The SEO Freelancer

Nick LeRoy
  • 0.0 (0)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • MONTHLY

Each month Nick LeRoy interviews a freelance consultant about their experience generating over six figures in annual income. seofreelancer.substack.com

  1. 06/04/2023

    Patrick Rice: I Went Freelance ONE YEAR Into My SEO Career

    jxs4GofH7kox21BU8rFS Get notified when any new episodes of TheSEOFreelancer podcast go live Introducing Patrick Rice In this month’s SEO Freelancer podcast, Nick LeRoy talks with Patrick Rice, owner of Patrick Rice Co. Patrick has been in the SEO industry since 2018 and has a unique story in which he made the decision to go 100% freelance after only one year of SEO experience. How to connect with Patrick online LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-s-rice/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/PatrickRiceCo This Months Sponsor: BrightLocal.com BrightLocal is the all-in-one local SEO platform designed to drive traffic and leads from local search. Its focus on local SEO gives you what other SEO platforms can't: local ranking tracking, local citation monitoring, Google Business Profile auditing, local competitor insights, and review monitoring - it’s all here. BrightLocal offers review generation campaigns, a low-cost local citation-building service, and even helps you convert your site visitors into piping-hot leads. Perfect for any freelancers looking to scale up. The best part? It's super-affordable, with agency plans starting at just $49 per month and a white-label option to keep your reports professional and on-brand. Podcast listeners can take advantage of an exclusive offer. Sign up at brightlocal.com/SEOfreelancer and receive $75 in Citation Builder credits immediately.  Don't miss this opportunity to level up your local SEO. Head to brightlocal.com/SEOfreelancer now. If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. I'm your host, Nick LeRoy. And today I'm excited to be talking with Patrick Rice, who has also been an SEO freelancer for a little bit longer than I am for going on five years. Is that right, Patrick? That's correct. Fantastic. Well, thank you again for joining us. We're very excited to talk to you today. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Real quick. Before we get into this month's conversation with Patrick, I want to do a quick shout out to this month's sponsor bright local, bright local is the all in one local SEO platform designed to drive traffic and leads from local search. It's focused on local SEO gives you what other platforms can local rank tracking local citation monitoring Google business profile, adding local competitor insights and review monitoring. It's all here. Nick LeRoy  Bright local offers review generation campaigns a low cost local citation building service and even helps you convert your site visitors into piping hot leads perfect for any freelancers looking to scale up. You know what the best part, it's super affordable with agency plans starting at just $49 per month and a white label option to keep your reports professional and on brand. Our listeners can take advantage of an exclusive offer, sign up at Bright local.com/seo freelancer and receive $75 and citation builder credits immediately. Don't miss out on this opportunity to level up your local SEO, head to bright local.com/seo. Freelancer today. Thank you again to this month's sponsor bright local. Appreciate you guys very much. And let's get right into this interview. So first and foremost, for anybody who isn't familiar with you, can you give us kind of the elevator pitch of you know, who is Patrick rice? Yeah, so Patrick Rice  I kind of have a strange story. But essentially, I've worked at an agency for about a year, so really not not long. And then I went off and on my own. My boss at the time was a mentor. And he kind of mentored me to, you know, having my own company and, and doing things solo. So I've been doing that for five years, as you mentioned, and it's just been a roller coaster. I worked with a lot of E commerce companies. When I started out I was very much a link builder. So kind of link building an E commerce is what I'm known for. And yeah, so it's a it's an adventure. But I've been freelancing for a while now. Nick LeRoy  And that's amazing. I think you bring a unique angle that you're not a freelancer that had been doing agency or in house for 10 years, like I had and took that knowledge, you know, is it fair to assume you you probably had even just kind of scratched the surface? Excuse me, you know, you're probably you're continuing to build up your skill sets while you're venturing into freelance and figuring out the business side of SEO as well. Exactly developing the business skills alongside the actual SEO skills. Because of course, I was young and ambitious. So I thought I knew it all. But that just you know, one after another I found out Miss found out that sometimes the Guru's aren't telling you the truth. Nick LeRoy  To at the very beginning, like you almost have to have that false sense of like, I know it all to be able to go in. Yeah, I feel like 10 years into my career jumping in, I was kind of having the, you know, the pretender syndrome was like, do I really know enough to be able to do this on my own? And that was 10 years into it. So I say good for you. Yeah, I appreciate that. And, and now I know I also have the imposter syndrome sometimes and stuff. So it's, yeah, the more you learn, the more you don't know. It's great, though. Nick LeRoy  Yeah, what and before we jump into my my first question, I will just say, I've talked to quite a few people that will spend quite a bit of time talking about kind of like impostor syndrome, you know, pretending all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I've kind of come to the point where I feel most comfortable saying, when I have days where I'm no longer concerned, or that I'm not learning anymore, is the day that I'm probably truly going to be in trouble, especially in our niche. Yeah. constantly growing, you need to be Nick LeRoy  absolutely, it's like if you're not just a little bit nervous about that deliverable, or what you're saying, you know, that means you probably haven't thought through it enough, because we all know, it depends. So it's like really trying to think through it as much as you can. You're exactly right. Like, it's so nice. And that's one thing about being a freelancer that's difficult is you don't have as much as that back and forth between like a team and an agency, because it is nice, and sometimes I'll just call up a buddy call up a mentor and just throw around ideas. So Hey, I was thinking about doing this or I had this deliverable, what do you think? Cuz that can be so helpful to just run it by someone that you respect and that you know, that knows more than you Nick LeRoy  absolutely know, I do the same thing. There's still days, and I'm sure you've had this as well, and anybody who's in house or agency piezo, as well, it's like, some days, you jump on the computer. And it's like, you just kind of a brain fart. It's like, Why isn't this working? Right? Or you're just staring at a site? Or you're looking at the code? And you're like, I know, this isn't right. But for the life of me, I don't know. But if you send it to a friend or a buddy, you know, he or she might be able to be like, oh, yeah, Patrick MC with the heck's wrong with you, you know, it's right here, like, yes. Okay, thank you, like, I just need someone to help me out. So it's always good to get that second opinion. And without belaboring the point, I agree with you. It's like that can be one of the challenges as a freelancer. It is in it's a reason to build your board of advisors, as I was speaking with Noah Lerner, who you may know him on Twitter and stuff. And he did that really well. And that was his biggest advice is, you know, really build connections with people just ask to go on Zoom calls, you know, ask to do podcasts, like, get to know people. And then you can have this little board of advisors where like, Oh, I know, Nick is really good at this. I might, you know, call him up. I know that. This is the link building guy. This is the Econ guy, whatever. So it's really nice. Nick LeRoy  Yeah, I love it. I think we'll jump into that more your networking, I think is one consistency across all of freelancers. But before we go deeper into that pattern, I got to roll back just a little bit to the very beginning. One thing that I like to ask all my guests here is just to give us an understanding of how you started your career. You know, I know you mentioned previously, you had a single year before going out, but can you walk us through a little bit? What was kind of that venture to getting into it. And if you feel comfortable, this may be a little different before like, I always love to ask people what were they getting paid the first job that they had? And then obviously, you have to share what you're making now. But I'm assuming it's more. Yeah, yeah, it's a bit more. Yeah, I loved I love my journey into SEO. And honestly, like, at times, I, I do recognize that it would have been even helpful to spend more time like an agency and other things like that, because you do learn a lot. I was really lucky. So it started way back, I had a really good friend whose dad was an SEO agency owner. And so he had an agency and I was actually had a Minecraft youtube channel at the time. And I hit 5000 subscribers. And I had one video with like, a million views. And so I was telling him all that I was like, Yeah, you can like post on forums, you can do this and that like, and he was impressed. He was like, okay, okay, this is kind of interesting. So he told me to come by the office, in just a small town in Georgia. And and I did in the story goes from there. He, he introduced me to SEO, he taught me it. And his name was Craig Lawson of click ready marketing. Okay. He's going but before that I had like, of course, I had, like, I worked at Pottery Barn, and I worked at like, all kinds of like, random jobs. But that was my first really agency job. And in marketing job, and I spent a year th

    45 min

  2. 13/03/2023

    Craig Harkins: How to deliver to teams as a freelancer via a product mindset?

