Jason Boyd is the Founder & Director of Evolve Digital, a firm that specializes in SEO & Digital marketing services. We recently interviewed Jason to know more about his company and to understand the latest trends in the Digital Marketing world.
Jason, Thank you for talking with us. Kindly describe your journey as an Entrepreneur so far.
I started in the digital marketing industry way back in 1998 when I had a landscaping business, and I wanted to learn how to advertise on the internet. Back then, search engine marketing was mainly based around AltaVista and also some of the online directories. So, I did that as an addition to my landscaping business.
Then in the mid-2000s, I transitioned into purely doing SEO work for myself and for other clients. I gave up my landscaping business and worked for a combination of agencies and on some private projects.
In 2010, I started my own search engine marketing business and had all my own clients at that point. Then in 2018, I rebranded that business to Evolve Digital Agency and expanded my range of services to include paid advertising and Facebook advertising.
Covid 19 has taught us that if you are not online, you are literally out of business. As a leading SEO & Digital Marketing agency, what has been your experience during this ongoing pandemic?
COVID-19 has taught me that there has been a clear shift in the attitudes of many businesses towards their online presence. Businesses that traditionally relied upon non-digital marketing services have realized that to survive, they now need to have an online presence. Most businesses cannot get by without an online presence these days.
Having said that, there’s no doubt that this pandemic has reduced the income of many businesses, and so these businesses are now very cautious about where they spend their money and who they spend their money with. They’re now looking for genuine companies that give a positive return on investment and are much more cautious at choosing which supplier to use.
What are some of the leading SEO trends one should watch out for?
One of the SEO trends that we should watch out for, is that Google and other search engines are heading down a path of offering very localized results. And, that’s not just in the Maps listing, that’s also in the organic listings. So, if you are a business that’s based in a particular suburb and your services are primarily in that suburb, this will be beneficial to you. If you’re a business that services a large range of suburbs or a whole city, or even a larger area, it can be a harder task to get traction in this larger range of suburbs.
Another trend is that Google is investing heavily in identifying the owner of a business or the author of the website content. They want to give results that have some authority to them, and so they are now looking at the person or the business who has written that content to make sure that that person is qualified to give the advice they’re giving. This is a positive step from Google and will mean that we have results that you can rely upon. It means for a business owner, it’s important to show your skills and your authority and tie that to the information or the website your own.
If for a particular keyword, your business is not appearing on the first page of the search result, chances are, no one is visiting your website. What are some of the factors that affect search engine results?
To get to the first page of Google, there’s two main areas of SEO that will help you. These are onsite and offsite.
Onsite is the work you do on your website, and that’s about ensuring your website follows Google’s best practice. This includes things like correct page titles and URLs, and ensuring your content is structured in a way that fits what Google is looking for.
Offsite is about having other websites mention your business and link to your business website. This is an ongoing thing and something that a good SEO company will specialize in.
In your view, which works better, Facebook Marketing or Search Marketing or a combination of both. In your opinion, are these marketing strategies underutilized?
The better option ofFacebook marketing or search engine marketing largely depends on the current position of your business. To simplify things, I believe Facebook is best used for branding and remarketing, not direct traffic. I believe that search engine marketing is best if you don’t have a lot of traffic and you need to get that traffic.
So, if you currently have a small amount of website traffic, then your best approach is search marketing. If you already have traffic, or once you get that traffic, then you can look at Facebook for increasing that traffic, or increasing your conversion rate.
What suggestions would you give to small businesses who do not have big marketing budget but want to spend something in their marketing campaigns? What should they focus on?
If your business does not have a big marketing budget, they should focus on small gains in Google’s organic, non-paid results. This is often highly relevant traffic that you don’t need to be constantly paying for.
As a business, you should establish what are your non-competitive search terms. These are things that people will type into Google to find your product or service. Once you’ve established what those are, and you find some that you are not competing against other large businesses, then target your website efforts towards those search terms. This will give you an initial traffic boost that you can then use to fund further marketing efforts.
As an expert in this field, what is the future of SEO?
The future of SEO is about providing the search engines with useful, well-presented content. This will always be a winning strategy. Once you have written the content or provided the content on your website, then it’s about proving that you’re an authority in your field. This is so the search engine will trust you and present your website at the top of the results instead of your competitors.
