Introductions

[Mike Friedman]

Feel free to introduce yourself in this thread. Tell us about who you are and how you got here.

[Mike Friedman]

For those who don't know me.

I started online around 2003. I was doing affiliate marketing and using Google AdWords after they had just launched. Back then it was the wild west. You could spend pennies for a click and direct people straight to affiliate links. The ads didn't even have to match up with the destination. 

As I was working on my own sites, I started looking into other traffic sources. I figured if i could get people there by other means in addition to my ads, I could be even more profitable. I started doing SEO without even knowing it was called SEO.

I spent a lot of time on forums like Warrior Forum, Wicked Fire, Backlinks Forum, etc. soaking up everything I could. Over time though, I realized that 95% of the people sharing information and advice on these forums had no idea what they were talking about. From my experience, it was obvious they had never actually ranked a page in their life. 

As a result, in 2007 I started The SEO Pub. For those who started following me back then, you may remember that it was basically just a blog where I offered practical SEO advice (mostly sorting through the BS and myths about SEO that were out there). There was also monthly beer reviews. 🍻

Before long I started getting messages from people asking if I offered SEO as a service. 

I started offering SEO services through The SEO Pub. A few years ago, I rebranded the service side of things as Clicked Marketing and started offering a weekly newsletter on The SEO Pub instead.

I also changed my business model at that time and stopped offering full-service SEO. I now work as an SEO consultant with growth oriented businesses around the world.