Google and SEO with Gina Gaudio-Graves and Jack Humphrey of Leverage Masters
Former software engineer and now the coolest guy in SEO, Kris Reid,had a chat with Gina Gaudio-Graves and Jack Humphrey of Leverage Masters on how he started out in digital marketing, how Google and SEO have changed, and what Ardor SEO is doing for clients today.
Introducing Leverage Masters and the Leveragists
Leverage Masters is your online source for tools and tips to help you get direction in your life and business and, in turn, provide your prospects and customers direction to make an impact in the direction of the world. Their mission is to assist small businesses in growing their lifestyle businesses to make a difference and to touch every person’s life.
The Leverage Master’s leveragists are Gina Gaudio-Graves and Jack Humphrey, authors of "The Leverage Black Book", co-founders of The Leveragists and DUvisio, an affiliate marketing network that makes a difference, and deans of the Directions University, where entrepreneurs can find their way in the marketplace.
Before the Birth of Ardor SEO
The interview started with a short history of our fearless leader at Ardor SEO. He used to work in London on the biggest software project in Europe. When the financial crisis came around, he lost his job with several hundred other developers.
It’s fortunate that he got a big sack of money which he used to go backpacking across the globe. He has orbited Europe, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and the Caribbean. With such an interesting back-story, Jack Humphrey couldn’t help but be jealous.
SEO Is Definitely Not Dead
Jokingly, Jack asked Kris if he hadn’t received the memo that SEO is dead. Kris funnily replied that he then needed a new job. He also admitted that it does get harder every year with the need for the company to constantly up their game to keep up with the industry.
As everyone knows, Google is getting smarter and better to ensure that users have a good overall experience. This means site owners need to be able to provide good content, relevant answers, and a great website that loads fast and is easy to navigate. The competition is harder too because people know that there is money in being visible online.
“It Will Always and Forever Be About Links”
Jack Humphrey shared how he was one of the first few people who discovered Google’s preference for links and understands how it’s still all about links in 2017. The difference, in his opinion, is that they’re a lot harder to get these days than they’ve ever been.
Kris agreed with the sentiment and compared things to when he first started with SEO. Back then, he’d made a system wherein customers could log in and input their targeted keywords and URLs then he would easily build the links.
But what worked in the past won’t work now that Google figured out how they could keep their results pure and clean.People can’t just manufacture links unless they want to get penalised.
Jack Humphrey said that explaining this to clients is one major challenge that many publishers face today. Clientsoften agree for the need to do a lot of campaigns but find it hard to associate that kind of hard work to the costs agencies are quoting.
Ardor SEO, as Kris Reid explained in the interview, addresses this concern through strategic partnerships wherein we find businesses in similar industries that are not in direct competition with our clients. We create super content for them and they exchange links with each other.
Google and SEO Then Versus Now
Kris and Jack discussed further how much Google has changed over the years and how SEO has changed along with it.
“You know, we used to be able to do things really quickly. Google was really, really responsive back in the day...It was always faster than it seems today...If somebody did this with you, what do you tell them as far as how quickly they can expect to see results from these kinds of links that you’re hooking them up with‘cause it’s not as fast as it used to be, right?”
Well, the communication alone takes up a lot of time along with getting the content written and posted. Both Jack and Kris are painfully aware of how the actual work already takes a huge chunk of time. However, when anyone talks about rankings, there are always so many things to consider.
“It depends where you are and where the competition is...how well your site structure is...There’s too many things to talk in broad strokes like that.”
Certainly, there are plenty of points that you must cover when it comes to more advanced SEO techniques. Google has changed in many aspects as well.
Jack, Kris, and Gina chat about some of these changes in-depth in the interview so make sure to listen to the whole podcast on Blog Talk Radio. You can also access the episode on iTunes. Look for #15 on the list.