    Get notified when any new episodes of TheSEOFreelancer podcast go live Introducing Craig Harkins In this month’s SEO Freelancer podcast, Nick LeRoy talks with Craig Harkins. Craig leads both the SEO and Content teams at Apartments.com. Nick and Craig talk about having a product mindset and how it can help you as a freelancer deliver more value. Craig has been in the digital marketing industry since the late 90s. While currently optimizing millions of pages on apartments.com, Craig has worked in-house for both large and small websites. Craig further shares his experience hiring both agencies and freelance SEOs. He also provides tips on how freelancers (or agencies) can provide maximum value within an enterprise business. How to connect with Craig online: Apartments.com - https://www.apartments.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigharkins Twitter: https://twitter.com/craigharkins Resources Mentioned The SEO MBA by Tom Critchlow (check out my podcast episode with Tom here) This Months Sponsor: Sitebulb.com Sitebulb has just launched their latest innovation, ‘Sitebulb Server’, which is like a hybrid crawler - combining the best things about desktop crawlers with the best things about cloud crawlers! Essentially, it gives you access to your very own dedicated cloud crawler - a cloud crawler that does not restrict your crawling with project limits or crawl credits. Your entire team can access Sitebulb Server, which means they can all work from the same crawl data in real time. Audit data and reports are all available 24/7 and accessible from anywhere, so data is always ready when you need it. It’s perfect for remote teams and agencies that need to collaborate on audit data or anyone that needs to regularly crawl really big websites. If you want to learn more about Sitebulb Server, you can check out demo video on YouTube, or if you want to have a chat about it, book a call with Patrick (Sitebulb co-founder) today! If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com Podcast Transcription Nick LeRoy  Welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. I'm your host, Nick LeRoy. Today I sit down and speak with Craig Harkins, who leads the SEO and content team at apartments.com. Before we start this podcast, I want to say a quick thank you to this month's sponsor sitebulb.com. I want to highlight that Sitebulb is one of two crawlers that I rely on nearly daily. Specifically, I like to use Sitebulb for my SEO audit deliverables, I find that the user interface is incredibly valuable for taking quick snapshots and being able to provide narratives as to why specific technical issues exist, and what the issue is. And I tend to plop those right into my audits and then provide additional context in the report itself. It's a tool that I rely on regularly and is well worth the price. If you have a very large website, Sitebulb has actually just come out with sitebulb server, which is a server based solution that will allow you to crawl millions of pages. If you want to give sitebulb a try. Go to their website www.sitebulb.com and if you happen to be a subscriber to my newsletter, the SEO for lunch, go check that out, as well as I'm currently giving away two free annual subscriptions to those that are not only subscribers but pass on to additional members as well. Those details can be in the weekly newsletter, SEOforlunch.com. Thank you again to our sponsor. And let's jump into this conversation with Craig. Hey, Craig, how are you doing? Craig Harkins  I'm doing great today, Nick, how are you? Nick LeRoy  I'm doing fantastic. For those that don't know, you, can you give us a little bit of a background? You know, obviously, I had already jumped the bag that you worked apartments.com And that we used to work together but give us a little bit more information. Yeah, so I, I've been through the long and winding road of working for a company a startup back to myself. And then back to larger companies where I could play in the enterprise SEO space. So the last 10 years have really been on enterprise SEO, building out a local SEO and enterprise SEO strategies and working with dev teams. Fantastic. And as Greg had mentioned, you know, one of his skill sets is working at the enterprise level, as well as hiring and working with freelancers. Nick LeRoy  So I invited Craig to the show today because we want to have a conversation about how you can deliver SEO value as a freelancer, with a product mindset for both small and large companies. But again, as I mentioned, you know, Craig and I had worked together for a little while. And you know, Craig just has a great perspective on what to look for in hiring freelancers that can support such a large-scale website, as well as what it takes, you know, Craig himself being a leader on the team, but also with freelancing experience himself of what it takes to succeed. So Craig, thank you again, for joining us. I'm very excited just to have this conversation. Craig Harkins  Yeah, I think it's a good conversation to have. Yeah, something that I find when I've done freelance work in the past and with, like you said, hiring and working with a freelancers and agencies is understanding what is going to help the client the best and how to position that. You know, sometimes as SEOs, we can talk too deep into the technical and jump right into the weeds. And we leave our clients like wondering about the context and trying to figure out how it fits into their business strategy and what they've got prioritized for the next, you know, 369 months. And so the more we can come back and give that 10,000 foot level or that overview of, of why things matter and how it fits in the, you know, the better the recommendations are going to be. And the easier it's going to be to then see your recommendations actually get through the process and see the light of day. Nick LeRoy  Absolutely. And I know we're going to go into this a little bit later. But the idea of, you know, if we look at this as client Freelancer relationship, how do I help you advocate for the SEO changes? I think this is the part of freelancing and like He said, even an agency relationship that is not talked about enough. We all assume that it's audits and massive recommendations and, you know, lines and lines of code to change. But before we even get to that point, you have to get buy in, which is communicating that only to your point of contact, but to leadership and sometimes even boards of advisers of why we should allocate resources and budgets. Nick LeRoy So Craig, to jump right into all this goodness, without having a quick conversation about your SEO career. I know you had talked about touching on each side of the industry. I know you've been doing SEO since I believe, was it the 90s? When you started Craig Harkins  Well, I worked for an internet startup, oh, they were one of the first independent internet service providers. And we had a web hosting product. And so I was managing that web hosting product and sales and marketing around it and said, Okay, why would a small business want a website, and then great, they want a website, they can expand a business, etc. This is still the early days of the internet. So then we had to also educate those customers on Okay, now you've got a website, how do you get someone to find it and see that so that you can generate business from it. So it's not just like, a waste, you know, so it's not a it's a real site, not just a hobby site. And so I actually put together a training guide on how to get search traffic for our customers, and then took that and did more with SEO, overall, you know, building out my own website, etc, for a while. And, you know, use that to level up each step of the way through my career. Nick LeRoy  And I love that I think a lot of people kind of forget, I mean, even in the 90s, as before, I had started, but this was prior to Google, like you said, this is just trying to get visibility, once you have something live, how do we get people to find it? Yeah, you know, I feel like it's a whole chapter of, I guess, whether it's Search Engine Optimization, or I don't even know what to call like, awareness optimization, but it's fun to talk to individuals is yourself that kind of progressed as the internet. Yeah, I have progressed. Craig Harkins  Oh, yeah, it's had massive changes. You know, now we're 100% on Google. But there were a lot of different sites we looked at back then. But it was like Yahoo directory. was a thing in the day before you had too many pages. And it's like, oh, wait, just like, a big page of links is not going to cut it for users anymore. You know, I do Nick LeRoy  still to this day, you're gonna spit out your copy out your jacket now. But I still kind of missed the Yahoo Site Explorer, when we used to use that as like our scores for inbound links for every site. You know, I thought when that tool was gonna die, you know that SEO was nearly dead. But I know, I'm certainly dating myself at this point. So it clicked one question, I like to ask everybody, when it comes to the first job, because there's been enough space for both of us, but you know, here you are, you're helping a company, you know, build out some of these websites and marketing them. Do you mind sharing what you were paid back then? Craig Harkins  Oh, gosh, this is probably going to date myself even more, what starting salaries were but you know, my first my first role is actually in sales and kind of inbound sales. And that was in the, you know, that was making the mid 20s. Sir, which is a little bit low, but it was startup environment. And then it kind of went up from there as the company got bigger, and I was able to move from sales to marketing to product management. Nick LeRoy  Absolutely. And, Craig, I think you probably have heard quite a bit of people talk about SEO can even kind of

    50 min

  3. 09/02/2023

    Areej AbuAli: My First Month As A Full-time Freelance SEO!

