David Harry is into SEO for the long haul. He sets 5-year goals, gives back to young SEOs coming up in the game, and has a clear vision of what his legacy will be in the industry.

He’s also Canadian, which I love.

In this podcast interview, Harry explains how he built his personal brand and SEO business by starting out with zero connections to become one of the thought leaders in this growing industry.

As you’ll soon find out, Harry is an extremely easy interview, really cool guy, and notably candid. That’s my way of warning you there could be 1-2 f-bombs dropped in the audio.

Here are a few highlights from the interview:

Also mentioned in the interview:

SEO News
SEO Training
SEO Services
SEO Blog

By the way, I kept recording past the of the “official” end of this interview. After some casual banter about Canada, Harry shares even more of the benefits he’s received as a result of developing a personal brand and blogging that we both felt could deliver added value to the listeners.

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In this the second interview with Ed Fry, he shares the secret sauce for getting your content from YouMoz to being published on the SEOMoz main blog, earning the respect of your industry peers, and getting a real life high-five from Rand Fishkin in the process.

Ed, can you give us a quick run down of the blog posts you’ve had promoted from YouMoz to the main SEOMoz blog? What were they about?

I’ve been following the main SEOmoz blog for almost two years (testament to how good it is!) – I’ve rarely missed a post. The ideas on their are generally new, interesting and engaging for advanced SEOs.

I think part of the mission with the moz blog is to teach the pro’s something new – that’s perhaps why it’s so successful; SEOmoz, along with their associates and YOUmoz contributions are constantly thinking, researching and talking about SEO. The blogs are where the community’s ideas are shared.

I’ve noticed however that SEOmoz has generally skipped around the topic of awesome content. Yes, they’ve defined the need for good content, suggested where good content would be good – even suggested what content is not… but never what it is, and how to make it.

This is the area I had interest in before. Having started my own website entirely because it was impressed into me that with awesome content that was ranking, you could win. This has generally always been my favourite part of SEO.

I’ve been taught using Site Build It, I follow CopyBlogger avidly and keep an eye on ProBlogger too…

Gradually, I noted down a series of thoughts and ideas about the process of creating awesome content. Then over the course of about two weeks, I figured how to “join-the-dots” and make a remarkable article.

And so I published the Definitive Guide to Awesome Web Content.

I’ve got about a dozen other posts in various draft forms that I’ll tidy up and submit one day as well…

What sort of benefits did you receive as a result of being featured on the main SEOMoz blog? (I.e. Adoring fans, consulting offers, industry cred, traffic to your Twitter profile or a virtual high-five from Rand Fishkin?

I’ve never really got what Twitter was originally intended for – who really cares what you had for breakfast?

Originally, I signed up just to follow people in search (worthwhile, just for the interesting stuff people share) and then later the Distilled folks before my internship there.

But seeing my post flying around the Twittersphere does give a warm fuzzy feeling inside…

Beyond the standard ‘headline + link’ tweet there have been some people who have really taken what I’ve said onboard, or its hit them in a particularly profound way. Those were the people I was really writing for, and I’m glad they chirped up.

The timing of the promotion of the post was pretty good – a week before Distilled’s PRO SEO Seminar.

Meeting people ‘from the internet’ who had seen my post was pretty cool. Having Will Critchlow introduce me to some of the SEOmoz team as the guy who wrote a post ‘this long’ (stretching his arms as wide as far as they go – and he plays basketball so a long way!) was even cooler.

But an ACTUAL high-five from Rand Fishkin was the coolest :-]

Being ‘published on SEOmoz’ is definitely a credibility-builder when talking to people about SEO, especially if the objective is to win over work. It’s also handy just to point clients to the post – I’ve found educating clients really helps.

Do you think it’s worthwhile from a personal benefit standpoint to put in upfront time and effort that’s necessary to create the type of high-quality blog post that has the potential to be SEOMoz main-blog worthy content?

As I put in the post, the world doesn’t need more content. It needs quality content. Remarkable, awesome, white-paper-worthy content.

