Category Archives: Mentor Stories

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Mentor Stories: Mike King @iPullRank

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Mike is one of the smartest guys I know in SEO. Please thank him for taking the time to share his story!

I’ve been doing SEO for about seven years now and for the first four I was pretty good at it, but I didn’t take it or the jobs I had in it too seriously. After all, in my mind, I was a rapper first; I just used the development skills I happened to have to make money to live between tours.

There were certainly a few awesome people that I worked with early on who I learned the ropes from by osmosis. In fact I still keep in contact with them today.

I learned what I know about sales by watching David Salinas (CEO of Digital Surgeons).  Joshua Giardino made me realize my C++ skills were still relevant and introduced me to PHP and advanced SEO. Vedran Tomic (SEO Manager at Basement Systems) introduced me to the marketing side of SEO. However all of these guys were my peers in these early roles, not my bosses. And while I always aimed to be good at my job, my general attitude didn’t allow me to respect it.

By the standard definition of the term “mentor,” I don’t know that any of the people I want to talk about would see themselves as my mentor. That is to say they weren’t the after school special “let’s meet up at the Boys & Girls club” type of mentorships. My mentors came in the form of people that I respected that were a few steps ahead of me and challenged me to grow. Those people were Brian Cosgrove (of TPG Direct) and Tony Effik (of R/GA).

I probably met Brian at the right time in my career. I was in the transition of finally taking SEO seriously in my then 3-month old role at Razorfish. While working at Razorfish was awesome and Sean Stahlman, Josh Tuscan, Thanh Duong and Ron Sansone were all incredibly instrumental to my success there were certainly times when I was made to feel like a second class citizen (through no fault of those I’ve just listed) because I was a contractor. For example, I was saddled with the task of classifying a 3 million link MajesticSEO export so  I made a script to do just that and presented it to the team only to be told “that’s awesome, but who told you to do that?” and “building tools isn’t a good utilization of your time.” So there was little encouragement to innovate which proved to be an issue for me.

Brian let me know I was actually on the right track and pushed me a little harder in that direction.  I saw him as someone that was farther along in what I was trying to do. He knows code, he knows analytics inside and out, and he is respected as a legit thought leader.  I’d reach out to him for specific direction on things I was doing or moves I wanted to make and he encouraged me to work a little harder, go a little bigger and all along the way introduced me to awesome people in his network.

In my SEO career I’d say Tony Effik is the closest thing I’ve had to a standard mentor. He’s probably shown the most interest in me reaching my potential. At Publicis Modem, Tony was the SVP of Strategy & Analytics and after my rocky onboarding (the person that hired me quit before I started and the person who would replace them also moved on 3 days later) he became my boss. Although our time working together was relatively short (6 months, I think?) I learned more from him in that time that I have from any one person in my career thus far.

He’d question me from a position of respect and knowledge. Although I was the SEO subject matter expert in those conversations he helped me focus more on the bigger picture and how we could get there using SEO. I was able to learn from his experiences and come up with new approaches.

I remember him sitting me down to discuss the ambiguity of keywords and me being so confident in the standard SEO segmentation of searcher intent (transactional, informational, navigational) almost dismissing him at first. Then he threw a keyword at me that I couldn’t easily classify and I thought to myself shit, maybe this guy is on to something.

Tony would lend me books off his shelf and encourage me to step my game up. Not in a condescending way, but in a take-this-and-change-the-game way. Whether it was intentional or not he pushed me to innovate. Being an artist this is something I’d naturally do, but I was always afraid to be wrong or go against the conventional thinking.

The best way I can describe it is Tony taught me to do stunts without a net.

Ultimately, his challenging my ideas is what would plant the seeds that would grow into some of the best ideas I have contributed to my client work and as well as the search community, but it only worked so well because we had mutual trust and respect.

Now more than ever I understand that those are the two most key things in any employer/employee relationship. I look to give the people that report to me now that same respect. I don’t believe in micromanagement, I believe in giving them the latitude to reach their potential and I just want to help by tweaking their approaches and challenging them to think bigger. They are all subject matter experts in the respective roles and I tell them that there isn’t much more they can learn from me in the ways of their specific subject matter, but what they can learn is how to do stunts without a net.

I would be remiss to not include the other people who have contributed to my success in the ways of sharing wisdom and a helping hand such as Rand Fishkin, Tom Critchlow both of whom were instrumental in showing me the ropes and giving me a co-sign before they really knew me. Also, of course, I should give a shout out to my original mentors, my parents whose sage advice has been critical in the last year or so.

And I’d like to thank everyone I’ve mentioned because without them, who really knows where I’d be right now.

-Mike

Michael King is Director of Inbound Marketing for iAcquire

 

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Mentor Stories: Harris Schachter @OptimizePrime

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I had the great opportunity to share a few beers with Harris and Anthony Pensabene in 2012. Thanks to Harris for sharing his mentor story with me today.

Like most people in this industry, SEO was the best job I never knew I wanted. As a kid that could put together the Lego Millennium Falcon with no instructions, by the time I grew up and learned what SEO was, I thought, “Let’s see if I can figure this out too.” Although I didn’t have any SEO-specific mentors, I do have a handful of people to thank for the skills and knowledge I’ve gained.

I proposed that I would learn Flash in order to replicate a classical paper-and-pencil neuropsychological test.