    Get notified when any new episodes of TheSEOFreelancer podcast go live Introducing Areej AbuAli In this month’s SEO Freelancer podcast, Nick LeRoy talks with Areej AbuAli. Areej recently went out on her own starting her freelancing business Crawlina in January of 2023. Areej shares her adventure both agency and in-house side and how becoming a new parent played a role in her decision to go freelance full-time. How to connect with Areej online Women in Tech SEO: womenintechseo.com/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/areejabuali/ Twitter: twitter.com/areej_abuali This Months Sponsor: BrightLocal.com BrightLocal is the all-in-one local SEO platform designed to drive traffic and leads from local search. Its focus on local SEO gives you what other SEO platforms can't: local ranking tracking, local citation monitoring, Google Business Profile auditing, local competitor insights, and review monitoring - it’s all here. BrightLocal offers review generation campaigns, a low-cost local citation-building service, and even helps you convert your site visitors into piping-hot leads. Perfect for any freelancers looking to scale up. The best part? It's super-affordable, with agency plans starting at just $49 per month and a white-label option to keep your reports professional and on-brand. Our listeners can take advantage of an exclusive offer. Sign up at brightlocal.com/SEOfreelancer and receive $75 in Citation Builder credits immediately.  Don't miss this opportunity to level up your local SEO. Head to brightlocal.com/SEOfreelancer now. If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com Podcast Transcription Nick LeRoy  welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. I'm your host, Nick Leroy. And today I'm very excited to have our guests Areej AbuAli, who very recently went out on her own and today we're going to be talking about her freelance journey, her career to date, and also what made her take the leap. Real quick before we get into this month's interview with Areej, let's go over this month's sponsor bright local. Bright local is the all in one local SEO platform designed to drive traffic and leads from local search. Its focus on local SEO gives you what other platforms can local rank tracking local citation monitoring Google Business Profile adding local competitor insights and review monitoring. It's all here. Bright local offers review generation campaigns a low cost local citation building service and even helps you convert your site visitors into piping hot leads. Perfect for any freelancers looking to scale up. You know what the best part. It's super affordable with agency plans starting at just $49 per month and a white label option to keep your reports professional and on brand. Our listeners can take advantage of an exclusive offer. Sign up at Bright local.com/seo freelancer and receive $75 and citation builder credits immediately. Don't miss out on this opportunity to level up your local SEO, head to bright local.com/seo. Freelancer today. Thanks again to our sponsor bright local, and let's jump into this month's interview. So Rich, thank you so much for joining us today. Areej AbuAli  Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Nick. Nick LeRoy  I guess I'm super excited. You have known a Areej for several years. She's probably one of those Pinnacle y'all. And I'm using air quotes here, your online friends. You know, we've been able to work in a couple instances professionally, but it's always fun to see her in the industry. And as many of you may know, you know, she's spoken at conferences publishes quite a bit, you know, organizes women and tech SEO, which we'll get into all of that so much. But again, Areej thank you for your time today. This is gonna be a great opportunity. Areej AbuAli  Yeah, awesome. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Nick LeRoy  Absolutely. So, uh, Areej. Let's jump in. You know, I'm kind of talking already, like, Absolutely. Everybody here knows who you are. And they probably already do. But do you mind giving us a quick recap? Yeah, who is Areej? What are you up to? How's life going? Areej AbuAli  Yeah, I think it's going quite well. I mean, this is my first official month of freelancing, which is very, very exciting. I've been doing SEO for the past decade. I initially started out agency side, I did that for a little over five years. And then I moved in house where I worked on aggregator sites, property market, and then I moved over to ecommerce. And then yeah, last year, I was on maternity leave. And I was like, You know what, that's it, I really want to do my own thing. And other than, you know, my day to day SEO, my big, big passion project is women in tech, SEO. I created that a little over three years ago. And we do all sorts of initiatives. So that's something that I enjoy working on tons. Nick LeRoy  I love it. And we're gonna definitely go into all of that separately. So all of it is just very exciting. But if you don't mind, can you give us just a little bit of history? I know you said already some of the in house, you know, agency side, but walk us through your first like, SEO job, like how did you get into SEO? And if you feel comfortable with it, like are you willing to share a lot of us laugh at what we were making for our first job? And compared to what we're able to, you know, find success with today? Areej AbuAli  Yeah, I'd be happy to I mean, I, I moved to the UK Exactly. 10 years ago, actually, this month is my 10 year anniversary. I know it's really exciting. And I did a master's degree in business it my background was computer engineering. And then somehow I kind of, you know, stumbled across this world of SEO through like, internships that I was doing while I was doing my master's degree. And the very first role I got was purely because I'm fluent in Arabic. And so it wasn't a SEO agency that were that had just won an Arabic client. And so they needed someone who was fluent in Arabic to work with that client. So it was actually a content marketing executive role. But then, after the first month, they switched me over to the technical SEO team right away. And my first salary was 20,500 pounds a year. Yeah, I think that was back in 2014. Nick LeRoy  Yeah. And people have now heard many, many times. But you know, when you take at least at the time that comparison you and I'd be making very similar Yeah, I was, I think it was $34,000 USD. Yeah. So we would have been very close by it was back in 2009. But again, this is one of my most favorite part is, you know, when we've all put the time into this industry, it's fun to look back and laugh at it. Back then I'll speak for myself only, you're just excited that you have a job and an opportunity. Yeah, so let's talk about your choice of going out on your own. I know you had already kind of told the CEO, you were pregnant with your child, you were kind of looking for other opportunities. But I'd love to better understand considering you've been in the industry, and you've kind of checked everything out the box, the in house, the agency, you've spoken at events, you've been published all the above. So why freelance like what made you say, this? Is it? I'm gonna do it? Areej AbuAli  Yeah, I mean, to be honest, like, I've been overthinking it for a while, maybe a little bit in the last two or three years. The last full time role I had was pretty much perfect. Like I love the company I worked with, it was an in house ecommerce role, I was setting the tech team, I loved the team, we were getting a lot of stuff done. And I think it's what you said, like I felt like I checked most of the boxes there where I knew I would probably not be able to go out and find the role that was going to be as good as that one. But then like something still felt missing. I think a big part of it is because of all the work I do for women in tech SEO, being part of a full time nine to five job made it very, very difficult for me to work on some of these other projects, except during my evenings and weekends. And I really, really needed the flexibility of just owning my own schedule and being able to go like, No, you know what, today's Monday, but that's fine. I'm going to spend all of it on WTS, for example, and then tomorrow, I can pick up client work. So I feel like that was probably the piece of the puzzle that was missing. And then yeah, the other point was, I also really wanted flexibility, like around you know, now having a family and so forth and not being kind of, you know, I think a lot of things came out of the pandemic in terms of commuting, and, you know, the the luxury of working from home and so forth. And I just felt like it did, it didn't matter how good of a full time role you had, you probably were never going to be able to have as much flexibility. Nick LeRoy  Absolutely. I mean, I'm nodding my head at everything that she said, you know, a lot of people are familiar with my, my story. And unfortunately, I was let go of my gig during the pandemic, and the alternatives, you know, we're going back to work for other people, and I didn't like it. But as you said, just the flexibility and ownership of your schedule is so amazing. And before we even jumped on this podcast, you know, we were talking, you know, a resume is fairly new to this full time freelancing role. And you always tend to overextend yourself, as you're kind of figuring it out, you want to over deliver, which is normal. But the good news as I reassured her it was, it gets better. Like as you kind of figure everything out, not everything is brand new kind of back to those days that we were talking about joining the agencies, your as your entry level positions, it gets better, and not to drag on here. But I remember what you're saying not to compare my newsletter to women in tech, SEO, because you do so much more. But I remember doing the nine to five,

