KMSU Radio

CEO came naturally to Catherine Seven

By Sara Gilbert Frederick Special to The Free Press Special to The Free Press Sun Sep 19, 2010, 07:00 PM CDT

MANKATO — When Catherine Seven looks back at the success her business, SEOWhat.com, has experienced since it started in 2003, she can sum up the way it all started with four words: right place, right time.

It was 1997. The Mankato native had been living in Seattle and working in retail as a general manager. She was growing weary of all the travel that her job demanded when a want ad caught her eye. The ad was looking for job candidates who were interested in doing “something no one else has done,” she remembers. “I saw it as the perfect opportunity.”

She answered the ad and got a job working for a start-up dot.com company that was selling advertising online. Although she had no background in technology, she had a curious mind that quickly grasped the ins and outs of online marketing. She learned codes, worked with venture capitalists and started building websites. It was a crazy, quickly changing time — and Seven was right there with it.

But then came 2000 and the dot.com bust. “It ruined everything,” Seven admits. “All the money that was going to keep the sites I was working on pulled out. Within four days, everything was gone.”

Not quite everything, actually: Seven still had the knowledge she had picked up about Internet marketing and search engine optimization. And that’s what led her to start her own consulting business in California — and what became the foundation for the business she started in 2003 and now runs on South Front Street in Mankato.

Today, SEOWhat.com works with thousands of clients both locally and nationally. It still focuses on search engine optimization — tweaking source codes so that sites rank as highly as possible on Google — but now also offers social media optimization (SMO), search engine marketing (SEM), and complete web design and content construction as well. Seven is the CEO, but she also has almost a dozen employees and more than 100 contractors. The company has made more than a million dollars and has continued to grow, even after moving from Huntington Beach, Calif., to Mankato in April 2009.

“I thought I’d get smaller when I came back to Mankato,” Seven says. “But it’s actually gotten bigger. We’ve brought on almost 20 local clients already.”

Coming Home

Catherine Seven’s great-great-grandfather owned a caning business in Mankato. Her great grandfather operated a caning and carpentry business and her grandfather ran a carpet store. Her mom and dad owned Winiarski Interiors on Front Street in downtown Mankato for almost 20 years. Seven says that it was only natural that she would start her own business in town as well. “Being raised the way I was, as an entrepreneur, there was no way I wasn’t going to run my own business,” she laughs.

It wasn’t necessarily her intention to run that business in Mankato, though. She was quite happy in Huntington Beach, Calif, where SEOWhat.com had an office and she and her husband, Duane Erickson, had a beautiful home on the ocean. But she missed her family and wanted to be closer to home, especially so that her mother could watch her granddaughter grow up.

“Being back brings me more pride then I could have imagined,” she says. “It’s nice to be back to my roots and to have the ability to raise my little girl where I was raised. Being close to family matters.”

But it isn’t just family that Seven has reconnected with in Mankato. Her husband jokes that they can’t go anywhere in town without running into someone Seven went to school with in Mankato. “What’s neat is that the people I went to high school with are now business owners here too,” Seven says. “That’s been really cool.”

She’s already developed working relationships with several of her former classmates, friends and even neighbors. She’s also reached out to a number of local organizations and offered to sponsor their sites at no cost to them. Her goal, she says, is to work with two organizations each month to design, host and maintain a site for free. So far, she’s worked with Solstice, History Fest, SMILES and Minnesota Recovery Group. “It’s something I can do to give back to my community,” she says.

The beauty of her business is that it can be done anywhere. She has clients in northern California and clients across the street. She has clients in Wisconsin and clients in New York. She has clients who are close friends and clients who she’s never met face to face. “I don’t actually ever have to meet them,” she says. “They can be anywhere. We communicate through a portal that we have set up. Everything else is done online.”

That’s where Seven’s strengths come through the strongest. She understands why certain sites are ranked well on search engines and why others are not. She knows exactly what to look for, and exactly where to look for it. “Web surfers only look at the homepage,” she says. “But what I care about is the source code; when I’m working on a site, that’s the only thing I look at.”

She’ll also look at the source code of competing sites; understanding what they’re doing right — and wrong — helps her know how to serve her clients better. “It’s reverse engineering,” she explains. “I go into their backend to find out what the competition is doing and use that to help my clients.”

Although it seems like a laborious process to others, it comes easily to Seven. She’s seen many of her clients rise to the top of the rankings quickly and she works hard to keep them there. That’s why the first thing she does every morning is to check where each of her clients ranks on Google.

She checks several times during the day and then one final time right before she goes to bed as well. “When I check in the morning, I can tell what kind of day it’s going to be,” she explains. “And when I check at night, then I often get to go to bed with a smile.”

Build those links
Opt for acquiring just a few links from high quality, highly ranked relevant websites, rather than gathering dozens of links from the smaller sites. By gravitating towards PageRank-endowed websites, you ensure that your site’s “worthiness” is enhanced and noticed by the search engines. A single link coming from a site with a PageRank of 7 or even 8 can significantly boost your site’s ranking in just a matter of weeks. Also, pay attention to the anchor text that is used. Existing inbound links should have ideal anchor text; for example opt for “custom greeting cards” as opposed to “click here for greeting cards”.