Looking back, it all started during my undergraduate Psychology degree, serving as a research assistant for Dr. Jeanne Ryan, the Director of the Northeast Traumatic Brain Injury Center. I was lucky enough to have her as an academic advisor, but even luckier to have her as a sponsor for an independent research project. I proposed that I would learn Flash in order to replicate a classical paper-and-pencil neuropsychological test. By re-creating it on a tablet computer, and after statistical analysis way above an undergraduate level, I ended up creating a more reliable computerized version than the standard paper version of the same test, used every day in hospitals around the world.

I ended up teaching myself HTML and CSS

This was a profound finding, and I was invited to share this research at a conference usually reserved for doctors, PhDs, and Neuropsychologists. I became very comfortable with data analysis, designing experiments, utilizing research methods, and as an aside, web design. I ended up teaching myself HTML and CSS, since they were fairly easy after ActionScript. The first website I created was one which hosted the above-mentioned test, so I could share it with anyone.

After graduation, I used my skills at a web design company creating Flash banners, animations, video players, and other dynamic content, which, now as an SEO, makes me cringe. After a year, I decided I needed a challenge.

I see it as one big experiment

After careful research into ways to combine my analytical and technical skills, I became entranced by Internet marketing. I see it as one big experiment, and the sheer volume of data available to web marketers can make any geek drool. I decided that it was what I wanted to do, and signed up for the Master of Science program in Internet Marketing from Full Sail University.

Now, growing up in an upper-middle class community I was never a huge fan of online schools, but I didn’t care. I saw it as the fastest way to get me up to speed on everything I wanted to know. The program was for one year, and worked well with my part-time schedule as social media manager for an online retail company. While working there, I was able to keep tabs on a rather skilled but somewhat unknown SEO named Daniel Yonts. He had left the company before I started, but learned the ins and outs of optimization by studying his methodologies. I also worked on a number of small websites for local businesses during this education.

As with anything in life, it’s not necessarily the hand you’re dealt, but how you play it.

I absorbed everything I could from the MS program, and I highly recommend it for anyone looking to break into the field. My favorite teacher was Kerry Gorgone, an extremely bright person when it comes to Internet and the law, branding, and marketing in general. She writes for a variety of publishers now, including the Huffington Post. She is simply an awesome person and truly cares about her students. This degree prepared me to be a fully integrated digital marketer, whether it is SEO, PPC, Email, Web Analytics, Display, or even building a business from the ground up. I enjoy working in all of these channels, but personally find SEO the most interesting; I think it’s the air of mystery behind it, and of course the creative use of data.

A few months after graduation, I hit the ground running as Sr. SEO at Capital One (Sep. 2011). I’m also a consultant at Dynamic Web Solutions, a Richmond SEO company, for the best of both the in-house and agency worlds. If I ever have free time, I publish content on my site OptimizePri.me (yes, I have a clever twitter handle too). Although I wish I had more time to devote to it, I was recently given ownership of the Full Sail Internet Marketing LinkedIn Group. I encourage you to join for more info on the program, and of course to share content and take part in discussions.

I have far too many books and have a bad habit of reading 3 at the same time. However my go-to recommendation for both the novice and seasoned expert is Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead by David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan. Quite simply it contains everything you need to know …and more.

Although I had no “real-life” mentors, I would say I do have passive mentors, especially when it comes to the enterprise level. There are far too many people to name here, but if I’ve commented on a post of yours, spoke to you through Twitter or otherwise, you can count yourself in.

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Jonathon Colman: Information Architecture and SEO

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Thanks to Jonathon Colman (@jcolman) of REI for sharing his mentor story with me, which reads more like an origin story of one of my favorite SEO superheroes.

Like everyone, I’ve been touched by countless mentors through the years – I wouldn’t be where I am without them. They’re the folks who inspired me to learn and grow while challenging me to think differently about myself, my work, and my perspective on the world. That they did so with such attention to the details and yet so little selflessness is what makes them inspirational to me. And that they gave me such latitude and freedom to explore how to make sense of their guidance in ways that made worked for me is what makes them heroes (to me, anyhow).

you’d be surprised by how few can confidently wield their own language as a tool

Many of my best mentors have been teachers. Richard Clark at Blissfield High School in the crannies of southeastern Michigan essentially taught me how to read and write like an adult (though I was — and still am — influenced quite a bit by Stephen King and all those damn Chris Claremont comic books I read as a kid). Stephen Jukuri at Michigan Technological University taught me how to construct literary nonfiction and use rhetoric to tell a story or to make a point. Learning to read and write critically are two of the most important skills that just about everyone needs… but you’d be surprised by how few can confidently wield their own language as a tool.

Or maybe you wouldn’t. This is the Internet, after all.

I’d have a hard time doing just about anything in public without my background in improv

Anne Wysocki taught me everything from using Photoshop (v2.5.1!) for digital photography to the core components of graphic design (with PageMaker, made at that time by a tiny Seattle company named Aldus… until Adobe acquired them). Sue Stephens taught me a unique approach to improvisation, comedy, and working as part of a team — those are core skills that I still use every single day. I’d have a hard time doing just about anything in public without my background in improv due to my nature as a shy introvert.

I was so challenged by it that I nearly flunked out of Peace Corps

After college, it took a whole team of incredible native Burkinabe to teach me French when I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso, West Africa. One of the biggest professional shocks of my life was how hard it was for me to learn French. After all, I had a degree in technical communication and was a Tolkien geek. Language wasn’t supposed to be that hard! I was so challenged by it that I nearly flunked out of Peace Corps. In which case, this story would have a very different ending.

