We continue our series of interviews with TOP SEO and Digital Marketing experts. This time we interviewed Kristopher Jones!
Kris is an entrepreneur and digital marketer with 20+ years of experience. Also, he is an author, investor, SEO Blogger and founder Top 5 SEO Company.
Kristopher shared his story of becoming an entrepreneur and SEO specialist. He also talked about his strategies and tactics that helped him develop his businesses. To know more about Kristopher Jones projects, follow his Twitter page.
So let’s start! Enjoy and get new SEO knowledge with Sitechecker and Kristopher Jones:
1. How many years of experience in digital marketing do you have?
21 years
2. What type of digital marketing you have the strongest skills?
SEO
I founded a company called Pepperjam, which went on to become one of the largest and fastest-growing digital marketing and affiliate agencies in the United States. Pepperjam was acquired by eBay in 2009.
Kristopher Jones, Founder of Top 5 SEO Company
3. What projects are you proud of?
I founded a company called Pepperjam, which went on to become one of the largest and fastest-growing digital marketing and affiliate agencies in the United States. Pepperjam was acquired by eBay in 2009.
4. What do you do to further your own SEO knowledge and skills?
I speak at conferences like SMX and Pubcon and I write monthly columns on Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land – this requires that I stay on top of trends and significant changes taking place in the digital marketing space.
5. Is there any marketing or SEO blog you like most of all and why?
I’ve been a fan of SEO By the Sea for many years. The blog is run by SEO Bill Slawski and keeps the world informed on intellectual property filings by Google and other large search engines. In turn, this provides a gateway into the types of changes we can expect with search algorithms.
6. What are the TOP-3 errors you made at the beginning of your SEO specialist career?
- I pivoted too early into paid search. Turns out that while paid search provides marketers incredible opportunity, organic search is by far the better longer term investment. Keep in mind this was the late 1990’s and early 2000’s many years before Google was the dominant leader they are today.
- I should have acquired and nurtured more domains. I did build a domain portfolio of 500 or so names in the early 2000’s but I should have developed more of the assets into websites that received organic search traffic. Why do we buy domains and do nothing with them? It’s oddly common.
- I should have written more content! In the early days you’d be able to rank by using basic techniques, but over time content has become king.
Basic onsite factors such as title tag, h1, and content optimization. It’s too often that my agency LSEO.com will take on a new client and more than 50% of their web pages will have the same title and meta descriptions.
Kristopher Jones, SEO Blogger
7. Your blog about SEO and Digital Marketing is among the most popular ones. What is the most powerful thing about your blog’s popularity?
I’d say most of my best content has been contributed to sites like Search Engine Land, Forbes, and Inc. That said – I’ve been in the field for a long time so I’ve developed a following that enjoys my content. I also wrote the best selling book on SEO called SEO Visual Blueprint. The book has sold over 100,000 copies. I’m also proud of the content my team has built on the LSEO blog.
8. What SEO tactics do you think are underrated?
Basic onsite factors such as title tag, h1, and content optimization. It’s too often that my agency LSEO.com will take on a new client and more than 50% of their web pages will have the same title and meta descriptions.
9. Do you believe that backlinks are Google’s past? Is link building important for increasing the website’s positions nowadays?
Links are Google’s #1 ranking factor. I do not believe links have decreased in importance, but instead, Google’s machine learning algorithm has become better at differentiating link quality.
10. In your opinion, does the technical health of the website affect the ranking positions in search engines?
Absolutely – technical SEO is a primary Google ranking factor. Technical factors can hold your website back from achieving top ranking and typically represent the lowest hanging fruit when optimizing a website.
11. We all know about the July update from Google. Some websites rose, some of them fell. What do you think about the new algorithm? What are the main new rankings factors SEO and Marketing specialists should pay attention to? How do you stay up-to-date on the near-constant search algorithm changes? All of the changes Google has made over the last several years related to quality. SEO is not about short cuts. It’s about setting your website up properly to rank and building excellent content and digital assets that people link to, engage with and share.
12. In your opinion, does user’s behavior impact on website ranking in SERP?
Absolutely! IMO – the usability of your site is a top 3 ranking factor. Webmasters should prioritize things like bounce rate, time on site, mobile-friendliness, and site speed.
Absolutely – technical SEO is a primary Google ranking factor. Technical factors can hold your website back from achieving top ranking and typically represent the lowest hanging fruit when optimizing a website.
Kristopher Jones, SEO Blogger
13. What is your approach to developing an SEO strategy?
I always start by baselining where the site currently is and look at its history. Then I take corrective action with regard to onsite technical factors and put in place an aggressive content marketing and advanced link building plan.
14. What services/companies/apps have inspired you the most this year?
Semrush. My own team at LSEO.
15. What are the most critical SEO mistakes you have ever seen in other companies?
SEO requires long term planning and execution yet too often SEO’s implement strategies that work short term at the expense of long term success.
16. How do you evaluate web analytics to measure SEO performance?
I mostly use tools like Google Analytics, Semrush, and Moz to establish baselines and monitor ongoing SEO performance.
17. How do you see the future of SEO (in 5 years)?
Almost exclusively mobile. Despite living in an app-based world I believe the mobile browser becomes the dominant display to present results that were most likely generated through voice search. So optimizing for voice search technology and mobile will be most important.
18. Which SEO or marketing tools can you recommend as a must-have for every SEO specialist?
Semrush
19. What advice can you give for those who are just starting their career in digital marketing?
Go to digital marketing conferences and consume as much high-quality content as possible.