    29 min

  4. 05/01/2023

    Nick Jordan: How I drove 1M+ impressions on LinkedIn

    In this months SEO Freelancer podcast, Nick LeRoy talks with Nick Jordan. Nick, is the CEO and co-founder of Workello and Content Distribution. He’s also been in freelance consulting roles and is actively working on building out his (and his teams) social media presence. In this podcast we talk about tactics and approaches he’s taken to drive over 1 million impressions on LinkedIn. How to connect with Nick Jordan online Contentdistribution.com + Workello Connect with Nick on LinkedIn Connect with Nick on Twitter This Months Sponsor: Sitebulb.com I am thanksful to all my sponsors. They allow me to spend time coordinating and recording these podcasts with my guests. It’s especially fun to work with companies that I’m already a big fan of, in this case Site Bulb. Sitebulb.com is one of my top SEO tools when it comes to auditing my clients websites. Not only do you get the traditional findings of running a crawl but Sitebulb does a great job of explaining the risk/reward behind each recommendation. Want to try Sitebulb? Get your 14-day free trial today. If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com Podcast Transcription Nick LeRoy  welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. I'm your host, Nick LeRoy. And today I am talking with Nick Jordan, who is going to give us a background on his SEO career freelancing experiences that he's had, as well as how he's driven over a million impressions on LinkedIn. Before we jump into this month's episode, I want to thank our sponsor site, Sitebulb. So Sitebulb is a tool that I personally use for a lot of my clients and my auditing initiatives. It's a tool that I actually consider an SEO tax that I'm willing to pay and happily pay every single year, the Sitebulb team has made it incredibly easy to use this tool, not only just to crawl the site itself, but making sure that you understand why the things that are being called out as an issue are actually an issue. So it doesn't matter if you're running a crawl on a 10 page site. Or if you're in the progress of migrating million pages over to a new domain site, Sitebulb has got your back. So if you haven't already, go ahead and go to site sitebulb.com. And download the tool, you get a 14 day free trial, and put Sitebulb to the test. It's a tool that I rely on regularly. And I think you will too. Just give it a shot. It's sitebulb.com. Thanks again, Sitebulb for sponsoring this episode. And let's jump into this month's episode with Nick Jordan. Nick Jordan  Hey, Nick, super excited to be here and share. You know, what I've learned growing. My career is is SEO consultant. And I'm really hoping your audience can walk away with some actionable tactical things I can start implementing tomorrow. Nick LeRoy  Yeah, I think this is going to be a very exciting conversation here. Jumping straight in there. For those that aren't familiar with you. Can you give us a little bit of an introduction? Yeah. What's your name? Who you are? What are you up to these days? Nick Jordan  Yeah, for sure. My name is Nick Jordan, I started an SEO agency called content distribution.com. But in the beginning was just me. Three, four years later, I've launched a couple of SEO products workout.com and cluster AI, I grew my agency from one to 45 writers and editors, we published more than 10,000 pages. And we took a project from zero to 1.5 million organics a month, enabling them to raise at a $210 million valuation. But I didn't, I didn't end up there, I was asked to consult just by myself, you know, in the beginning. Nick LeRoy  And that's why I was so excited to have you on the show, it just kind of shows that, you know, freelancing can potentially be a starting point, and bringing it to where you are today. And it can be a career all on its own. And as some people know, it can also be, you know, just an additional opportunity on top of the nine to five. So I think with that, Nick, I'd love to hear from you. Like, where did you start with your SEO career? Like, you know, can you just go a little bit of a background? Nick Jordan  Yeah, you know, I would say it's it's a non traditional career, but maybe it's not so much. So actually had a whole career outside of SEO, I got into SEO, only about five or six years ago. Before that I was a I was a sales guy. And I'm from Seattle. If you look me up on social, whether it's LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook, Nick from Seattle, is is my handle. Nick LeRoy  Hopefully you don't move anytime soon, right? Nick Jordan  The AI to AI future proofed it. So I could be Nick from Seattle and Europe. I could be Nick from Seattle, in Asia, from Seattle and Miami. Nick LeRoy  I like it. So walk us through what was the first job that you got that was relevant to SEO, I know you had said you kind of started in a sales position, which I suspect gave you quite a benefit to be able to quote unquote, sell yourself and your SEO services, but walk us through a little bit. What that was like, Yeah, that's Nick Jordan  a that's very true. So being from Seattle, it doesn't matter what you do, you'll end up in tech. And so that's what happened to me is I spent 15 years or 10 years, something like that building. You know, building early stage SaaS companies, sometimes for myself, sometimes for other people. And I joined this organization, we grew to 200 employees and for years bootstrapped. And I worked at incredible scale with companies like Rackspace and GoDaddy. And I looked at my skill set, and I realized I had built an enterprise business development skill set. And as someone who wants to be an entrepreneur, I realized, well, it's not a great skill set to have because I can't build enterprise anything, can't build an enterprise product can't build enterprise support team can build an enterprise legal team. And so I was like, Man, I Gotta learn this marketing stuff, it's gonna better service me and kind of the goals and aspirations, I have to travel the world. I'm currently in Europe, where I've been living for the last couple years. And as a sales guy, you gotta live on timezone, your value stops when you, you know, hang up the phone and log off for the day. So I was like, I gotta learn marketing. And it's going to be SEO. And I, I quit my super cushy, high status tech job making 100,000 a year to slang a local SEO services for a local SEO agency that my buddy was running for a bit of a wage, because I knew that in order to sell SEO, it's a consultative sale, you have to know what you're talking about, in order to know what you're talking about, I had to learn it. So I was like, I'm gonna sell it. But that's going to drive the learning. And that's under what ultimately what ended up happening. Nick LeRoy  That's crazy. So was it literally just kind of like overnight, like you put in your notice making this cushy as you had said, $100,000 salary, and now you're, you know, bucks an hour or whatever it happens to be. Was it literally that that much of Nick Jordan  it? So I ended up burning out after four years. And so I spent six months laying on a beach. And then I went into the SEO agency talking to my buddy, I was like, I was like, Man, I'm like four months in I'm pretty bored at this point. I like I need to do something like I think it's going to be SEO like let's do it. Nick LeRoy  Well, yeah, no, that's, that's pretty cool. I've always had a lot of respect for people that have SEO as kind of a second career. You know, Marie Haynes is one individual that I always talk to you and she was a vet in a previous life and then switched? Wow, Nick Jordan  I had no idea. Yeah. Nick LeRoy  Yeah, it's really cool. Whereas like myself, you know, I had graduated from college and kind of fell into an SEO role. You know, and this was, before SEO had even been defined, you know, shoot, it's almost 15 years ago at this point. But it's just exciting to hear what everybody's stories are. Nick Jordan  You know, it wasn't from a lack of trying actually tried to get into SEO a couple times earlier in my career, and I just never saw enough results to stick with it. And it didn't really click until the third time that I tried to get into it, which is when I was working for an SEO agency, and it was so much easier, you know, being able to ask my co workers, hey, how does this all work? Instead of trying to figure it out by myself? Nick LeRoy  Definitely. So you, you quit this cushy job again, as you had said, you got a minimum wage paying local SEO, there's obviously a gap here. And we'll talk a bit more about the freelancing work that you had done. But can you walk us through a little bit more what what's kind of the in between, you know, from now running your own company to you know, the guy who kind of walks in and says, I'm gonna be an SEO today? Nick Jordan  Yeah, so let's go problem. Let's go from making minimum wage selling SEO to kind of my SEO freelancing career. So I like I, in order to like, learn stuff, you have to do it, you can't just read about it. And so, you know, when I looked at the projects the agency was working on they're all pretty, you know, I would say, boring or unambitious. But they're all local service businesses with $1,000 a month budgets, and I just wasn't, I just wasn't interested in any of the things that they were doing. And so I was like, I'm gonna take control the blog, the agency blog, and I'm gonna grow that. And that's how I'm gonna learn SEO. And I ended up growing it to 100,000 Organics a month from about 100 pages of content. Some of the keywords that we rank for were pretty funny. We outranked Instagram for Instagram support, that article received 10s of 1000s of visitors a month. We did the same with Shopify, except we were right under Shopify, for Shopify support. Didn't make any money from it, but kind of informed, like my philosophy and approach to SEO today. Nick LeRoy  Actually rank and drive tra

