Categories
Written Interviews

Interview with Brian Lichtig of Baltimore Computer Solutions

What is the name of your company? 
What got you interested in starting your own digital marketing company? Share your story. 
Started out in the computer networking field over 20 years ago. Had a website that no one could get on page one of Google. Paid thousands of dollars to get it ranked and no return on investment. So I learned how to do it the right way with masterminds and some college classes. Then 4 years later it turned into a agency SEO and mainly Pay Per Lead.
What types of strategies are you using today to help your clients rank their businesses on Google? 
When are 90% a Pay Per Lead Business. So we send calls directly to clients.
How have you gone about finding new clients? Do most come through word of mouth or do you advertise your services elsewhere? 
Word of mouth and email marketing works well. Big hitter on LinkedIn also.
What tools do you use to organize client tasks and stay organized within your agency? 
Trello
What is the #1 challenge you face today when it comes to productivity, task management and getting more work done for your clients? 
I would have to think hard about this because we have a great system in place.
What are your future plans for 2017 and beyond with your company? 
We are looking to grow even more with the way we have outsource email marketing. We are adding more in house digital marketers along with a few more contractors.
Categories
Written Interviews

Interview with Gerrick Phillips of Billings SEO

What is the name of your company? 
What got you interested in starting your own digital marketing company? Share your story. 
Being born and raised in Billings, MT I moved to New York City when I was 22 and ended up working as a tech support manager for a very large web hosting company. As I moved up, I became more interested in running my own digital agency. I moved back to Montana in 2010 and started my own web design agency, which developed into a full blown marketing agency. Today we specialize in SEO, Social Media Marketing and web based lead generation.
What types of strategies are you using today to help your clients rank their businesses on Google? 
We use a 5 step process in ranking strategy for our clients. We focus on website health, content optimization, local citation creation and cleanup, social and web 2.0, and link building. We have developed a very strong white hat system that allows us to build authority in client domains and trust from our clients.
How have you gone about finding new clients? Do most come through word of mouth or do you advertise your services elsewhere? 
Many clients come through word-of-mouth and through extended business relationships we have developed over time. We’ve also put together a few snappy TV commercials that have done well for obtaining clients in our area.
What tools do you use to organize client tasks and stay organized within your agency?
It’s taken a long time to gather the right tools for how we do things. Overall, we love using ProofHub as our main project management software. It really allows us to stay on task and report project updates to clients automatically. We also love using OnePage CRM combined with some custom developed software to help organize our current clients, leads and prospects.
What is the #1 challenge you face today when it comes to productivity, task management and getting more work done for your clients?
Probably the top challenge is scope creep. We do our best to ensure our clients are educated along the way of each project and our project proposal lays out defined project timelines to help this. We also make sure that every project has scheduled milestones that are communicated and visible by the client so we can stay as close to “on target” as possible.
What are your future plans for 2017 and beyond with your company? 
Along with strengthening our SEO strategies, we have recently moved further into the affiliate marketing realm, both as a service for clients and for our own business advancement.
Categories
Written Interviews

Interview with Rick Lucas of Louisville SEO Strategies

What is the name of your company?

Louisville SEO Strategies

What got you interested in starting your own digital marketing company? Share your story

It started more like a hobby or an experiment. I was into recycling and working to make my home as energy efficient as possible so I started a blog and a website where I could gather all of the best tips in one place for friends and family. As it turns out there is money to be made in a recycling and hauling business if you know how to market. That website started to rank well in local searches and it was noticed by other local entrepreneurs. A friend started a local HVAC company and asked me to help him design a website and help him with local SEO. He referred me to a customer which led to another referral. I had three customers before I even had a website promoting SEO. I really enjoyed working with small companies and the challenge of internet marketing. I worked at night and on the weekends until I had a large enough customer base to go after it full time. That is how Louisville SEO Strategies was born.

What types of strategies are you using today to help your clients rank their businesses on Google?

If the client already has a website then the first thing I always do is keyword research and improve the on-site SEO. If they need a website built then on-site SEO is part of the package. I am surprised that so many companies neglect the importance of on-site SEO or the content on their homepage. By doing that first I can show them improvement in search results right away. Next, I work on gaining citation links and reputable back links. Also, I do some article marketing although it is not as effective as it used to be in improving search results. The article marketing helps establish my client as an expert in their field.

How have you gone about finding new clients? Do most come through word of mouth or do you advertise your services elsewhere?

The majority of my clients come from referrals. I do post a Craigslist ad offering free website consultation which has led to a few new customers and some networking opportunities.

What tools do you use to organize client tasks and stay organized within your agency? 

I use SEOprofiler to monitor progress for my customers and to check out what the competition is doing. I like to use Buffer to schedule social media posts.

What is the #1 challenge you face today when it comes to productivity, task management and getting more work done for your clients?

The biggest challenge for me is keeping up with whatever changes Google has cooking. I spend what seems like an inordinate amount of time doing research and staying in touch with upcoming changes. One of my biggest fears is to have a customer be aware of a new algorithm update before me.

What are your future plans for 2017 and beyond with your company?

I plan on improving and adding skills. I feel like I could improve my writing skills. The continued incremental growth of the company. The main goal will be to continue to be a benefit to our present customers. If my customers are growing and are profitable then my company will be growing and profitable. I am planning to add or improve the tools in our toolbox such as video marketing and growing my network. I am in the process of implementing a plan to market to customers on a national level.