Mark Van Overmeire has been active in digital marketing since 2005. He started his own digital marketing agency in Belgium in 2008. Besides running his own agency he worked as a free-lance consultant for some of the biggest companies in Belgium. Currently, he resides in the US and is the Managing Director & Director of Digital Marketing at Go2marK, a digital marketing agency based in Las Vegas.
Please introduce yourself and where you work.
How do you think SEO has changed over the last 10 years?
Another change, one that has not been beneficial for small businesses, is in Pay Per Click. 10 years ago the cost per click on important industry keywords was about $0.10 (10 cents). Now, in certain industries, the cost per click goes up to $10.00 (10 dollars). This just shows that democratic bidding system such as Google Adwords & Bing Ads have a big downside. When big corporations have the budget to pump up the cost per click on important industry keywords small businesses are just not able to compete anymore.
If I look at on-page SEO nothing has changed at the core of on-page optimization over the last 10 years. If the question were 20 years I would argue that keyword stuffing became a thing of the past. Maybe now there is a bit more focus on internal link flow than 10 years ago but the same standards still apply for on-page optimization. A lot of high quality content with good keyword targeting gets you results. However, what did change drastically are off-page SEO factors. There is a clear before and after 2012 in terms of creating a backlink profile. This is when Google introduced its Penguin algorithm update and a lot of businesses saw their rankings evaporate overnight. It is now crucial to have backlinks coming from quality pages only.
Something else businesses now appreciate more than before is the importance of website usability, especially with the rise of mobile devices this has now become more important than ever before. You can spend thousands of dollars on SEO, if your website or landing page is confusing or does not convey your message clearly you will not make a sale or get a lead.
How did you get introduced to digital marketing, more specifically SEO?
In 2007 I got a job at a digital marketing company in Belgium. Here I got introduced to PPC and learned the ins and outs of the Google Adwords platform. Social Media was just getting started. At the company I got experience with handling big clients from start to finish. Late 2008 I started my own digital marketing business in Belgium. After moving to the US in 2015 I founded Go2marK and run and manage all aspects of the company.
What are the services you provide to your clients?
What strategy according to you will prevail in 2018 for SEO?
What would your advice be to people who are looking to take up digital marketing as a career choice?
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