Expert to Know: Kevin McLauchlin
What's the backstory behind starting or joining your agency?
Christy Olsen and I founded Cadence SEO in 2020. Both of our lives had already taught us the value of persistence, curiosity, honesty, and rebuilding when the path changes unexpectedly.
Christy entered the SEO industry while supporting five children after becoming a widow. She learned quickly, asked relentless questions, and developed a deep understanding of how search strategy, client service, and agency operations fit together.
I was rebuilding my own life, overcoming depression, self-sabotage, and alcohol addiction. Our paths eventually crossed, bringing together a shared love of endurance, family, business, and the belief that companies—and people—can become better through consistent, purposeful work.
We founded Cadence SEO after seeing how often businesses paid too much for disconnected strategies, unclear communication, and work that did not reflect the value clients deserved. The mission was simple: put people first, do the right thing, and build partnerships worth keeping.
What was your first entrepreneurial moment?
I had a lawn mowing business when I was about 10. I mowed 15-20 lawns per week at $20 per lawn. I did pretty good as a ten-year-old. It was a solo operation. I didn’t use my parents’ stuff. I bought my own lawnmower and would pull it behind my bike.
At this time, marketing was mostly word-of-mouth. I did some door knocking, the original cold-calling. When you’re a kid, you don’t think twice about it. You’re just
knocking on a neighbor's door. It really helped me learn
how to talk to people and understand their needs. If you see someone’s lawn that is unruly, they obviously aren’t mowing it themselves, and they might need help.
The current equivalent for me is when I look at a website that is maybe out of whack or isn’t performing as well as it could. Maybe the company doesn’t have the time to do the work by themselves, and maybe we could help them out.
It really all comes down to looking for ways to help other people improve their lives.
How do you define success today?
Success is living a life you are happy with or proud of and helping as many people as possible. Success is often presented in a way that doesn’t align with how successful people see success. There is superficial success that comes in the form of things like a big house and big cars. That doesn’t interest me. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you aren’t happy with what has brought you there, that’s not really success.
Now, I will say that if I could produce a millionaire or two out from our company, that would be really fun. The million-dollar part is a superficial measurement of success, but it is also a fun goal to have.
There’s also a comfort in success. I value the ability not to worry about where my next meal is coming from, to afford my house, to have a little fun with my family, and and to help other people. My view of success is not as fancy as people sometimes want to see it.
In terms of the business, as long as we are able to pay our bills, offer different ways to help our clients, and leave a little in the bank for a rainy day (although I don’t like that term because if you focus on a rainy day, all you have are rainy days), we are successful.
We don’t focus heavily on profit margins. We want to make sure we are making money, and not giving away work, and want to do the best possible job we can. It’s most important for us to do the work we are proud of, present ourselves in ways we are proud of to our clients, and make our clients happy. We don’t have to be number one. Yes, that would be fun, but that’s not the end goal. The end goal is to always do the right thing, even when it’s hard.
What are the most energizing moments in your work?
My favorite thing to do is fix a complex issue that others, like a client or colleague, can’t figure out or have been struggling with. When I’m able to sit down with my own brain and the tools I have, figure something out, and watch it work, it’s energizing. It’s also super energizing to make new sales. Once I close a new client, I want to close another one. It’s exciting to connect with someone who can benefit from what we do well. It’s exciting to know we have an opportunity to improve someone’s life, and someone has decided to trust us with a business they’ve worked so hard to build.
Any personal rituals or habits that contribute to your success?
I get up early. My alarm goes off at 3:45 am. We do life things, like getting the kids ready for cross-country practice. This might sound mundane, but it’s fun and energizing.
For a little while, I had a hard time with structure, so now I work on a few daily practices that feel important. For instance, I make my bed every morning, drink coffee, read the Bible, and tidy the house. Around 5 am, I take my daughter to practice. From 6-7 am, I run, work out at the gym, and do a cold plunge. Then I hit the ground running for work.