Always create high-quality content, because then you don’t play the quantity game. As Seth Godin says, we’ve had the race to the bottom (you can ‘buy articles’ with Mechanical Turk now for next to nothing. So is the article worth next to nothing?); now it’s about the race to the top.

From a search and social marketing perspective, what factors will determine whether your the one that gets linked to, gets tweeted about, gets traffic and what SEOs really care about – getting ranked – is it the quantity of content you produce (increasing your odds?) or the quality (going for the win).

I say, if you’re trying to make mediocre content rank, or even if you’re just posting mediocre content then shame on you!

My post took me to write as long as it took me write. That’s the key point about Definitive Content – it’s as long as it needs to be.

My argument is this – if you’re a stranger in a foreign city and you ask someone for directions, you’re not going to stop listening until you’ve got directions to where you need to go, and why should they stop telling you directions? Why should it be any different online?

As someone whose work has been promoted to the main blog before, what sort of content creation advice to you have for others hoping to be recognized there?

There’s three points here:

1.) Write Definitive Content (Remarkable + Awesome + White-Paper-Worthy)

2.) Write about something you know about inside out. Introduce something new, or put a new perspective on something (you’ve read about content before; I joined the dots and added an analogy. You can do that too.). If you know something well, you can write as yourself much easier. More natural posts appear more fluent, more confident and are more likely to be posted.

3.) Write about SEO! There’s a handful of posts on the YOUmoz blog which haven’t had such a great response. Either they weren’t as well written, or didn’t say anything new – or they weren’t writing about SEO or something that is directly related to SEO. Recently there have been a couple of articles about Facebook, but as search and social becomes ever closer together there’s enough relevance for it to be received well by SEOmoz readers. Think of a cornerstone of SEO and hone in on it. Actionable posts go far too, I think.

In your promoted YouMoz post titled “The Definitive Guide to Awesome Web Content” you leverage a number of graphs and photos to articulate your message. How are you able to find or create the type of imagery that helps explain difficult SEO concepts? Do believe including this imagery improves the odds your content is promoted?

For starters, images help to break up a lengthy post. I knew I couldn’t just slap a huge text “essay” on a blog because no one would read it.

Breaking up a post with images, sub-headings, lists and bullet-points is important, especially if your posts are of any length. Images also help emphasize key points. Be this in a humourous way, or with a diagram or something similar, it saves having to type out an explanation which may not even be as clear.

Usually, I first try looking for stock images to add to posts, and failing that I use Google Image Search to find something to swipe (of course they get a reference link). Finding images isn’t the hard part, it’s putting them effectively into the context of a piece.

The key analogy I used of a jet engine to represent the four types of content and how they’re used meant I had to produce a diagram of some sort. I actually ended up using Microsoft Word and then print-screening it into some graphics editing software (Paint.net) where I then adjusted the size and colour before uploading it. Anyone can do that, right? (Credit: Ed Fry’s Sweet Microsoft Paint Jet Engine Below.)

Diagrams, graphs, humourous images and other pictures definitely help your posts hold up reader’s attention and make the post look interesting and shareable.

I also embedded a YouTube video of a Seth Godin talk to explain one of my points. You could use other multi-media too (slide decks, prezzis, videos – even embeddable games!) to help reduce the need for text and retain readers interest.

Ed Fry is the kind of guy you wish you were at sixteen.

In this candid interview, Fry shares his experiences and the lessons learned from an SEO internship at Distilled.

Ed, Tell me a bit about your background and how you first got interested in SEO?

It all started in the school playground. In Business Studies we were tasked with setting up ‘a business’ in small groups.

Frustrated with the quality and price of school lunches, a few friends and I got together and started selling cakes and other sweet snacks. We won customers thanks to better location, but despite being profitable it was hard work.

“The Man” then closed us down, and the profits I kept (where later used) to setup another project. Browsing around the internet (in the Summer of 2008), I found an article saying how mini laptops (netbooks) were the fastest growing segment of the computer market. I then came across a company that was teaching thousands of people how to build theme-based content sites that get traffic from Google and make money. That company was called SiteSell.

