Interview with Lee Odden

For those of you who dont know, Lee Odden is a very successful marketer. He runs a Online Marketing Blog, is the CEO of TopRankResults and is heavily involved in other Marketing activities and websites online.

Like Aaron Wall, Lee was one of the first people who I really admired and learned from with all the quality information they share. I believe you can all learn something from the quality answers lee has provided below.

Could you please explain how you first got involved in the Search Marketing Industry?

In late 1996 I was in a sales position for a web development company and by teaching myself how to create and market web sites, was able to increase my income and level of responsibility. Plus it was challenging and fun. When my efforts reached a significant portion of overall revenue for that company, I started TopRank. That was 2001. Around 2003 I started writing a blog, articles, speaking at conferences and getting interviewed by the press. That additional visibility created more business which inspired me to write more content, creating an interesting self feeding cycle. Starting out, one of the people that I learned a lot of SEO basics from and looked up to was Jill Whalen. I’m happy to announce that March 15th I will be speaking at her SEO/SEM conference in Minneapolis: http://www.highrankings.com/msp/.

It’s pretty wild what can happen if you’re passionate about something and the seach marketing industry is a place that has been a great mix of challenge and reward. I look forward to working in the business for a long time.

Taken from self descriptions on your company you seem to be a ‘content-is-king’ man. Do you work much on link building in ways such as directory submissions?

Yeah, that old content vs links thing still has life for some reason. I am absolutely a link monger. I’ve always believed in the power of links as traffic sources and for building link popularity. Check out the backlinks on our toprankblog.com site and you’ll see evidence of this: 297,357 backlinks.

However, here’s the formula that we’ve had the best success with: Content > Distribution > Links. Without developed channels of distribution, great content spends a lot of lonely nights. ie, if no one knows you’ve published some great content, they won’t know to link to it.

We only submit to a few directories such as Yahoo, Business.com and always BOTW.org. Otherwise, we acquire links using a variety of editorial means.

We know you spend a lot of time working for various sites on the internet, posting content and dealing with your company. What do you do in your personal time? Do You have websites about your interests?

Personal time? Ha! A wife, three kids, an Old English Sheepdog and a house that is in a perpetual state of construction keep me plenty busy.

I started a crappy AdSense blog about my car a few years ago, 300c.blogspot.com, which has already paid for the car by ranking for “300c” and related phrases on the major search engines. Also I recently created a tombstone blog (started and left it for dead) at scotchenthusiast.com. The problem is, you get bombed on scotch and it’s a bit difficult to produce comprehensible blog posts!

Actually, I spend time on: traveling, cooking, reading, movies, PS3, watching sports, poker and dabbling in some affiliate stuff.

Search Marketing is a huge industry and not the easiest to get some recognition from fellow Marketers and SEO’s. What tips would you give to people just starting out in the industry?

First, you need a good reason to get recognized. If getting recognition is your end goal, you’re wasting your time. If getting recognition is a byproduct of some other goal, like building your consulting business, winning interesting client engagements, building a great SEO team or contributing to the industry, then you’re on the right track. Success in the search marketing business isn’t about becoming “important”, because I know a few “SEO rockstars” that spend a lot of time self promoting without much of a business to back it up.

For someone starting out, I recommend focusing on building a successful consulting business in a niche and then expanding to other areas. Pick one thing that people can associate you with and become the best there is at that one thing. Your credibility and reputation will then allow you to expand to other areas.

Whats your favourite aspect of Search Marketing?

Search marketing changes often and I appreciate the challenge that comes with that. Once you master many of the fundamentals, you can work on unique and creative strategies and tactics. I don’t spend as much time executing search marketing as I used to - that’s what our account managers and subject matter experts are for. But I do consult with them on creative client strategy, communications and solving problems that come up.

Most of all, I enjoy the satisfaction that comes from a challenging client situation and helping our client contact look like a rockstar to their management because of the results they’re getting from their search marketing program.

Favourite Search Engine?

For straight up search, it’s Google. I use Yahoo and Ask.com for everything else. I never use Microsoft Live.

If you could thank anybody for helping you to be in the position you are in now, with the recognition and respect of marketers, who would it be and why (if anybody)?

I have a PC answer for that, and the people I can thank the most are the fun, cool clients we get to work with as well as the team at TopRank that puts up with all my “Resistance, Fall of Man” game playing while they’re working overtime. :).

To be honest, there are quite a few people that have been very good to me either in important situations or long term. I did a post listing many of those people around Thanksgiving time last year at: http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/11/giving-thanks/

Being there at the right time is always appreciated as well as when people take a chance on you or give you a break so you can show your stuff. Most of all, I would have to thank my partner, Susan Misukanis, because without her our business would not be at all what it is today.

If you had to turn away a potential client for whatever reasons, which Companies would you recommend they try?

If a company needs something we don’t specialize in, we’ll refer them. An example of this involves companies that need SEO in different languages. I refer them to webcertain.com. Also, we don’t specialize in PPC, so for huge PPC projects that need a bid management system, I refer those to RepriseMedia.com. Josh and Peter have an unbelieveable program there and they are also the best in the business.

Where do you see the industry in the next 5 years and do you see Search Engine Optimization fundamentals changing?

One thing you can count on with SEO and search engines is that things will change. I was reviewing some PPT presentations I gave just 4 months ago and had to make quite a few changes since things in the industry have changed. It would be a challenge to predict things 5 months from now let alone 5 years.

I do think the fundamentals of search marketing are marketing fundamentals though and those will not change: Understand your market, their problems and their behaviors for finding solutions. Then deliver a relevant and provacative solution message to them where they’re looking.

These basic concepts will persist whether you’re optimizing web sites, social media, personalized search results, mobile phones or whatever new-high-tech-gadgety-doodad-thingy that ends up being the killer information device in 5 years.
What would you say has been your biggest achievement in life?

Wow, that’s a deep question! Actually, the answer is easy. Being able to start a company doing something that I truly enjoy, provides far more value than what we’re paid and enables me to provide financial security for my family is the most satisfying achievement so far.

What’s your homepage?

http://www.toprankblog.com

Thanks to Lee for the great interview.

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