But I made it through training and onto my village after three hard months of learning French, living with a host family, and being sick most of the time. One of the village nurses, Moussa Nikiema, and I struck up a relationship and he ended up teaching me quite a bit about Mòoré (the dominant language of central Burkina Faso where my village was located), near-desert farming, and even his faith in Islam. But what he really taught me about was conducting a public health program as an outsider in the world’s most political setting: a small village.

They taught me about separating content presentation from its structure and its behavior

Later on, as a web developer, it was the A List Apart crew who helped me break my habit of building web sites with tables and spacer GIFs. Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Dan Cederholm, Joe Clark (Gods, I loved his nerdy rants on accessibility), Doug Bowman, and Dave Shea (who also taught me that you can roast your own coffee at home using a hot-air popcorn popper) were people whom I had to read every single day. They taught me about separating content presentation from its structure and its behavior — truly a revelation during those early days of the Web.

it was like meeting my childhood heroes

But it was Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld (via their iconic “Polar Bear” book) who ultimately made me want to move from building web sites into information architecture. I doubt there’s any other book that’s had as big an impact on me. I read it sometime around 2001-2002 and have been in love with information ever since. I got to meet them both in during the 2011 IA Summit and it was like meeting my childhood heroes.

To think that I’d never bothered to measure the results of my work prior to working with Megan is, well, embarrassing

As a nonprofit web marketer, one of my mentors was Megan Stanley at The Nature Conservancy. She was instrumental in helping me move from coding/building content to conducting outreach and measuring results. To think that I’d never bothered to measure the results of my work prior to working with Megan is, well, embarrassing. She helped me become familiar with WebTrends (and, later, Google Analytics) to pull our data, then to analyze and manipulate it using Excel, and then create visuals in PowerPoint to report out to our colleagues.

It just never occurred to me before that measuring and reporting were important.

I’d never used those systems or tools before. It just never occurred to me before that measuring and reporting were important. After all, the point was to build the content using Web Standards, not to see if the content was actually visited or used. Wouldn’t time spent on those things take away from, you know, building more stuff?

As you can tell, I can be incredibly dull and hard-headed at times. Megan helped break me out of that (well, at least a little bit) by showing me how much there was that I didn’t know. It’s because of her that it’s much easier for me to ask for help and to be transparent about what I don’t know and what I get wrong.

I have far too many mentors to list as an SEO

About SEO… I know you’ve been waiting for this part. But the truth is that I have far too many mentors to list as an SEO. I’m hoping that most of you know who you are at this point. But I do want to highlight someone at REI who made a big difference in my career: Samantha Starmer.

SEO could be performed at an enterprise level hand-in-hand with information architecture

Samantha hired me at REI and was my first of many managers at the co-op. She had this crazy/brilliant idea that SEO could be performed at an enterprise level hand-in-hand with information architecture. Which is to say that the structure and usability of content is inseparable from its findability and ability to convert a visitor.

in 2008 it was a pretty big deal for an SEO to be managed by an IA

This may sound like old hat to enlightened people in these clear days of 2013, but in 2008 it was a pretty big deal for an SEO to be managed by an IA and sit across from a taxonomist, down a cube from a data architect, and just a row over from an on-site search manager. Instead of being next to, say, paid search managers, affiliate marketers, designers, writers, and so on.

Remember what Egon says about “crossing the streams” in Ghostbusters? Well, that’s where Samantha lives: at vertex of those streams.

I’ll be graduating this spring – the end of a long journey

Samantha and her team gave me the background knowledge, perspective, approach, and gumption that I needed to attack enterprise e-commerce SEO on a large, dynamic web site. And beyond that, she finally got me to go into graduate school to pursue a master’s degree in information management, something I’d been thinking about for the better part of a decade. And I’ll be graduating this spring – the end of a long journey. But I wouldn’t have taken those first steps without Samantha’s inspiration.

storytelling is essential to business communications, building passion, and getting things done

I also wouldn’t have as much opportunity to give back to the community. Samantha does a lot of public speaking (she was recently highlighted on the Slideshare Blog for her work as a speaker) and encouraged me to create decks and make presentations outside of work. Like all good IAs, Samantha recognized that storytelling is essential to business communications, building passion, and getting things done. My SEO talks started out at small venues (mostly local meetups) before Vanessa Fox picked me up to speak on her SMX Advanced panel on demystifying attribution in 2010.

Even when I was no longer on Samantha’s team, she had me speak about SEO to her graduate school class on information architecture. And just one year later, I took that same class as a student myself (and the always-effervescent Marianne Sweeney from Portent spoke to us about SEO).

In conclusion

Well, this turned out to be quite a bit longer than I expected. Way leads on to way, like Frost said. And in writing this, I found that stories about each mentor dove-tailed with each other to create a bigger picture about the nature of mentors.

They don’t just transfer skills and technology. Hell, you can get those from any commoner with a computer and a cup of crappy coffee. Instead, they share their vision, energy, and time, which takes the sort of transparency and authenticity that most people lack. Which means that, in essence, they share themselves.

Another thing: over the past decade, my greatest mentors have almost always been women. That’s not wholly unusual – and it becomes less and less unusual every day in tech industry, thank the Gods – but it’s still significant and meaningful to me.

I’m so grateful that the women who were ambitious and talented enough to rise to high levels in online organizations still created time to give back to their community. That they did so amid antagonism and no small amount strife in many places goes beyond simple generosity into the field of altruism. I’ll never be able to give back so much as they have, but I’ll try nonetheless.

