SEO Mentor

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Jeff Quipp is an outstanding mind and friendly guy. In this interview he gives a bit on his background and some great tips and resources for all you SEO and Social Media junkies.

Garrett: Hello everyone, this is Garrett Pierson, Your SEO Mentor. I’m a little under the weather today, so excuse my voice. I’m going to interview Jeff Quipp of SearchEnginePeople.com. I’m so excited to interview him. I had the opportunity to meet Jeff back in Florida a couple of months ago. He’s just an outstanding guy, very friendly, and knows his stuff. How are you, Jeff?

Jeff: Great, thanks Garrett. Thanks for having me.

Garrett: Let’s get started. Tell us a little about yourself for people that might not know you. I know that’s very few, but some might not know you. Give us your background in the SEO and online marketing industries, your hobbies and anything else you want to talk about.

Jeff: As you said, I’m Jeff Quipp. I’m President and CEO of Search Engine People. We’re based out of Toronto. My background is actually pretty interesting in how I got into search in general. Essentially, after graduate school, I started working for the Yellow Pages here in Canada. In Canada, there is really only one Yellow Pages company, unlike the U.S. Of course, I got to experience different departments within the Yellow Pages group, had some really interesting experiences. Ultimately, I became in charge of yellowpages.ca at one point. Then, I migrated over to Sympatico-Lycos, which basically evolved out of the Yellow Pages group. Sympatico-Lycos was a content play essentially, but it was also the largest ISP in the country at the time.

My role with the company was to drive as much traffic to all of the company sites as possible. These were some very large sites, including the Yellow Pages, Canada 4011, Toronto.com, and that sort of thing. On a couple of different occasions, we had tried to hire SEO’s to help us because we recognized that search was becoming very large. Keep in mind; this was back in the late 1990’s. Of course, we had difficulty with the SEO’s at the time. One of them wanted to “cloak” basically, in order to get us better rankings. I didn’t know much about it back then, but now I know a lot more. All that to say, we figured out pretty quickly that it was very – there were lots of possibilities and opportunity for a good, honest person and a good, honest company.

At that point, in time I decided to leave Sympatico-Lycos and start Search Engine People, thinking it would be really valuable if there were a good, reputable, honest, trustworthy search-engine optimization company out there. Since that time, we’ve grown substantially. We now have between twenty and thirty people. We’re definitely one of the largest companies in Canada, doing this, but we engage in paid search, organic search, social media marketing, reputation management, and all that type of stuff.

As far as my hobbies, I have three kids, and they keep me very busy, including all of their hobbies. I’m a tremendous sports fan so they of course have become sports fans as well and are involved in just about every sport you can imagine. That keeps my busy in the off time. When I’m not busy with them, or at work, I’m wrapped up in hockey. I absolutely love hockey. Imagine that, a Canadian.

Garrett: Who is your team?

Jeff: It used to be the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I’m in between teams right now. There doesn’t seem to be any hope for the Leafs to win the Cup. Probably, I’m leaning toward Pittsburgh Penguins right now.

Garrett: That’s awesome, thank you for the background. Tell me – you talked about you were working with Sympatico-Lycos, I believe it was. Then you started Search Engine People, but where was it that you made that transition and gained that SEO knowledge?

Jeff: That’s a great question. Actually, when I left Simpatico, for the first two months I immersed myself in HTML books and Java Script. I taught myself all the coding that was necessary and everything I would need to know in order to begin with SEO. Keep in mind, SEO at time, was a lot different than it is now. Obviously, part of my model at that time, because I’m not an extremely technical person, part of my model was to hire somebody who was technical. That would make me a lot more efficient. That’s what I did within a couple of months. I hired somebody who was very technical. I have the marketing and the business background, so I hired somebody with the technical skills to be able to implement everything.

Garrett: Is there anything new going on with Searchenginepeople.com, and your company? Are there any new projects?

Jeff: Wow, there is always a lot going on here at Searchenginepeople.com. As you may know, we purchased SEO Scoop last week. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with that because I do some experimentation in user-generated content, creating communities and that sort of thing. It’s going to give us a lot of experience that we might now otherwise get the opportunity to really experience.

Myself, and the whole team here, we’re all really excited about this and want to have some fun with it.

We’re expanding into the U.S. I can’t say with who yet, but we’re expanding into South Florida. That will be interesting as well, just to move into a different market. Yes, we have some American clients now, but to have a physical presence down there will be a new step for us. We’re all very pumped about that. Obviously, as Canadians, the possibility of having an office in warmer weather is very appealing to us.

