Interview with Jeff Quipp | CEO of Search Engine People

The following is an interview with Jeff Quipp, President and CEO of Search Engine People, one of the most respected search marketing companies around today. Jeff is an extremely talented and knowledgeable individual and even in the short period that it took to put this interview together I truly feel that I have developed in taking another step into the search marketing world.

Me: Jeff you have been involved with marketing in the Internet for some considerable time now. Can you give me a brief history of how you got started up to the present position you currently hold today?

Jeff: I’ve always been entrepreneurial … and don’t do well with politics, red tape, and the struggles that are a part of life at most large companies. That said, after completing post graduate school, I went to work for Sympatico-Lycos (today Sympatico-MSN) 1995-2001 … Canada’s largest ISP and portal. My role changed frequently, but I was Product Manager for YellowPages.ca at one point, then graduated to Manager - Traffic and Distribution for many Sympatico-Lycos entities (including Yellowpages.ca, Sympatico.ca, all the city cites, etc.).

This introduced me to new kinds of search (given YellowPages were the original) … both organic and Goto (predecessor of todays Yahoo Search Marketing). We tried 2 different companies for organic, and both seemed very shady. I saw this as an opportunity for an honest business person, and began Search Engine People Inc. in 2001.

Me: Your a family man, Jeff, much like myself. Where do you find the time to balance being a President of one of Canada’s most influential Internet Marketing companies alongside family life?

Jeff: To be honest, I’ve found there are 3 keys to work-life balance.

a) Surround yourself with good people! I don’t have to be good at everything … I’m definitely not! However, we have been EXTREMELY fortunate to hire many exceptional people. That’s been the key for us. We look for exceptional people (not average), who are hard working, self-motivated, intelligent, and fun-loving team players.

b) Let people work to their strengths! If people love their work, are engaged, and look forward to coming into work everyday, they will excel!

c) Control Growth! Companies that grow too fast, outstrip the boundaries of their knowledge, abilities, and finances. Accordingly, we do walk the fine line growing as fast as we are, but are always careful not to grow too fast.

With these three elements firmly in place, I can focus on specific duties that work to my strengths (marketing and strategy), knowing all others take their jobs and responsibilities seriously, and are amongst the best in the business. Sure I still work hard … but now often its after the kids go to bed, and because I really enjoy what I’m doing. I don’t watch much television anymore.

Me: I recently read one of your posts regarding people leaving their digital footprints within the Internet. Is this something that you feel people should be more aware of and to what extremes do you feel that it may or could harm them in the future?

Jeff: Absolutely, digital footprints are something many people don’t give much consideration too … and it should be at the forefront of their thoughts. It is already a very important component of the job consideration process for many companies, and will only grow in importance. If its true also that most people ’stretch the truth’ on their resumes, and will change careers much more frequently going forward … then your digital footprint will be very telling. Also, for the vast majority of us with little to hide, it won’t be that much of an issue. Mistakes are expected, and help us grow, both as individuals and professionals. For those individuals with more severe lapses in Judgment, finding jobs will be difficult without formally changing your name.

For companies, the problem is compounded. The world can see your mistakes on-line … and people/clients aren’t as forgiving of companies as they are of individuals. Companies will require specific strategies to deal with such issues as they arise … and they should begin planning those now as its already happening.

Me: There has been a plethora of comments written about paid links recently what is your honest opinion of it all and do you ever feel a compromise will be reached?

Jeff: Will a compromise ever be reached? Absolutely not! As long as links are an important part of search engine algorithms, people will buy and sell links, and attempt to artificially inflate their rankings. Its basic human behavior … accomplish the most with the least effort.

Can Google crack down on every paid link? Not in my lifetime. All they can do is seek to find and punish obvious abusers, scare possible suppliers, and reduce their algorithm’s reliance on links.

Longer term, as processors become more powerful, they’ll be able to:

a) add the ability to analyze the benefit (in terms of traffic) of individual links, and perhaps discount the value of all those links not actually clicked or traversed

b) migrate to rankings based on actual behaviors, and dramatically reduce their reliance on links (I can never see them completely removing link scores from their algorithm).

Behavioral weighted algorithms give them a real-time quality feedback loop that can self-adjust … far superior to the current ‘arm’s length inferences’ about the quality of search results.

Me: Would that mean that links would lose value the crustier they get by being buried in websites or even sites being buried in the rankings.
Have I got this right? Can you elaborate some on this answer, please Jeff, its an interesting concept.

Jeff: Sure, what I mean is if a link to your site appears on say searchenginejournal.com, and that link never gets clicked on … then the value of that link could be completely discounted because Google could then assume it wasn’t relevant. If it gets clicked on lots, then Google could assume its very relevant. They can make it very simple or complex … but its a possibility.

