Jeremy Schoemaker will be giving the afternoon keynote at SearchFest 2014 which will take place on February 28th, 2014 in Portland, Oregon. For more information and to purchase tickets, please click here.
1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I started in 2003 by making a site to convert ringtones into the right formats.
By 2005, I was getting over 100k uniques via organic search which ultimately led the site to over 10m in profit before selling the site in 2009 to a major media company.
In 2007, I created my own advertising network grew to 25k users and 2M per month in revenue. I sold it 4 months after launch to Lake Capital out of NYC.
In 2010, I created a website service called freeseoreport.com. It grew pretty fast getting 400 to 1000 new users worldwide pulling reports. I sold it in 2011 for 250k to a link broker service.
In 2013, I launched PAR Program which is an a email and social media enterprise level platform that fills the gap between low end newsletter platforms and 20k a month services which has all of their features and more.
2) Is it still possible for newbies to break into affiliate marketing and be successful?
The barrier to entry is much more difficult but the opportunity is much higher.
3) What are top three ways businesses fail at converting leads to sales?
Bad copywriting, being to pushy/salesy & not building any sort of trust with the lead before trying to sell them.
4) Thinking about all your Elite Retreat experiences, what type of mentoring do good online entrepreneurs frequently need to become superstars?
In all the surveys we have done, “general business advice ” blows everything else out if the water. They say founders make the worst CEO and I can’t agree more.
5) How necessary is SEO in 2014?
Good question…it’s kind of tough to answer. It depends on what you are doing. I have said since I first started that I never care about SEO. I make content or services people want to link to organically so it’s always been easy.
Talking to agencies now, they say as much that what I said about content many years ago is the most effective SEO strategy today.
With so much great web frameworks coming with great on page SEO out of the box…then it’s really only about building links…which content will do.
With that said, I have been fortunate enough to have amazing resources at my fingertips which I have called on for SEO questions as needed.
6) How can one most effectively network at a search marketing conference?
Just go to the hotel bar and just be yourself. People loosened up with a drink chatting with you one on one are going to be far more open and transparent about what they have found valuable no matter what advice you are seeking.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.