Garrett: That’s great. What are some things you really enjoy about the online marketing industry, and the career that you’ve had so far?

Jeff: There is so much about this industry that I absolutely love. One has to be the people. Anytime that we go to conferences, and there are so many conferences now, I run into and get to meet people that I talk to online quite frequently. Ultimately, we strike up good friendships. The industry seems to have a lot of really great people. Often they’re willing to share information with you and you share information with them. It’s not a cutthroat industry as so many others are. It seems so much more laid back in that respect. You can have fun with competitors. You can sit and chat with them. In fact, even here in Toronto, we have meet up groups. We go out with other SEO’s and have some fun out on the town. It’s a lot of fun. That’s one of the things I like about the industry.

Also, it’s evolving so fast. Things keep changing. There is a lot of appeal to that as well. I think I would do well in a large corporate environment where things aren’t changing very quickly. It’s just not very exciting. There’s not much to look forward to when you get up each morning. Here, there is so much changing, there is so much more you possibly wrap your head around and figure out. It really makes it appealing.

Garrett: It takes a special person to be in this industry because it is changing so much.

Jeff: You have to like change, yes.

Garrett: Exactly, if you could give some tips or some advice to somebody who is just starting in the online marketing, SEO, or social media industries, what would it be?

Jeff: That’s a good question. I would have three or four different suggestions. One would definitely to specialize. The industry has changed a lot since I first got into it eight years ago. It has become a lot more advanced. There is a lot more to know than we had to know back then. Ultimately, I think that means you can’t be a “jack of all trades”. If you are, you’ll be a master of none. In order to master any one particular realm, you have to really immerse yourself in it and become an expert at that one. If Pay-Per-Click is your thing, dive in, figure it all out, read all the relevant blogs, participate in various forums, read Sphinn, but definitely dedicate yourself to it.

Second would be to adhere to the 20/80 rule, which is a very powerful principle. I think it’s also called the Pareto Principle. What it means is 20% of your efforts will generate 80% of the results. If you spend another 80% of your time, that will only generate 20% of the results. Really, the vast majority of the results will come from the first 20% of your time. Perfection isn’t possible. Don’t aim for absolute perfection. It’s just not the best use of your time. It’s very inefficient.

Third, surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are. I’ve been very fortunate, here at Search Engine People, to hire a lot of people who are so much more talented than I am, in so many ways. I guess it has a lot to do with knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are and being able to read other people and what their strengths and weaknesses are. That’s really important. You can’t be the best at everything, you really can’t. You have to let people grow and evolve and work to their strengths.

Number four would be to participate. Get out and get active in the community. Participate in Sphinn. Participate in various forums. Participate in social media. If that’s what you want to specialize in, but definitely throw yourself into it. Get involved. Talk to people. Go to conferences. Conferences are a great place to meet people and develop relationships. After the fact, if you ever have a question, or a problem arises, you can lean on the friends you’ve made at these various conferences. I find myself doing that a lot. I talk a lot with people I’ve met at various conferences. We run ideas and problem solutions by each other. Those would be my four suggestions.

Garrett: That’s awesome. Those are some awesome suggestion tips to help someone get started if you’re a newbie. Thank you. We talked about how the industry is changing all the time. In your opinion, what would be the most exciting trend in the SEO, search engine marketing, and social media industries today?

Jeff: Now we’re getting into the future of search. I absolutely love to talk about the future of search, as you probably know from Scary SEO. One of the most exciting trends for me in the future of the industry is the concept of social search. That is where the search engines try to understand who your friends are and who are the people you trust, with respect to certain topics. Then, if it can understand what those people would do in that situation, or what they like and dislike, they’ve got a pretty good idea of what you, as an individual would like, just by looking at the people you respect and trust.

I really think that’s a huge area for the future. With the advent of social media, and all the different types of social media, it’s definitely something that is a possibility for Google, Yahoo, MSN, in the not so distant future – maybe five or six years out. It will definitely make the quality of search results so much better than they are now.

Garrett: That’s great. That presentation keynote that you gave at Scary SEO was awesome. One thing that I thought of, and that I’m noticing more and more, is that the social groups are getting even more niche-based and even more geographically based, for example, a city. It’s going to be interesting to see what you’re talking about, in that the search becomes even more geographic, local, and more niche based. What do you think about that?

