Have you ever asked yourself this question? I mean be serious here. I just wrote an article for Search Engine Journal called, “The Top Ten Reasons Your SEO Sucks” where I talk about the main reasons I have found why people struggle with getting the rankings and results they deserve.
Here is my favorite reason:
3. The next reason may be due to us misinterpreting what we read or learn from the so called experts or gurus. Just because you read something doesn’t mean it is correct or that it will work. I am sure I have said or written some things that have been incorrect or misleading. Just because something works in one market or niche, does not mean it will work in your area! So take what you learn from others with a grain of salt and make sure you are not making the next mistake.
So check out the article and see if you agree with anything that I wrote I think you will find something that you are either doing or have done in the past!
As I said in the article “I am constantly surprised when I find SEO efforts that do not include the brand.” If you are forgetting your or your clients brand in your SEO, PPC or Social media efforts then you are truly missing out.
There was a great comment from David, “Great points, Grant. I hate to admit it, but I’ve made that mistake in the past - optimizing for the high traffic keywords and related queries to help this client get more relevant traffic, I completely left their name off the title to improve relevance for the keywords I placed there. This worked great for landing new visitors, but I completely screwed over anyone that searched for them by brand, which turned out to be around 35% of their target audience. Won’t make that mistake again, to be sure.
I think the key point is to know how the company is getting business currently. Are their clients are from word-of-mouth referrals, or is it solely from internet traffic that’s searching for a deal on an item, etc… if it’s the latter, brand recognition isn’t the end all - if it’s the former, yeah , it should definitely be in the title, ppc campaign, or other marketing efforts.”
So I recently wrote an article called Optimization Checklist and Checking It Twice! about a checklist of SEO items that I believe a lot of people forget. I want to thank all those that left comments on the post, very kind words.
We spend a lot of time with our sites and client sites on optimizing for better rankings and it is a shame when we forget the little basic things that can really affect all of our hard work.
So take a look at the article and make sure you print it out and don’t forget the checklist.
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.
If you like SEO, Social Media, and PPC then you are going to love Brian Carter. This guy is not only really funny he is also a very smart guy. Take a listen or read below some great tips from Brian, also prepare to laugh.
Garrett: Hello everyone, Garrett Pierson here, Your SEO Mentor. Today I have the wonderful opportunity to interview Brian Carter of Fuelinteractive.com and Getmorefaster.com. How are you doing, Brian?
Brian: I’m good. How are you doing, Garrett?
Garrett: I’m doing great. I appreciate you taking some time out of your day to answer some questions about yourself and about your background in online marketing. Let’s just jump to the chase. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your background in SEO online marketing, and maybe some things about your personal life like your family, hobbies, or anything else you want to talk about.
Brian: I used to be an acupuncturist. Then I started a site to explain acupuncture and Chinese medicine for people in regular language. That was Pulsemed.org. I spend about four years building articles on that and building an email database. I fully planned to become an acupuncturist.
Ultimately, I started getting a lot of traffic. I learned a little about SEO. I was running AdSense ads and I started making money on that. The next thing I knew, I figured out my own version of the KEI thing, which I felt was actually better than KEI and helped me choose the right key words to rank on. Some of them weren’t in Chinese medicine. I started going for all kinds of weird things like wedding favors and things like that. I started making four thousand dollars a month. I thought, “I think I found something.”
I hired twenty other writers to write all these key word articles. I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was kind of ’spammy’ at the time. I thought, “I’ll just turn my site into an article index.” I started writing all this stuff. There were a couple of months in a row where we brought in more than twenty thousand dollars in AdSense. I thought I was rich for the rest of my life. I was telling all my friends they should starting writing key word articles for Google. They thought I was crazy. I said, “No, this is a revolution! We’re going to make all this money!” All of a sudden, I lost all my rankings. Whether it was an algorithm change or Google decided my site was no longer an authority, or I was being a spammer. Now, when I look back at the instructions I gave to some of these writers, it does look like spam to me.
Rhea Drysdale was willing to spend some time with me even during her busy week with her big announcement that you will hear or read about within the interview. Rhea has had a ton of experience in the SEO industry in such a short amount of time and is very willing to share some great tips about how to stay organized and where to go for great information. Thanks for your time Rhea!
Check out the interview by listening above or reading the transcript below.
Garrett: Hello everyone, this is Garrett Pierson here. Today I have the wonderful opportunity of interviewing Rhea Drysdale. How are you, Rhea?
Rhea: I’m very well, thank you. How are you doing?
Garrett: I’m doing great. It’s good to have you here. Today is Monday, September 22, 2008. I’m just going to give a ‘quick Rhea’ in twenty seconds that I found from her blog. I’ll give a little overview of who she is. She says, “I’ve worked with some of the best Ruby on Rails developers in the world, managed internet marketing for a Fortune 1000, and SEO for a top 200 internet retailer. I’ve also chaired a local non-profit, blogged at Search Engine Journal, and I love SEO.” Is that all true, Rhea?
Rhea: That certainly is. I’ve had a lot experiences in a very short period.
Garrett: That’s great. Everybody can check out more about Rhea at RheaDrysdale.com. I’ll have a link to that so you can check her “About Me” page at /blog/about. Rhea, why don’t you just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background? I know you have an announcement that you announced last Friday. Why don’t you tell us about your background in the SEO and online marketing industry, or anything about your family, your hobbies or anything else you want to talk about?
