seoluv presents:
John Bertrand of http://www.jnbwebpromotion.com/.
John Bertrand’s story began while he was working at Phillips research in Amsterdam and Eindhoven in 1995. The personification of Old School SEO John Bertrand has offices in Washington D.C, Zwolle and in the Philippines. JNB Web Promotion has numerous resellers as well.
Q. You live part time in the Philippines now.
A. Yes I do, sometimes I’m in other countries due to my work.
Q. Are you outsourcing SEO services from the US and Europe to the Philippines.
A. Yes I am
Q. That is obviously working well for you.
A. Yes it is. I can be anywhere in the World. I have a fully staffed office so no matter where you are or where I am, I can assist you with your SEO needs.
Q. How old are you now?
A. I will be 44 this year.
Q. And you were born in Amsterdam?
A. No, I was born in Kerkrade
Q. I know our readers want me to ask you this question, how is the hashish in Amsterdam ?
A. Never tried it! Most people think Amsterdam is full with hashish, but it’s not. It really depends what you want do with your life. If you are doing things in a proper way, you have no time to think that negative using this kind of stuff I am a Scientist, Mathematician and Engineer. I don’t have time for such nonsense
Q. And you have been working in SEO full time for 8 years ?
A. Yes, since 1998. I started in The Netherlands
Q. Tell us about your background, how did you get involved with search engine optimization advertising and marketing?
A. I was working at Phillips labs in using the Internet for international communications and research, setting up web sites, translations and products needed to be sold, here I got inside the SEO without knowing it, after more and more research and understanding customer’s needs and problems, I became very successful with all the web sites and started my own firm way back in 1998, we can do now SEO for almost any language. At the moment we have clients from Australia, USA, Europe and Asia.
Q. You have never attended an SEO conference, why?
A. Yes I did once in The Netherlands, which was in 2002, but due to lack of sponsors it didn’t push through.
Q. What have been some of the big learning experiences for you in SEO over the years?
A. I worked for several big SEO firms in the US such as SearchEngineGenius, getcustmertraffic and beyondroi, I’m also a moderator for several directories such as DMOZ and startpagina.nl.
Q. Do you have any advice for people that are interested in SEO?
A. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the bridge over the gap, it is to bring people with average computer skills, and the information they look for together. It overlaps the sometimes still too mathematics-based search engine technology, and takes you a step closer to your target audience. SEO should be about examining how people are looking up information on the web, and not how you may trick them into visiting your website. In other words, most people do not think about information the way search engine designers would. Be honest to your clients, don’t promise things you can’t. Sometimes it works when you do a little charity SEO, this brings you attention as well new prospects.
Q. Are you available to teach?
A. No. Not per se. That may change some day. On a very limited basis I have clients that pay me to talk to them over the phone about their concerns, Sometimes they have concerns about their SEO’s. But I’ve been asked several times already to open a school for advanced web marketers; I used to teach part-time students from AMA and from the Meralco foundation in Manila in 2003. To help them understand the benefits of proper SEO. I hear that some of them are now working abroad; this is nice to hear < laughs>
Q. Is that expensive?
A. Unfortunately it is. But depending on how many people will attend, we could work it out.
Q. You have clients that have been with you for years. How do you retain your clientele so well?
A. I place my client’s needs first. They know their business best. IT is up to me to be available to them to answer their concerns in a timely manner whether by e-mail or on the phone. I NEVER treat a client like he or she is dumb just because they may not understand SEO. That is a BIG mistake. They know their business and I give them COMPLETE respect for that. I might add that living in the Philippines has helped me with my customer service skill set a lot. The people here have such lovely manners. Its nice working with my staff here at JNB in the Philippines. I advise everyone, if a small firm comes to you with a limited budget and you do SEO for them very well, later they might be your biggest and best client!
Q. You are now experimenting with blog technologies and semantic web strategies. How much of a percentage of your time do you devote to Research and Development?
A. Yes good question, you may know that the future of SEO is blog technologies and semantic SEO. I retain about 30 % of my available time to build in research. Fortunately my staff manages the day to day while I do so. SEO is very dynamic and it is easy to fall behind in certain ways and then in other ways the Old is the New again because of things like algorithm reversions and revisions. What I do is applied knowledge coupled with Science to result in a specific result. And that result is not always intended to be Page Rank.
Q. Well we are going to do a part 2 of the interview on relevance and linking right?
A. Yes. You see many of these strategies have not been calibrated yet in my opinion. Let’s take linking for instance. Some people say if you have a lot of links, the better the Page Rank. We’ll cover that in Part 2.