Jeff: Absolutely, I mean, we’ve known for quite some time that local search is a weakness of any of the major search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN. Even with the advent of some of the local search properties that they have, it’s still very much a weakness for them. The Yellow Pages, I would say, has a considerable stronghold on that segment of the market. However, with the concept of social search, and the search engines knowing who your friends are within any particular geographic area, being able to look to see which restaurants are your friends going to, which mechanic do they use, starting to serve up the search results or reorganize the search results and serve the search results that best match your friends’ preferences back to you, that substantially increases the accuracy and the usefulness of local search to most people, especially when they start serving up the stuff on PDA’s. This type of social results on PDA’s, it’s going to become even more functional and valuable.

Garrett: That’s so true. Tell me; staying on the subject of social media, what is your favorite social media site online, and why?

Jeff: That’s a tough one. I use three very frequently. I’m very active on Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. I like them for different reasons. Digg and Reddit are obviously more similar than StumbleUpon is. I like StumbleUpon just because I think it’s less subject manipulation probably, than Digg or Reddit. Some of the people I follow StumbleUpon have really unique perspectives and find some really valuable information that maybe otherwise wouldn’t do well on Digg or Reddit. That said, I also find a lot of really interesting information about my interests, particularly science, space, and internet technology on Digg and Reddit. From my perspective, we write a lot of content for clients. A lot of the ideas for that content are spurred by what we find on Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. Not only does it serve my personal needs for understanding technology better and understanding what’s going on in the world, but also, from a business perspective, it helps us do our jobs better. I can’t narrow it down to one, but I’ll narrow it down to three.

Garrett: That’s all right, and unique from some from some of the other people I have interviewed. That’s awesome. Who are some of the favorite people in the SEO and social media industry that you continually follow online?

Jeff: There are so many – just about everybody at Sphinn. I follow so many people at Sphinn. I obviously follow Macki Maki, Dosh Dosh, Matt McGee, Michael Dorosh, you, there are so many people I follow. I don’t follow a lot of the make money online type of bloggers. That’s not really as much of an interest for me. SEO is a passion for me, much as is social media. Chris Winfield as well, Brent Csutoras, Tamar, obviously Danny Sullivan. I’m a big fan of all of them.

Garrett: One person I’m sure you follow,is Dave Harry.

Jeff: Oh, very much so, Dave is a good friend of mine.

Garrett: The funny thing is you live a half an hour away from him, right?

Jeff: Yes, and I’ve never met him. I’m been meaning to make plans for the last year to go meet him, but it just hasn’t happened yet. I’m hoping in the very near future. As I understand it, I’m supposed to show up with some beer as well, because I lost a bet to him not so long ago.

Garrett: That’s funny. He’s a great guy. I know you can’t name everybody, but that’s a good list of names, for people who are listening, to go and follow some of those people. I know you spoke at some recent conferences and attended some recent conferences. Tell us a little bit, about what you spoke about. What was your biggest take away from these conferences?

Jeff: Often, I’ll speak at conferences about various things. Social media is something I speak a lot about and how to use social media in order to create an awareness of great quality content that you’ve got. I speak a lot about link building as well. Not as frequently, although I like speaking about this best of all, is the future of search and how search will evolve going forward in the future. What do I really get out of the conferences? I don’t necessarily go to the conferences to get business out of the conferences. Really, what I get out of them are the relationships that develop after hours, when you go out for dinner or for drinks, and it’s the relationships that you forge and the various people you get to know, and the insights and different perspectives they can bring. I find that the most valuable.

Garrett: So I guess you would say networking, right?

Jeff: Absolutely, yes

Garrett: I find that to be the reason I go as well. Great. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to spend time helping others learn about you, and giving some tips and spending time with me on this interview. If any of my listeners would like to find out more about you and your services online, where should they go?

Jeff: They can go to Searchenginepeople.com and read our blog. Our blog is at Searchenginepeople.com/blog. We have a number of writers writing, but definitely, that’s where I post the majority of my opinions and content.

Garrett: Again, thank you and I appreciate your time.

Jeff: Thank you, Garrett.

To find out more about who transcribed this interview check out Tamara Bentzur!

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Monday Interviews, SEO, Your SEO Mentor Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: blog, Danny Sullivan, Dave Harry, Digg, Future of Search, Garrett Pierson, Industry, Interview, Jeff Quipp, Maki Maki, Reddit, Scary SEO, SearchEnginePeople.com, SEO, Social Media, Sphinn, Stumbleupon