Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why are you better at SEO than others?

I am one of the geeks that originally invented SEO back in 2000, having pioneered some of the early SEO strategies that are now found in every textbook on the topic. In addition, I am in league with some of the most accomplished SEO experts in the world. Within this group of experts, we are constantly developing and refining cutting-edge online visibility strategies. These strategies are kept secret and will give your website a winning edge over everyone else in your market.

There is no book, course, video, blog, or any other available source where the strategies that really work can be learned. They are proprietary and far too valuable to give away at any price, as I can take any business in any city and enable it to dominate its local market.

2. Do you abide by Google’s rules?

Of course! I have only ever developed clean strategies that work long term. This is important to me! Anyone who still uses dubious methods or spam knows very little about modern SEO.

3. How do I know if your SEO is working?

I use software to track the position of your website for different search terms (keywords). You will receive free access to that software and can follow your rank in Google live every day if you wish. The statistics are updated once a day. I believe this to be a more elegant solution than sending you a monthly report.

The way to the top is not straightforward. Your website will go up and down before the rankings stabilize. If your website suddenly goes down in rankings, be patient. You will discover that your website jumps back up again the next day or a few days later. Whenever a website gains authority thanks to SEO, Google has to consider where to put it. This “thinking process” is the cause for this jumping pattern, to put it simply.

4. What exactly do you do?

I am a magician and have a formula that … well okay, SEO is no magic but it is very technical, complex, and has a lot of moving parts.

Simply put, I optimize your website itself (content, loading speed, meta data, page structure, technical stuff, etc.) and I network your content across the rest of the Internet (social media, YouTube, yellow pages, other authoritative websites). This includes many proprietary ingredients that I cannot reveal. Keep this in mind: Google wants the most relevant & authoritative websites at the top, and I make sure that your website meets these criteria.

Once your website ranks, I defend those rankings against your competition. Since I always stay on top of changes at Google, I make adjustments to the SEO as need be to go with the times.

5. Do you offer individual services?

Good SEO is like a building and consists of many individual parts that interlock and need each other. It is not too helpful to offer SEO only in single pieces. Web designers usually do some “on-page optimization,” but that is just a small part of what you need to do for a top position in Google.

6. Can you guarantee a top position?

According to Forbes, only spammers and other shady people make such guarantees. I could only guarantee something like that if I had control over Google. That being said, I have never failed to rank a local business in any location.

7. Should I invest in SEO or advertising?

If you have the budget, both can be beneficial. However, I focus on SEO because it is all you need and has the best ROI of any form of marketing.

A top 3 position in Google brings multiple times more visitors to your website than the advertising spots above it. SEO usually takes 6 months to get you to the first page of Google, so it is worthwhile to run ads at first to bring visitors to your website in the meantime.

Consider that every click on an ad costs money, while the organic visitors (the non-ad clicks) are free and cost only as much as the SEO service is. Hence, SEO is much cheaper! What’s more, local businesses that rank in a high position are usually shown in Google Maps as well and get even more free traffic that way.

Google ads get you perhaps 3-5% of the traffic. Ranking #1 and in the maps section produces 10x that amount.

8. I have trust issues. My last SEO has done a bad job!

I know, and I understand. Not only do I hear this quite often, I know my industry. The problem is SEO is a secret craft, a skillset too valuable to teach. Hence, 99% of the industry is mediocre.

For many of my clients, I first have to repair what others have broken. I do have methods to mitigate “negative SEO” and while I have recovered some websites from manual penalties before, I cannot guarantee such an outcome in case this has happened to you.

Before I start working with you, I first analyze your site and determine how healthy it is. Sometimes a website has been broken too much by spam: in such a case it may sometimes make more sense to start over.

9. How long does it take to get to the top?

For roofing, you should generally expect 4-6 months to reach and remain on the first page of Google. At that point, my clients always make more money than SEO costs them.

To reach a top 3 or even #1 position, you need to be patient: moving up the first page is a slow process and can take another 3 months! But since you will be making more money than you are spending, being patient should be no issue.

Of course, it can work out much faster but you shouldn’t expect that. For larger projects or stiff competition, it usually takes its sweet time. In the case of low competition, however, it can happen very quickly!

Until the beginning of 2015, it was possible to reach the top in just a month, but Google doesn’t allow that to happen anymore. This change was likely done to preserve the quality of the search results because in the past a newcomer could very quickly replace the established websites.

Patience is one of the most important things about SEO.