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1,693 viewsBarry Schwartz is the CEO of RustyBrick, a New York Web service firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales. RustyBrick sells custom web software including advanced e-commerce, custom content management systems, social networking sites, CRM applications, custom web-based business software, iPhone applications and much more.
Please introduce yourself and where you work.
I am Barry Schwartz, I own a web and mobile software development firm named RustyBrick. We are based in New York. I also write a lot, like really a lot, about search and SEO at Search Engine Land and Search Engine Roundtable.
How do you think SEO has changed over the last 10 years?
In some ways yes, it has. But fundamentally it really has not. The goal has always been to help your clients rank well in search engines by making your client’s web site better, more unique, more useful than the competitors. But it has changed because search engines are better at discounting manipulative SEO techniques and also because of all the new schema, structured markup, the tools, and features that have come out over the past 10+ years.
How did you get introduced to digital marketing, more specifically SEO?
Some of our clients wanted to know how to rank better in the search engines way back when. So I researched it, joined some of the old SEO forums and communities, went to conferences and met some amazing people.
What are the services you provide to your clients?
We just build software, we don’t do SEO. Our service offerings are listed here.
What strategy according to you will prevail in 2018 for SEO?
Same old – make your site better than your competitors. New things to think about in 2018 is obviously the mobile first index but more importantly, to start thinking about voice search, Google Assistant, voice assistants, Alexa, Siri, smart devices and so forth. Specifically for SEO and Google, featured snippets are crucial.
What would your advice be to people who are looking to take up digital marketing as a career choice?
Well, it is more about do what you are passionate about. If you have a passion for how marketing works, why it works, and getting results in that area – then do it, excel in it and keep improving. If not, do something else. It might be law, medicine, retail or whatever – do what you love.
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