Heute habe ich einen besonderen Leckerbissen, die Geschichte einer SEO-Agentur aus New York, die in den letzten 2 Jahren enorm gewachsen ist. Ich habe dort mit dem Marketing Verantwortlichen Alhan Keser gesprochen und ihn nach dem „Geheimnis des Erfolgs“ befragt. Viel Spaß beim Entdecken!
Alhan, please introduce yourself.
My name is Alhan Keser, Chief Marketing Officer of Blue Fountain Media. We are a results-driven website design, development and online marketing company in New York City. We’ve been around officially since 2003, and I started my work at the company in 2008, when we were just a handful of people. Today, we’ve grown to over 80 employees.
How did you get into internet marketing?
As is the case with many others in my field, I got into internet marketing because I had projects of my own that I wished to promote and bring attention to. As a video journalism student in college, I created an online video portal for film and communications students to share their work and give them the tools to create more video work. I promoted this website through social media and search engine optimization. It came quite naturally. My next project was my father’s business and pretty soon, I was very skilled in SEO and had a passion for it. I was brought on to the Blue Fountain Media team as an intern, but soon outgrew the role and founded the company’s marketing process and team of over 20 individuals.
Is there anything you would do differently?
As we’ve grown, it has been difficult to find time for myself to research and publish articles. I wish I had more time to dedicate to conducting research and writing for other marketing blogs. It’s something I really enjoy, but client projects take precedence.
Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful internet marketer?
Practice, practice, and practice. When I was still learning SEO, I spent 3-4 hrs every day reading, then applied what I learned that day to my websites. Making changes to your website and seeing the results in the form of increased traffic is a source of great pleasure and helps to contextualize all of the reading materials found on SEO.
What are your most successful projects?
I would say that my most successful project is our own company website. When I joined Blue Fountain Media, the website had no presence whatsoever. It was all in Flash, had maybe 5 pages, and most leads were coming in through client referrals. My job was to plan out a website that could get us better SEO results and make it generate leads of us. We launched the new website in August 2008, with an average of 4,500 visits/month. This month, we are set to hit over 20,000 visitors, 43% from organic search. In October, we received traffic from nearly 3,000 different keyword combinations. Meantime, our monthly revenue has increased by over 1,000%. Through SEO, we have acquired clients such as Harper Collins.
What is the best advice you have ever been given?
“Don’t be afraid to scrap everything and start all over again.” I believe it was David Szetela who said this. He was referring to paid search campaign management, but I felt like you can apply it to a lot of things. I am never afraid to shake things up and start over; it’s been a key to many successes.
Do you have any mentors or role models?
I don’t actually. I tend to learn from others, but not fixate on any one person’s actions or words.
What are the most valuable hints you would give someone who is just starting out?
- Start reading. A lot.
- Focus on quality over quantity.
- Learn how to identify and exploit opportunities.
- Find out what it is that makes your competitors better than you. Then do it better than them.
Any secrets hands-on information you can share with our readers (e.g. great website, book, training, source …)?
I can’t imagine how someone would not learn 75% of what there is to know about SEO if they read these three blogs thoroughly. There is no secret, SEO is not some magical art. It’s all out there to read about and you don’t have to go to school for it.
Go to as many industry events as possible. It’s good to have a network of experts you can rely on to for advice and ideas.
What are your preferred information sources about the internet marketing world?
Here is my complete list:
- CNET
- Matt Cutts’s Blog
- Search Engine Journal
- Search Engine Land
- Search Engine Roundtable
- Search Engine Watch
- SEO Book
- SEOMoz
- SEOptimise
- Seth Godin’s Blog
- Silicon Alley Insider
- Smashing Magazine
- Advertising Age > Digital
- Inc.
- Fast Company
- Wired
- Mashable
Anything else you would like to point out?
On any project I work on, I try to take what is already there and make the most of it. For example, most clients are experts in their field. Take Anthony For Men, the men’s skin care brand. Founder Tony Sosnick knows everything there is to know about skin care – especially relating to men. We used his knowledge in the design of the website to help users better combine various products and teach them how to use each one. His know-how has also helped in the creation of content that is valuable in our SEO efforts.
Alhan, thanks for this interview!
Good interview, thank you Reto.
However, I think that „reading “ can be e a serious problem for many: one should spend more time working on his websites than just reading blogs, forums etc
Yes, totally agree! You need to know the basics, but then you have to get to work.