Jonathon Recommends

The SEOmoz Beginner’s Guide to SEO is so good that you’ll spend hours awake at night wondering how it could possibly be free.

But what I think that new (and veteran!) SEOs should read immediately afterward is Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld. I hope that it blows your mind and changes your world even half as much as it did mine.

After you read that, move on to Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson and have your mind blown yet again.

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Mentor Stories: Josh Patrice of @Portent

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Special thanks to Josh Patrice of Portent for sharing his mentoring story with me.

Back then there were no quality scores, it was much more direct – you pay more, you rank higher.

My first job out of college marked the beginning of my career in search engine marketing. I was hired as a Performance Engineer (later changed to the actually descriptive Search Marketing Specialist), which basically consisted of running a bunch of Paid Inclusion and PPC campaigns. My initial clients were very small, I’d build ads for maybe 10-12 pages, then we’d try to figure out what to adjust our bids to in order to maximize our ranking and cost per click. Back then there were no quality scores, it was much more direct – you pay more, you rank higher. Overture even showed you what your competition was bidding!

Life was so easy, so simple. Then Google had to go and buy every PPC platform under the Sun (leaving the scraps for Yahoo), build a ranking strategy, and prevent us from getting clicks for a penny.

These were the dark times, and it was the beginning of my transition to SEO.

I’d never heard of SEO before.

My introduction came near the end of my time at TrafficLeader (by now bought by Marchex). One day we had an SEO team. It wasn’t there before, but then one day Max Keele and Nick Lindauer were given the corner of the office to themselves and were doing some sort of uber-special work.

I started trying to learn what SEO was, but it was a bit daunting. In time, Matt McGee and Darcy Hill would prove to be quite the resource for my initial education into SEO. However, most of this was just explaining that there are lots of elements on a site that can influence search rank. A lot of time back then was spent telling me the horror stories of link building, the depth of code analysis, and other such tasks that likely helped them ensure job security and scared me off from the whole process.

Time passed and I struggled in agency life with Leo Chung trying to be a successful SEO. I joined various SEO groups, like SEMPO and SEMpdx, but I was still hampered by my lack of knowledge of SEO and my desire to stay gainfully employed via my PPC knowledge.

One night, there was a Hot Seat event at the SEMpdx meetup.

This was the first time I heard Ian Lurie speak, and I was both entertained and impressed. This 10 minute overview of some of Google Analytics’ lesser known features was enlightening to me, and helped me sell SEO internally to my agency and externally to my clients.

It’s weird to think about it now being the SEO Manager at Portent, but I definitely thought that night, ‘I wish I worked with/for that guy.’

Is Ian my mentor? No… well, yes, I suppose so, but more so now than ever before. My mentors were all these people.

Max & Nick got me interested in SEO.

Darcy & Matt helped to get me started.

Leo guided me and taught me professionalism.

Ian sparked the light inside that helped crack open SEO.

After I started working for Portent almost 3 years ago, I saw the difference in working for someone like Ian. There was a top down strategy for the SEO team, methods, a process, open communication and idea sharing.

There was knowledge… and there still is.

…it’s inspiring to work for someone that is always thinking about SEO.

I was interviewing someone yesterday and they asked me why people stay at Portent. I told them a few things, then I looked at my team, and I said that it’s inspiring to work for someone that is always thinking about SEO. Who plays with data, tools, code, etc. Who comes up with ideas that are at the forefront of what’s happening in the industry, ensuring that our team and our company is always prepared for what’s next.

Anyone can be a mentor if they can teach, inspire, and lead.

Hopefully, I’ll be one to someone too.

What is your favorite post or publication by your mentor?

My favorite Ian post is this, classic snarky Ian - http://www.portent.com/blog/random/stop-plagiarism-in-3-easy-steps.htm

Matt McGee’s fantastic ebook which helped get me started - http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/articles/how-to-do-seo-ebook/

What one website or page would you recommend to someone just starting out in SEO?

Sorry to be a homer, but the Portent Blog really is a great resource for SEO and all things Internet Marketing.

The standards, http://searchengineland.com/ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/  http://searchenginewatch.com/  http://www.seroundtable.com/  are all daily reads.

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Mentor Stories: James Agate @jamesagate

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Thanks to James Agate of Skyrocket SEO for sharing his mentor story!

My name is James Agate, I live in Chester, UK and I run Skyrocket SEO a link building company that works with digital marketing agencies and in-house teams at big brands.

How did I get into SEO?

I built my first website at the age of 13, I used MS Front Page and the site was an encyclopedia for ringtones back when it was cool to sit there trying to recreate chart tunes using your phone’s keypad.

Since then I have had a variety of online projects and a whole host of jobs in different industries including telecoms and publishing. I “fell” into SEO after getting involved with it where I was working and then experimenting with a couple of my own sites (building my ‘network’ up to close to 300,000 unique visitors per month) and incorporating some client work into the mix before eventually launching Skyrocket SEO and growing it to the company that it is today.

Who was my mentor in the world of SEO?

I think it would be unfair to say just one person really helped me get to grips with things because in fact there have been a number of people who taught me all about SEO (many without even realising it I suspect just because I devoured every post they’ve ever written). There really are some great minds in SEO, let’s not forget there are a few idiots as well but that’s the same as any industry I guess so don’t go believing everything you read, even if the person seems to have the credentials.

