Will Hanke will be speaking at the upcoming Look at Me seminar about Search Engine Optimization. We sat down with Will and asked him some questions about his presentation, along with a few about what he’s been up to lately.
You are speaking on search engine optimization (SEO) and what it is. Why do you think this is an important topic for businesses in St Louis?
Every day I meet local business owners have no idea what SEO is, how they can optimize their websites, or that SEO is even an option. St. Louis is a great place to own a business, and with things like free wi-fi access and mobile search, more and more people are getting online and looking for products & services.
SEO sounds like some crazy complex formula that Joe Average business owner can’t handle. Is SEO really that hard?
The basics of SEO are really simple and easy to understand. I’ve been teaching SEO basics to business owners for four years now. Sure, there are some things that will take months to do, but just doing some basic things will get businesses moving in the right direction.
A lot of businesses in St. Louis and around the country have spent a lot of money on their website, but it’s not ranking. Why is that?
Building a website isn’t going to make you rank. You’ll only rank well on Google, Yahoo and Bing if you make your website a quality go-to source for your industry. Update it often and people will want to link to it because of the great content. I’m always saying ‘Build it, and they Won’t Come‘
In short, what will SEO do for my business?
SEO means more customers through your door. Who doesn’t want that?
Most business owners can’t afford an SEO campaign/consultant. Can they do any of this themselves?
That’s the best thing about SEO. It’s not terribly hard to do the basics, which I’ll be covering during my session. There are things business owners can do (or delegate), but there are other more complex things that are better off given to a professional who can get in the trenches and eek out problems you may not even be aware of.
Tell me a bit about your background.
I started my business back in 1997 when the web was pretty new. I was building web pages and pretty much accidentally stumbled upon SEO when I received huge publicity for a prank I pulled on my Mom. From there, it’s been all learning and growing. My company continues to gain larger and larger SEO clients, and I’m still having a blast doing it!
What cool projects are you working on right now?
This past week I launched a new service for lead generation. This is a great service for those that can’t afford a full SEO campaign but still want to get those leads.
