Shopping for SEO services in Jacksonville, Florida can be a daunting task for a business owner, marketing director, or entrepreneur. After all, there are over 30 agencies in Jacksonville that advertise SEO as a service. Which one do you choose?
Let me start off by saying, I’m not a full-service SEO agency. I know this page, for several years, ranked #1 organically for terms like ‘seo services jacksonville fl’ or some variation of that, but it’s imperative you know that I’m not an all-in-one solution for you SEO service needs. I do have many years of experience driving up organic traffic and leads for various companies – I also have experience of failure in many projects I worked on regarding SEO. It’s part of the process. After almost a decade of specializing in SEO, I left the industry in 2019 to diversify and focus on my skillset in video production by taking a job in television.
Opinion: Artificial Intelligence & Search Engine Optimization
Anyone that closely studied SEO in the past decade, noticed the implementation of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in search engines. It goes without question that AI was going to impact SEO (and other marketing techniques.) It was never a question if… it was when. Present day, AI software can analyze data at a rate exponentially faster than a human analyst. It goes without saying, AI will undoubtedly take a lot of the guesswork away by automating SEO workflows and furthermore, it’s only a matter of time until it starts to drastically change the careers of hundreds of thousands of analysts. The irony of the entire SEO industry, is that most SEO Analysts, Strategists, and Specialists all used data/research products from the same company that own the search engine they’re all devoted to debunking — Google. Even if an agency uses third party software like SEMRush or Ahrefs, those tools still pull data from Google. That alone is a conflict of interest, in my opinion.
As far as AI and the Machine Learning that operates the Google Search engine, in order to gain information, you have to input information and all of the information you input goes into a giant database to train and inform the Artificial Intelligence that you’re trying to understand. In a nutshell, no matter how much an SEO agency sells you on the idea that “they know SEO,” the reality is that they’re up against a machine that has been built by 3.7 billion user queries a day for two decades. You do the math — it’s fair to say that some agencies don’t know much about SEO and are merely dedicated to simply “chasing the white rabbit into the Matrix,” instead of admitting the truth, that they know very little about what they’re up against.
I know this all sounds very bleak. I mean, it’s reasonable to think that the power of AI might actually render traditional SEO tactics obsolete. But I sincerely do not think it will. If anything, AI just reinforces the importance of human led SEO efforts in this day and age. After all, AI is just a tool, albeit a powerful one, that helps marketers better understand how your content is received by your customers… and good SEO at it’s core is the logical organization/optimization of all website assets to develop an authentic, genuine leader in any given business vertical. These two (SEO and AI) can actually work well, hand in hand. While AI can automate many of the tasks needed to implement an SEO strategy, it cannot fully replace the decision-making steps that human digital marketing professionals are responsible for. Don’t get me wrong. Making data-driven decisions is crucial in optimizing campaigns; however, we can never discount the experiences seasoned marketers contribute to making SEO strategies work.
The most effective web content remains to be the kind that appeals to people’s heartstrings. Brands who use emotional messaging in their ads will more often than not see a lift in sales. Simply put, emotions get people to believe in you. AI has yet to replace humans when it comes to making emotional connections with people. People matter.
With that being said, I don’t think SEO is dead. I still think you need someone on your team that understands SEO and how AI will impact it. Therefore, I’m still open to being a consultant or working on a project in need of SEO guidance.
Browse the tabs below to read about my experience in the SEO industry, case studies, and advice for companies looking to find an SEO partner or freelancer to add to your team.
My SEO Experience
My unique background stems from my first experience as an SEO associate working in-house for a billion dollar e-commerce giant, to freelancing as an independent contractor for multiple small businesses and agencies, and then moving on to bigger roles as leading Search Engine Optimization campaigns for a nationally recognized healthcare company and globally recognized higher education institutions. I’ve worked in-house for big and small companies, operated independently, and for local agencies, so I’ve seen how everyone does SEO. I have experience with all areas that encompass search engine optimization services, as well as the channels and tactics that overlap them: Local and National SEO, Content Development, PageSpeed Insights Optimization, Copywriting, Social Media, Technical SEO, Website Design, and Blog Development. I am comfortable working in popular Content Management Systems like WordPress, AspDotNetStorefront, and many more. I even have experience working in several custom CMS and have the ability to optimize a custom built (non-CMS) website. Before you consider hiring me as a consultant for your SEO services, understand my number philosophy about search engine optimization: The best SEO strategy is having a good product. Any attempt to rank a “less than epic” product is just an attempt to manipulate the SERP… and manipulation is and not optimization.Local SEO
In order to have a sustainable local customer base, it is vital that you are visible in search locally. Much of the basic SEO principles to get higher rankings will work in building your online digital presence, however, Local SEO is a completely different set of principles. Even if your big picture goals are set for a national presence, you should first work on the local search before you try to reach national customers.If your SEO provider isn’t educated in the difference between National SEO and Local SEO, you could be missing out on crucial leads and potential customers.Whether you are a new startup just getting your feet wet or you are a small business struggling to reach and develop your neighborhood customer base, contact me for Local SEO services. I will build your local SEO campaign on solid marketing strategies that I’ve learned from my own trials and tribulations of building brands presence locally. I will focus on the factors and the ever-changing Google Ranking Signals that truly matter to help your business create local visibility.
