There is a big elephant in the room and nobody talks about it. First i want to share with you about an incident then we move on to discuss about some important matters about SEO business.
It was around 14:00 PM on a Friday afternoon when an email among all others got my attention. The subject of the email was “link spam”. The person who wrote it claimed that he called me 2 days earlier but didn’t get a call back. I still couldn’t make out what he wanted. I checked his website; a new SEO small business. I immediately picked up the phone and called him. I asked him why he was accusing me of such thing?! I was so aggravated that I could not figure out what was wrong. I was defamed in the past on social media for no apparent reason and I truly didn’t have time for another game.
I asked the guy what did I do? He was breathing fast I could sense he was having trouble speaking. So I calmed down to hear what he was trying to say.
He said someone is sending link spam to his website and he’s sure it was me!!!
He had no documentation and nothing to back up his claim. I got furious because I never do such thing. I have a lot on my plate and I was sick and tired of these small but nerve-wracking problems. Sometimes i get crappy comments from bunch of clowns who claim to be “seo expert” on social media you know those with their fake egg accounts, i block them and life goes on, but this kind of accusation was too much to ignore.
I asked him to provide data. Then he said:” why you ranked for the exact keywords I am targeting and ranking in Norway”?
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! My website is created in 2008 and I created a lot of keywords before “SEO” became “popular” in Norway. I worked in search engines in different countries and created keywords in different languages, ranked my websites for them, then after a while they lost their profitability and i moved on other keywords. I don’t waste my time on non profitable keywords.
It was a naive question he was asking me. Then he told me that he created his website 4 months ago and got ranked for SEO related keywords which I am ranking and every Norwegian media company is ranking. Everybody is competing for the same keywords, but I was the target of his accusation and suspicion! Another reason he suspected was that my link building pattern’s different from all those Norwegian media companies. These Norwegians follow the same pattern in everything they do. They’re mad because they can’t figure me out! And they don’t like it. I see their bot referral traffic via Google analytics and my Cpanel. They check my website on SEMrush or other SEO software, see no data.They can’t figure out how i rank my keywords. They don’t know that i have blocked more than 600 SEO tools under my htaccess file. The only SEO crawler which is not blocked is my own SEO tool and search engine bots like Google, Yahoo, Yandex, Bing and Baidu all others are blocked. I also added a code to trick all these competitors. Anyway!
So he asked:” why yours is different?” I said: ” Because i banned all these seo tools under my server, so none of you will be able to track my real links and off page activities including my social media. Those numbers are what i want you to see. That’s why you can’t see the truth about my off page activities.This doesn’t mean that i am messing with your website. I am protecting my websites against your link attacks. Cause i am sick and tired of competitors attacking my website because they don’t like my hair color!They keep sending DDOS attacks, running my website in scrapbox daily to outrank it and ban it forever.They spoof my email addresses.
I wrote a web security SEO article back in 2015 about vulnerability of HTTPS and Transport Layer Security (TLS)’s security holes, bunch of web security and their affiliates DDOS attacked my website and tried to trash my reputation because my article commercially was hurting their money making scheme. They kept attacking and forced me to take down my article which was the truth about HTTPS TLS security vulnerabilities in 2015. My article went viral and got 100.000 hits. The reason i removed the article was not because of their defamatory statements about me and their noises online, I did it because I did not want to get angry and hurt each one of these guys’ entire online reputation.
I was afraid of myself, so to save them from me, i deleted the article. As soon as i deleted the article they all shut up otherwise i would have taken a severe action against their companies for harassment and defamation. I had the power to get their websites and businesses banned forever.
They never tasted a search engine optimizer’s wrath so I was so ready to do it. But they stopped. Another reason was that I thought maybe I should let people find out about it on their own, why should I go through trouble to increase awareness about drawbacks of HTTPS and TLS? What’s in it for me? Nothing.
In my article i proved how hackers use this new method and hack HTTPS and TLS.I also proved using HTTPS and TLS won’t make a huge difference in SEO. Anyway! When i asked one of them why they were doing it, cause it was just an article, the guy said because people listen to you and we lose customers.
My real backlinks statistics stands under my Google Search Console aka Webmasters tools. So all those online SEO software including online backlink checkers give you wrong data about my off page activities. I blocked their IPs and ISPs. This is why you don’t see anything about my link building information.How do i know it? I see these sites hits under my stats, so i block them. If Google supposed to reveal their algorithm to SEO software providers then it wouldn’t be a secret, would it? Google search engine would go out of business. So rest assured these giant SEO software companies in the U.S and UK cannot show you your competitors backlinks, maybe partially but not all. Besides when I block their crawlers and IPS how would they be able to get information about my website? Those things you see online, it’s because i want you to see them. If i choose to hide them, it wouldn’t be a problem. I am a search engine optimizer,eh!”
