MadPipe does SEO consulting. Daniel DiGriz, resident Digital Ecologist®, used to run a pure-SEO and web design company before the death of SEO (yes, SEO is dead). You're better off, in our view, getting clear direction that just throwing money at whatever "SEO" has now become.

We advise clients on effectively implementing what SEO has been replaced with, which is a mix of one time website optimization (bad news for companies that need to keep charging month after month for supposed "ongoing" SEO), and then ongoing content marketing, content optimization, PR, and social media (which a lot of "SEO" companies either do badly or repackage and mark up). In the sense of "ongoing SEO", there's no such thing any more - hasn't been for years. Hence this book by MadPipe founder Daniel DiGriz.

Potentially. But most people looking for "SEO" are making a number of assumptions that are usually incorrect.

1. They believe search will significantly improve with one-time website tweaks (like rewriting static web copy) and this will have a result that makes it worth the cost. But usually the ROI isn't there; you should actually have the copy professionally rewritten when traffic is great (or is about to be) or when it's the right traffic but the content isn't converting the visitor. That's not a technical fix at all, and it shouldn't be left to technical specialists. Mostly it requires some strategic exploration of the audience, the pitch, and the goals in play.
2. They believe you can get a boost from technical one time SEO optimization without any ongoing content marketing strategy. It's true, you can improve the indexability of your site, but it won't actually index well enough to matter without ongoing content marketing. Without a wise strategy and solid implementation of that, a mere technical boost won't pay off.

Search engines don't want or even like SEO. In fact, Google is in a war against SEO. What search engines want is effective audience engagement. Search engines are content engines. If you're not giving them fresh, frequent, user engaged content, you're working against search engines, not with them.  

What MadPipe will help you do is plan out how you're going to go beyond mere obsolete "SEO" and focus on what search engines want. 

Yes, they've changed a lot since 2000, which is when we started doing this. In fact, there are more than 500 algorithms at work behind Google.

But you only need to care about a handful of them. And they're easily summed up as what they are - PENALTIES for doing SEO instead of human content marketing:

1. THE CONTENT RULE: Create fresh, frequent, consistent, human engaged content. Be real: don't game the system with thin, useless, seldom-engaged, filler content.
2. THE SOCIAL RULE: Engage with a wide audience (e.g. in social media) that interacts substantively with your content, brand, and website. Be real: don't just dump something into your social channels to keep it "active".
3. THE AUTHORITY RULE: Grow your authority, evidenced by well-regarded, high volume sites linking to or mentioning your brand in natural ways (e.g. cultivate PR). Be real: don't try to get a bunch of spammy "backlinks".
4. THE DEVICES RULE: Have a fast, responsive website that is also fast and easy to use on mainstream mobile devices. There's no "mobile audience" anymore - everyone is mobile - acknowledge it.

All the other stuff is window dressing. Sure, there are a few technical things you can do IF you're doing the above things authentically and well. If not, they're wasted energy and won't help you. It's the 80/20 rule. MadPipe helps you focus your energy on the things that matter the most, not the things that are easiest for geeks to deliver, be obscure about, or get their heads around.

There's no special sauce, and don't trust anyone who says there is. Any undocumented SEO tactic is illegitimate, and will get you penalized in the end, even after a short term boost. Legitimate techniques are so well-documented as to be abysmally ordinary. Why? Because if it's about Google, it's in Google, and that means we all know about it.

If you're looking for a magic bullet in SEO, it only occurs in the imagination. It's OK to dream, but dreaming won't scale your business. What MadPipe does is look at what you want to accomplish and recommend marketing strategies that will get you there. You don't want SEO - that's just something standing in, in your mind, for what you really want. What is it? Brand recognition? A more educated consumer base? A more sustainable pipeline of leads?

It's a straight up consulting arrangement. To nail it down, Daniel can schedule a brief call.

Please keep in mind that usually people are wanting the answers to "what do I do and what does it cost" in that initial call. Digital Strategy consulting is how we make a living, so we need to keep the call about the process for consulting rather than the content of it.

The initial call is to make sure we want to work together and confirm particulars and process for starting.

Subsequent calls consist of strategic guidance on where to put resources and time, etc. We do a minimum of 4 sessions at a rate of at least once/week (so we don't lose momentum). This is paid in advance. Additional consulting past the initial 4 times can be paid by the session.

We hear it a lot: "my friend partnered with X SEO company and it really improved their traffic". So why aren't you contacting them?

Usually it's because it's crazy expensive. Some people spend $3-5K/mo on "SEO". You know what that stuff is? A report coupled with some relatively ordinary one-time website changes, a few content tweaks, and a lot of cheap (but heavily marked up) content marketing, social, and ads that get ghost visitors (and some real ones) but don't engage an actual audience. It'll temporarily fool a search engine (which, if you listen to "SEO" companies, is what they're really attempting). But if you ever drop that service - goodbye rankings. You're in for life, and you'd better not quit.

That's not SEO. That's very badly done content marketing, organized by an SEO company that wouldn't still be in business if it was doing actual "SEO", because actual SEO is dead (and has been for years). They need that paycheck, so they're repackaging something they're not natively very good at, that isn't actually technical, and selling it at a markup. If you want that, you should call them. They'll be happy to take care of you.

Or if our plain talk about it bothers you, definitely call them. We think demystifying these concepts is what empowers businesses to make better decisions. We're not going to coddle the market and not call it straight. What MadPipe does is help you construct a legitimate marketing strategy that's transparent, uses best practices, and draws on industry experts who don't work anonymously behind the scenes. If that's right for you, we should talk.

So did we. Right along with the one about the Nigerian prince needing a short term loan.

Everyone gets those emails. They're not actually doing a real analysis of your site. It's SPAM. Everyone gets the same "we see your site is not optimized"; coincidentally, they just happen to be world-renowned experts in SEO that we've never heard of.

They're selling obsolete garbage. Don't fall for it. You might as well buy diet pills from infomercials and pop-up ads. MadPipe is going to respect your business more than that.

No—it's a sideline. Click our logo at the top to visit our home page, and you'll get a feel for what we do. The short version is MadPipe builds a marketing department into your company operation, and leads that department so you can spend most of your attention on the operational side of your business.

We can do some side digital strategy consulting, including SEO consulting. But if you've got the marketing budget to go all the way, let's talk about that. After all, the SEO focus is just one part of an effective strategy.