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1,486 viewsJulie Joyce owns Link Fish Media, a link building and SEO company based in Greensboro, NC. She is a monthly columnist for Search Engine Land and the host of SEM Rush’s monthly link webinar.
Please introduce yourself and where you work.
I am Julie Joyce, owner of Link Fish Media. I serve as the Director of Operations which meant more when we were a larger agency but basically I’m in charge of bringing in and keeping clients and managing the link builders.
How do you think SEO has changed over the last 10 years?
I think it’s gotten easier in many ways as so many people are testing theories and publishing information. When I first started I did work for someone who wanted us all to stay anonymous and not really get out there so I feel like that held me back in a way. When I left and went somewhere else I started to interact with others online and forged some amazing relationships that led to my own knowledge growing. That being said, when I started there weren’t a whole lot of specialties that people had. We just did everything. Now you can find someone with an intensive knowledge of conversions or international SEO and I love that. I do think that the main hard part is not from SEO itself but from the low barrier to entry and the huge amount of people in the industry. Anyone can call themselves an SEO with no proof of having done anything or known anything and they can do a lot of damage, and that makes me sad as I think that has gotten to be much more of a serious problem in the last few years.
How did you get introduced to digital marketing, more specifically SEO?
I got drafted into it actually as I was a programmer but I had an English literature degree. They needed someone technical who could write well and those two didn’t always go hand in hand where I worked. Someone left and I was the replacement.
What are the services you provide to your clients?
We do link building, link analysis, link audits, and SEO audits/consulting. We’ve handled PPC accounts and are about to take on a PPC client again. Our focus IS links but we still do the basics.
What strategy according to you will prevail in 2017 for SEO?
I think mobile has been one of the most critical bits to master over the past few years and that’s not going to change, but in general I think that a more integrated approach needs to happen. As a link builder I’m usually just given an assignment and no one wants my input on any other aspect of their SEO and many times we’re not working together well enough to make a difference. If I’m building good links and someone else is using a PBN or doing massive guest posting it can hurt my efforts and nothing good happens. If I’m building the links and you have 1000 404s out of 1500 pages on your site, again, that’s going to affect all of us.
What would your advice be to people who are looking to take up digital marketing as a career choice?
I’d learn at least a little coding as I think that helps you get your mind prepared to think very logically, but I’d also spend a lot of time reading about the industry, reading differing points of view, and making a small site to test on. I think the best way to learn is by doing.
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