Local SEO is essentially the practice of putting the horse before the cart, in order to build a solid baseline which allows for growth over time.Depending on your business needs, the local SEO campaign I create for you might include:
- Keyword Research to determine the demand in your local market.
- Sitewide Audit to determine areas of improvement.
- Keyword Mapping to ensure all content has the proper intent and avoid cannibalization.
- Onsite Optimization focused on providing local signals to the search engines and conversion rate optimization.
- Online Citation Development to establish accurate (NAPS) information across the web.
- Consult Other Digital Strategies to help promote your business.
- Link Building Earning to expand your business presence.

National SEO
Let me be transparent. Aside from experience working at Fanatics, I have not worked in a global or international SEO environment since 2016. Much has changed since then. While much of the same tactics from both Local and National SEO translate and extend into International SEO, there are certain International SEO tactics that I have not had the opportunity to learn yet. With that in mind, I can still offer services to help support and grow your National SEO campaign. With my National SEO services, I will rigorously and continuously crawl and review the technical implementation of your website to ensure it is fully optimized for Google’s crawlers and algorithm. I work hard to identify the keywords and phrases that will impact all phases of the funnel, creating content that answers the user’s query in the research phase of their journey, all the way down to driving converting traffic. I will advise and implement improvements with content updates, optimization adjustments, and link earning through building the best possible content available on the web. Using data is critical in a National SEO campaign, so I dive deep into your analytics to uncover necessary changes and any small but compelling low hanging fruit. Depending on your business needs, the national SEO campaign I create for you might include:- Technical SEO Website Audit to ensure best practices are implemented across your entire website and all opportunities are identified
- Keyword Research & Mapping to identify the queries, phrases, and questions your audience is typing into the search bar. I then map out your entire website with dedicated keywords.
- Content Optimization to rank better for keywords through internal linking, title and meta tag adjustments, content updates, schema implementation, conversion rate optimization, and much more
- Local SEO as listed before, to improve local rankings in both map pack and organic results for local-oriented search through technical, onsite, and offsite optimization.
- Penalty Recovery to identify the root cause of any potential penalties, execute a plan to correct the issue, and rebuild and submit the reconsideration request for Google.
- Deep Analysis of all website and bot traffic analytics to uncover insightful trends, opportunities for improvements, and risks to the business.
Website Optimization: Pagespeed Insights
Ever been on a site that crawled and hopped off in frustration? In the mobile age of the internet, website optimization and Google’s PageSpeed matters. The speed of your site is crucial to the success of your website. I have a basic understanding of PageSpeed Insights Optimization and can get your site running efficiently so that you can focus more on your content strategy, and not worry about the technical optimizations. Whether you are a developer that needs consultation for hardware recommendations or you are clueless with where to begin on optimizing your website for speed, I can help.Content Marketing & Development
Content Marketing and development is a strategic marketing process focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience that will drive profitable customer actions. SEO and Content Marketing go hand-in-hand: SEO states the requirements and Content Marketing fulfills them.SEO Research Is The Proxy For Demand > SEO Demands Content > Content Marketing Is Content
SEO research (keyword research, competitor research, etc.) is basically a collection of data that says, “Here is what your customers’ need/want/desire/ask, etc. There is no such thing as SEO without content. You need words, articles, substance, keywords, topics, verbiage, etc. When SEO shouts, “We need content!” then Content Marketing responds, “Okay. I’ll take care of that.”SEO Demands Backlinks > Content Marketing Introduces Backlinks
One of the hardest parts, yet most valuable parts of SEO is backlinks from domains with great authority. It is essential to get natural backlinks from verified and trusted sources with a DA of 90 or more. The number one way to do that is to create stellar content. Buying backlinks is a bad practice and will lead to a toxic backlink profile, among other problems. Focus on obtaining content from .edu sites, news sites, and even important sites outside of your industry… all linking to the highly informative content library you’ve created. Ultimately, stellar content will fulfill the need for backlinks.SEO Demands On-Site Technical Optimization > Content Marketing Needs Great UX
SEO is about more than just blog articles, keywords, and backlinks. SEO is about optimizing the robots.txt, enhancing metadata, utilizing proper tags, constructing a strategic sitemap, and many other technical issues that arise. If good content sits on a bed of technical issues, it will be ineffective to the user and search engines.SEO Demands Consistent Output > Content Marketing Requires Consistency
Good SEO means consistent output of content. Content marketing is an active verb, with ongoing action, meaning… you don’t just do it once and stop. You have to be consistent. If you are looking for a source for relevant content development and creation, not only do I have relationships with credible copywriters, but I also offer video production services, audio production services, and photography.Past SEO Achievements
I can provide references in association with the data below for verification to prove that I was an integral part of each case. The information for the SEO case studies I will share was collected from Google Analytics or Adobe Omniture.SEO Case Study #1
Fanatics.com



- Assisted SEO Manager in experiencing approx. 20%+ increase in overall yearly natural search traffic (millions of sessions a month) and approx. 20%+ natural search revenue (billions of dollars yearly) on a single site, year-over-year (YOY.)