Online business made so much sense; my pet-hate of the school business was the shear amount of daily manual labour. Automation was the dream! Putting two-and-two together was the smartest $299 I’ve ever spent.

I made a small four-figure sum by the time I had exited 9 months later (the technology industry is hard work!) primarily via Adsense, Amazon Affiliate commissions and the actual sale value of the website. With the money I invested in more sites, and enough business/online marketing books to fill a small library.

The big lessons I learned were about online marketing and in particular SEO.

From a teenager’s point-of-view, SEO is the ultimate evergreen marketing technique. I was picking high-demand, low-competition keywords which I could build pages, syndicate some articles and watch the traffic come in. It was a fire-and-forget strategy which meant I could keep expanding the “business”.

My real interest in SEO took off when a family friend who after hearing about my lil’ site, introduced me to SEOmoz. After watching my first Whiteboard Friday video, I immediately subscribed to the blog and have been learning ever since.

I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near where I was without SiteSell or SEOmoz.

So Ed, I’ve got to know, how does a 16-year old “kid” end up with an internship at one of the most notable SEO agencies on the planet, Distilled? But before you answer that, I want to break this process down completely. How did you discover the opportunity to become a candidate for an internship at Distilled in the first place?

I was acutely aware that the school was keen for everyone in my year doing exams to undertake some form of work experience before the careers department started getting all giddy spamming us with letters and forms. Honestly, Distilled wasn’t the first place I tried…

My hometown Portsmouth is the second largest ferry port in the UK after Dover, and ever since I was a wee-lad my family used to go on the annual summer holiday by ferry to France (here’s a trip report on an enthusiast forum if you want to hear the real significance).

Our favourite company, Brittany Ferries runs several cruise ferries from the port each day, and their UK management is based in the Portsmouth office. I see them everyday when I walk the dog or walk to school and so I was actually pretty excited when my Headmaster gave me the contact details of the PR and Marketing Manager.

I wrote a lovely letter and never heard back…

Meanwhile, more and more posts by a company called Distilled appeared on the SEOmoz blog, and after a quick browse around it turned out they were British!

Based in London in fact. News of SEOmoz’s exit from consulting and joint venture with Distilled put them firmly on my radar.

I actually first contacted Distilled whilst scouting around for folks to build an e-commerce store for a family friend. I’d been browsing around and it kept bugging me that I ought to at least try getting in touch with this top-end London company. Who was I kidding?

Dear Caitlin sent a lovely email back suggesting that our £3k budget might be a bit thin for what we were describing, but was still worth a chat. I was rather taken back, and forwarded the email on – in the end nothing happened.

Then a month later, totally out of the blue. I felt obliged to reply (Caitlin writes such friendly, compelling emails!).

So the email went along the lines of “Erm no, sorry. See, I’m actually 16 and I’ve been working with a friend on this.” and then I the most daring idea popped into my head. It was one of those moments that maybe, just maybe, changed my life…

“On the off chance, do you offer any kind of work experience opportunities?”

And I got a yes!!!

Silly thing perhaps, but I was still slightly cautious of Caitlin when I actually got in the office being ‘that time-wasting kid’ and all. But turns out I had no worries :p

What kind of qualifications did you need for this internship? Did you submit a resume or write a report to get in? What sort of hoops did you have to jump through to get it?

There was no real posting for an internship. Work experience placements tend to be ad-hoc and for a week or two only, but in my initial dialogue I explained the mini laptops site story, the electric bikes work and a bit of what I liked about SEOmoz and some of their stuff they’d done.

I seem to have showed them enough interest to get a thumbs up.

So what was the interview process like?

There was no formal interview beforehand, but on my first day at the office (sounds like a line form a film?) Duncan (CEO, and co-founder. He runs the ops on the ground) took me into the boardroom for a quick one-on-one interview along the lines of “So what do you want to get out of this?”.

Can you tell me what a typical day in the life of an intern at Distilled is like. Are you working on any interesting projects or stuck in a closet to do grunt work?

I did a pretty meaty post on the Distilled blog about what I had done over the course of two weeks.