Google isn’t likely to ever have perfect information, but their toolbar, the cookies they set, and Google Analytics et al would provide an ample enough sample size to make these types of inferences.

Its very processor heavy though from their perspective which is why time would be needed.

Me: I have never met Matt Cutts but I study bitterly hard almost everything he writes and I genuinely feel that he’s up against a rock and a hard place. If you were to stand in the man’s shoes for a day and be allowed to post on his blog what would you say?

Jeff: I have to be completely honest, I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for Matt Cutts and the difficult position he is in. I think the man is a veritable genius! I may poke fun at him from time to time on my posts, but that’s my job. He’s got the intellect, the will power, and the personality to bridge the gap between SEOs and Google in such a way that he makes people respect Google more. He’s the face and personality of Google to the SEO/Social media world, rather than leaving us to believe it’s a big faceless machine.

If I were in Matt’s job for a day … I’d probably sell my shares and buy a moderately sized Caribbean island. Seriously, I’d try my best to continue on the path he’s on. As I mentioned in my post on What Google Wants, Matt has to tow the company line, otherwise the wheels begin to fall off the proverbial Google bus. In the mean time, they’re diligently working at the next evolution of Google’s algo based on behavioral feedback (see great posts by Dave Harry and Bill Slawski) that will reduce their reliance on links. Its one of those really funny dilemmas … the foundation for Google’s amazing success (links and PR), has now become their biggest liability.

Me: One word answer time Jeff. Which do you prefer, SEO or PPC?

Jeff: Depends! Typically though SEO.

Me: Search Engine People have grown into such a formidable company that emits the “reliability factor”. Just how and when did the jigsaw snap into place and you could sit back and think “that’s it, we’ve cracked it”?

Jeff: Thanks Paul, but to be frank I hadn’t realized yet that all the pieces had snapped into place. Its still a work in progress. We’ve got so much more we want to accomplish yet. We been very fortunate of late that our active participation in the community has given us a good deal of visibility, but there’s so much more we want to accomplish.

I can say definitely though; we do feel that we’ve ‘cracked it’ with our team, and we’ve got all the requisite skills to get us where we want to go. Personally, I’ve never felt so good about a team! We now operate as a cohesive unit, all enjoy the same vision, and enjoy each other immensely. Its fun and challenging!

Me: One of the hardest things I have found recently is supplying a cost for SEO services. How do you manage that side of things Jeff and what tips can you give to fledgling companies like ourselves?

Jeff: I’ll be honest … its completely different now than it was a few years ago when there were only a few of us. We’ve migrated to a new model … more Account Management and hand holding. Its been an evolution. We couldn’t afford it at first, but now we’ve grown large enough, that we can hire really talented people in all facets of the business. A few years ago we differentiated primarily based on price, and gave little in the way of service and hand holding. We did what we had to do to survive and grow.

Now, we try to price on an hourly basis, knowing that account management will constitute a % of that time. We’re fortunate now in that we’ve got so much experience in every aspect of search and social media.

What tips can I give to new start-ups? I posted alot of my advice to start-ups in this piece (9 Biggest Learnings in running an SEO Business). It was as open and upfront as I could be about the challenges of starting an SEO business. The only other suggestion I have is to be flexible. Flexible with reporting. Flexible with pricing. Try different pricing methods … we still do

Me: I have recently become addicted to social bookmarking, esp. StumbleUpon. What words of advice can you give to anyone looking to become a power user in any of the social guises?

Jeff: Don’t lose perspective, and always track results against objectives. Social media can become all consuming, but the actual traffic is very difficult to convert. Its very easy to have spent a great deal of time and effort, with no real returns. So, begin by setting objectives (Benefits to Engaging in Social Media Marketing). Its not for every business … its merely a tool in our toolkit. So make sure the effort can satisfy specific goals.

2) Then; focus on getting really really good at blogging and content generation that people love. This content is the foundation! The key to making it work for clients is their content, and you’ll likely have to help create it.

3) Network … participate in these communities. Vote, comment, submit … in that order. Establish friendships in various social media, and migrate them to other platforms. Be loyal to your friends … follow their submissions religiously. Tip … use RSS to follow their submissions pages, and check every few hours. THIS WILL TAKE TIME … and continue to take time! If you really want to be a power social media user … its takes a lot of time and effort.

Me: You have been involved within the industry for a number of years now Jeff so can I be impertinent and ask which of your RSS subscriptions you enjoy the most?

Jeff: AH great question! I follow roughly 200-300 blogs daily through RSS. There are many that I would have difficulty living without. If I absolutely had to narrow it down to my favorite four, I would say my favorites are:

a) searchengineland.com
b) techipedia.com (Tamar’s blog … she’s a genius!)
c) skelliewag.org (another genius!)
d) doshdosh.com (social media guru extrordinaire)

Me: Thanks Jeff. That was awesome, truly awesome!