- On the same site, I helped achieve several millions of high-quality / converting sessions from natural search traffic and over a quarter billion dollars in natural search revenue, all from SEO optimization and content creation.
- 8 months into my SEO career, I relieved the SEO Manager for over 2 months during our busiest season and became the primary SEO on the highest traffic/revenue site in our portfolio, resulting in continued positive YOY growth in natural search revenue and traffic for that period of time.
- The SEO department consistently generated over half of the revenue and traffic of the billion dollar organization my entire tenure at the company.
SEO Case Study #2
ePackagingResource.com



- Independently directed SEO campaigns to drive a 371% increase in natural search traffic, YOY in the first month of my contract, comparing to a hired marketing agency the prior year. After month three, the site saw 263% growth in natural search traffic and began to experience its first sales.
- With changes to on-page content and the rewriting of copy, the site experienced a 20% drop in bounce rate and an average duration increase of over 7:00 minutes on the site.
- Previously not ranking for any relevant keywords, in the first month I was able to get several high volume keyword and several long-tail keywords ranking within the first few pages. By the third month, these keywords were ranking on the first and second page. By the end of the year, I was competing for the top spot against other long-time competitors.
- Increased referral traffic from Facebook 166.67% YOY; LinkedIn 136.84%; Twitter 3300%, and ∞% on Google+ and Pinterest, since there was no previous traffic from those platforms.
SEO Case Study #3
LakeviewHealth.com, SteppingStonerecovery.com



- As the solo SEO Strategist at Lakeview Health, with a minimal content budget, limited assistance from third-party vendors, an in-house developed content marketing strategy, and despite a botched migration and site rebuild that occurred prior to my employment in Q1 2017, I successfully tripled the traffic and drove the highest volume of organic leads in the history of the website.
How I Achieved This Organic Growth
- One month of research and discovery
- Migrated to more reliable web hosting service
- Analyzed backlink profile and disavowed thousands of toxic links
- Wrote thousands of 301 redirects for externally triggered 404 errors
- Analyzed site structure and implemented “kill/modify/keep” on entire site
- Removing “intent-lacking” content
- “De-cannibalized” content by consolidating similar thin documents to one
- Reduced the click depth so all important content was less than three clicks away
- Implemented “friendly” URLs.
- Worked with a developer to improve overall Pagespeed scores
- Worked with a copywriter to rewrite all service pages and evergreen content
- Implemented sitewide internal linking structure using varying anchor text advised by the keyword map
- Started moving toward centralized “Hub & Spoke” content strategy
- Developed link building strategy, focused on Outreach, Contextual Links, Event Sponsoring, Guest Posting, Lost Backlink Recovery
- Setup CDN, DNS, DDoS protection and security using Cloudflare
- Much, much more…
Common Red Flags Of SEO Companies
When you are looking for SEO services in Jacksonville, FL: buyer beware. In business, there are always going to be risks, but in the growing world of SEO and digital marketing services, agencies will take advantage of your lack of understanding. Knowing the common red flags of SEO agencies will reduce the risks you take when bolting on to your well-oiled marketing team. Below I outline some of the signs you should look for before committing to someone for SEO services:- Lacking Case Studies – If you are shopping for a new SEO company, then before you even call, you should verify how well their client’s website(s) performed. Many agencies tout the clients they’ve had, but a good agency will transparently publish a case study to represent their success. In a good case study, you should be able to see the baseline state of the main organic KPIs (organic traffic, conversion metrics, and user behavior metrics) and see how they compared after the campaign. If a company only lists its clients, it’s easy to find out if a website has experienced organic growth or not. SEMRush is a great tool that facilitates much of the Search Marketing research needed, such as measuring your competitors, but it is also a great tool to find out if your prospective SEO agency is actually telling you the truth about their SEO success. You can plug in the website of your prospective SEO company’s clients in SEMRush for free. SEO campaigns typically take 6-8 months to go into effect, so make sure to find out the time your potential SEO service agency had their client and spy away. Remember, everyone can make claims, but without data, those claims are just lies. *Important: A case study is not a video showing the changes made to a client’s website with a voiceover of an opinion of how the site is better. SEO is all about growth and if a case study doesn’t contain measurable, quantifiable data such as increase in traffic, leads, or revenue, it’s not a case study!
