Business
Chris Raulf Founded in 2009, our team of digital marketing experts specializes in helping small and medium-sized businesses with all of their search engine optimization needs. If you are seeking more TRAFFIC, more LEADS, and more BUSINESS from your website, we can help deliver results with the perfect blend of online marketing solutions to take your business to the next level. What made Chris go off on his own? (0:46) He always wanted to be his own boss and have his own company. One morning Chris read his horoscope and it said if you don’t make a decision now or like a big change, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life He thought about it and wrote in a letter of resignation two months later and his business was up and running. That was six years ago. How has Chris grown since then? (1:37) Chris does search engine optimization and hosts his own SEO and digital marketing classes. Teaching digital marketing and SEO classes got him a lot of leads. After starting the SEO business, Chris was already profitable after six or eight weeks. He initially thought he would be a local SEO agency for the rest of his life, but the website got found nationally and he started working with companies all over the US. Is training and teaching the core of Chris’ work? (3:58) Chris loves teaching and is passionate about SEO and digital marketing. He started workshops where he teaches SEO, social media marketing and PPC. The workshops are held in Denver and recently launched in London. Chris also teaches part of a masters degree in France which is an online degree at the University of Strasbourg. He believes that teaching is the best way to build authority and generate leads. Where does an agency like Chris’ agency fit? (7:08) For new customers, the first thing they do is an SEO audit. The strategy will then be broken down into the five pillars of SEO. The technical health of the website undergoes a check-up. While doing the audit they ask if people are able to find what they are looking for and what the user experience like? Next up is on-page SEO where they optimize each page for three keywords and optimize the tags and the content. Backlinks which are part of the off-site SEO are one of the strongest ranking signals in Google’s algorithm. Social media marketing has to be part of the overall strategy with content marketing as the foundation. If someone can’t hire an agency, how do they get started with SEO? (10:12) Chris got into SEO before Google was even around. LinkedIn has a training section where people could learn they can go to Lynda.com and look for SEO courses. It’s also worth looking for and paying for a good SEO course online. Google updates its algorithm three times a day to combat black hat SEO. People should take a more global approach with techniques that will work in the future. They shouldn’t do something that will get them blacklisted. Chris recommends that if someone is an expert in their field, they should put their knowledge on their website. Doing so will make a difference in the future in a world where search engine algorithms are continuously changing and where artificial intelligence is playing a bigger role every day.