Here's an interesting one...

[MazY]

A two part question for those that feel comfortable answering it:

SEO - How did you get into it and what do you personally get out of it?

I'll start by saying that it actually stemmed from my web design interests and my perpetual quest for trying to beat logic. It seemed a natural progression for me to add an extra value service to my web design business and so researched and researched the SEs until I went blue in the face, and then some...

As for what I get out of it - I have to say that it is the out and out challenge of it. I love the "SE vs. me" aspect of it. Even when the results are desperately bad (and I don't believe anyone that says that they have never had dire results in their time) you learn something that makes you that little bit better the next time around.

[ihelpyou]

hmmmm,

I started about 4 yrs ago after being connected for about 1 year. After first connecting the engines were fascinating to me as I did alot of searching back then. I use to wonder how the top sites got where they were and started looking at their code.

The second year I built my first site but for the life of me, could never get ranked anywhere. During this time I would constantly do searches on Infoseek and Alta and look at code. This is when I started tweaking my own code.

After a few short months, I found my site getting noticed. I had a few acquiantences around that I had met in chat rooms. (yes, I did the chat thing waaay back when) Anyway, I would give them new code to change on their site to see if it would help them. It did.

I did that for about 1 year for others, for free. About 2 years ago I switched around my entire site and started charging sites to get ranked. ........ so the story goes.

Why?

My background has revolved around dealing with the public. (real life) as I always was a salesman and had a knack for good repoire with people. Good customer service and all.

Get that good feeling when a report is sent off and a client replies back with WOW. .... "Looks real good Doug"

That is great MazY that you do web design and also SEO. Not many designers can do that.

I know I could not do both.

[MazY]

LOL Already that tells me something.

You essentially do it because you are a people person,whilst I do to sate my appetite for challenge. (Much more selfish reasons on my part.)

With regards to my web design aspect, the last client went straight in to the top five on the major engines. That seems to appeal to the clients that I speak to - the perceived saving in not having to pay for two different companies to do different things. Works for me. Though I have to say, if I really step back, I can blame everything on my Dad. I was an out 'n' out computer addict as a child and my Dad spotted this. We grew up in a pub when the space invader tables were very popular and my time would be spent on getting the high scores, much to my Dad's amusement. I had a totally misspent youth for sure!

Methinks this may be an interesting thread...

[MazY]

Thinking about it, might it be a good idea to have a "This is me" forum where those that want to can sort of introduce themselves with a short bio?

Kinda lets everyone know who who everyone is?

[ihelpyou]

Yep. This is the thread where they can let us know who they are!

We can always keep bumping it up when the thread slides down a ways......

Okay people. Please tell us. :)

[MazY]

Well, where does one start when selling oneself to a bunch of total strangers? I could tell you how I was raised by a herd of mountain goats in the Malaysian mountains but I fear that would be a small lie written to garner a few "ooohs" and "aaaahs", so I shall resist...

Born in Dijon, France (Yes, the mustard place.) I moved to the UK many, many moons ago.

As mentioned previously, I was an out and out computer junkie as a child and this evolved and evolved and evolved.

As you may detect from some of my posts, I adore writing. This does not neccessarily mean that I am good at it but I enjoy it regardless. I actually wish I had pursued writing over computers but there you go. To read one of my latest valiant efforts, head over to Award Sites (http://www.awardsites.com/articles/list.htm) and read the article "Macromedia Flash - A Loaded Gun in Dangerous Hands" from the "Site Development" section. I don't promise a particluarly interesting read but rather me ranting on about the state of Flash technology today.

Anyway, I digress. A mere baby-faced 32, I live with my partner in crime, Jan who is the organiser of the two of us. Bless her to bits. I have a wee Daughter named India (Spotting my Buddhist connections yet?)

Almost all hours at the moment are spent on getting my newly reburbished site up to date. It's working slowly but surely. You should find the link to it from the above article. I'm not one for shouting my URL to everyone until I know who everyone is, so forgive me for that.

Personality wise, I am most renowned for my somewhat bizarre and off-the-wall humour and my extreme pedant nature.

Now, I think that is me just about done. Oh yes, if you ever see me lose my cool then you know I am ill! It just never happens. Oh yes, and I study etymology. (No that is not insects!) :D

[ihelpyou]

Great article! .... Nice pic. :cool: Good looking site. :up:

Now we know who MazY is.... :D

[MazY]

LOL What can I say?

Thanks for the kind comments. As for the photo - you can barely make out the prison cell bars can you? :)

[Advisor]

This could be long...you might want to grab a cup of coffee or a beer!

