get found by the right people.
I joined UB in late 2024 after nearly a decade in brand marketing—including stints with big names like Cadbury and Oreo—and a hands-on education in small-business growth, helping my partner build his tree surgery company from scratch. That’s where I discovered my passion for SEO. Turns out, I loved the puzzle of it: How do you make a website actually useful to people while also getting it to rank? That mix of strategy and creativity had me hooked. Over the past six years, I’ve deepened that knowledge through hands-on work, freelance projects and courses – before deciding that I wanted to be part of a team again.
No two days look the same, which is something I really like about my job. One day I’m auditing a website or planning strategy; other days I’m deep into keyword research or content optimisation. One of the things I enjoy most is stepping back to look at the bigger picture — asking not just how we can improve rankings, but what story the site is telling. What’s the brand’s proposition? Is it coming through clearly? Are we attracting the right audience, and making it easy for them to convert? I love that SEO involves a blend of analytical thinking and brand storytelling, and I’m most energised when I’m working to get the two to click into place.
One of my favourite projects so far has been working with a fast-growing outdoor e-commerce client. Their site expanded quickly, but without a clear plan in place — so it’s been rewarding to bring more focus and intent to their SEO strategy, and help attract the right kind of customer. The more I work in this space, the more strongly I feel that SEO can’t be siloed. It needs to be fully aligned with business goals, customer needs, and broader marketing efforts. If content is genuinely relevant and useful, it will perform.
Right now, I’m focused on how AI is reshaping search. The landscape is changing fast, and I’m exploring how to use these tools thoughtfully—not as shortcuts, but as a tool to strengthen what we do.
Coming from big corporates, one of the best things about working at UB is the lack of red tape. If you spot a better way of doing something, you don’t need layers of approval — just a quick message and usually we’re rolling. Everyone here is focused on doing the best work possible, and there’s a real sense of trust. For me, one of the most motivating things about working at UB is getting to work directly with business owners. When you see your work directly impact someone’s livelihood, it hits different.
Outside of work, I split my time between family life (I have two young daughters) and helping out with my partner’s tree surgery business — sometimes that means marketing, sometimes that means hauling logs! I live on the south coast, so I try to get to the beach as often as I can.
When I first got the job at UB, I worried the flexibility might be too good to be true — but it’s exactly as promised. As long as the work gets done, how and when we do it is up to us.