Daniel Kogan

Recently I was challenged to prove my search engine optimization skills. I have never questioned my own skills since I knew that all my successes where brought to me by 2 things, the first was my search engine optimization skills and the second my partner in crime, a technical wizard in her own realm. I never really documented much of my SEO skills for the simple reason that I didn’t have too.  SEO was never a business for me, it was just a tool that I learned to bring in business for me and the businesses that I have been involved with. I never had a company or boss that asked me for results or flow charts, let alone explanations of anything that involved search engine optimization or marketing.   I have always had freedom to experiment and dabble in a field that just felt natural for me. Don’t get me wrong, I have had many challenges come across my way over the years with SEO.   The ride hasn’t been easy but yet it hasn’t been that difficult since I have been following the growth of search engines practically since day one. My relationship with search engine optimization has been a back and forth trilogy that has led me to the person I am today, I consider myself a “search engine expert” or for short, “SEO Expert” and this challenge will prove that this title is fitting of my work.

Throughout the years or even a little over the last decade, I have always had friends ask me how I get such good results in the search engines. I have worked in the fashion and retail e-commerce business for the past 7 years and until this day I get stopped and asked how I end up with top positions next to billion dollar companies. I share positions with companies that have million dollar marketing budgets but yet, I sit either above them or side by side in the top search engines for the top search phrases.    People have speculated that I have an “In” with the search engines, something I can easily deny.

I always thought that my principles of SEO where pretty simple and readily available on the Internet. Now I understand that even if you have the answers in front of you it doesn’t mean that you will fully or even partially understand how to achieve top positions in search engines. For example, you can give me the ingredients and instructions on how to bake a cake but I still won’t do a very good job baking a cake. Give me a paint set with tracing paper and I will still give you art that looks like it came from a 2nd grader. Search engine optimization is the same way. If you don’t have the natural skill and understanding, if you don’t have passion for your art, if you don’t fully understand the concepts without a manual, your not an SEO expert or an SEO practitioner in any way. All the answers for SEO sit one click away from you, free SEO tips are all over the internet, instruction manuals are all online and are provided for free and still search engine optimization may be one of the most difficult and mysterious topics discussed on internet.

Now that I have a legitimate challenge ahead of me I decided that instead of proving my SEO skills on someone else’s website I may as well create my own website documenting my search engine optimization skills in a diary format.