Q. You write your own software?
A. Yes we do. A search engine is a tool to find information. Internet search engines (eg Google, AltaVista) help users find web pages on a given subject. The search engines maintain databases of web sites and use programs (often referred to as “spiders” or “robots”) to collect information, which is then indexed by the search engine. Similar services are provided by “directories,” which maintain ordered lists of websites, eg Yahoo! Link management is finding good and relevant links, linking back to you. There is a lot of work involved to do this properly. But Rate Your Inbound Links!! Sort through and review each inbound link to reveal potentially harmful links. For a larger commercial site, this can be an excruciatingly tedious task. But, it’s a worthwhile exercise that can provide valuable insight into your online business. How you sort the links is up to you, but don’t rely on Page Rank to determine an inbound link’s quality. Page Rank doesn’t determine how relevant the link is to your site, nor does it prove the link is on-topic or provides valuable pre-qualified traffic to your site. Page Rank really doesn’t matter all that much. It’s relatively easy to qualify each inbound link into five general categories: internal, paid, solicited, partner, and other. Within the “other” category, note which sites are potentially harmful, such as link farms, ad scrapers, search scrapers, and other low-quality links. Of the five in-bound link category types, internal links within a site don’t much influence search rankings. But optimizing anchor text used between pages linked within the site is always a good idea, if you haven’t done so already. Paid sites include links from fee-based search directories. How can you determine which inbound links are most important to your site? Generally, in-bound links from directories should be reflected in your site’s log files because they generate relevant traffic to your site. Solicited sites can be directory listings from free, industry-specific vertical search engines, Yellow Pages, or other industry specific Web directories. Either way, someone had to request your site’s information be included. Combined together, paid and solicited links can be an important way users find your site beyond general search results. Partner links derive from business relationships. These links usually include technology partners, trade associations, resellers, suppliers, and the like. These are very valuable third-party link endorsements that are frequently overlooked during a link-building campaign. Your site’s list of inbound links from business partners is something you should always be looking to grow as part of a long-term link building strategy.
Q. You’ve been in the SEO business for a long time now. You’ve seen many things change over the years. What do you think has been the biggest change this year regarding the practice of SEO?
First of all Search Engines owe you nothing. I see the effort of Google though its sitemaps program to inform webmasters of compliance issues to be the most significant step by the Engines in collaborating together with web community in the History of the Web. With this we can work together with the Engines to produce the highest quality possible for the customer. At the end of the day, that is what this is all about, the customer. Search engines getting more and more sophisticated, using the semantic web and blogs is the new generation of search.
Q. In part 2 we will define our opinion of who the customer is, correct?
A. Sure, but for now there are many. My customer is someone who needs to be visible on the Internet. Perhaps they have limited knowledge of SEO and its better for them to hire an SEO expert rather than spending a fortune on the web site and all will be in vain because their potential customers can’t locate their web site. You need to ask the customers many questions, his “needs” his “problems” challenges” etc. Once you have examined this all you may now start research for relevant key phrases as well review his competitors.
Q. Will video ads work?
A. Yes! And they will work very well. Google’s new Video Ads for AdSense initiative is going to be a big hit. Living here in Asia I see the growth firsthand. Baidu will be hot on their tails on that one. In my opinion, the future of advertising will be seen on the internet and not on television.
Q. But China does not have the Bandwidth of a Seoul or a Tokyo.
A. They will, don’t worry
Q. For a moment I’d like to go back to conferences. Why do you avoid them?
A. I am a Scientist. I may attend one or two in the future but I can’t see myself going Hollywood on the SEO conference tour. There is a rumor of an seoluv.com organized China Expedition. Is that true?
Q. It has been discussed. An invitation from Baidu is an issue. We have translators.
Q. What are your favorite search engines and what are some feature improvements you’d like to see?
A. I like them all equally Google, MSN and Yahoo, Baidu and there are some others that I have on my radar like Icerocket. I’d like to see more accurate results in their search index. It is already improving.
Q. What are some of the resources you rely on for information on search? Best practices, news, industry information.
A. Good question: The final “best practices” standard will have 3 sections comprised of “appropriate” Technique, Marketing Practices, and Business Practices. Although we would like these to be industry standards they aren’t.
Search Engines determine what is “inappropriate” all we are doing is interpreting the “intent” of the guidelines. Search engines are not in total agreement between themselves further confusing what is acceptable and “appropriate”. Blogs and industrial information will keep us often up-to-date for the information we need.
Q. Life is elegant in the Philippines isn’t it?
A. Oh yes, each country has his own rules and regulations. Living in the Philippines is great. As to me, the Philippines is the ideal country to do outsourcing work
Thanks John
Your welcome Michael
