Business
In this episode of E-Coffee with Experts, Ranmay speaks with Will Newland, Founder & Managing Director at SoBold, a London-based high-performance WordPress design & development agency.
Will walks us through his eleven-year journey from freelance marketer to leading a 25-person agency, and reveals the client-first playbook that built SoBold: outstanding communication, empowering handovers, bespoke delivery and a refusal to lock clients into short-sighted retainers.
We dive into practical retention strategies (how giving clients control actually increases long-term engagement), the hard lessons of shifting from high-volume small projects to fewer enterprise engagements, and how to qualify leads that are “enterprise ready.”
He also explains how SoBold baked SEO and LLM/AI visibility into design and development — including measuring presence across chat models, aligning technical builds with content strategy, and why quality remains the core signal for both search engines and LLMs.
If you’re a founder, product leader, marketer or digital agency owner wondering how to scale responsibly, improve client lifetime value, or future-proof your website for AI-driven discovery — this episode is for you.
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In this episode, we discuss:
00:00 – 00:27: Introduction
00:27 – 02:15: Will’s Journey to Starting SoBold
02:15 – 03:20: Early Clients & First Team Member
03:20 – 04:10: Communication as Their Key Advantage
04:10 – 05:32: How SoBold Keeps Clients Long-Term
05:32 – 06:40: Giving Clients Control of Their Websites
06:40 – 07:55: Shifting From Small Clients to Enterprise
07:55 – 09:22: How They Qualify the Right Clients
09:22 – 10:15: Saying No to Revenue & Hard Choices
10:15 – 11:02: Small Client That Became a Major Partner
11:02 – 12:12: Preparing Websites for AI & LLM Visibility
12:12 – 13:26: SEO & Dev Teams Working Together
13:26 – 14:45: How Client Expectations Have Changed
14:45 – 16:00: Why Quality Still Wins in AI Search
16:00 – 17:45: Predictions for Digital Marketing in 2026
17:45 – 18:25: Who Will Thrive vs. Struggle Next Year
18:25 – 19:19: Final Thoughts
Connect with Will Newland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-newland-87061553
http://sobold.co.uk/
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