While he was explaining about his new business, I remembered last time a woman from Bergen approached me and needed help to open a SEO business in her city, I gave her tips and helped her to start up, and then a few months later through Google alert I noticed she was trashing me on a forum for no reason. So I had to create an account on that Norwegian forum and defend myself. Why would I help her to succeed in her SEO business and then attack her? It didn’t make any sense!
I really had no time and nerve to go through the same crap all over again!
It’s funny how every nationality behaves differently. I helped many people in their business for free. For example I helped some SEO experts in India jump start their SEO link building businesses and now they are successful business owners and have decent monthly income. One of them even invited me to travel to India and attend at his wedding. Or this Nigerian SEO small business owner who corresponded with me via email and phone for a year on almost daily basis. Through my mentorship he was able to run SEO in Nigeria and become successful. I appreciate his cards and thank you notes. But in Norway! Every single time, I get these weird emails from some small seo businesses. Not in million years i know what they want from me and why they’re doing it.
I said on the phone:” how can I hurt your website? I don’t even know you!” While I was telling him, I was thinking “Why everybody wants to get my attention?” I remembered last year an American guy from California commented on one of my threads on Facebook he wrote that “he doesn’t do SEO and sells a SEO tool to businesses and got a lot of clients” I replied back: “Good for you” Then he wrote:” I prove to you that I am better…!” I wrote back: You do not need to prove to me anything. More power to you and your business!” I replied with kindness. Then he threw a SEO Moz software affiliate campaign on my thread which I removed as I have been getting this SEO software’s ad all over my social media channels. And that thread was not related to something like that.
Back to the guy. I explained to him how Norwegian market works. What is buyer behavior in Norway and he should not waste his time on keywords which are not generating sales. I explained how I made those keywords for testing purposes a few years ago and now every Norwegian media company is bidding on them on Google Adwords.I increased Google’s share of wallet through Adwords by making keywords and getting businesses to bid higher and higher on them. Anyway! I told him indirectly that he is barking at a wrong tree and should focus on phrases which drive in sales for his business.
I didn’t have to explain to a new competitor but for goodness’s sake I did.
I told him how many times my website was under attack of “negative SEO” on global level. Whoever in seo industry comes to the market; I am their very first target of “negative SEO” and social media attack mainly on Twitter. Like this French guy living in the UK, a pure psychopath the man created more than 10 twitter accounts and tweets the same thing to different SEO companies accounts on Twitter and call them Maria Johnsen, then harass them. They block him of course, but he doesn’t stop there. He keeps bothering people. He has this huge obsession about me. I don’t reply I never do.
This guy tries to rank his lousy website which isn’t optimized for search engines for keyword ” multilingual SEO ” in Google and is so devastated that he tweets on Twitter stupid stuff about me and the other legitimate influencers in the UK, France and USA. He is so out of his mind and desperate that he tweets to everybody and thinks they are me.
We all reported him to Twitter support so i guess one of these days his account will be suspended due to harassment and bullying. Then the other day I got an email from an SEO expert who asked me” Maria, this french man is following me, what should i do? I wrote back if you look for trouble, then let him follow you.” He wrote back:” i don’t have time for idiots and i block him.”
These days you should be very careful and monitor who is following you on social media. Because not all of them agree with you and your friends. Some follow you to trash your business, so if you see suspicious Twitter accounts, block them.
My website got penalized many times due to this negative SEO and link attack issue and Google can’t do anything about it.
At the end of our conversation the Norwegian guy apologized and understood he was wrong. He also agreed to be more careful on social media especially if he receives any stupid comments from this old French guy or any other trolls on Twitter. We become friends. I offered him my help any time he needs me.
How SEO Business works
New SEO small businesses are very sensitive and focused too much on their ranking and their competition. They are tremendously paranoid.I want all of you to calm down! Life is too short.
Wrong judgement is dangerous for your business and blurs your logical thinking part of your brains. I was the target of this SEO newbie, if it was someone else, he would have gotten his website and business banned for good. For me it takes half of day to do it, if i wanted to.
Instead of negative SEO-ing his site, I tried to educate him how to do SEO right. I am a very powerful SEO programmer and search engine optimizer, but I don’t abuse my power for nonsense reasons. I never ever hurt a startup SEO business who is trying to make a living in this economy. This is against what i stand for and the principles i fight for.
Start up SEO business owners
The problem is lack of experience and understanding of SEO market, understanding search engines, finding customers, paranoia and how to deal with veteran SEO experts.
In the world of SEO where everybody competes with each other, there are certain things you should know about and I want you to pay attention to what I am saying here.