I was working in the SEO team, who also took on two trainees Mark and Dave – both of whom hadn’t done any SEO beforehand.

That was really neat; I essentially got to work in parallel with what the trainees were doing, starting with an ‘SEO for n00bs’ talk from Tom. Us three were essentially doing smaller tasks for the Lead SEOs on different projects.

I was running a Twitter account for one client, creating mockups for a better-converting homepage for another, emailing bloggers to promote a piece of linkbait Distilled had created, shadowing Caitlin in a sales meeting, doing keyword research and also producing a list of quick-win recommendations for a particularly huge client Distilled had just taken on and writing my first SEOmoz blog post – Growing Up in the SEO Ninjahood – amongst a huge range of other things. Grunt work? I think not…

What’s the most interesting experience or story you got from your internship?

It’s a kind of hard question. The most interesting stuff I’d say was to do with individual clients which I can’t say anything about (or the Critchlow brothers will come after me with nunchucks).

I think Tom mentioned he had to ring up Matt Cutts at Google once for a re-consideration request… (that’s how pro’s do SEO…)

What’s the biggest lesson learned at Distilled?

Two big lessons I think, one to do with business, the other personal…

1.) It’s all about the bottom line. Distilled put this on their homepage for a reason. As consultants they’re responsible for making themselves more than worthwhile. In any business, even if you’re just a consultant you must realize that you need to produce a valuable return-on-investment. Investment doesn’t just consist of money. Time and other resources are important to.

2.) There’s more to life than money. I go to a school where a substantial proportion of kids are quite well off. When getting the latest iGadget when it comes out isn’t a problem, the idea of money and materialism is king.

Distilled’s current office is inside the square mile. I had the pleasure of commuting in on the Northern line beneath bankers armpits – they were perhaps (I’m totally guessing, this is just a hunch…) earning a substantial amount more than the folks at Distilled. Were they deliriously skipping to work each morning, and leaving with a smile each and everyday? Pah, no!

I think that says a lot. When you’re amongst a team of people who are both top-of-the-industry folks IMHO who are also friendly, approachable and good banter… what does money have to do with it?

If you could give one piece of advice to future Distilled SEO interns, what would it be?

Distilled are looking for talent. People who don’t necessarily follow or break the rules, but make the rules. Okay, I’m just waffling…

Distilled are a fast expanding company, and I’m pretty sure if you have an interest in marketing on the web (it needn’t be just SEO – do you have something new to add?) and you can clearly show some sort of initiative then they’d love to talk to you. If you’re looking for an actual internship job, there will be hoops to jump through:

1.) Prove your smarts

2.) Show you’re not a “loser” or a “douchebag” (to quote Tom Critchlow’s talk on How to Hire an SEO at their seminar last month)
3.) Prove you’re available to come to London.

Final question, what are you working on right now? What’s you’re goal for the next couple of years?

I was in the States recently visiting my Uncle who married and moved out there. It was something he said which has really rung bells with me…

“Focus on the primary mission”.

There’s no argument here or there to say that schoolwork isn’t number one. A good set of A Levels opens up the opportunity for potentially going to a really quite spiffing university and having an awesome time learning how to live, think and be responsible with a drink… Not to blow my own trumpet, but if I work, I’m pretty confident I could get an Oxbridge interview, hopefully?

Trumpet’s another thing. A big part of my life besides academia and fooling around on the web is music. I’m principal trumpet at Hampshire County Youth Orchestra, I’ve got Grade 8 Distinction aged 14 and I’m on track to do a Performance Diploma at the end of the academic year. I love music, and like business, will never be able to put it down.

Web wise, I’ve got a handful of different projects going on. Besides experimenting with my own websites, I’ve been getting into consulting generally about web marketing (I feel empowered post-Distilled!). By next week, I should hopefully have secured my fifth client! Balancing consulting work against schoolwork, music, personal projects and going out is interesting!

I’m posting a bit on SEOmoz’s YOUmoz Community blog. One area I think I’ve really taken an interest to is ‘content’. Whereas technical SEO stuff (301 redirects, rel-canonical etc.) is all about fixing and tweaking what you have, content (how you communicate) is expansive, artistic and creative. There’s no limits on ‘success’. I’ve a few awesome experiments lined up I’ll write about; keep an eye out!

