ILKLEY marketing agency SEO Travel has announced they will be giving away 100 per cent of their profit to charity from all future activity.

The news comes as the digital marketing experts celebrate ten years in business.

Tom McLoughlin, founder of SEO Travel, said: “As we came out of the fog at the end of 2020 I did the same thing as so many people have. I reassessed.

“I looked at what we were doing and what we were trying to achieve. And when I asked myself these big questions, I didn’t really have any answers. So I set off looking for them. I never thought I’d be someone to change the world (and I still don’t). But I’ve decided it’s time to try and at least polish a bit of it around the edges and see where that leads.

“To do that we’ve decided to give away all of the profit SEO Travel makes from this moment forward.”

SEO Travel will start by supporting two charities - Moving Mountains and Zarach. Moving Mountains are a social enterprise working with disadvantaged children in Kenya, Nepal and Tanzania. SEO Travel’s donations will be utilised towards educational activity including building schools, funding teachers and support for children throughout the education system.

Zarach is based in Yorkshire, and they promote the ‘every head a bed’ cause. Bed poverty is a huge issue in the UK, and Zarach aims to wipe this out by providing beds for underprivileged children, so when they come to school they are ready to learn and succeed.

As part of their mission to enable learning around the world and inspire learning locally, SEO Travel will be donating their time and expertise as well as their profit.

Firstly, they will be providing both these causes with marketing activity to create more investment opportunities. The business also has plans to create digital marketing courses for schoolchildren to learn about the industry, as well as providing apprenticeship and work experience opportunities for young people - particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The team will also be offering their time to volunteer with Zarach to support their everyday activities alongside the more specialist marketing help.

Reflecting on the past ten years in business and looking ahead to the next ten, Tom added: “The 25 year old who had no particular goals or aspirations has become a 35 year old who recognises the opportunities he’s been given and the obligation to do more with them.

“In light of the Covid pandemic I realised that growing a business for the sake of it wasn’t enough. To make the struggles of 2020 worth it, we needed to do something different and something bigger. Education and learning would become our mission.”

McLoughlin is also keen to highlight that he feels this is also a sound business move.

He said the benefits of giving away 100 per cent of profit to charity are twofold - not only can the company support good causes and make a positive impact, but they will also benefit as a business too.

He said: “I feel obligated to highlight this isn’t a selfless act. My belief is that this approach will help us bring on more clients, which in turn will help us grow into a better team with a wider offering that achieves better results for those clients.

“And as a result, more clients will want to join that will make us a more stable business. All the while ‘profits’ increase, which we promptly give away to our chosen charities in their totality and help them do even more fantastic work.”