Spotlight on:
Allan Pollett
*SEO Guru
& consultant* Entrepreneur*CEO/Founder Global Net Trade* Online Marketing
Guru*
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| Allan pollett |
This week I am gonna be doing
something different on this blog which I think would definitely be part of what
we would be seeing on this blog with time as this blog is all about inspiring
people to follow their guts and vision in a context of happiness.
As I often say, “Today’s
youths are exposed to more information daily than our great grand parents have
been exposed to in a life time”. Because we live in an era marked by such
amazing technogical advancements, we are at a greater advantage than preceding
generations. Sometimes such advantages can make people apathetic. Instead of
striving to continue this process of growth, they simply rest upon the
achievement of others.
It is our responsibility to
continue the development of humanity’s evolutionary growth so that future
generations may benefit from the progress we make during the course of our
existence.
If you want to be a success
in life, you have to learn from the experts. You have to discover the secrets
of the successful.
When I stumbled on Allan
pollett’s profile on the internet, I was fascinated and immediately I was like
‘I must contact and interview this guy’. I must tell you that from what I have
seen, Allan is a definition of success in the SEO and DOT com business.
If you need help on
increasing profits/returns for your business online, he is the right man for
you. He is considered an online marketing guru having done interviews on SEO
radio, CTV’s, web media, and CBC radio and has published frequently in web pro
news, webmaster world and site pro news.
Allan has 14 years of SEO/SEM
and web development experience. He developed real-estate-city.com, a real
estate network of 300 sites serving every major city in US and Canada which
generated 200 million dollars of real estate leads per day. He is also an
accomplished writer having published articles on the New York Times, Toronto business Journal,
among many others. He has helped over 800 clients achieve top ranking on all of
the major search engines.
He is indeed an online
marketing Guru.
Breathe in! Breathe out! Sit back,
relax as you read on and digest the secret of this successful guru where he
shared with me his challenges and success story in this exclusive interview
with no other than the ‘Toronto Guru” himself.
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| Allan pollet |
! Discovering the secrets of the successful:
Can you briefly tell us what
SEO means? What is the business all about?
SEO stands for search
engine optimization. The goal of SEO is to help make sites more relevant to
targeted keywords searches and therefore rank higher on Google/Yahoo/Bing when
potential customers search those keywords.
That means you help people create traffic for their
sites, Can you tell us when you started sir?
Yes, by getting improved
rankings most sites will get many more visitors. Usually a well optimized site
will get 60-80% of all its traffic from the search engines. I started working
in the field in 1998, when I launched a translation web site. It was a simple
site built on Geocites but was my first experience with trying to build a web
site and have it rank on the search engines. At that time Google wasn't really
important. The main focus was AltaVista and Yahoo.
Wow! The next question comes in two parts: How do you
help these sites get that traffic? And WHAT is the greatest challenge you have
had to face over years?
There are really two main
factors that determine rankings on the search engines: 1) Content of the site.
If you mention the keywords, you will rank somewhere for those keywords. May be
not the top spot but somewhere. By theming your site around keywords then this
can be greatly improved upon. 2) Links pointing to your site. Links act like
recommendations about the authority of your web site. Links from relevant and
authoritative sites will help you rank above sites that have fewer or weaker
links.
To answer your second
question...it isn't really an SEO challenge that I had. The challenge was a
business one. Back in 2005, I had the #1 site for every real estate market in North America. I was generating about 200 million dollars
worth of real estate leads per day. At the time I was partnered with a real
estate agent who made the process of collecting commissions legal. After having
generating over 100 million in sales for him alone he ended up stealing all the
sites I built. To make things worse at the same time the business was hacked,
where spammers created 14000 copies of my real estate sites. The business not
only died from within, but the spammers had killed the rankings. At that time
the search engines didn't understand duplicate content well and had banned both
my sites and the hackers’ sites. Literally over night the business was dead.
The situation for me was a crushing blow and it took me a long time to recover.
It forced me to abandon my personal SEO projects to instead focus on client's
sites in order to pay the bills.
How did you recover from this challenge?
I didn't really recover.
Instead I shifted my focus. Built a business of helping more clients be
successful rather than focusing on my own success. Now I work with about 300
clients.
Hmm! this brings us to the next question. What do you
consider to be the most outstanding achievement of your career?
There isn't just one
achievement I can point to. In a way SEO for me is a game. To win the game it
is a matter of getting sites to the top of the rankings. Getting there is the
achievement. Once I helped a client outrank Google on Google for a keyword both
companies targeted.
Okay! What is the most effective technique you have
ever used in this Game of yours?
The most effective
technique would be to optimize the structure of the site. This means optimizing
the navigation and internal link structure and theming of the website. This
strategy has worked since the very beginning of SEO and still works today. Many
SEO techniques and tricks have short life spans.
Hmm! Good
stuffs can you give an example of how you would apply this technique in a real
life situation?
Hard to give a quick
example. But the idea is to create a general theme to a web site for example:
cats. Then use the pages of the site to create sub themes for example: fluffy
cats or kittens
The site's navigation and
sub-navigation reinforces the keywords.
Okay sir we are finally getting to the end of this
interview. Who were some of your role models sir?
I guess my father would be
my main role model. He always taught me to be honest and work hard. He was the
one who recommended that I start a business online. His values and guidance
have led me to where I am now.
My success has really been
about being honest and truly wanting to help people when many others in my
industry try to cheat people and are about trying to make a quick buck.
Because clients know I am
honest and deliver what I say I'll deliver I keep my clients for a long time
and get many referrals from these clients.
A man of integrity I see
My philosophy is simple:
My clients’ success is my success
WHAT is the most valuable advice you can offer an
aspiring SEO/ blogger?
Write interesting
articles. Make sure to use all the available social media outlets to promote
the articles.
Social media will play an
interesting role not only with providing traffic but with search engine
rankings.
Social media? Can you shed more light on that?
For example if you Google+ an article/blog entry then
it will be instantly picked up by Google search. Tweets, likes, shares act like
recommendations which will be counted towards how well the article will rank.
It is called social
signals.
I talk about all this
stuff in much greater depth in my blog at http://www.allanpollett.com/blog
Thank you very much for your time Allan.
Glad I could be of help.
I hope you have gained a
lot from this piece. Feel free to share with your friends.
Sadiq Daniel