My big personal project is YourTeenBusiness.com I think there’s a huge amount of wasted talent and opportunity to help teen entrepreneurs get off the ground (Mow your neighbours lawn for money. Er, no!). No one has really created a truly remarkable, definitive resource to help introduce teens to the idea of creating their own business, build it and actually make something remarkable themselves. I see this talent everyday, and yet no one’s really digging in and nurturing it.

The site’s going to take ages to get anywhere near complete. The basic concept is to introduce teens to a range of suitable business ideas, help them develop a business strategy and then build a community to sustain each other’s own momentum. It’s gonna be awesome!

The five year plan see’s me going to Uni somewhere to do music (gotta love music) or something like Economics and Management at Said Business School Oxford?

I’m throwing ideas around at the moment.

I had a lot of great conversations with literally dozens of people recently, and I’ve got a few ideas of what to consider. Still, I had an email back from one of my most trusted advisors (the family friend dealing electric bikes, introduced me to SEOmoz etc etc etc.) suggesting the following:

Zany web-marketing course? F*ck that I’d go to Distilled!

Connect with Ed Fry on Twitter here: @fryed7

Brent Rangen got introduced to search-engine optimization back in the early 2000′s by working for someone else. Since then, he’s gone on to build his own SEO consulting business Optimize Guyz in my home state of Minnesota.

Today on my first ever podcast, Rangen shares his “secrets” to owning/operating an SEO agency. Rangen is someone who’s been able to make the transition from employee to business owner (not something everyone can do) and shares some of the techniques that make him successful.

You’ll also find these tips on running an SEO business in the podcast:

- Why You Should Leverage Your Existing Relationships To Find Clients
- Why Carving Out a Niche can Help Attract Clients
- Why Rangen Doesn’t Promise Rankings To Clients
- How to Identify Local Clients to Approach for SEO Consulting
- How to Integrate Social Media in an Overall SEO Strategy
- How Rangen Flew to San Francisco and Got Entry to Search Engine Strategies on Bruce Clay’s Dime.
- Why Winning a Contest Can Be a Great Way to Build Your Client List
- How to Break into SEO Even If You Don’t Have Any Clients

Other Items Mentioned in the Interview:

SEO Business Primer – Rangen’s submission that won him the New Biz Discovery Contest from Bruce Clay.

Search Engine Relationship Chart – A Bruce Clay Classic.

SEM Synergy Podcast – Podcast Interview with Brent Rangen about his takeaways from SES San Francisco.

Optimize Guyz on Facebook – Follow Rangen on Facebook!

This interview is approximately 20 minutes long. FYI: For some reason my WordPress theme is removing the download link to this broadcast. I will try to get this issue sorted out for future podcasts so you can download the interview and take it with you.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Philip Nikolayev is a brilliant man.

He’s a Harvard grad. Published four books. Oh yeah, he owns a search-marketing firm Search Benefit SEO Consultancy as well.

In this QA Nikolayev shares his thoughts on the best way to build a search-marketing business, how he built a client list, and why you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff when it comes to managing SEO campaigns.

Hi Philip. Tell us a little about your background and how someone with a PHD from Harvard got interested in SEO.

Hi, Brett. I have two degrees from Harvard, but my PhD is actually from Boston University. I was in a PhD program at Harvard and completed my qualifying exams, but then decided, for complicated situational reasons, to switch careers.

The short version is that my wife and I had a child and I needed money urgently and took a job in high tech, first as a software engineer in a software company that developed complex applications for the Web. That’s where I first found SEO (as it was 10 years ago, you know). Many things have changed a great deal since then, including SEO itself.

I did get a PhD at BU in the meantime, which, by the way, is in scholarly editing and has little to do with anything tech or Web related, except that it contributes without a doubt to my qualifications as a content expert. Believe it or not, I have a whole other life that is completely unrelated to SEO, in which I have published many literary works, including four books. Go figure!