Like Doug, I was into online chatting oh so many moons ago. I felt the need to create a personal web site back then ('94) so that the people I chatted with could learn a little more about me. (This was back in the days of IRC.) I somehow managed to figure out how to create a Web site once I figured out that one was made up of two separate things, the html file with the words, and then separately, the graphics! What a concept!

Not long after I had created my homepage, I also started a parenting IRC channel, #!parentsroom. At the time, there was really no place for parents to chat and I was kinda sick of getting hit on by guys looking for cybersex in the other chat rooms! For awhile, I used to sit in the IRC channel all day by myself, but eventually some others started dropping in on a regular basis. At some point, we decided that we needed a channel website. Since I had already made a web site, I decided I'd do a parentsroom site also. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Well, there's a bit more. The parentsroom site grew to be more than a irc channel site. It became more of a parenting resource. There was ParentsPlace and ParentSoup had also just started, but not much else. Needless to say, the site took a lot of time and energy, but I loved it! Somehow I figured out how to get it real high rankings for "parenting chat" and keyphrases like that. Eventually, I decided to start my own design business and start creating sites for others (I think I told this story in another post here somewhere!). Getting high rankings were always a part of my services, as what was the point of a Web site if no one could find it? Right from the start I always got high rankings. It took a ton of work to study the engines and their results, but man it was a blast!

I eventually found out about discussion lists like I-Sales and started posting there and getting new business from it...lots of it! Finally I realized to differentiate myself from the millions of designers out there (and because I really couldn't keep up with the fancy designs) I decided to strictly specialize in SEO. Smartest decision of my life! With the time and energy to concentrate on that and not have to keep up with the latest design trends, I quickly became known as one of the experts in the field. The discussion lists really helped with that. Being able to write semi-intelligently about what you do, and being helpful and offering people free advice really pays off!

I always placed a heavy emphasis on the writing (text on the page) as it was obvious to me that it was the key to high rankings. My sister used to do the copy for me when I had sites that needed total rewrites. She had written her own site and was doing a pretty good job selling pheromones on it. (It's still around and pretty much running itself at http://www.webwhiz.net/phero ...still gets pretty good rankings in some engines too!)

Eventually my sister got caught up in her own ventures and I decided I'd have to start paying people for their writing! I met a copywriter on another list and taught her how to write with keywords in mind. She ended up having a baby and deciding not work, so that's when I started using Heather for my writing needs. After working together for about a year, we decided to start Rank Write...NOW the rest is really history!

Why do I love what I do? Well, I've discussed this a number of times in Rank Write. It's really the challenge of it all, and the thrill of victory every time those first rankings come in! It's a great feeling. And I've learned a ton about running a business, learning how to deal with clients and stuff. I used to never ever talk on the phone. I was strictly a shy email person. Now, I'm on the phone a lot with clients and potential clients and have learned to be quite the salesman. And speaking at conferences? Ha...no one ever would have believed that I would be doing that just a few short years ago. I swear to you, I was one of the shyest kids growing up! When I was asked to go to Amsterdam just this last January to speak, my parents just couldn't believe it! And when they watched my presentation on the real video player, they could barely believe it was me! (I wasn't thrilled with watching it myself, but by about the 5th time, I started to like it!)

So anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! I think I've already mentioned elsewhere about the hubby and the three kids. In fact, tomorrow on July 31, 2001, it's my 18 year anniversary! Damn, I'm old! And in case you were wondering, my kids aren't babies like my icon shows...brats, yes, but not babies. They are 14, 12 and 8. And no, they're really not brats at all. They're actually very good kids. Got great brains and morals and all that good stuff. They're all quite the computer whizzes too as you can surely imagine! Been playing on the computer since they were born. Those old DOS games were pretty cool!

Enough for now...

Jill

[MazY]

"At the time, there was really no place for parents to chat and I was kinda sick of getting hit on by guys looking for cybersex in the other chat rooms! "


That'll be my Dad. Can't take him anywhere! :D

Public speaking... Ooooh. Frightens me half to death. I have more words at my disposal than many people I know and when writing I can pull them out like there is no tomorrow. However, get me face to face and I'm a bumbling fool! lol

[Advisor]

I'm the same way, I much prefer to write the words! But as long as I'm well prepared and speaking about something I know like the back of my hand (SEO), it's really not all that frightening. THe best ones are the roundtable sessions where you're just answering questions. That's easy. This one we're doing in a few weeks we actually have to prepare for. Now if I could just figure out what I'm gonna say...