I’ve learned a fair amount from the big names like Rand Fishkin, Bruce Clay, Eric Ward, Aaron Wall but in truth I think I have learned THE most from those individuals that are living and breathing the stuff they talk about when they blog and speak. The kind of content where you can say with some degree of certainty that they could probably have just transcribed their day’s work rather than plucked a fancy theory out of thin air just to look like a thought leader and impress peers. I’m not suggesting that Rand, Bruce, Eric or Aaron do this but I know plenty of people who get speaking gigs all the time and in actual fact they are more CEO than SEO.

So if I were to narrow it down to a handful of individuals and my favourite posts, they would be…

  • Joost de Valk - This post (which gets updated all the time) is the definitive guide to SEO for WordPress sites http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/ and let’s face it, most of us will end up working on a WP site at some point or another.
  • Ted Ives - Ted only really appeared on my radar in 2011-ish but he has put out some excellent posts which I refer to on a regular basis when dealing with employees and clients, this being one of them >http://www.coconutheadphones.com/linking-strategies-the-complete-guide/
  • Paul Madden - always an interesting guy to talk to, he’s dabbled (well a little more than dabbled I think) in the darker side of SEO in the past and he’s a machine when it comes to so it is always useful to know about the other side of things even if you have no intention of doing that kind of thing for your clients. I read and re-read a post he wrote a while back on scaling a link network (it was fascinating stuff) but sadly he seems to have taken it offline now. Oh well, he’s a regular on the speaker circuit so if you get the chance to listen to him, definitely do so.
  • David Naylor - I think Dave taught me the importance of a sense of humour in this business, he used to put out gems like this http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/tosser-of-the-week.html sadly now I guess he’s too busy but there’s plenty in the archives :-) . Dave is a frequent speaker and I think the most can be learned from the Q&A sessions that he does e.g. http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/q-a-seo-session-with-dave-at-a4uexpo.html

What one page would I point SEO newbies to?

That’s a really difficult one, the obvious answer is to head to the SEOmoz Beginner’s Guide because it is frequently updated, offers the basic grounding and to be fair is quite comprehensive. The better answer would be to try something for yourself, you’ll learn more in 10 hours of buggering about on a site of your own than you will if you spent 30 hours reading.

Do you have a mentor story you want to share? I’d love to hear it!

Colleen Hofmann, SEO

Mentor Stories: Colleen Hofmann @leen_machine

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Thanks to Colleen Hofmann of Howard Miller Associates for sharing her cool “origin story” with me.

I had no idea what I was doing or even that it might vaguely be considered SEO.

My first interaction with SEO began as a sophomore in high school. With some basic knowledge of HTML and a superficial idea of what keywords were, I used Adobe GoLive to compile content and create a simplistic yet functional website for my dad’s business. I had no idea what I was doing or even that it might vaguely be considered SEO. I was just trying to help my dad out while doing one of the things I loved — tinkering with the Internet.

…in Yoda-like fashion (sans pointy ears) primed me to create and manage the new interactive division of HMA.

Fast-forward seven years and a professional writing degree later, I was working at Leisawitz Heller, a law firm in Wyomissing, creating another new website. Through brief interactions with the internet marketing agency the firm hired and my eureka-like discovery of SEOmoz, I taught myself the basics of SEO. After plugging away for a year or so, I stumbled on a SEO/writer position at Howard Miller Associates. Drew Dorgan, the president of the global advertising agency, saw something in me and in Yoda-like fashion (sans pointy ears) primed me to create and manage the new interactive division of HMA. Not only was I challenged to master SEO, PPC and analytics, I poured my mind into the B2B realm and conquered the technical lingo used in the chemical and industrial manufacturing world.

No one was more surprised than me to discover how much I enjoyed all the intricate technicalities.

It’s been a wild ride, but looking back I wouldn’t have wanted to learn it any other way.

Even as I step into a role more focused on content strategy and real-time media at HMA, Drew continues to guide me through challenging situations. Her bull-in-a-china-shop demeanor and the sink or swim rites of passage at HMA are sure ways to build character. It’s been a wild ride, but looking back I wouldn’t have wanted to learn it any other way. Her wisdom as a strong woman and, more importantly, a successful business owner (not to mention a great sense of humor and an abundance of Dorganisms) helped me navigate difficult problems, better communicate with clients and think fast on my feet. After working with Drew for nearly two years, explaining the relevance of analytics and SEO to a client’s key business leaders (most with doctorates in chemistry, mind you) seemed like a piece of cake. She might tell you what to do, but most of the time she leaves you to figure out the how, and I love that.

While Drew remains one of my more influential mentors, there’s no way I could go without mentioning two other inspiring individuals — Danny Laws and Saurav Rimal. Much like the electric shock from a defibrillator, these two kickstart my SEO heart, depolarize and reinvigorate when needed.

Have you ever met someone and wished you could download pieces of their brain and upload them to your own?

I definitely feel this way about Danny Laws. I first met Danny, president of DaBrian Marketing Group, while volunteering on the marketing committee for Greater Reading Chamber of Commerce. Smart and energetic, I was impressed at how fast he could talk and even more impressed with his experience with internet marketing. After conversations with him I often find myself thinking, “I never thought of it that way before.” He continues to motivate and inspire me to explore new possibilities within SEO. You can explore some of his insights over at the DaBrian Marketing blog.

