An Interview of Casey Yandle (@cyandle) Written By Jim Spencer (@fairminder)
A friend of mine on Twitter @fairminder sent me these questions to answer as part of an interview so I am posting the interview on our blog and he will also post the interview on his blog as well. So here is our interview from this morning. Hope you like!
Jim: Morning Casey! Thank you for taking this time to do answer some questions for me.
Casey: Morning! It’s not a problem at all. I’m happy to participate!
Jim: Alright so let’s get started!
1. How long have you been working in (insert your industry) and what attracted you to it?
I started in SEO in 2002 after being laid off as a webmaster for a town’s community portal website. I just happen upon the job position by accident actually. I needed to get my “quote” of resumes submitted for unemployment so I figured I would just drop off my resume and be done with it. Six and a half years later I’m still here grinding away at it because I like seeing the results that we can produce for our clients.
2. In your opinion, what’s the measure of a good SEO/PR/Blogging professional?
To me, a good SEO / PR / Blogging professional is someone who stays within the Google Webmaster guidelines and continues to provide users with resourceful information whether it’s original content, experiments that they’ve conducted or keeping users up-to-date with what’s going on in the industry.
3. Whose blog do you read the most?
I think it’s a close tie between the blogs at SEOmoz and SEOBook actually with several others coming in behind them namely anything written by Lisa Barone and Jennifer Laycock.
4. What’s your best “SEO secret” or blogging tactic?
If I told you a SEO secret now would it still be a secret? 
So, a great blogging tactic. Well we tend to recap great posts that we have read that we think others should be reading as well since we find the posts so informative. There’s so much out there that sometimes it’s best to let others know what posts you think were some of the stronger posts rather than having our users have to search throughout the Internet for those articles.
5. Search engine algorithms are getting smarter, and a lot of people predict organic SEO services will become obsolete. How do you plan to adapt?
I really don’t see it becoming obsolete. We carefully point out to our clients what pitfalls they currently have with their website and how to fix those issues. And besides we stay within Google’s Guidelines. As long as you stay within what they want there’s no reason for you to have to adapt your services. We’ll keep up-to-date with what’s going on, but our services are services that are only geared for the long term for our clients.
6. Please describe the biggest challenge you face in your current job.
Not having enough time in the day to try out the services and techniques that we want to try out for our clients as well as offer our clients. Although, as we grow, I see this not being a BIG problem for that long.
7. Do you have any advice for someone who is interested in SEO / SEM / Social Media, but doesn’t have a background in it, on how to get started in this field?
Well obviously there’s not too many classes you can take that will educate yourself. I do recommend taking a creative writing class though as writing great content is very beneficial. My other recommendations are to check out websites such as SEOmoz, SEOBook, Webmaster World, Search Engine Land, and Marketing Pilgrim as well as anything written by Lisa Barone and Jennifer Laycock as well as studying up on analytical programs for tracking conversions.
8. If you could rank for any keyword phrase you don’t currently rank for, what would it be?
Although we’re mostly an search engine optimization company, we are currently trying to provide more Google Adwords management services for our clients right now. So the keyword that we would like to be ranked for right now is Google Adwords Professional.
9. Assuming you had never gone into SEO / SEM, what would you be doing now (professionally)?
I would probably still be a web designer / webmaster of some sorts since I still love designing websites. To me a great design is a work of art so I would probably would still be in the design industry working for a design firm dishing out designs.
10. Do you have any interest in politics? (or what’s your favorite professional sports team and why? If you don’t want to do the politics thing.)
Well since I stay away from mixing religion and politics with business I’ll take the sports question. My two favorites sports teams are the Chicago Bears and the Toronto Blue Jays. They’re an odd pair yes I know! I started pulling for both teams because when I was a little kid I would collect baseball and football cards. Mostly it was just Topps cards with the bubble gum inside. All I would get would be the common cards for those two teams. I did manage to get a Walter Payton card though. After getting so many team common cards I decided those would be my favorite teams to watch/pull for. To this day I still pull for both teams even through the bad times.
Well that’s the end of our interview. Thank you to @MelaniePhung for writing the questions for everyone. Feel free to follow me on Twitter (@cyandle) if you’d like!
@almacy - A Digital Strategy Expert.
@melaniephung - A DC SEO Strategist.
@martinbowling - A lover of Zima.
@utahseopro - A Utah SEO Consultant.
@fairminder - A Boston Website Design and SEO specialist.
@cyandle - A Google Adwords Professional.
@melanienathan - An Edmonton SEO specialist.
@jackleblond - A VP of Internet Strategy.
@djpaisley - A Digital Communications Strategist.
@vinceblackham - A Utah SEO specialist.
@researchgoddess - A Staffing Social Media Specialist.
@monicawright - A Maine SEO professional.
Search Engine Optimization: Keep SEO In Mind When Doing A Redesign
One thing many companies forget to do when doing a brand new website design is to think about search engine optimization (SEO). When you’re designing a brand new website it’s a lot easier to incorporate search engine optimization into your new website design than it is to completely design the website and then go back through each page (page by page) and optimize each section of that page by hand so that it has been optimized properly.
By thinking about the SEO process during your designing phase you can easily incorporate title tags throughout all of your text menus, you can also incorporate alt and title tags on all of your images throughout the website as well as setting up your H1, H2, H3 header tags and so forth.
Another tidbit to keep in mind is consult with your existing SEO firm that you are working with to make sure this new website design is not going to harm any existing SEO work you’re already doing to your current website. Imagine how you will feel once your new website design has been completed and you ask your SEO firm to review it. Only to have them discover that it’s an all Flash based website, that while it’s “nice and pretty,” it has no content, no text links and no HTML versions of the website. Thus, negatively impacting your current SEO campaigns that you had already worked on before the new design went into place.
Believe it or not, this happens a lot in the SEO industry and has even happened to us. Only to have the client be so distraught after seeing their “nice and pretty” website loses majority of their rankings before they had us review the new website. So, when doing a new website design, be sure to think about SEO while designing it and also be sure if you’re using two firms for your new design and SEO services, have your SEO company review the finalized design template before the design gets completed and it’s too late!
Tags: internet marketing, seo, seo company, seo firm, website designSEO: What Questions Should You Ask An SEO Firm Before You Hire Them?
What questions should you ask an search engine optimization (SEO) firm you’re thinking about hiring to determine their legitimacy? A High Rankings Forum thread gives you some of the must-know questions to ask. We’ve outlined some of them below:
- How long they have been doing SEO?
- Can you give me three clients that you have had first-page results for?
- What are some campaigns you have succeeded with?
- Can you illustrate any significant traffic boosts or conversion boosts?
- What is your general SEO process?
- What is your criteria for choosing keyword phrases?
- How is success measured?
- What should you expect from us as a client?
The lists features more questions that should be asked. It’s a good read so head on over there to see what questions you should be asking your search engine optimization firm before you hire them.
The forum discussion continues at the High Rankings Forum.
Tags: internet marketing, search engine optimization firms, sem company, sem firm, sem firms, seo company, seo firms