    51 min

  5. 08/12/2022

    Sara Taher: How I Balance Freelance Work W/ My 9-5 Job

    Get notified when any new episodes of TheSEOFreelancer podcast go live Introducing Sara Taher Sara has been doing SEO for 8+ years. She started out by building an online magazine that she built from scratch to over 90k sessions and getting local media attention. Her interest in entrepreneurship only grew from there. Sara was excepted into Ycombinator and further doubled down in her SEO career in both in-house and agency roles (and freelance projects). Sara’s Resource Recommendations * Listen to The SEO Freelancer podcast * Find smart people to network with - both in-person and online (LinkedIn is great) * Build a small group that you can trust and meet with regularly. this can end up being your best source of referrals and or simply run ideas past them. How to connect with Sara Taher online Sara’s official website Connect with Sara on LinkedIn Connect with Sara on Twitter This Months Sponsor: SEOChatter.com Do you want to jump into SEO freelancing?But not sure if you’re good enough to make it work?At SEOChatter.com you can get the expert training you need to succeed for free.SEO Chatter is one of the fastest-growing sites in our industry that teaches every aspect of SEO. You'll find hundreds of free guides on keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, and more to help you maximize any website's rankings and traffic.Visit SEOChatter.com to see it for yourself. And click the subscribe button to get your free SEO training gift. If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com Podcast Transcription Nick LeRoy  welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. My name is Nick Leroy, and I am your host. And today I'm very excited to have Sarah ta her with me. She's going to be talking a bit about what it's like to do freelancing on the side in addition to a nine to five SEO job. Before we jump into this month's episode, I want to do a quick shout out to this month's sponsor SeoChatter.com. Do you want to jump into SEO freelancing, but not sure you're good enough to make it work? At Seo chatter.com You can get the expert training you need to succeed for free. SEO Chatter is one of the fastest growing sites in our industry that teaches every aspect of SEO. You'll find hundreds of free guides on keyword research on page optimization, link building, and more to help you maximize your website's rankings and traffic. Visit Seo chatter.com to see for yourself and click subscribe button to get your free SEO Training gift. Got Seo chatter.com today. Thank you again to this month's sponsor, SEO chatter. Now let's jump into this month's episode. Thank you, Sarah, for joining us today. Sara Taher  Thank you for having me today. Here, Nick. Nick LeRoy  Yes, absolutely. So for those that aren't familiar with you, are you willing to share a little bit about yourself? Obviously, we know your name. We know you're in SEO, but give us a little background about your who is Sarah? Sara Taher  Okay, so I've been doing SEO for eight years now. I stumbled upon it accidentally, I launched an online magazine, I was managing a team of editors and we were creating great content. And it was like okay, so how do we get more people to read it. That's where I started to learn and you know, take boot camps and so on. And within a year, I took it from zero to 90,000 visitors per month. And a lot of things happened as well. Like the it became popular in my community. The I was interviewed by the local radio, the biggest it was an Arabic so the biggest one of the biggest Arab Arabic content portals starting to start to repost our content on the website, which was like really, really cool back then. Some of the people who contributed to the website, were invited to TED talks, for example, again in so it was like, pretty cool, right? I was like, wow, that's really fun. And then that wasn't Egypt, I moved to Dubai. I was, I was in love with SEO. But I was also interested in entrepreneurship and startups. And when I say startups, I mean, like, technical startups with an innovative component. So again, like I launched a tech startup, I was managing a team of developers in Ukraine, and I was able to take it to grow it to a, as a, in a seed stage startup, very reasonably with SEO. I was doing basically everything else other than development. So it was like a lot. And I was able to get accepted to Y Combinator, which is like the world's best startup accelerator. They had an online startup school launched that year. So it was like, wow, that's my chance. And I got into it. And I started, it started to grow, really. But I ran out of funds, and I wasn't able to raise funds, and I was too shy to ask people to pay for the service. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that was that. So I moved from that I had a lot of SEO experience in my pocket. So I, I loved it. So I moved into an in house role in Dubai, it was the biggest travel agents in the Middle East. It's like Expedia, which was pretty cool for me to get into that. And I to this day, I am so grateful for that experience. I had a lot of great managers that helped me grow there and understand a lot of things and dynamics, how SEO sits with other and works with other teams and so on. As well as being able to connect with enough developers and understands a lot of technical stuff that were not commonly talked about back then, like programmatic pages, for example, right? So I moved from I moved to Canada. I freelanced a bit and then I started to work at an agency and then in house and then I moved back to agency, which is where I am today. Nick LeRoy  So that's, that's a lot of experience. Beginning and I'll just say a comparison. You know, here you are building a website that is driving what do you say 90,000 visits when you? Yeah, my first website outside of leroy.com was was best holistic dog food.net. And I didn't make a single penny off of it. So it just shows how we all start from somewhere but some of us have a little bit more success than others. So Sara Taher  maybe I was lucky. Maybe I was just lucky. You know? Nick LeRoy  There is no luck. Hard work is always valuable. I think I just chased the money, whereas you chased a passion. Sara Taher  Yeah. I think, literally, I had a problem monetizing anything. I, I would, I think, and that was a part of a struggle in my freelancing journey. So back when I was working in house in my first role, I also freelanced and worked part time within a local SEO agency there. And that was good for me, because I didn't have to deal directly with the clients and ask them for money. Like this is a skill I had to grow into literally. Nick LeRoy  Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, that consulting aspect of it is such a unique skill set. I mean, learning SEO is hard enough. You know, there's a lot of things that are constantly changing, as you myself, and everybody on this podcast already knows. But the people element of it the communication, I think, truly is one of the components that turns us from being a good SEO to a great SEO. But if you don't, let's jump a little bit. So you've covered a little bit about your first job. So do you want to talk just a little bit more about how did you and we heard about your past, but how did you get this job? Did you apply kind of with the experience sharing, you know, the success you had with the site? Yeah, how long were you there for? And then everybody's favorite question, if you don't mind sharing what you were earning at the time. Sara Taher  Okay, so I was able to get the job because of what I've done, you know, in my startup, and previously in my, the magazine write it, it was like really differentiated me a lot, compared to other candidates who just a lot of them with started in SEO, they were in the role that somehow, you know, doing social media and some SEO was, so it was differentiate me when I applied. I stayed there for a year before moving to Canada, and I was earning so in UAE money, it's 10k, which is, it was it was good back then. That was okay. For a junior position. Sure. Yeah. 10k would be like, I think back then it was around three U. K, USD, per month, Nick LeRoy  per month. All right. Yeah, we could certainly live off of that. You know, I know, we've been talking about various guests. And it's interesting when it has come down from everything from making. You know, I think Christina was saying that she was making the Aquila like 500 bucks a month to, you know, we have people like Steve Toth or you know, making, you know, 40 grand a month. Yeah, it just all over the place. Sara Taher  I think I was lucky because in Dubai people, at least back then when I was there, people tend to have bigger salaries, then, you know, because that's people go to Gulf countries to make savings. So that's probably why it was like that. But when I was freelancing for the agency there, I was getting like for 20 hours per week. So total 80 hours per month, I was getting paid around 500 or $600 per month for that work. So Nick LeRoy  and that's a very good transition. So naturally, one of the reasons I was very interested in having Sara on the podcast is she still has a nine to five job. But she freelances In addition, a lot of my guests previously have been freelance SEOs for a couple of years now are just kind of starting out on the journey, but they're 100% dedicated to it. And I think the opportunity to discuss how freelance can continue to augment our our earnings and learning opportunities is super important. So if you don't mind, Sara, will you share with us a little bit? What encouraged you to freelance in addition to you know, that first job I think you're saying it sounds like you were making some decent money at the time? Was it strictly money? Was it learning, I'd love to hear a little bit more. Sara Taher  I wanted to learn as much and do as much as I can. And I wanted to see how other peopl

    55 min

  6. 02/11/2022

    Kristine Schachinger: My freelance client SUED ME!?