His actions and willingness to offer advice inspire me to dream more

Every time I talk to Saurav Rimal, I get kid-in-a-candy-store excited about SEO all over again. Bonding over a pint of Victory Golden Monkey, Saurav, SEO at SEER Interactive, has an infectious passion for SEO. Not only is he incredibly relatable, but he is pretty brilliant too. His actions and willingness to offer advice inspire me to dream more, learn more and do more. Saurav tends to keep a low profile when it comes to posts and publications, and in my opinion, his wisdom is best served up in person and over a pint of beer. (Editor’s note: I agree 200% with this paragraph, especially the end.)

Colleen recommends

A critical skill needed when starting out in SEO, and the search industry in general, is learning to qualify information sources and identify mistruths. Answers are everywhere – the good, the bad and the outdated. The key is asking the right questions to uncover the best answers. The Beginners’ Guide to SEO from SEOmoz is like an encyclopedia for SEO. It’s an indispensable resource if you’re new to SEO, and SEOmoz does a great job of keeping it up to date. But more importantly, you need a mentor, or at least someone to bounce ideas off. He or she doesn’t even need to be in SEO; some the freshest perspectives I’ve ever received were from people not in marketing. What matters most is having someone out there to give your life and career some kind of direction.

About Colleen

I lead content development and strategy at Howard Miller Associates in Lancaster, Pa. We’re an interactive and full-service advertising agency serving up SEO, PPC, analytics, real-time media and traditional advertising for a variety of chemical and industrial companies. You can read my internet marketing accounts on the HMA blog, or for random and often unrelated musings, check out my personal blog ColleenHofmann.com. And if you happen to love technology, craft beer and malapropos humor, please say hi over on Twitter.

Do you have a mentor story you want to share? I’d love to hear it!

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Mentor Stories: Stuart McHenry

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Thanks to Stuart McHenry of McKremie for sharing his story about how he got into SEO and who inspired him along the way.

For those that don’t know me I’m Stuart McHenry and I run McKremie an SEO Firm based in Orange County, CA.  In 1998 I sold Beanie Babies over the Internet (Angel Fire Website) but I won’t claim my SEO skills go back that far. Especially since I’ve only had 3,576 visitors in 14 years. </laughing>

I’ve had lots of people mentor me over the years.  Below are four people that I look up to and have helped me throughout my 8+ years of online marketing.

Back then I was like WTF is SEO?

I started out in SEO in late 2003. Actually, the first few months I was working on usability and design more than anything.  After several months of working on my first website and its launch I was wondering why I wasn’t getting any traffic.  Someone told me that I need to work on SEO.  Back then I was like WTF is SEO?

I then spent the next several months trying to learn and consume every bit of information I could about SEO.  I ended up like most of us back in the day on SEO forums.  SEO Chat and SEO Guy (Yes, Old School) were my favorite sources of information.  Some days I spent hours on those sites chatting, learning and eventually helping others but I’m getting ahead of myself.

He really helped lay my base knowledge of SEO.

In the early days before I had any idea what anchor text was the person that helped me out the most was Jocelyn Dub or Joc as most of us called him. Jocelyn is a moderator on the SEO Guys forums and one of the better known members on SEO Chat. He really helped lay my base knowledge of SEO.  Although he doesn’t have a blog he is still active on SEO Chat where I encourage people to listen to him as he knows his stuff.

When I started my first SEO Company (SEO Fusion) I got lots of great advice from Morgan Carey AKA SEO Guy.  Morgan had a lot of experience and was very helpful when I had questions about pricing and contracts. Morgan runs one of the most popular real estate communities online called Real Estate Webmasters.

I spent a great deal of my time between 2007-2010 learning and participating in social media marketing.  Someone that always provided great advice and not just the regurgitated crap you read in most blogs is Brent Csutoras.  Brent knows his crap and many in the industry already know this.  Although we didn’t speak regularly the few times we did I gained lots of valuable information which mostly included how to hit the front page of Digg and Reddit on a regular basis.

Brent does most of his blogging over on his company website Kairay Media.  Some of his must read posts are:

one of the smartest in the industry

Another person in the industry that I’ve bent the ear of from time to time is Debra Mastaler.  Debra is the President of Alliance –Link and one of the smartest in the industry that I know. Many of us know her from her link building posts on Link Spiel or as a regular conference speaker.  A few times over the years she has provided great advice on not just link building but on the SEO industry.  About a year back I was seeking some advice about industry publications and she gave me spot-on direct advice. (no sugar coating)

If you haven’t already read her post about the Aspects of Link Building it’s a great read. My favorite excerpt from that post is:

“Link building is less about what you do, and more about where you do it.”

If there is one thing I have learned in this industry it is; there is more than one way to skin a cat.  In most cases there are several ways to achieve the end results and the best part is learning how others are doing it.

Do you have a mentor story you want to share? I’d love to hear it!

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Mentor Stories: Melissa Weidenborner

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Thanks to Melissa Weidenborner for sharing her Mentor Story. Philly misses you!

I never intended to go into SEO. For me, it’s always been about creating content. I started blogging while my husband was stationed in Fort Bragg, NC with the United States Army. My husband and his unit had just been deployed to Iraq. I could only watch as he and his unit, who had become like family to me, left for an uncertain amount of time, with an uncertain fate.

I felt an urgent need to prove myself to the world, and I didn’t want to let Dave down.

It was one of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever had. I started to share my story on melissas100.com, a list turned blog that consisted of 100 things to accomplish before Dave returned. Some of them, such as getting Denis Leary’s autograph, were more difficult than others. I didn’t care. I felt an urgent need to prove myself to the world, and I didn’t want to let Dave down.

