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.
Example of An Optimized Google Adwords Account
Now that we have shown you how to optimize your Google Adwords account, let’s give you a specific example using the Google Adwords optimization suggestions we have discussed as well as showing off their successful results.
Client is in the safety equipment industry and had a very aggressive (money wise) campaign, but with only broad match phrases. Over the past year, the client was running around 1% with click-thru rates. After reviewing their account, we found multiple groups within one campaign; set up pretty well in regards to breaking his keywords into specific groups.
However, after further investigation, we found multiple examples of the same keyword phrases listed in separate groups. You’ll often see this happen in accounts that become too disorganized. It takes place when you have multiple people working on your account or when you consistently “think” of new phrases to add to your Adwords account, not realizing you’ve already targeted that keyword somewhere within your campaign.
After turning all keyword phrases into [exact match] and re-writing his ads (using the rules: “headline should match” the keyword phrase, if possible; following the “line one” should solve a problem and “line two” should give a warm fuzzy) as well as split testing their ads, we were able to see an improvement of over 2% instantly within running the new campaign for 24 hours (during the usual downtime of their campaign). Their impressions did drop, but the quality of his click-thrus drastically increased.
Within the first two weeks after we optimize a Google Adwords account, we will reevaluate their conversion rate and determine if they will continue on the [exact match] road or start to expand with “phrase match” which will mean more research into negative keyword phrases. Just remember that when you start to test your ads, make sure you always do A/B split testing on them. It’s crucial!
Tags: a/b split testing, google adwords, google adwords consulting, google adwords optimization, google ppc, ppc, ppc keywords, regency interactive, regency interactive corporationHow To Optimize Your Google Adwords Account - Part IV
So far in our series on optimizing your Google Adwords account, we’ve discussed your ad headline, line one of your ad and line two of your ad so now let’s discuss the display URL and how to optimize it. This is another area many businesses tend to overlook. Remember, we want to separate ourselves from everyone else who are competing against you. The way in which to do this is by using a little slight of hand. We all know your website address is www.mydomainname.com - so to give you that “it” factor we are going to spruce this URL up - or give it a little “bam” as one very popular chef would say.
How do we do that? By having it display “MyDomainName.com” - notice that we left out the “www.” and we uppercased the first letter of every word within the display URL. Use this subtle tips as well as our other suggestions within our series to set yourself apart from everyone else that you’re competing against. Again, you’ll see www.MyDomainName.com in the other ads competing against yours so make yours stand out by dropping the three W’s. This will make your ad look different from everyone else and thus increase the chances of having your ad clicked on by prospective customers.
Keep in mind that these tips we’re showing you have been demonstrated to generate high single digit click rates and double digits. Stay tuned next week for the last post in our series on how to optimize your Google Adwords account.
Tags: google adwords, google adwords consulting, google adwords optimization, google ppc, ppc, ppc keywords, regency interactive, regency interactive corporationHow To Optimize Your Google Adwords Account - Part III
Now that we’ve discussed headlines in Part I and Part II of our series let’s talk about some rules to follow for Lines 1 and 2.
We like to follow these two rules: Line 1 should always “solve a problem” and Line 2 should always provide a “warm and fuzzy feeling” to the users.
With trying to solve a problem in Line 1, it’s a good idea to try and have the keyword phrase show up in Line 1 as this would enable another highlighted phrase match for your ad. Since you should already be using the {KeyWord:} tool as referenced in Part II of our series; then your search term now would automatically be highlighted in the headline as well as in Line 1. The goal in trying to solve a problem is that you must give a solution to the searcher. Therefore, what better way to solve their problem than to reference the keyword again in Line 1? It makes perfect sense!
Now on the second line lets discuss how to create a “warm & fuzzy” feeling for your prospects.
Some ways that you can convey a “warm and fuzzy” feeling are by listing “Manufacturer” or “Mfg.” in Line 2 as prospects assume a manufacturer is more likely to give them a better price point than a retail store would. “Online Shopping”, “In Stock”, “Free Quotes”, “Free Shipping”, “Next Day Shipping”, “Warranty” and “In Business for # amount of years” are some other great examples to mention in Line 2 that will help you create that “warm and fuzzy” feeling for your potential prospects.
Well that concludes Part III in our series on how to optimize your Google Adwords account so be sure to check back for the last two tips in our series!
Tags: google adwords, google adwords consulting, google adwords optimization, google ppc, ppc, ppc keywords, regency interactive, regency interactive corporation, sem company, sem firm, sem firmsFour Great Twitter Applications
Toanswer is a very useful Twitter application. It is very similar to Yahoo answers. You ask a question and then it is indexed, and you wait for other uses to respond back. Here is how you get started! You simply add the profiles Toask & Toanswer to your Twitter account. You can post a twitter update in the following format: “@ToAsk are there any good websites for a computer themed Wordpress theme?”
Toanswers scours the twitterverse, then finds the answer and will post it on the homepage. It may take a few minutes to appear due to Twitter’s API limitation.
Twitter Search (Formerly Summize). Twitter is also a good functional tool itself. You can go to the website and search for whatever you like i.e. your company name or your industry related keywords. You can track conversations about a particular topic as well. You can also see who is talking about you, your brand or a topic you are interested in. For example, a user can type in “SEO” and you can find hundreds of useful tips and people in the SEO field.
Have you ever been on twitter and you are trying to keep up with all your tweeples at a conference, or even try to keep up with an important conversation? Hashtags will be your weapon of choice. Hashtags are a way to group twitter messages of choice. Hashtags is an opt-in service. You must follow @hashtags for the service to index your tweets. To see all tweets for a hashtag simply add the hashtag name at the end of this URL: http://hashtags.org/tag/”keyword” (i.e. http://hashtags.org/tag/SEO).
Twitter Local helps you find local people who use Twitter in your area. This is a great networking tool to find other users in your area who may be in the same line of business or whom have similar interests in your field. It also shows a leader board of what users have tweeted the most in your area (i.e. @cyandle for our area). The results only show people who have sent tweets within the last 24 hours. If you want a run down of who uses twitter locally to you, but not posted lately, you can always use a Google query command such as site: twitter.com location Raleigh NC.
These are just some of the tools we use with our twitter accounts here at Regency Interactive. Feel free to contact us today for your free, no obligation consultation and free Internet visibility report. Just 10-15 minutes with one of our search engine marketing consultants could be the difference in your business just getting by or becoming a major player in your industry.
Tags: regency interactive, regency interactive corporation, social media, twitter