    Get notified when any new episodes of TheSEOFreelancer podcast go live Introducing Kristine Schachinger Kristine Schachinger is a veteran of the SEO industry that has talked at numerous conferences and written for many of the top industry websites. In today’s podcast episode, Kristine and I talk about her career starting in front-end dev/design and transitioning into SEO. Kristine further shares a story where her freelance client took her to the district court attempting to sue her for $10,000.00. You’ll have to listen to the full episode to hear what happened! Kristine’s Resource Recommendations * find smart people to network with - ask questions and seek advice! How to connect with Kristine Schachinger online Connect with Kristine on LinkedIn Connect with Kristine on Twitter This Months Sponsor: SEOChatter.com Do you want to jump into SEO freelancing?But not sure if you’re good enough to make it work?At SEOChatter.com you can get the expert training you need to succeed for free.SEO Chatter is one of the fastest-growing sites in our industry that teaches every aspect of SEO. You'll find hundreds of free guides on keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, and more to help you maximize any website's rankings and traffic.Visit SEOChatter.com to see it for yourself. And click the subscribe button to get your free SEO training gift. If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com Podcast Transcription Nick LeRoy  00:14 welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. I'm your host, Nick LeRoy. Today I sit down and talk with Kristine check injure to discuss her freelance SEO journey, as well as a unique situation she was in, in which one of her freelance clients had attempted to sue her for $10,000. She'll discuss this in more detail as well as what her actual out of pocket expenses were at the end. Before we jump into this conversation, let's have a quick note from our sponsor, Seo chatter.com. Do you want to jump into SEO freelancing, but not sure you're good enough to make it work? At Seo chatter.com You can get the extra training you need to succeed for free. SEO Chatter is one of the fastest growing sites in our industry that teaches every aspect of SEO, you'll find hundreds of free guides on keyword research on page optimization, link building, and more to help you maximize your website's rankings and traffic. Visit Seo chatter.com to see for yourself and click subscribe button to get your free SEO Training gift. Go to SEO chatter.com today. Thanks again to our sponsor, Seo chatter.com. And now let's jump into this month's conversation. Hey, Kristine, thanks again for joining me today. Thank you for having me. So for those that don't know, Kristine, she has been in the SEO industry what feels like forever, you know, probably before I had joined, and I've been around forever, as well. But she's spoken at most, if not all of the large conferences, any conferences that she hasn't spoken for, she's probably read articles that you've read. And you know, she's definitely a fan favorite on Twitter and the rest of the social media. So, again, thanks for joining. And Kristine would love for you to just give a quick introduction on top of what I had just shared. Kristine Schachinger  02:10 Sure, that was very nice. I didn't know I was a Twitter fan favorite. I started longer than I care to remember actually, as a front end designer developer, before I got into SEO, and I was working for a company in Vegas, and I was bored with my skill set. So I had read about this SEO thing is like 2004 2005. And we were spending two or 3 million a year on Google clicks for you know, ads, and we weren't doing anything with SEO. So I asked my boss if I could do it. And she said, sure. But this new agency we've been using is doing it right now. But they've made some sort of error. If you can figure out the error, I'll let you do it. And I figured out the error. And so she let me do it. So that's how I got into SEO. So and then I went word SEO work all the skill sets until about 2008. Nine when I went out on my own. So and then I still did front end development and design and stuff too. But WordPress kind of killed anyone wanting to pay me to code their website. So so I just went full, almost full time SEO, I still do some of the other things in small amounts, you know, for small clients, but it's primarily us you. Nick LeRoy  03:24 Well, and that's awesome. So you had mentioned previously working for a company and kind of taking on the SEO before then. So was it literally one company one role that included SEO? And then you went out to freelance or did you have other like full time SEO roles in between? Kristine Schachinger  03:41 You know what, before I went out to freelance, I didn't start freelancing as an SEO. So I started freelancing as a as just whatever projects that my skill set and they paid me for, like my first recoating, the front end of superpages.com. So I recoated their HTML from like, 50,000 lines to like 2000 lines, and yeah, so that was like my first freelance project. So but I think as a freelancer, often if you're a generalist, it's good because you can take on projects based on the market. You know, so at the, at the time, SEO wasn't something that a lot of companies were paying people to do. And I wasn't like a rock star, you know, like some of the guys like Bowser and, you know, Sugar Ray who do like affiliate marketing and like Blackhat and stuff, it was just like, hey, I do this for you. But I can also do SEO and they're like, cool, so. So I was actually so I was actually working at a company when I went freelance. So I started in adding SEO as a skill set in 2004 2005. And I cut my teeth on the Vegas, hospitality industry. So it was a pretty aggressive place to start, which was good. So I learned a lot. But then I became the director or where it was a startup so I had like, multiple titles. But for the bill Have a startup's website. So she included everything from SEO to accessibility to, you know, proper development requirements, things like that. And then that environment burnt me out, because I was working 100 hours a week, like sleeping in my chair and getting up at 6am. I'm starting to work again at the office. Like, that's crazy. It was. So So I had gotten the superpages dot job. And they, when they went to pay me, sorry, I'm probably elaborating too much here. But just real quick, so and then when to pay me. I quoted like 70 an hour, and they're like, the person I knew the person there who wanted to premium for it. And he's like, they're never hire you at that. And I'm like, what that's like the standard rate for, you know, a contract, you get a company that goes, No, it's too cheap. I'll trust you put a one in front of that. And I'm like, what? A one, right? Why would you charge? Why? Nick LeRoy  05:50 hourly rate? No way? Kristine Schachinger  05:54 No, it's normal, right. But back then I was like, what? So I did. And we settled around 135 an hour, and my boss was burnt out from that company. And he was not pleasant to work for anymore. And he was just really ugly one day and, and I really liked the guy, but it was just the environment was just killing me. So I wrote my mentor and SEO and I said, Hey, should I jump ship? And they're like, I can't tell you what to do. But you have that 135 hour job right now. So it'd be really good time to do it. So I just jumped. So Nick LeRoy  06:22 I love it. So at that point, was it was that jumping to was that when you start doing that additional freelance work? Or were you just taking an hourly gig, but with the expectation that you're working 40 hours for that? No, I, Kristine Schachinger  06:35 I took it to jump. Yeah, I took the gig. And then I knew that would give me like six months of money I put in the bank, because living in Vegas at the time was pretty inexpensive. And, and so I could use that to launch I was not one who ever thought they would do consulting. Sure, or freelance, I thought I'd always work for a company. But when I had that opportunity, I was like, you know, maybe we should try this for a little while. Nick LeRoy  07:00 It's fine that you say that because little quick story about myself when I was in college, I remember they had just opened up like a new entrepreneurship like degree that you could get within the business school. And I remember walking by and like sticking my head in and just being like, these guys that do fusses like, we're gonna start a company and do this, I'm gonna go work for some company for 30 years and cash my check. So the fact that turned around, and now I'm a pretty big proponent of working by yourself. Those are probably the classes that I should have been in, who knows what they were learning or what value they were, it's gonna be kind of like taking SEO courses in college, it's only going to add so much value. A tangent there, but just very appropriate, given what you're saying. But Christina, you know, so you've had this, all these experiences, you truly were a Jill of all trades, you know, you had been able to do everything from the coding to SEO when it first started. But can you tell us, you know, what precautions did you take once you were making that decision to become a consultant? Or freelance? And were you saving in advance for that? Or did you kind of just jump into it and go crazy. Kristine Schachinger  08:16 Contrary to my contradictory to my entire personality, I just jumped into it and tried to swim. So I wouldn't advise do I go defensive? Nick LeRoy  08:27 On my approach, I was I mean, I ended up getting canned. And that's why I had to do it on my own. But I've been very defensive and building up those savings blocks. So as I keep talking to more and more people, I love hearing just the guts that these people have to choose, you know, people sometimes will say, Nick, I c

    51 min

  7. 05/10/2022

    Mike Essex: I left SEO for 7 Years Only To Return Stronger (and freelance!)