They gave me confidence and courage

The blog started a whirlwind of content, PR, and relationship building with specialists in the social/search marketing industry. I talked to people all over the world that felt connected to my story. They gave me confidence and courage that gave me the motivation to continue.

After some incredible experiences; getting interviewed by Nicole Brewer of CBS Philly, being invited by Sophia Bush to appear on her show One Tree Hill, and yes, getting Denis Leary’s autograph, doors opened. It led to even more incredible opportunities. I was offered a position at Empire Covers in Philadelphia as a SEO/Social Media Manager, and that started my journey into SEO.

I entered the industry at the “worst possible time”

I’ve been told by SEOs that I entered the industry at the “worst possible time”. Everything was changing. Google was in the midst of redefining search, and for a new SEO such as myself, it was extremely intimidating.

A lot has changed since I started. Search has changed, and so have I. I’m the current SEO/Social Media Manager for Queensboro Shirt Company back in Wilmington, NC.

Chris offered me the opportunity to share my mentor experiences with the SEO world, and I eagerly accepted. I put a lot of thought into what I wanted to say.  I did some SEO soul searching and came up with the most honest, straightforward answers I could.

Prepare to fail a lot.

Let’s start with some advice for the noobs. If I could give a new SEO any piece of advice, it would be this. Prepare to fail. Prepare to fail a lot.

Some people may argue that SEO is a science, and to some degree, it is. There’s a lot of experimentation involved. You have to go into it with all of the creativity, courage, and pride you can muster, and just take the chances no one else will.

However, as much as SEO could be considered a science, it can’t be. You can’t measure the value of one of the most important things in search engine marketing. Relationships.

When I started in SEO, I was as wide-eyed and optimistic as they came. It took a very special group of SEOs and SEM professional in Philly, (SEO Grail), to bring me down to earth. For me, these guys were an absolute god send.

Seasoned search marketers like Bill Rowland and Nick Eubanks took me under their wings. Anthony Moore, Chris Countey, Mark Kennedy, Eppie Vojt, and Ian Howell listened to my ramblings about content, white hat link building tactics, and other incredibly naïve things only SEO noobs would say.

They were nothing but supportive and welcoming. Patient. They openly discussed their successes and failures.

I learned more about the “science of SEO” than I could ever hope to learn from a college course. From groundbreaking studies in social media and SEO to how to recover from Penguin, SEO Grail was a priceless resource. Actually, that’s not true- it was $5 a Meetup.

A lot of what I’ve learned so far in search engine optimization has been through observation. Besides the knowledge acquired from attending SEO Grail, I’ve learned so much through the examples of others. Blame the nerdy bookworm in me.

I take a lot of cues from Wil Reynolds.

I take a lot of cues from Wil Reynolds. It seems that Wil has been through it all, whether it be getting banned from Google, or building up a $5 mil startup from scratch. He’s extremely intelligent, well versed in everything search, and of course, so intimidating, I’ve gotten extremely tongue tied every time I’ve ever spoken to him.

his dedication to the Philadelphia community, the way he treats his employees, that blows my mind

But for me, it isn’t Wil’s expertise in outbound marketing or content strategy that motivates me. It’s his dedication to the Philadelphia community, the way he treats his employees, that blows my mind. This is an individual who looks past success and status, and looks to his fellow man.

be a responsible, resourceful member of the SEO community

It’s the actions of others, whether it be the endless support of more experienced search marketers or giving back to my community, that keeps me in SEO. The most important thing I’ve learned so far is to be a responsible, resourceful member of the SEO community. Share what needs to be shared, help out your fellow SEOs, and somehow, keep your head above water.

So to all of you SEO noobs out there, welcome to one of the most versatile yet exhausting industries you could ever possibly go into. Lucky for you, there are a lot of people to show you the ropes. There are endless amounts of resources to learn from – Google it. Seriously.

Don’t be bashful, be brave. Take chances. Let your ideas take flight.  Getting to the next level of SEO expertise is challenging, but with some good connections and hard work, it’s not impossible.

Special shout outs to the SEO Grail guys (you all owe me a beer for mentioning you in this, just kidding, sort of), and my diehard fans; my husband, creative masterminds Sarah Charniak and Colin Scattergood, and my dogs, Russell and Molly. Russell, if you’re reading this, I can quit my job, because we’re famous.

Do you have a mentor story you want to share? I’d love to hear it!

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Mentor Stories: Nick Eubanks

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Nick Eubanks is an extremely smart digital strategist from Philadelphia and all around nice guy. You can’t keep up with him, but you can try by following his SEO blog. Thanks to him for sharing this bit of inspiration.

I got into the technology space (I feel like my father when I say that) while I was in college, and like most, it was completely by accident, however I don’t know anyone who has been in SEO for over 5 years who isn’t an accidental SEO, so this is nothing new or interesting.

He put a lot of time into teaching me how to sell the value of his services

In 2004 I was a sophomore at Saint Joe’s (Go Hawks!) and as part of the Haub School internship program, I got hired working at Morgan Stanley. I was not doing anything glamorous or exciting, I worked for an older gentleman named Ned Saxman who was one of the senior brokers in their West Conshohocken office at the time. He put a lot of time into teaching me how to sell the value of his services… which didn’t seem to matter much since at 150-200 calls per day, I figured I was bound to at least stumble across a lead or two..

something to the tune of $2.5 million in new investment accounts

After a couple months I started warming up some leads and eventually was able to get him a few new clients, something to the tune of $2.5 million in new investment accounts. Around the same time there was another broker in the office named Jim Wiley whom I became friendly with. This guy was young, hungry, and looking to leverage technology to grow his business… we started grabbing lunch together on the 10th floor and quickly became friends.