Tell us about your business: Search Benefit.

Search Benefit is brand new. I was VP of marketing in another high tech firm, doing chiefly SEO and SEM and other “e-marketing” stuff, but went solo earlier this year and launched this startup just half a year ago. At first it was a struggle to set things up, but we quickly reached a certain critical mass, and now we are profitable and growing fast. This keeps us insanely busy. Most of our clients are currently in the US, although we are also eminently equipped to take on clients in the UK as well.

Many SEO entrepreneurs struggle to find a client list in the early stages of their business. In your own business, what strategy seems to work best for you to drum up more business? (ie PPC marketing, referrals, cold calling, etc.)

I was lucky to to get a couple of great clients right away, and they tided us over. Word of mouth and online reputation seem to be the chief sources of our leads. I also have a sales person who works on commission. We now have the proper infrastructure to grow, so I will soon be running AdWords to get more leads. What is constantly on my mind though is designing ways of scaling up while maintaining uncompromised quality. SEO is all about individual attention, it should not turn into a cookie-cutter.

How do you determine how much to charge an SEO client?

In depends on your niche(s), you have to know your market segment(s) and build services of various levels according to budget variations. And experiment vigorously with pricing. Marketing and sales are all about data collection and analysis. Then we factor in how much I want this or that job.

Do you think having a PHD gives you additional credibility when meeting with potential clients?

I have not yet split-tested my PhD.

What’s the one piece of advice you would give an SEO that’s considering starting their own business?

Put all the production components in place and run it as a side business first, keep your day job until you make this side business profitable up to a level that is comparable to your income from employment. (This is not how I did it, but this is the right way.)

Be patient, make sure all the components work well together and there’s a replicable way of doing things.

First and foremost, have a well-tested model for link development, otherwise don’t start the business.

Links, the ability to get them and to get them to work, are truly what sets an SEO apart. Cheap SEOs are those that provide low level links that not work, and you are only as good as your link marketing powers.

What SEO strategy do you recommend?

Don’t waste your time on trivial SEO measures. Don’t sit around for days tweaking your italics and putting keywords in your h2 tags, focus on impactful SEO methods.

Identify information deficits, fill them with top-notch link bait, and get your title tags right, structure your content and pursue various anchor text according to a well-researched keyword strategy.

Has Tommy Smith lost his mind? A lot of his college buddies probably thought so when he booked a ticket from New Hampshire to Japan in the thick of a recession here in the United States.

But while his old classmates were back home grinding it out for tips at the bar or hoping to land an entry-level office job, Smith was giving presentations, coordinating with lawyers and accountants, signing deals and building a business for himself Taiwan.

Now at the ripe old age of 24, Smith is launching his second business: a full-service digital agency called ClickShark.com.

Smith has an incredible story about what can happen when you throw caution to the wind to get what you want.

Tell us a little background about yourself and how a kid that’s
originally from New Hampshire ended up in Taiwan?

Well, I graduated from the big university in New England. It was really trendy and cool to go down to New York and get a job at one of the big banks or a hedge fund. I remember putting in my application for Lehman Brothers the day before they went bankrupt. Graduating with a finance-related degree at the start of the recession was hilariously bad timing.

So, rather than bartending and waiting tables in New Hampshire like so many of my friends did during the recession, I decided to move to Tokyo, Japan to teach English. My intention was to make it a hybrid of working and backpacking. Japan was awesome, really an incredible country. It’s a tough place to start your “career” that’s for sure, as I was going to probably 10 hours of classes every week, and all of a sudden was working 50-60 hours a week in Tokyo, teaching everyone from 6 year olds to 70 year olds. Some of the friends I made in Japan are just amazing, and I’ll definitely be in touch with them for the rest of my life. Japanese people have a kindness to them that you won’t find anywhere else in the world. And Tokyo, you really have to see it to believe it. Absolutely incredible.