    Get notified when new episodes of TheSEOFreelancer podcast go live Introducing Mike Essex Mike Essex is the owner of Devise Marketing offering both SEO and PPC services to his clients. In today’s podcast, Mike and I talk about his career in the digital marketing space and how he struggled to see a long-term career in SEO/PPC transitioning to a more traditional marketing role. Spoiler: he came back to the digital world! We further discuss whether individuals can become proficient across multiple digital channels or if it’s best to be laser-focused on one skill set. You might just be surprised as to the direction this conversation goes! Last but not least, Mike and I talk about mental health and burnout. It’s a topic that I wrote briefly about and we both feel strongly about. Mike’s Resource Recommendations * Marketing Meetup * Ad contrarian * Million Dollar Consultant How to connect with Mike Essex Mike’s personal website mikeessex.com Mike’s client management course. Connect with Mike on LinkedIn Connect with Mike on Twitter This Months Sponsor: SEORadar.com We all know how many clients end up making changes that are bad for SEO without them talking to SEO pros first.   SEORadar puts you back in control of your client’s issues. Whether it’s weird rendering issues that crop up or a content editor that changes titles that have been optimized for Google, SEORadar’s alerts will help you stay on top of what’s changing. Get alerts via Slack, Email, or text message. And when that bad alert hits, you’ll have full HTML archives and screenshots to easily revert quickly. Get Started Today with SEORadar at seoradar.com.   If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com Podcast Transcription Nick LeRoy  00:14 welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. I'm your host, Nick Leroy. This month I sit down with Mike SX to talk about his career in SEO, how he started. He took a seven year break, and then he has returned. So specifically, we'll talk about why he took the break. What it was that kind of sparked the interest in coming back to the digital world, and recommendations he has for other people in similar positions. Before we jump into this month's conversation with Mike, let's hear a quick word from our sponsor, Seo radar.com. We all know how many clients end up making changes that are bad for SEO. Without them talking. SEO is first, SEO radar puts you back in control of your clients issues. Whether it's weird rendering issues that crop up or a content editor that changes titles that have been optimized for Google SEO radars alert will help you stay on top of what's changing. get alerts via slack, email or text message. And when that bad alert hits, you'll have full HTML archives and screenshots to easily revert quickly. Get started today with SEO radar at Seo radar.com. Thank you again to our sponsor, and let's jump into this month's episode. Mike Essex  01:29 Hey, Mike, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks, Nick. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Just to start off, do you mind giving us a little bit of a brief introduction? Yeah, who are you like you said, you started in kind of in the SEO world? Do you laugh? Give us just a little bit of background of your career? Yeah, no problem. So I'm currently the founder of device marketing. We're a marketing strategy consultancy, but we also do digital marketing. So SEO, PPC and content marketing, and training as well in digital marketing, but also marketing fundamentals to prior to that I've been a bit of an SEO jack of all trades. I've done technical SEO, link building content marketing, you name it, I've pretty much done it. As well as PPC as well, I was lucky to work for an agency where they let me kind of do whatever I wanted to try, which was really good and kind of helped being a more wide rounded marketer as well. Nick LeRoy  02:24 That's fantastic. It is interesting. And I think a lot of people place a lot of value in being able to experience each of those particular channel, just out of curiosity, before we jump into your, your career, but more what was it that made you kind of double down on SEO given that you've played in some of these other channels as well? Mike Essex  02:45 Yeah, so probably helps if I tell you about one of my first roles, so it was a business project manager for Johnson See, like company, Johnson and Johnson company, rather. And it was your typical Junior role where you get like, 20 different things to do, and you get paid peanuts. And they're like, Okay, Mike, today, we need you to film a video or do graphic design, or write this article, or do a brochure or take minutes in a meeting or whatever, you know. But that was really good for me. I didn't actually mind that. I know people kind of criticize start a roles where they asked you to do 100 things. But for me, it was nice to kind of see, what do I actually like, you know, what have I got an interest in? Which of these things am I never gonna touch again. And I kind of narrowed down on that in terms of like, okay, the web is something I'm really interested in digital marketing is really good. Seo was kind of very early days then. But across sort of my next agency roles. I sort of learned it through Moz, and kind of really got interested in it. Yeah, I just kind of love this idea of like, beating the system and beating Google. And you don't really get that in a lot of other jobs and the community so nice as well, you know, it was really good to work in a community where everyone's kind of trying to level up everyone else's skills and share that knowledge. So yeah, I just really loved working in SEO. At that time in my career. Nick LeRoy  04:07 Yeah, the community is by far one of the best aspects of SEO. And it's interesting the amount of people that I've talked to that are in SEO, and maybe even just like an in house individual contributor that isn't active on Twitter or isn't actively following people on LinkedIn or going to any of the meetups. And I always just continue to push them because I think there's such an opportunity to learn from smart people. And unlike some potential other careers, I would say most SEOs are willing to share there's not really a quote unquote, secret sauce. So I do 100% What I also agree with you to as you had said that there is a huge benefit to starting out in kind of a jack of all trades position, and I personally would agree with you. My first job while I always call the Kevin SEO job was officially a little bit of Everything web related as well. So I did do a little bit of coding. And when I say that it's like HTML, a little bit of PPC, and probably 92%. Seo, I think that's what really just kind of, you know, got me excited, then it led me to my career today. But I will agree with you. I think being able to touch a little bit of everything early in your career is amazing. I think once you maybe get a year or two into it, then you're better off specializing. Would you agree? Mike Essex  05:30 Yeah, I would agree with that. And I'd sort of say in my second job role, I maybe spent too long in a company where I was still in the sort of learning what doesn't doesn't work phase. I was like, super worried about having a bad CV to the point where I would stay in roles for like, years and years and years, when you know what, I think now I'm at the point where I'm like, if I stop learning, I'm gonna quit. Like, if I'm not trying new things I'm gonna go. And yeah, definitely, in the early roles, I was just doing the same tasks day in and day out, but not really getting better at them, and not really getting any more enjoyment out of them. So yeah, I think it was that time where it was like, Okay, I need to move on to something else. Nick LeRoy  06:09 Right. And I can speak only for myself. But I think when you first start out, at least for me, there's a certain amount of excitement of, you know, being an air quota here being a big boy, and you know, getting a paycheck, and kind of checking the box of like, I'm working. And then as you alluded to, I think with a little extra time, then it turns into, ooh, this is a little Monday. And this is a little boring. You know, I had days where I was just waiting for that clock to hit for four o'clock so that I could go home. But enough about kind of my experience, going back to your junior, so this, this junior rule that you first explained, Was that your first digital career spot? Or where did you start out? Mike Essex  06:52 So I had a couple of personal projects that were quite fun. So when I was 13, I ran a video game website called gamers wave.com. And never got paid for, but I got a lot of games sent for free. And it was kind of just this thing I just did for the love of it. And yeah, it was just great just to I mean, it taught me a lot about kind of speaking to PR companies and communicating with them writing for the web. Seo was not really part of it back then. Definitely a lot of things I do differently. If I did it now. Had a team of other writers as well and paid them in games. Nick LeRoy  07:29 For 13 years old. Mike Essex  07:31 Yeah, get back from school, see what game would come in the post, try it out, write a review. Yeah, that was good luck. Good luck. Did that for a few years, went to university and we didn't even have Wi Fi in the student dorms. So it was like, Well, I can't carry on with this. I'll stop it, which was a shame. Nick LeRoy  07:47 But once I got a quick question, because I had kind of dabbled in building sites when I was young, too. Curious what your technology stack was like, what were you using to build that website? Mike Essex  08:00 Front Page Pro and FTP surfer? Nick LeRoy  08:04 Oh, so you're even more advanced than I was. I was just using like Angel Fire and literally a blank page. Okay, I had to ask because I knew you're gonna have an interesting re

    39 min

  8. 06/09/2022

    Kristina Azarenko: What comes next after a freelance SEO career?