After a couple more months I left the broker pit and Jim and I worked on what would be the first email marketing campaign to ever receive approval from Morgan Stanley’s compliance department. And so began my career in digital marketing.

Through it all I have had help and guidance from folks much smarter than myself

Jim was one of many mentors I’ve been fortunate enough to have throughout my career, and although he is not in marketing, he helped me figure out that I wanted to be. Over the course of what has now been almost a decade I have worked on marketing with people in very different scenarios, including raising awareness about auto-immune disease, buying thousands of units of multi-family real estate, and even starting my own companies. Through it all I have had help and guidance from folks much smarter than myself, to whom I owe everything.

Identify who helps you get over the hurdles within your life and your career

Finding a mentor is not about looking as much as it is about realizing. You are probably already surrounded by people who help, guide, and inspire you – the hard part is taking notice. Identify who helps you get over the hurdles within your life and your career and then make it a priority to see and spend time with these people.

never let me give up on what I wanted

I cannot imagine where I would be or what I would be doing if it wasn’t for the critical direction provided to me by so many over the past almost 10 years. My desire to help other entrepreneurs and my near obsession with startups directly stems from my experiences with the people who took me under there wing, told me what I needed to hear, and never let me give up on what I wanted.

the individual experiences are greater than the sum of their parts

I realize this was supposed to be a series about highlighting specific mentors in our lives, but sometimes I think the individual experiences are greater than the sum of their parts – I’ve taken so much from so many, and at the end of it all, it has led to me to where I want to be – building and helping others build.

To all of those who have helped me grow over the years, both as a person and as an entrepreneur, thank you.

A special thanks to Ned Saxman, Jim Wiley, Mike Rosenfelt, Joe Fetterman and Pete Talman, Dave McClain, Bill Tomassini, Richard Binswanger, Will and Alice Bast, Will Snook, and my Father.

Contact Nick

http://www.seonick.net/

https://twitter.com/nick_eubanks

Do you have a mentor story you want to share? I’d love to hear it!

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Mentor Stories: Rivka Fogel of AJ Madison

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Thanks to Rivka Fogel of AJ Madison for sharing her mentor story with me.

I cobbled together my SEO training.  I’ve been in-house for over a year now, but in spring of 2011 I didn’t know what an SERP was.  I Googled things a lot, and played with HTML in my work as a poet, and I had taught myself VBA because I thought it was fun, and why not get all that functionality out of Excel.  But to optimize a site’s content and campaigns to up its rankings?  No idea.

Soon I was managing full-scale SEO projects

Then consultants came along.  Or, I should say, marketing in general.  When I graduated Penn I was reviewing contemporary art exhibitions for an art blog.  A few months later I was leading the charge on its advertising, because we had an audience to monetize.  And then I started writing full-time as part of a start-up’s marketing team, which focused on SEO.  Three weeks later I was directing the two company blogs, which included link-building strategy at these content machines.  Soon I was managing full-scale SEO projects at any of the start-up’s 60 or so sites, including one that asked, how do we get people talking, on the web, about asset tags? (Answer: put the asset tag on a bike, and create a bike registry.)

I learned by observing, and asking questions

All this time we had weekly meetings with our consultants, in which I pumped Distilled’s John Doherty for information.  I learned by observing, and asking questions that grew from A/B testing for email marketing and the relative benefits of iFrames versus infographics to algorithm updates and Matt Cutts; SeoMoz and Majestic; and the extent of EMD’s immediate impact on microsites.

In short: earlier that year I hadn’t heard of SEO; a few months into my talk-time with John, it was the most interesting part of my day, shifting with new ideas and algorithm updates and pieces of web gossip.

I learn by engaging

In retrospect, I was very lucky to fall in to SEO – but I was also lucky to have John and the Distilled team, and now to have the Twitter SEO community.  #seochat and #seopub teach me so much, mainly because I learn by engaging, and I’ve never been one to be that quiet.  And then there are the blogs and forums: Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch (Barry Schwartz et al), World Webmaster Forum, Bill Slawski’s SEO by the Sea, the occasional Rand Fishkin Whiteboard Friday at SEOMoz.  I’m currently pleasantly mired in the co-citation (or lexical co-occurrence) question, (debatebly) first posited by Rand at the SEOMoz blog, then the subject of responses from Slawski (here and here) and a nice little summary over at iAcquire.

I have my mentors to thank, my fellow SEOs, for loving to talk

It’s a surprise, really: I like playing in Analytics, and I like identifying key metrics in keyword analysis. I like getting mileage and conversions out of social, and I like cutting down on SEM costs by fortifying the site organically with content and good, organized bot-facing and user-facing code.  I studied contemporary poetics, and now I’m figuring out how to sell AJ Madison’s refrigerators and other home and kitchen appliances through blogs, social, on-page SEO, email, and more.  And really I have my mentors to thank, my fellow SEOs, for loving to talk – and teach – digital.

About Rivka

I manage SEO for AJ Madison, with a focus on analytics and content.  I also freelance as a writer-editor and web consultant.  I’m usually a poet, and always a dork.  If I don’t know it, it’s automatically more fun – which is how I got into digital marketing strategy in the first place.  And why I’ll wrestle myself into king pigeon pose most mornings.

Contact Rivka

@fogelrivka

Linkedin.com/in/rivkafogel