Participate in the blogosphere
Jump right into the blogosphere in order to leverage the SEO power of blogs. Positively impact both your site’s traffic and your own SEO rankings by maintaining a blot. Write posts frequently to avoid unsightly timeline gaps, which most search engines frown upon. Tip: use content management systems that allow you to schedule out future posts. This way you can write your posts in batches and upload them, rather than having to make sure to login every single day to write a post.

Also, be sure to comment on the entries of important bloggers in your industry, in order to get on the radar screen of the people you’re hoping to attract. Participate directly on blogs by offering product reviews and giveaways — these will generate both positive buzz and a boost for your SEO.

Re-organize your internal links
Now is a great time to take a look at your internal linking structure to make sure it is operating efficiently. One thing to keep in mind is that during the holiday shopping season, most customers have different buying habits that they execute. Do a bit of research on the holiday must-haves and the right keywords to use, and then modify your linking structure accordingly. As always, include keyword-rich anchor text and content, and if you offer holiday-specific products, such as ornaments or greeting cards, be sure to create separate pages for them. This way the search engines will pick up on these “dedicated” pages, and direct holiday shoppers accordingly.

Avoid code freeze
Many website developers institute what is known as a “code freeze” — prohibiting developers and their colleagues from tinkering with website coding or internal platforms during the holiday season, lest some type of error or catastrophic loss occur. While a code freeze can prevent problems, it can also tie up months worth of time that would be better spent tackling that code. Rather than racing against the clock, implement new SEO strategies and brush up existing ones carefully and slowly. Considering using a third-party proxy platform to help you pass along your optimization techniques and features throughout the holidays, without actually modifying the native code and structure of your website.

Jump into the blogosphere
The blogosphere is a resource that you’ll definitely want to tap. Many blogs carry high PageRanks, which in turn can help you boost your own SEO ratings. Furthermore, you can reach new audiences and increase your overall traffic by placing links on blogs, or participating directly with blogs by offering product reviews and giveaway opportunities.

Wrap those gifts
Whether you’re shipping out products for review, for giveaways or for paid-for orders, throw in gift wrapping, and if possible, free shipping. Holiday shoppers are stressed and pressed for time — and often money. Appeal to them and their wallets by offering gift-wrapping and free shipping. Be sure to create pages that stress and emphasize holiday gifts, gift wrapping, and free shipping, so that the major search engines pick up on it.

Improve your internal structure
With SEO there is always opportunity and almost the need for change and restructuring. You should periodically tackle your internal links and structure and make sure that they are adapted for the current season. During the holidays, for example, holiday shoppers do more searches for holiday-related items, such as Christmas ornaments and holiday greeting cards. Create specific links for these and other holiday-oriented items, so that search engines direct your shoppers to the right areas.

Build links
Building links should be a year-round process that doesn’t take a holiday hiatus. Focus on landing a few quality, relevant links on highly ranked sites. Just one or two link placements on sites with a PageRank of 7 or 8 can significantly boost your own site’s ranking in just a matter of weeks. Do your best to influence the text that is used for your links; “custom holiday decorations” will attract more SEO recognition than “click here for decorations”.

Fortunately, thanks to advances in technology and internet marking and SEO, we have more information than ever at our disposal. Unfortunately, we may be so ingrained in current practices or distracted that we may not pay attention to that available information, which means missing out on potential indicators.

If you have weathered the last two shopping seasons, then you are probably able to handle the 2010 holiday shopping season. And if you haven’t, pay attention to what has worked for other online retailers, because the information presented will probably apply to you as well. Remember, shoppers are always looking for bargains, particularly during the holiday season, and how you market yourself and your wares can make all of the difference in the world.

First, consider doing what Seas is doing: extend the holiday shopping season. Sears has already been selling Christmas collectibles, outdoor decor and tree ornaments for the last several weeks — why not do the same?
hhgregg, another popular electronics retailer, takes advantage of the standard “Christmas in July” to push products that may normally be overlooked until later in the season.

Keep in mind that consumers will usually happily jump at the chance to purchase clothing and electronics at any time of the year, so long as the price is right, but at the same time, holiday decor and yard ornaments aren’t exactly hot sellers when the buyers are still sporting sunglasses and flip-flops. Push seasonal merchandise via early sales by offering deep discounts, customer loyalty programs, or other special offers.

Reward your customers to keep them coming back for more. Sears and K-Mart alike are offering special rewards programs and credit cards that are geared toward the holiday season, even though they can be used now. Offer discounts on interest rates and payments to further encourage consumers to get an early start on their holiday shopping.

Learn from your history, and the history of other marketing professionals. Check data from 2007, 2008 and 2009 to see what was done, what worked and what didn’t work. Use your own data to predict sales and to boost any faltering ones. Most importantly, keep in mind that 2010 is still a weak economic year, so you’ll want to work a bit harder at making your sales and product offerings irresistible to your customers.