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.
How 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 firmsHow To Optimize Your Google Adwords Account - Part II
Today, we’re continuing with our series on how to optimize your Google Adwords campaign. In Part 1 of our series on Google Adwords Optimization, we showed you how important it is for your Google Adword ad to stand out prospective customers. The next item that you should concentrate on optimizing is your ad headline as it’s really critical to in making your Google Adwords campaign stand out to users.
Never forget that your main goal is to try and persuade someone’s eyes to look at your ad and thereby create a reason for them to click on your ad. One way to do this is by using the dynamic keyword tool {KeyWord:}. The dynamic keyword tool is a way to instantly make your ad be specific to the user’s search. By being specific to the user’s search your headline will stand out because Google will automatically “BOLD” whatever matches a user’s search. Thus, if your ad title matches the user’s search, it’s going to stand out more to them per say.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there are instances in which this tool would not be useful to you. For example, if the search term is over 25 characters this tool will not be as effective as that is the limit on the dynamic keyword tool.
Also, you should not use this tool if your targeting a trademark name/product. In these instances, you would need a default headline that closely resembles the terms being searched by the user and in the instance for a trademark, you should focus on something specific. For example, lets suppose you are trying to target the keyword “Miami Hilton Hotel”. The term “Hilton” was trademarked by the Hilton Hotels Corporation and Google frowns upon companies using this trademark.
So what can you target instead? You should have your ad headline target something similar to “Miami Hotels” or “Luxury Miami Hotels” and therefore the keyword tool would not be beneficial to you. However you still have “Miami” and “Hotels” in your headline because of that Google will still highlight the ad headline even though you are not targeting “Hilton” within it. Well there you have it; Part 2 of our series is complete. Stay tuned for more information on how to optimize your Google Adwords campaign.
Tags: google adwords, google adwords consulting, google adwords optimization, google ppc, ppc keywords, sem company, sem firm, sem firmsSEO: 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