A good friend of mine from high school came out to visit me during his Christmas break, and we decided to backpack around Asia for 2 weeks. In planning our trip, we were trying to find the cheapest flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, and it so happened to include a layover in Taipei, Taiwan. I had no idea where Taiwan was, and I thought it was part of China, but I was down to check it out. When we landed, I was extremely impressed. The people were so friendly, the city was very busy and exciting, and everyone spoke English quite well. It was a much cooler, vibrant and exciting than I had anticipated.

So Donny and I had decided that Taiwan was supremely underrated, and we wanted to start a business there. We were trying to think up ways to profitably let the world know Taiwan exists, and came across medical tourism, the idea of leaving the country and traveling abroad for lower cost surgery. It’s very successful in Thailand, India, and Singapore, and other Southeast Asian countries are getting on the bandwagon as well.

So I quit my job in Japan, and moved to Taiwan, where we started FormosaMedicalTravel.com, Taiwan’s first medical tourism agency. It was an incredible experience, from incorporating in Taiwan, to creating our business processes, developing our website, giving presentations, signing contracts with hospitals, finding accountants and lawyers, negotiating through translators, and marketing in two languages, it really was my alternative to paying for an MBA.

When we took a look at the medical tourism market, we decided that it existed primarily online. There weren’t agencies with big corporate headquarters in New York and LA, or people setting up satellite offices everywhere. All a company really had to show for themselves was their website. So the premise was that we were going to create a web startup that worked in facilitating Americans travelling abroad to Taiwan for surgery, and our marketing focus was solely online. This was my first professional look into the world of SEO.

I recently left FormosaMedicalTravel.com, and I’m happy to say that they’re growing rapidly. I’ve since moved to Singapore a few months ago, where I’ve started an energetic new digital agency, ClickShark.com.

So you moved to Taiwan to start a business. Were there any unique challenges that went along with starting a business in another country?

Tons of unique challenges! Taipei, the capital city, is quite developed. Lots of young people speak English, and they are a little more internationally minded than the rest of the country. However, when you go farther south, and into the more remote areas of the island, you’ll find communication a bit more difficult. In Taiwan, you have what they call 關係, or “Guanxi”. It roughly translates to “relationships”. At a party, this would translate to “Who do you know here, bro?”

It was very difficult at first to gain any traction, but once we met a few key people in the business and government space, it opened up a lot of doors. Contracts that had previously taken months to sign, took weeks. Meetings that were taking us weeks to book, took days. Once you’re a friend of a friend in Taiwan, things get a lot easier. Networking is important in any country, but in Asia it’s everything.

Now that you’ve been living abroad a few years and have left your previous business, what made you decide an SEO business was the right next step?

The short answer: Digital marketing is where it’s at, and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’m 24, and my family got our first computer when I was in 3rd grade (shoutout to AOL Kidspace!), so for me this industry is a no-brainer. For older generations, it might be tougher to see this coming, but everyone my age knows that the first page of results on Google for any term is going to be the “right answer” for that term. “Cheap Car Wash Portland Oregon”, “Best Hotel Budapest Hungary” – what Google says (ok fine, Yahoo and Bing too) is going to dictate a larger and larger portion of where dollars go. Additionally, I’m very good at it, I keep my ear to the ground and most importantly, I really enjoy it.

What advice do you have for anyone who’s considering starting a
business abroad? Would you recommend it to others looking back on what
you know now?

Yes, I would absolutely recommend it. In fact, I can’t recommend it enough. As a person born in an English speaking western country, you have no idea how blessed you actually are. This is our time! People all over the world are taking English classes, applying for visas, and learning about how western culture works. They’re doing the hard work, all you have to do is show up!

Here in Singapore, they call it an “international” business environment, but really it’s just everyone conforming to western standards. If you haven’t left the country yet, you are absolutely wasting this opportunity to go abroad. With an American/Canadian/British passport, English as a first language, and your cultural upbringing, you don’t even realize how many doors have already been opened for you.