It’s really important to me to get up early and get life started because, for too many years of my life, I got up late and stayed up late. I got in trouble because there is a lot of trouble out in the world after a certain hour. My rituals now are built around flipping the clock. Needless to say, I get a lot done before 7 am.
What core principles and values guide your agency?
We don’t sell people lies.
We take care of people.
Integrity comes before convenience.
Curiosity comes before assumptions.
Value is more important than vanity metrics.
We do the right thing and make it understandable.
We are always asking better questions.
We work to earn partnerships.
What types of clients or projects do you say no to?
There are only a few types of clients that we will say no to.
Christy and I are Christians, but we do not take on religious organizations because we believe that churches shouldn’t have to advertise with SEO. If a church has a huge marketing budget, we’d rather have them use it to help people, not to pay us. We also feel strongly that if we did take on a religious organization, we’d want to take on organizations from all religions, and not favor one over another, and that’s hard to do. We also do not take on political campaigns for similar reasons.
We also draw a line in the sand around certain adult-only industries. We don’t work with adult film companies or pornography sites. We also do not work with gambling companies or sites.
We do, however, work with marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol companies. I think those industries have been marginalized, and they deserve to market just like anyone else. After all, organic search is their only available form of marketing because paid search optimization is illegal for them.
What marketing or industry trends do you think are overhyped?
Everything AI is overhyped a little bit. AI is real, useful, and helpful, but it can’t be or do everything. There has to be some sort of human in between. A lot of marketing for AI solutions says things like “unplug your humans,” and that’s a little overhyped and dangerous.
Outside of that, marketing trends are the same ones that have been around forever. Many marketing trends, in general, are overhyped as one-size-fits-all solutions. Trends are trends, but in many cases, they stop. Anything that looks bright and shiny feels overhyped until proven otherwise.
What do you predict for the industry in the next 5-10 years?
Within the next 5-10 years, the death of SEO will be announced like it has been every year, but it will continue to live on, as it has.
I think in general, as I see a lot of people turning more toward the analog world because they are tired of being disconnected, the marketing industry is likely (not going to say this is a guarantee) to pivot back to a more personalized, more hands-on kind of approach. Once the digital hangover sets in, people will have to prove their authenticity.
What's your agency's pricing philosophy?
We don’t require a long-term lock-in. We offer a month-to-month structure that keeps the relationship accountable and gives businesses room to adapt as priorities, budgets, and circumstances change.
What's a belief you hold about the industry that most would disagree with?
SEO is still important. A lot of people say SEO is no longer relevant. I think so many people think that what we do is snake oil, and I’m more than willing to stand toe to toe to prove to them that it’s not, that it’s real marketing, not just weird, online computer stuff. We are literally building brands, building worlds, and stories for companies to connect with their audiences. We build a brand's foundation through the website, humanizing what they do. The humanization aspect we put forth is really important. I do still believe that.
What we do on the technical and content sides creates the foundation for all other channels to work better. AI search will work better if your foundation is stronger. Our space and our industry, even though we’ve changed the wording or what we call it (SEO, GEO, AEO), it’s the foundation of all things digital, and that hasn’t changed. I think everyone feels like it has changed and no longer does SEO. All these AI solutions are built on sand. Please build the foundation and make sure you’re built on solid rock, not sand.
What keeps you passionate about this industry?
The constant change keeps me passionate about SEO. It doesn’t get boring because we are part of an industry that probably changes faster than any other. We have to keep our ears to the ground more, I think, than any other space out there. AI is changing one part, Google Search is changing another to try to keep up and stay relevant because the LLMs are taking over. We have to constantly stay alert and active and understand all of those spaces.
I am also passionate about maintaining the ability to properly inform the clients we work with about what is changing and what it means for them, because there is so much noise out there and so much confusion about what is real, what’s fake, and what are partial truths. I like to be as true and real for our clients.
I am also passionate about learning new things. We should always be learning.
