Early Days of Search Engine Marketing - Interview with SEO Strategist Mr. Jerry West by John Alexander

It was 6 years ago this week (on June 29th) that Robin Nobles launched the very first online search engine marketing courses. In celebration of her 6th year in business as a well known international educator and trainer in the SEO industry, we thought it would be interesting to contact some of her earliest students and ask them what the early days of search engine marketing was like and how it compares to search engine marketing in the present.

Hattiesburg, MS June 30, 2004 -- Well known SEO trainer and educator Robin Nobles is celebrating her 6th anniversary in business. Her partner, John Alexander began the interview by explaining, "Today, we're speaking with SEO Strategist Mr. Jerry West. Thank you for taking time to chat with us. I understand that you, Mr. West, were one of Robin Nobles very first students.

Jerry West: That is correct.

John Alexander: Could we start by asking you about how you first began helping people get exposure to their businesses online?"

Jerry West: "I started in 1996 doing web page design for small local businesses after helping develop the Internet Publisher feature in WordPerfect for Windows. One of my clients asked me if I could get them ranked well in the search engines. I told them it wouldn't be a problem, even though I knew nothing about it. My software testing background helped me to quickly understand the algorithms and I read everything I could get my hands on at the time, which was very little. In just a few months, my client's sales skyrocketed due to their listings. I realized rather fast that I had a new blossoming career.

John Alexander: "Did you have many challenges when you first started up?"

Jerry West: "The biggest challenge I faced was the lack of quality information on search engine optimization. There was just a major void. I credit Robin Nobles for seeing a need for it. Before I took the course from Robin I would estimate that 70% of my time was spent trying to test methodologies rather than doing actual work for clients. That was very frustrating.

John Alexander: "Could you take us back and share some memories of the early days and what it was like for you?"

Jerry West: "It was the fall of 1998, I had been doing web site and search engine work for about two years. I had my own company, but it was just me. My "day job" was as a Software Testing Engineer and I was working in Washington State at the time.

Back in Utah, a large company that specialized in computer based training programs was discussing in their weekly meeting about the need of increasing leads via the Internet. Later in the meeting discussion on the upcoming NBA season heated up among two of the managers. The disagreement over a record held by Hall-of-Fame Jerry West of the Lakers spilled into the hallway and ended up at a computer to look it up on the Internet. They typed in "Jerry West" into Infoseek and the first result was:

"Jerry West Search Engine Specialist, Get Fresh Leads!"

"They both looked at each other and couldn't believe their luck. They contacted me through email and a conference call occurred shortly thereafter."

John Alexander: "How very cool! How did it work out?"

Jerry West: "I won the account and the amount they wanted to spend was more than I was making per month at the time with all of my other clients combined. I was excited, but I remember after hanging up the phone I said aloud, "What am I going to do now?".

"I turned to the Internet and began searching for any courses on search engine optimization. I found several. After carefully reviewing each one, I decided to signup for Robin Noble's course. Robin was incredible. She answered my emails immediately after I sent them and was very personable."

"The information I learned from the training was so timely that I could use it right then on my new client. With the knowledge that I was able to gain from Robin, this company quickly became a top competitor for the best spots in the major engines and the conversions from the qualified leads were so good that the VP of Sales achieved the sales figures in his contract, thus he received a large bonus and a release from his contract."

John Alexander: "And this all worked out in a nice way for you too?"

Jerry West: "Yes, he then went to an eCommerce Internet Startup and then made me his first hire, allowing me to do search engine work full-time."

John Alexander: "Which of the search engines in those early days, do you feel delivered the best exposure and why?"

Jerry West: "I always felt it was Infoseek, as with the tracking that we had back then, we knew that the bulk of the leads/sales were from Infoseek. I loved their "instant indexing" so you knew exactly how your page ranked right then and could continue to make changes to it and see it rise (or fall) in the SERPs."

John Alexander: "Some people are interested in building a future career in search engine marketing. Besides building their SEO skills through the online courses at Online Web Training (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) are there other resources you could suggest?"

Jerry West: "The best advice I can give is to read the book "Clients for Life" by Jagdish Sheth. In my view SEOs are a dime a dozen. They are just experts in their field. You can go to ELance.com and pick up as many experts as you care to. However, an advisor is someone you trust, someone you rely on. By becoming a true advisor, you become an invaluable asset to your client base. If they don't dare make a move without your advice, you have a client for life. Afterall, that is what you are after. You dont want to keep signing clients to replace the ones you lose."

John Alexander: "That is excellent advice. Robin and I teach very similar themes to our students who attend our live SEO Mastery Workshop at http://www.searchengineworkshops.com and there really is tremendous value in having clients for life. Speaking of workshops, you are going to be speaking at the Ultra-Advanced SEO Symposium (http://www.ultraadvancedsymposium.com) coming up on August 7 and 8 at Caesars Palace. Mr. West, I am really looking forward to hearing more about some of the strategies that you'll be revealing there. Can you tell us just a couple of the things you will be teaching?"

Jerry West: "Well, most of the strategies that I share with my current clients are almost always met with the same reaction, "Why didn't I think of that?". My strategies make sense, you can see the vision right off, and you can also see the long-term benefits. I will mostly discuss Link Reputation (as it is far more important than Link Popularity in my view), PageRank addiction, and Yahoo!'s new WebRank that is in Beta testing right now."

John Alexander: "These are all things people want to learn about for sure. Anything else you will be sharing?"

Jerry West: "I will also have some discussion on the future of SEM and my personal views on where to get in now, so you are ready for the next market change."

John Alexander: "That sounds absolutely excellent and I'm really looking forward to it! A couple of last questions I have for you....What do you think is the biggest search engine marketing myth going around today?"

Jerry West: "The same one that was the biggest myth six years ago, that submitting your site to 10,000 search engines will bring loads of traffic to your site. I still can't believe people still believe that."

John Alexander: "Finally, what would you say is the single most important truth that people need to understand about search engine marketing today?"

Jerry West: "Personal ethics and integrity, for they will naturally spill over to your professional career. That is vital in the search engine business. With so many "black hat" techniques out there, it becomes harder to stay true to the "white hat" methodologies. If you stay true, you will win in the long term. The best advice I can give, again, is to think and act as an advisor, not as an expert. With a knowledge of SEO, the work that you perform will be SEO based without an emphasis on SEO. In other words, by concentrating on first making the site sell effectively and increasing the conversion ratio, you can then concentrate on bringing additional qualified traffic in. Don't do it the other way around, or you will get frustrated very quickly!"

John Alexander: "Thank you so very much Mr. Jerry West for those valuable insights and thank you for taking time out of your day to share some of your memories and some nice anecdotes about the early days of search engine marketing. That's all the time we have for now but another great big CONGRATULATIONS to Robin Nobles on her 6th anniversary of training in the SEM industry."

Watch for more interviews and articles to be published to our free article library at:
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles.html

About Jerry West:

Jerry West is Marketing Director for Web Marketing Now (http://www.webmarketingnow.com) and Project5150

Mr. West has been involved in search engine consulting since 1996. With a background in software testing and quality assurance, Mr. West had the foundation needed in order to effectively analyze search engine algorithms to discover methodologies to gain an ethical rise in the search engine results pages. Certified by The Academy of Web Specialists and Robin Nobles in 1998, Mr. West has consulted for Sun Systems, AT&T, Cable One, Monster.com, Psion Teklogix, Tupperware, General Electric and hundreds of other companies. His methods are "white hat" marketing with an emphasis on ethics and content.

This interview has been brought to you courtesy of John Alexander, Co-director of Training and Education at Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com) and Online Web Training (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com).

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