Marie's Story

My career in SEO started in 2008. I was a veterinarian and I had created a website but was unsure why I was only getting at most, 34 visitors per day. It was a good website, but no one was seeing it. I started off by asking questions in an SEO forum. It didn’t take long to get me hooked. I learned how to create fantastic content and to promote it so that people would link to it and use it. Today, this website is getting around 14,000 visitors per day. I also learned how to improve the search presence of my husband’s real estate site and his business exploded as a result.

Although I loved being a veterinarian, I had a dream that one day I could retire from veterinary practice and perhaps make websites for vets and help them to perform better on Google. I had no idea that I would quickly be launched into a lucrative career as an online marketing consultant.

In 2012, I was pregnant and on bed rest. I spent 16 hours a day hanging out in SEO forums. I started to take an interest in Google’s Penguin algorithm as it was something that very few people seemed to understand. I read everything that anyone wrote about Penguin or Google penalties. Eventually, I felt comfortable enough to give advice on the forums. It wasn’t long before people were asking me to take a look at their websites. I created a report in which I could review a site’s analytics and give my opinion on which algorithms were likely affecting their site. I had so many requests for help that I had to keep raising my prices.

It wasn’t long before I was asked to tackle a manual unnatural links penalty. It took a while to get my first penalty removed, but the feeling of seeing “manual spam action revoked” was amazing. I began to write articles on Moz and Search Engine Watch about my penalty work and more and more work kept coming my way.
Soon, I was in high demand for my consulting and penalty removal services. I trained several people to do this work so that I could pass the majority of the work to them. I also hired and trained several amazing people to work alongside of me.

I have worked with many different kinds of websites. What I enjoy the most is working with small business owners. I’ve had some great experiences working with nationally recognized brands as well whether it is in removing a penalty or consulting with their marketing team to help them promote their brand in ways that will be effective and not get them in trouble with Google.
I would never have dreamed that I would trade a life of taking care of people’s pets to one where I advise on how to promote businesses on Google. My life today consists of writing (see below for places where you can find my columns), speaking, teaching, and advising. I absolutely love it!