10
2008
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For this SEO & Social Media Monday Interview Podcast Series I had the opportunity to interview myself. Yea I know I am weird but hey your chance to learn a bit more about me Garrett Pierson Your SEO Mentor. I also go into depth of why and how I do these interviews and stay tuned to my next interview with Lee Odden of TopRankBlog.com on Monday August 25, 2008!
So check out and listen to the podcast above or check out the transcript of the recording below:
Hello everyone, this is Garrett Pierson here; Your SEO Mentor. You’re here for my Monday interview series. Welcome, and thank you for being here.
Today, I have the opportunity to interview myself, Garrett Pierson. The interviewee that I was going to interview fell through but that is okay. I have the opportunity to interview myself. That’s a good thing, because I’ve had a lot of listeners, people who follow me, and friend ask, “Garrett, you’re doing these great interviews with some great experts in the SEO and Social Media communities and industries, but we don’t know a lot about you.” This is a great opportunity for me to tell you all a little bit about myself, to tell you why I do these interviews, and to go through what these interview series are all about. Thank you for this opportunity. Hopefully you guys will stick around and listen. I’m going to make this very quick and to the point.
I try to make these interview series and podcasts very short and to the point, twenty minutes at the most so you will stay focused and enjoy what I have to talk about with those that I interview. If you haven’t listened to some of my other interviews, for example, Jordan Kasteler, Dave Snyder, Dave Harry, and my mom, listen to those at yourseomentor.com. Also, you can listen to these interviews on your iPod, through iTunes. Simply click on the ‘free iTunes submission’ at YourSEOMentor.com and that will take you through the process. It’s very easy and you can get these up-to-date on your iPod and listen to them when you want. Take a look at that.
Why do I do these interviews? I think it’s a great opportunity to get to know some of the experts in the SEO and social media industries. They might not consider themselves experts, and maybe you don’t consider them experts, but I do. I like to interview that I follow, read their content, and have great programs.
Within these interviews, I always ask an introduction question. That question is for the person I’m interviewing, to tell us a little bit about themselves, things maybe their readers or followers don’t know about them, like their background in the SEO, the social media industry, their family, or whatever it is. We want to know a little bit more about them. I think that’s fun because a lot of times, we get to know these people and their expertise, but we don’t get to know a lot about them. That’s always a fun question. I’ll ask that question to myself.
My background is pretty simple. I’m a twenty-six year old that loves search engine optimization, social media, and anything that has to do with online marketing. I really got my start about three or four years ago.
I was actually in the health care industry, I helped start and ran a physical therapy business. I was actually an administrator of an assisted living facility. I was in the health care industry for quite a while. I really enjoyed it. But, about three and a half years ago, I broke my ankle. It really set me back. I was couch ridden for almost a month, I sat there.
At that time, our physical therapy company needed a website. I sat there with my broken ankle and started dabbling a little bit with design. I designed the website and did a pretty good job. During that time, I thought, “We have this website up there but nobody can see it. Nobody has visited it, etc. How do I get our website to where people can find it?”
That’s when I stumbled upon search engine optimization. I started reading my guts out about search engine optimization and really learning a lot. Then, I started doing search engine optimization for the therapy website I built. My father and I put together MyBlueGadgets.com, which is a Bluetooth headset website where we sold Bluetooth headsets. We’ve since sold that website. I really played a lot with that website doing online marketing, email marketing, pay per click marketing, search engine optimization, and really got to love online marketing and search engine optimization.
I got a couple of clients off to the side and did some mentoring and started learning a lot about online marketing and search engine optimization. I also got into social media lately. That’s how I fell into the industry.
I am a proud husband. My wife Lindsey and I just had our baby girl Grace two and a half months ago. We call her ‘Gracie’. A lot of you might remember the SEO Baby Contest. I’ll have a link to that. My wife put it together. I’ve actually had people I don’t know write me to say, “That video made me cry and I don’t even know you or your little baby girl.” Take a look at that. It was fun. That’s a little bit about me.
I’m a big sports nut. I’m a huge Chicago Cubs fan, and a huge Green Bay Packers fan. I love sports. I played sports in high school. I love life, people, and building new relationships. That’s a little bit about me.
When I’m interviewing people, I also go into some of my main questions. What do they really like about their industry? So far, I’ve interviewed a lot of guys in the SEO industry. I’m going to be interviewing people in the social marketing, online marketing industry, or the marketing industry. I’m very excited about that.
I ask them what they really enjoy about their industry. For me, I love the competitiveness of this industry, and search engine optimization. Some people like to play video games all the time. For me, I like to get rankings in Google. That’s what I love about search engine optimization.
For social media, I love to be able to build relationships, relationships of trust, with those in the industry, my customers, and people I meet through social networking and such. That’s another main question I like to ask.
The other one I always ask is, “If you could give one gold nugget of advice to a newbie in the SEO and social media industries, what would it be?” I’ve had some great answers from those I’ve interviewed so far. One really good gold nugget I would give to those entering into search engine optimization, social media, or online marketing, is ‘patience’, and ‘persistence’.
If I had first started with the therapy company, built that website, started doing search engine optimization, and had just given up, I would never be where I am right now. I would have never received the rankings that I did for that website, and for the websites that I’ve done those I’ve mentored, clients, and myself. It’s all about being patient and persistent.
One of the hardest things that I do is link building. You just have to be patient, persistent and you can’t be afraid to ask. When it comes to social media, that’s the other thing; you cannot be afraid to ask. You have to be confident in yourself, ask, and build relationships of trust. Those would be my gold nuggets for all of you newbies, and even those that are struggling right now to make a living in search engine optimization, social media or online marketing. Be patient and persistent.