    Introducing Kristina Azarenko Kristina Azarenko is a former freelance SEO turned full-time course creator and trainer. In today’s podcast, Kristina and I talk about her career journey starting as a junior SEO making $250 per month in Belarus to moving to Canada and going out on her own freelance. Also, do you love or hate the term “freelancer?” Kristina and I have a fantastic conversation about the perceived value when referring to yourself as a “freelancer” vs “consultant.” Let us know in the comments below which side you are on! Kristina’s Resource Recommendations * The win without pitching manifesto (book) * ditching hourly podcast * Follow SEO Consultant Aleyda Solis How to connect with Kristina Azarenko Kristina’s consulting site Marketing Syrup Check out Kristina’s courses TechSEO.pro and SEOChallenge.co Connect with Kristina on LinkedIn Connect with Kristina on Twitter This Months Sponsor: SEORadar.com We all know how many clients end up making changes that are bad for SEO without them talking to SEO pros first.   SEORadar puts you back in control of your client’s issues. Whether it’s weird rendering issues that crop up or a content editor that changes titles that have been optimized for Google, SEORadar’s alerts will help you stay on top of what’s changing. Get alerts via Slack, Email, or text message. And when that bad alert hits, you’ll have full HTML archives and screenshots to easily revert quickly. Get Started Today with SEORadar at seoradar.com.   If you are a freelancer interested in joining me on a future episode of The SEO Freelancer podcast Please email me directly at nick@nickleroy.com Podcast Transcription Nick LeRoy  00:12 Welcome to the SEO Freelancer podcast. I'm your host, Nick LeRoy. This month I talk with Kristina Azarenko to discover her journey getting into SEO, moving into freelance SEO, and then making an additional move to becoming a full-time content creator. Before we jump into this month's interview, let's do a quick word from our sponsor, Seo radar.com. We all know how many clients end up making changes that are bad for SEO. Without them talking. SEO is first, SEO radar puts you back in control of your client’s issues. Whether it's weird rendering issues that crop up or a content editor that changes titles that have been optimized for Google SEO radars alert will help you stay on top of what's changing. get alerts via slack email or text message. And when that bad alert hits, you'll have full HTML archives and screenshots to easily revert quickly. Get started today with SEO radar at Seo radar.com. Thank you again to our sponsor, and let's jump into this month's episode. Thank you so much for joining us today, Kristina. Kristina Azarenko Hey, everyone, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very excited to be here. Absolutely. Nick LeRoy  So people may not know Kristina, and I have our kind of that definition of “having a relationship friendship online”. You know, I think we've been following each other for Twitter for quite a while. I know she's been a subscriber to the SEO for lunch. You're offline. We were kind of joking about how I attempted to do some early virtual happy hours when COVID was still thing with the SEO for lunch crew. And, you know, I think that was one of the last times Kristina and I had kind of talked Yeah, online. You know, mine is just kind of our offline, or sorry, you know, Twitter conversations. But again, Kristina, so great to have you on, you know, thank you for your time. Kristina Azarenko  02:05 Yeah, sure. Nick LeRoy  02:08 So, Kristina, just to kick us off here. Can you give us an introduction and a brief description of your background? Kristina Azarenko  02:15 Of course, so, um, again, Hey, everyone, in case you missed the beginning. I'm Kristina, Azarenko. And I guess I used to, I used to introduce myself, I'm an SEO consultant, and you'll learn why I'm confused now. But I see, I'd say that the best thing that describes me it would be SEO hero. That's what I happen to know. I've been in SEO for over a decade, and I've been on all different sides. So I was at an agency side, I was working full time in companies, I was a freelancer, a consultant, and now to do AI, course creator, so I transitioned full time, the course creator earlier this year. So I teach people how to do SEO properly, because I really want to upgrade the level of SEOs that are out there. And to help people understand that SEO is not only like keywords or like weighing specialist families, it's so much more, and there is strategy frameworks behind it. So that's my mission plan, oh, Nick LeRoy  03:31 you should just let the cat out of the bag right away in the show. This is one reason why I was very excited to get Kristinaon the show. You know, we talk a lot about individuals who previously had kind of worked a nine to five job maybe came from agency or in house. And now they're enjoying the fruits of their labor as a freelancer. And Kristina and I had talked offline about this is almost a secret graduation, where Freelancer typically is a exchange of your services for a specific hourly rate or even a retainer. So where Kristina is going now is focusing more on I would say it's even more scalable, you know, being able to do training is obviously larger groups of individuals being able to do courses. And it's very, very exciting. So I'm very excited to dig deeper into that. And Kristina, and I also want to have a conversation about the term Freelancer versus consultant. Oh, yeah. Before we jump into that, I do have another question because I know we're gonna have fun with that. And I'll forget to go here, but Chrystia one of people's favorite parts of this podcast is talking about your first SEO job. Can you walk us through, you know, maybe what a couple of those jobs look like? And if you're able to, can you share what some of your starting pay was? Kristina Azarenko  04:49 Yeah, so, um, well, my first SEO job, so okay, I started in SEO. Accidentally. I think like, almost all SEO is good for me. I was like calling. I was working as a debt collector as at a clock factory. And I was not beating people. It was not like that I was just calling remind them. Don't be afraid of me. So but I knew that there was something more that I need to be something more I had no idea what it was going to do. I just like tweet from the university because I didn't like it. So I was like, Okay, what's next? And then one day, I accidentally so of course, as your course, I have no idea what SEO was at that time. I have no, I had no idea what the website was like I would was not tech savvy at all. So if you ask me, why did you decide to join the course? The answer will be I have no idea. So I can just sign up I think I paid to my my two monthly salaries for the course or something. It was crazy. And I loved it from the very first lesson. I was obsessed about it. I was like, I was obsessed. I was reading about everything, especially for technical SEO, because I think that's how I green things. So and then I landed a job as a junior SEO at an agency. It was like a junior engineer position. And they were showing me some video. It was more more about links. I think almost all SEO was started like years ago, they have contributed to some spam online. Okay. Um, so yeah, for me, it was like, the router links, like something, something like that. So Nick LeRoy  06:46 for one second, did you have an easy in Article account? Kristina Azarenko  06:50 Oh, Cory. Nick LeRoy  06:54 I was just showing the other day that it's, it's something that I intentionally leave up because it's, it's embarrassing, and it tells you exactly what you were doing at the time. But okay, I will not interrupt you anymore. But I knew you were gonna have one. Kristina Azarenko  07:09 Yeah, of course, it was. So it was so fun for me still. So like, I was like learning all these things. And within, I think three months, I realized that I kind of knew more than people working there for, for for longer than me. And they quickly started to be like, non official team leads. And it was teaching people. And I was I remember one thing that there were articles, one of the websites like so people would write articles, and then I would need to pause those articles everywhere. Right, exactly. To your point. And that was like sitting and thinking, well, it doesn't seem right to me. I didn't know why. Because at that time was just starting, but it was like, well, that doesn't seem right. Something's wrong. I think that SEO should be something more. But yeah, it lasted for a year. Within this year, I learned a lot, mostly because it was easy to learn. If I had free time, it was Google learning, Google Analytics, and all this. All this interesting things. And I remember one day, I realized that, Oh, my God, that's truly what I want to do is what I needed to like I provided recommendations for duplicate content issues, and we needed to implement canonical tags. So I was like, I got the message that they were implemented. I was like, okay, okay, checking in and checking in all the time. And at that time, I did not even have access to Google Search Console or that time, it was my Webmaster Tools. Right. So yeah, and I remember was like, wow, but it's not working. It's still Google is not picking it up. And then I looked at the source code, and they realized that instead of h ref, in the link in the canonical tag, they put h fair so someone was just typing at this time. So that thing showed me that there can be one minor thing that can go wrong. Well now it's so much easier with all the tools and even Google Search Console but at that time, I was like wow, I want to be an investigator I want to do this so we're gonna go with talking about Nick LeRoy  09:26 you know, and I'm gonna continue to do this because Steven, but do you remember utilizing like the Yahoo Site Explorer for looking at backlin

    48 min
See All (13)

About

Each month Nick LeRoy interviews a freelance consultant about their experience generating over six figures in annual income. seofreelancer.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Nick LeRoy
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2023
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Nick LeRoy
  • Show Website
    The SEO Freelancer