J

[MazY]

Originally posted by webwhiz
This one we're doing in a few weeks we actually have to prepare for. Now if I could just figure out what I'm gonna say

The very fact that you are invited has to really speak volumes anyway, I am guessing. Good for you, I say.

Bon chance for the next one.

[Advisor]

:kisses:

Thank you!

J

[Mel]

Hi All:

At the risk of boring our esteemed members I will take up MazYs challenge and introduce myself and how I came to be in the SEO forum.

To begin with I have been more or less constantly involved with computers one way and another since 1960 when I wrote my first program for a Burroughs computer belonging to the City of San Francisco. (This was an unwieldly beast, that took up half of a good sized room, and which you programmed by sticking pins into holes in a rack to make electrical connections. My first very simple program weighed about 500 pounds and took two men and a couple of pushcarts to move to the computer.)

I guess I'm kind of "been there, done that" sort of person who has lived and worked overseas for 36 years now, in more than 12 countries. I have at various times made my living through such diverse endeavors as engineering consultancy, running a Chinese restaurant in Vietnam, skippering a charter yacht, flying skydivers, drilling oilwells, and more recently supplying and installing computerized systems for control of electrical power systems. Truly a Jack of all trades (& master of none).

A few years ago, the Malaysian Government (where I now reside) developed a grand program to push the country into the technological 20th century, and I decided to set up an online US style grocery store to cater for the needs of the thousands of high paid western IT workers who would soon be flooding into the country. This was not an easy task in a country which had very little web infrastructure and less ecommerce infrastructure, but we did get the site up and running after a great deal of effort. The problem was that the thousands of Western IT workers never materialized!

Never fear, the Government was still pushing the IT button, and I realized that I was one of the few here who had developed solutions to the local ecommerce problems and so set up a site to do that for others.

Next problem, To attract people to the site, and so began a two year self education in SEO, which is still on-going.

Through the help of such forums as this I managed to learn a bit about SEO, and when I did, I put it into a site where others could find the information in one place. Setting up that tutorial site resulted in more questions than answers, and so the process continues, me against the Search Engines.

[highman]

Here goes, started working life as a motor mechanic and progressed through the various industry qualifications for 6 years, did a lot of work for race teams (cars and bikes) and loved the logic surrounding problems and devolpment.... it in the challenge

Had a few (way too) brief years travelling the world and generally chilling out, returned to the UK and settled down to the work thing with a local franchised motor and bike dealer and worked my way up within the company. Back in 97 I managed to get the company to invest in a website (shock horror) to which I was assign the task of overseeing, it was during this period my interest in the web and search engines started to grow. We had great success on the web and held top positions across most engines (easy in those fine old days). Our activity on the web resulted in the web devolpment company (who built our site) offering me a job providing SEO for clients, I still work for them but more in a SEO consultancy for software devolpment role......... We are looking forward to this software being released, it should wipe the board......and above all it will be SEO friendly..... keep you posted on that one :)

So basicly coming from a mechanical background slotted very well into the web /SEO, and I hope long may it continue

Mike

[ihelpyou]

Very diversified background there highman! Now, where is that Url of yours?? :D

Although, I believe I know what it is already. ;)

[Hope]

How did I get into this mess we call SEO? Well, it is a long and boring story, but you asked for it.

Back in 1993 my ex-husband came home with a computer. He set it up and handed me a stack of paper and told me to type it up for him. I had never seen a computer before so I had no idea what I was doing. He taught me how to load windows (if you remember back then it was win 3.0). After that I was on my own. By the end of the day I figured out how to use windows and word.

When Win95 came out, the ex brought home a new computer. He called me one day about 2 months later telling me that i needed to go online and find a driver for a modem that was about 4 years old. I had no idea what to do, but I figured I had a good chance of finding it. I logged onto the internet for the first time. I had never ventured out into the web though. I didn't know what was there. After about 20 minutes of searching I found what he wanted. From that point on, it was my job to find the most obscure things for the ex. That is how I learned how to use search engines.

Back in 98 I left the ex. I was finally out on my own. I never worked when we were together, so finding a job was hard. I got a retail job and found out that I couldn't survive on that little money. I moved back in with my parents (don't ever do this if you don't really have to ;) ) I was pretty depressed at the time, but I picked up the newspaper to look for a job.

I found the perfect add for me. "Do you like the internet? Do you know the search engines? Call" Well I called and got the job over the phone. I had no idea what I was doing. I learned how to submit to the search engines the first week. Then I learned about meta tags. Then over the next 3 months I learned everything I could.

I told you it was boring. :D

What do I get out of it? I get a thrill every time I see the number of users grow or another no. 1 ranking.