I Trained as a Journalist at Toronto Metropolitan University

Journalism trains you to ask the questions nobody else is asking; to find the angle that makes a story worth reading; to write for a specific reader, not for an abstract audience; and to be clear when everything around you is pushing toward vague.

Those are exactly the skills content strategy requires. Most content isn’t badly written, but it fails because it has no point of view, no defined reader, and no clear reason to exist. It’s generic or bland and could be written by anyone. It doesn’t properly represent you and your brand.

A journalistic approach fixes these problems.

After graduating, I spent years writing for businesses across industries (professional services, healthcare, real estate, trades, financial services) learning what makes content work in competitive, real-world markets where readers are skeptical and attention is short. That experience became the foundation of everything I do now.

We would love to work with you to make your website stand out and your business grow.

What I Actually Do

I help businesses build content strategies that attract the right clients, build authority in their market, and create a consistent publishing system they can sustain.

That means understanding your business before writing a word about it, doing the keyword research and competitive analysis before deciding what to create, and building a plan that’s calibrated to what your business can actually execute. It’s a strategy created for your business in the real world, not an ideal scenario that collapses three weeks after the document is delivered.

Sometimes that looks like a one-time audit and strategy build. Sometimes it’s a 60-day engagement that combines strategy with produced content. Sometimes it’s ongoing monthly direction for businesses that want a strategist in their corner long-term. And sometimes it’s one well-crafted piece of content that does a specific job.

The through-line in all of it is the same: strategy first, execution second, and a clear sense of what success looks like before any work begins.

Who I Work Best With

Fifteen years of client work has taught me a lot about where I’m most useful… and where I’m not.

I work best with owner-operated service businesses: accountants, lawyers, financial advisors, mortgage brokers, healthcare practitioners, consultants, renovation companies, and specialist trades. These are businesses that are good at what they do, have been growing on referrals, and are ready to build something that works independently of who they know.

They share a common situation. They know their content needs attention and they’ve been meaning to fix it for months, sometimes years. However, they don’t have the budget for a full agency and don’t want the overhead of a marketing hire. They want to work with someone who will actually understand their business… and who won’t hand them off to a junior writer with a brief and a deadline.

That’s where I fit.

I’m not the right choice for everyone. If you need high-volume content production, a social media management service, or a full-service agency with a team behind it, there are better options and I’ll tell you so honestly. But if you need a senior strategist who will personally handle your engagement from first call to final delivery (and who will be reachable when you have a question) that’s exactly what I offer. [Learn more…]

On Working with a Solo Operator

The most common hesitation I hear from prospective clients is some version of: “What if you get sick? What if you’re too busy? What if I need more than one person can deliver?“

These are fair questions. Here’s the honest answer.

I take on a deliberately small number of clients at any one time. That’s not a limitation, it’s a feature. It means every engagement gets my full attention, every question gets a quick response, and the person you spoke to in the first conversation is the person doing the work. There are no account managers, no subcontractors, no handoffs to someone who doesn’t know your business.

The tradeoff is that I’m not the right fit for businesses that need agency-level volume. The advantage is that you’ll always know exactly who is doing the work and you’ll be able to reach them.

15 years. What That Actually Means

I started Toronto SEO Web Content in 2009, which means I’ve been doing this through every significant shift in how content works online: the rise of social media, the evolution of search algorithms, the arrival of AI-generated content, and the shift from keyword stuffing to genuine subject matter expertise.

What I’ve learned from watching all of those shifts is that the fundamentals don’t change. The businesses that consistently do well with content are the ones that understand their audience deeply, have something specific to say, and publish consistently enough to build trust over time. Everything else, from the platforms to the formats to the tools, is secondary.

That perspective is what I bring to every engagement. Not just knowledge of what’s working right now, but an understanding of why it works and how to build something durable rather than something that needs to be rebuilt every time an algorithm changes.

A Note on AI

Clients ask about this regularly, so I’ll address it directly.

AI has changed content production significantly. It’s useful for research, for generating first drafts, and for processing large amounts of information quickly. I will sometimes use it in my own work… where it adds value.

It doesn’t replace is strategic judgment, knowing which topics to pursue and which to ignore, or understanding how a specific audience makes decisions. It won’t help you recognize when a piece of content is technically correct, but strategically wrong. Building a system that reflects a real brand’s voice and goals requires more than a plausible approximation of them and a few clicks.

My work is about actually representing your brand and working with you to make sure it’s done right. The writing is the output, but the strategy is what makes it work.

Get In Touch

If this sounds like what you’re looking for, the next step is a conversation. Fill in the contact form below and describe your business and what you’re trying to achieve. Richard will read it personally and respond within one business day. In the meantime, feel free to read more about my services or check out some frequently asked questions.