A)We who have been working in SEO industry do not waste our time on outranking the competition. Here is why. Our priorities are our concern about our clients’ websites ranking and our own marketing campaigns. Outranking competition who just started in SEO business is not in our minds at all. Those who go after outranking, are newbie and just started seo like two years or so.
Trying to outrank someone is a sign of weakness not power. It’s a stupid thing to do. Do you know why? Because it means you are threatened by the competition which means you don’t know SEO. Therefore you go after competition to knock him or her down.
They create fake accounts on Twitter and Google plus and go after successful SEO companies and individuals call them names or trolling. Those guys don’t have work. They are bunch of psychoses that look for fun because they got nothing else to do.
B) Our second concern is to deal with Google zoo for our websites and our clients’ websites.
We do not waste our time on competition’s outranking. Why? It is expensive and takes a lot of time and days to do it. Yes, there are some SEO link building tools, but it requires having a separate server and paying for IPs etc. It takes time and is not worth it.
My advice to seo business owners:
- If you are new in this business, learn SEO the right way. 99.9% of SEOS got their hands on some automated seo link building tools which give temporary results.They think now they are expert. Without those tools, they can’t do it.
- Don’t trust your top ranking in Google for a competitive term if you just started SEO business with a new website, it is temporary and will disappear after one year. Your new websites rank fast. Ranking a new site is easier than ranking a few years old domain.
- Don’t think about ranking too much. Google is a dynamic search engine. You need to test everything. This is what we do in SEO business for many years.
- Life is too short so enjoy it as much as you can. Appreciate your health and the gifts of life. When you relax you can think better and find better ideas for your business. Uniqueness is the key in business. They thought by outranking my websites every year, i go out of business, i am still here while they either closed down their business or got a job at another seo or ecommerce company. Back in 2012 when Google outranked 90% of huge and small websites, many SEOs gave up on their businesses and started their real estate company or some other niches. Whoever was in my shoe would have done the same. But I kept writing quality and informative content. Every single year my website goes under attack. In the beginning i was so aggravated that I used to spend many hours trying to figure out who did it and who’s doing it. Now, i know who they are and I don’t care. I have developed ISP tracking system which i use for online reputation management (ORM) projects. It helps me to track those who attack my websites. I never put all my eggs in one basket anyway. Remember! If your website is the target of negative seo attack, you change your domain, they attack that one too. So don’t change your website, fix your Google penalty issue instead.
- Do not copycat. Blueprint does not work in SEO business. Find your own method. This is what a veteran SEO does. We have our own techniques. I have my unique SEO signature on my all SEO and marketing campaigns for my clients. When i rank a website i code an invisible signature on every single website ranking. I used to show all URLS which I ranked in the past on my testimonial page, but I removed them as my clients complained SEO companies have been bothering them with phone calls and soliciting work.
- Honor NDA agreement. When a media company gives you a project, respect the agreement. When they give you a SEO job, it doesn’t mean they don’t know SEO or can’t do it. It means they got more work and need more work force. Do you understand? If you don’t respect NDA, they never send you projects. I have been working on SEO projects and never broke the agreement. Let them get credit for my work. It’s fine. What upsets me is that some so called “seo experts” rehash my articles, press releases, follow me on social media and replicate things i do and don’t give me credit. What they do is called copyright infringement.
The Truth
I have been working on various niches in different countries, languages and cultures. Based on my experience prospects do not type SEO related keywords to find a SEO company.For example: someone in travel, clothing, and health niche doesn’t type in Google “SEO” to find a SEO company.
An ordinary business owner relies on references from earlier clients, friends, families and social media.
In SEO business, Google search engine should be your last source of driving sales. In fact in SEO industry Google search engine is not the source which you should rely on. If you invest on marketing in Google, you’re gonna out of business.
You must focus on 4 things:
A)Content marketing B)Branding C)Social media marketing D)Paid advertisement such as: mobile marketing, video marketing, Pay Per Click
You have to use both organic and paid campaigns. Your organic campaigns should be focused on social media marketing (the right way) and your paid campaign should be via video marketing, press releases, pay per click and mobile advertisement.
If you follow my advice you increase your leads and customers. Gone those days when SEO competitors outrank each other. We don’t waste our time on link attack and we have no reason to do it, unless you give us a reason.
On contrary we like to collaborate with qualified SEO experts. Where do you think my SEO PPC projects are coming from? The majority of media and SEO companies outsource their multilingual SEO projects to me. I don’t talk about it, cause i signed NDA agreement with them. Let them get credit. So you see, I don’t need Google as a source of sales for my business. I have my permanent clients. My source of sales come from references, major player companies in Europe, North America and media companies. They have seen the results i generate for their businesses and they keep coming to me.
In this era, we collaborate to win more happy customers.Focus on the right marketing strategy for your business.