Another question I ask is, “In your opinion, what is the most exciting trend in the SEO and social media industry today?” To me, the most exciting trend in search engine optimization, is the opportunity we have to build new programs, like plug-ins for WordPress, add-ons for FireFox; really great tools to help us make search engine optimization and our optimizing more efficient. For those who have been in the industry for a long time, know that it has totally evolved and it’s getting better. Some of those new tools and plug ins that we’re able to use is an exciting trend for search engine optimization.
An exciting trend for social media today, to me, would be the opportunity to build relationships, relationships that last a long time. Some of the people that I have been meeting through Twitter, Facebook, and some of these social networking and social media sites, those relationships will be long lasting. We’re able to help each other. Before, the only place we would have met would have been through a conference, or over the phone. This is instant opportunities to meet people.
A great example for that is I now ‘kick ass’ because I’m on Alltop, at seo.alltop.com. I’m proud of that. That’s all because I sent a message through one of these social networking sites, to Guy Kawasaki, talked with him for a little while, and had the opportunity for him to put up my ‘YourSEOMentor.com’ at his seo.alltop.com. That all happened through social media. It’s very powerful.
Another question I ask is, “With the rise of social media, how do you see the Web changing in the next year or two?” The Web changes almost weekly. New things pop up. New sites pop up. I think the Web will change. In the example I just gave, people will be able to connect easier with people they would never be able to connect with any other way. It’s just another tool and channel we are able to use to build up our business, and build up other’s businesses as well.
Another question I like to ask is, “What is your favorite social media site online, and why?” I think mine is Facebook. The reason is because it is viral marketing, viral friendships. You are able to make one friend and can make many other friends you would not have found, just because of that one friend. Through Facebook, you can send messages to each other’s walls, send direct messages, and you can even send video messages. That is cool. You can see what people are doing, what they’re up to, what they do for a living, build relationships, and build your business.
“Who are some of your favorite people in the SEO and social media industry that you continually follow online?” This is a hard question for a lot of people I’ve interviewed so far. There are so many people they follow and continually enjoy following. Some of the people that I really enjoy following are people I think are experts, I think have very valuable content. When it comes down to it, I follow people and focus on these people who give wonderful content. Some of those people are Dave Harry, who I interviewed, Jordan Kasteler, and Dave Snyder. That’s why they were some of the first interviews I did. They are some of the guys I continually follow. I also follow Aaron Wall, from SEO Book. He has some really great content.
I will not be interviewing next week. I will be out of town at a conference in Las Vegas. It’s the Podcast Secrets Reunion, with Alex Mendossian and Paul Colligan. I’m excited about that. Those are two guys I follow as well.I’ll also be going to the New Media Expo.
I have the opportunity to interview Lee Odden, not this next week, but next week. He is an awesome guy when it comes to search engine optimization and online marketing. He is a very big authority. I have the pleasure of interviewing him. Stay tuned for that, it’s going to be great. He’s a big person I like to follow.
All the guys from SEOMoz are great, as well as Search Engine Journal. Some of the women I like to follow are Brandy Eddings, Kristen Munson, the Social Media Mom, some great people. One of my favorite people who always has great content and sticks to the technical side of stuff in the SEO industry, is Bill Slawski. He is awesome. Another person that comes to mind is Ann Smarty also know as SEO Smarty. She has some awesome content and sticks to helping people learn search engine optimization. Those are some of the people. I don’t want to spend any more time on that. These are some great people to follow, great mentors, and great experts in the industry.
Another thing I like to do is to ask more personal questions, not necessarily personal, but questions that are mainly towards that person I’m interviewing. If they’re speaking at a conference, what will they be doing? If they are putting on a conference, something they’re doing within the industry. I like to talk about that. Then I ask them if the listeners want to find out more about their services online, they will tell us where to go to find out more.
That is why I do the interviews, to get to know these people, get some great content, gold nuggets from them, good information and tips. They’ve been really successful so far. Today, hopefully you’ve learned a little more about me. You can follow me at YourSEOMentor.com if you’re listening to this on iTunes or somewhere else.
You can also take a look at my training course at LearnSEOLive.com, where I teach step-by-step, mainly for beginners. It’s a SEO training website where I do video tutorials of exactly how to do search engine optimization. Why I did that is because I read hundreds and hundreds of eBooks, and although they had great information, I’m a visual learner. I like to see things. That’s why I put together that video training course, where I go step-by-step. I am revamping it a little bit. You might see a little bit of errors at LearnSEOLive.com, but that’s okay. It should be up and ready in the next couple of weeks. It’s really going well. It’s only $37, a onetime payment. You can’t beat that.
I do a lot of mentoring and software. I do a lot of cool things to help people to be more successful. I work with the guys over at Trust Guard, helping them. They are great guys.
I also have my new website up at GarrettPierson.com. You can see my current projects, read a little bit more about me, and follow me on Twitter and all the places where you can follow me on social media sites are there at GarrettPierson.com.
I’ve taken enough of your time. Thank you for listening. Stay tuned in two weeks for my Monday Interview Series, with Lee Odden. Thank you all.
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Tags: Dave Harry, Dave Snyder, Facebook, Garrett Pierson, Jordan Kasteler, Lee Odden, Monday interview Series, Podcast, SEO, SEO Podcast iTunes, SEO training, Social Media, Your SEO Mentor