- Guaranteed Rankings – Guarantees are nice, right? If a company offers you a guarantee, that makes the cost much easier to absorb. Well, I hate to break it to you, but a guarantee of SEO results are pointless. There is no secret sauce. Good SEO requires testing and finding out what works best for each client. Most agencies are more worried about getting their next client, so they focused on promising guarantees. The truth is, SEO is getting harder and harder and most agencies have been too focused on keeping clients and not paying attention to the digital landscape.
- SEO Staffing – Many digital marketing agencies sell SEO services with nobody on staff that truly understands the practice of search engine optimization. I’ve witnessed web design companies try to convert sales by “adding SEO or PPC” to their list of offers. I’ve witness consulting firms claim to get all their clients to #1 with “Advanced SEO Tactics” but only supply a SERP screenshot with the query hidden or cropped out. Anyone can manipulate the SERP to their gain. Always ask for case studies and even reach out to their examples to get a proper referral.
- SEO Awards – This is a common theme among most agencies and SEO companies. I don’t care what industry you are in – awards are merely pretentious marketing tactics, often created by companies trying to increase awareness of their own brand. Avoid SEO companies or freelancers that tout themselves as an award-winning digital marketing company… because they won an award that nobody has ever heard of… for marketing a company… that nobody has ever heard of. The majority of the awards that are given out are not fully earned. SEO agencies have to apply and pay to be a part of the running to even be considered. It’s highly ironic that a company that claims to be excellent in organic growth tactics would pay to play just so they can come back and market themselves as a “highly prestigious award winning-SEO agency.” Bottom line: if you haven’t heard of the award, then it doesn’t matter. Ask for case studies showing the results of their work and how they did it.
- Certifications – Although this seems like it would be a good thing, certifications and degrees do not really matter in the world of SEO. Take a moment to browse an SEO forum online and you will find that the majority of the most talented search engine marketers don’t even have a college degree, let alone a certification. Be wary of agencies that throw being a Google Partner or Google Adwords Certified in their sales pitch to you. Those are just vanity titles and the information is easily accessible to anyone. They simply do not hold weight to actual experience and results. *As of 2020, I might be changing my position on this, as I have become certified, but still, it doesn’t hold as much weight as having actual experience and proven success.
- Niche SEO Companies – Many internet marketing “experts” will tell you that it is impossible to run a successful SEO campaign if you don’t have experience in the niche industry you are marketing. Don’t let vendors complicate SEO and digital marketing services just to fool you into a contract. While it is essential to understand the industry you are marketing, if a proper discovery & research is executed, this will be sufficient to learn any industry and develop a solid SEO campaign.
How can you expect to set yourself apart from the rest of your industry if the same person marketing your competitors is leading your campaign?
- Poor Self Representation – Why hire an agency for SEO when that agency doesn’t seem to have their own SEO campaign figured out? If an agency can’t get themselves positioned for their own organic queries, do you really think they’ll be able to for you?
- Buzzword Utilization – If your prospective agency lacks the ability to put their work into words you understand, beware. Digital marketing and SEO is filled with “entrepreneurs” that are just fast-talkers and snakes. Chances are that if they only use SEO buzzwords, they either don’t know what they’re talking about or can’t execute what you know.
- SEO Experts – Be wary of agencies that insist you work with their SEO “experts.” Most credible SEO’s will tell you that there is no way to be an expert at SEO and that you have to be willing to admit you don’t have all the answers. Executing SEO services (should be) a humbling experience.
SEO VS. PPC
One of the most common trends I see in most businesses is the quickness to invest in PPC, versus SEO. While I do think both should work congruently, one is not more important than the other. For example, if you are investing $50,000 a month in paid advertising, but only building $1,000 worth of content and link building a month, then you should rethink your campaign.A content library built with well thought out intent is like a flywheel, where paid landing pages and PPC ads are like a hamster wheel.PPC is very effective. It’s easier to see the ROI and you can mine a lot of data from the activity, quickly. Why it’s comparable to a hamster wheel is because, although it can get going fast, without the hamster (money) it doesn’t move. If you lose the ability to invest in PPC, then you lose the ability to drive leads. A large flywheel can take a long time to get moving, but once it’s moving, it stays in perpetual motion and gets more efficient. A meticulously curated library of content is going to take years to develop, but it will give you multi-generational, self-sustainable ROI.
Ready To Grow? Get In Touch.
SEO and digital marketing don’t have to be complicated. Regardless of your niche, I’m available for hire for your project or campaign. Please use the form below to get a quote on any of the services I provide. My rates are fairly priced and I create custom packages that are designed to meet the unique needs of your business or project.