As for advice, there is only one piece of wisdom I can give that will create any traction if you’re going to start this journey: buy the plane ticket. Don’t make a business plan, don’t “save a little more money”, don’t wait for your 2 year lease to run out, don’t wait for the recession to end, just buy your one way ticket. It’s going to be messy, you’re going to make mistakes, things will go awry, but just get out there and do it. Even if you don’t have an idea yet, even if you don’t have a clue. Personally, I take a very “American cowboy” attitude towards my life and my business. I just pull the trigger. Just show up! Pack your bags, buy the one way ticket, and get out there! You’re going to live, stop worrying about that! Go! Right now! Kayak.com! Maybe get drunk first and do it, I don’t care! Hurry!

Ever wish you could hitch an experienced SEO professional to the water heater in your basement and prod him for honest answers on lead generation, building a client list, and start-up advice?

Fortunately for all parties, that’s not necessary.

James Svoboda, Owner of Realicity Search Marketing, Director of Search at WebRanking, and a Top 50 ranked SMX 2010 Biggest Search Geek–Cool!–shares his secrets for owning and operating a successful SEO business right here.

James got his start in search-engine marketing back in 1999. He paid his dues as a young SEO writing title tags, meta descriptions, and link building. Today, with over 10-years industry experience, he’s a guy that understands both the technical and business aspects of search-engine optimization.

Here’s what James had to say about owning a successful SEO business:

Tell us a about your background (i.e. education, jobs) and how you first became involved in search-engine optimization.

I first got my start in SEO in 1999 working for WebRanking.com in Portland, Oregon. WebRanking is an SEO company that was started in 1998 by my brother and father. My original tasks were pretty entry level; keyword research, writing meta tags and editing copy. These were basically tasks that others wanted me to do to lighten their load. After several years I attained a Director of Search position which I currently maintain while providing internet marketing guidance to my clients at Realicity Search Marketing.

According to Realicity.com, you’ve been providing SEO and internet marketing services since 1999. At what point did you decide to start a consulting business? What were some of the obstacles you faced getting started?

I decided to start my own consulting business in 2006 and had originally wanted to focus on SEO services to real estate clients. I had great success providing search engine optimization for a few WebRanking clients and it seemed like a great fit for me. That strategy came into question a few years back when the real estate housing bubble burst. I quickly decided to change my approach. These days I feel that an SEO’s best market to build clients from is going to be their own local base.

For an SEO just starting out or considering a consulting business, acquiring that first client can extremely intimidating. What’s the best technique you’ve found to generate new leads and convert them to clients? (ie referrals, PPC, SEO, advertisements, cold call) Explain how you’ve been able to make this strategy work for you.

That’s a really good question. I have always found that referrals are the best source of leads, especially when it comes to converting them into clients. After referrals select PPC campaigns can provide a good source if you know your target audience and focus on them. If you are new to SEO, you probably have a website with little to no link popularity and content. PPC can help new SEO’s generate search traffic while working on your organic optimization.

Realicity Search Marketing is based out of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Are most of your clients from the Twins Cities area or located elsewhere in the United States? Do you find it easier to do business with clients who are local?

All of my current clients are in fact based in the Twin Cities area. I believe that being able to meet face to face is a good opportunity to better understand a client and their needs. It also helps break through the trust barrier when you can develop a personal relationship that is not just based on statistics and costs.

As to “easier to do business with”, I would say that is not how I think of it. Every client is going to be unique and have their own wants and needs whether they are 5 miles or 5 states away.

What is the single, most important piece of advice you could give an aspiring SEO business owner?

I’ll do better than that. Here are three that I firmly believe in:

1. Don’t stress over not landing every client. It’s hard not to, but try. Sometimes you are just not going to be a good fit for them and they for you.

2. It’s okay to turn down a potential client. There are going to be some clients that you are just not going to share the same vision with. Sometimes there will be differences in budget, strategy, services or project scope. It is always better to be on the same page from the beginning than to move forward with something you are not comfortable with. It these cases, just be firm, and tell them that you (the professional) are of a different opinion. Just remember to do it politely.

3. Learn, Test, Analyze and Repeat. SEO is an extremely analytical and data driven profession that has changed greatly over the past decade. Since absolute rankings are a thing of the past, and web analytics is going to be your best tool moving forward. Treat it like your own bible and get religious!