Search Candy

Operating from Manchester, Search Candy was run for close to a decade as an independent eCommerce SEO consultancy by Colin McDermott, who has spent twenty years working in organic search across in-house, agency, and consulting roles. Client work during that period included The Times, CEF, Fired Earth, Lending Works, and Think Money, alongside a number of smaller engagements spanning enterprise ecommerce, finance, and publishing sectors. The consultancy has since shifted form: Search Candy now functions primarily as a publication where McDermott writes about SEO, GEO, and AI search, while he currently holds the role of Head of SEO at Whop. The consultancy's work centred on technical SEO, content strategy, and organic growth for ecommerce businesses, with platform-specific experience across Magento, Shopify, and headless setups, as well as category-level strategy and pricing considerations for online retailers. Roughly half of the current practice is now oriented toward Generative Engine Optimisation - improving brand visibility within LLM-driven search tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews - alongside prompt tracking and related methods for the emerging AI search landscape. The published material draws on live experimentation on real sites with real traffic rather than theoretical guidance, covering topics such as helpful content updates, retail search services, and ecommerce platform comparisons. No courses, certifications, or productised services are offered; enquiries are handled directly by McDermott via email or social channels, with a stated preference for SEO, GEO, speaking, and writing collaboration requests.