EarlPearl is pretty well-known amongst SEOs in the forums for his knowledge of local search. He also has a brick and mortar business that his site supports. He is a man of mystery, keeping his identity and business secret and I am grateful to him for answering these questions.

Alias: EarlPearl
Memberships: cre8asite, SEO Refugee, DP, Webmasterworld, SEW, SEO-GUY, smallbusinessbrief, SEOroundtable…and some others
Contact Info: contact me through SEO Refugee

Why Anonymous?

Early on I referenced comments by some other people in forums that maintained an anonymous identity to keep their competitors unaware of their activities and primarily their source of learning. I am currently aware of webmasters and forum participants who continue to do the same. To the extent that I am aware of some of those folks and they are aware of some of my activities we have not yet "spilled the beans on one another". I only assume they are doing this for reasons similar to my own though I honestly haven’t discussed the topic with any of them. I am aware that aggressive backlink research and other searches can uncover where various webmasters are learning their craft. On this basis I choose to remain anonymous as best I can.

How did you get into SEO

I’m not a programmer, developer, or designer and in fact have very little tech knowledge. I operate a business. Prior to that most of my career was spent in commercial real estate. During that period I partnered with others with regard to this business in various active and non-active roles. I’m currently more active and hands on with regard to the business.

Approximately 10 years ago the business picked up a URL, had a site developed and essentially let the site sit with no changes for about 7 years. Approximately 4 years ago we become aware of the growing level of importance that the site played with regard to generating business leads. Approximately 3 years ago we were nervous with regard to a competitor entering our market. The competitor had very high search engine rankings for generic industry terms. We had invisible rankings for generic industry terms but had reasonable rankings for combinations of industry terms and local terms.

Simply put, we read business journals describing the importance of Google and the importance of links for ranking with Google. When our first stabs at getting help proved fruitless and when our conversations with the person ostensibly helping us in this area kept resulting in him telling us that links had nothing to do with this and we needed to add lots of content we got nervous. Frankly we knew he wasn’t the answer and we needed help but we didn’t know where to turn. I simply started to search through the web to learn about this and the intention was to ultimately turn this task over to an outside specialist.
Three years later we still haven’t turned the SEO over to a specialist, although at least now I know a lot of them.

What other areas do you specialize in? How do they compliment your SEO efforts?

Basically I run a business. I have years of experience in sales and years of experience with other businesses from many facets from being a junior gofer to being a boss.
With regard to SEO, having operated this business (with others) for over 20 years we understand the industry and what drives customers. That is the single biggest advantage with regard to SEO. Secondly, having been a sales/consultant, which is a nicer less specific description than commercial real estate leasing/sales agent.

The job was really to solve real estate problems for clients. And my specific job was to get them to hire me to carry out the tasks.

The real gist of the issue for the majority of clients was to find out the issues that were most important and critical and figure out ways to achieve those results. To do this you had to get to underlying reasons for doing these things.

To take that back to SEO, what has helped with regard to this business is to get to underlying keyword phrases and issues that drive customers to us and to additionally design the site and emphasize content that answers what customers are actually looking for.
From a content perspective we have added content and have developed some higher serps for this content and keyword phrases that work very well for us. These phrases haven’t been competitive in the industry. So they are easy pickings.

Incidentally, I never mention the particulars of this stuff. In that regard though I scrutinize the content of competitors, do some intensive keyword density research on competitors and research the heck out of repetitive phrases and initial phrases in competitors sites to see if I can uncover some gems that we missed.

This work has been rewarding in terms of getting easy pickings business that our competitors don’t catch.

With regard to our content we have developed certain content over time that gets to the heart of what potential customers want. This continues to win us customers.
We know all this because as a brick and mortar business we get to speak to every customer. While the latter issue isn’t directly SEO it has everything to do with conversions.
The best "old business" analogy to this from our perspective was that in competing for over 20 years of ownership we always found it dramatically easier to win customers when they never even looked at or found our competitors. We always searched for little advertising/marketing niches that our competitors didn’t see. Get enough of those and it adds up.

What part of SEO drives you nuts?

Frankly I’m so untechnical that much of it is over my head. In those cases best thing I can do is ask for help again and again and again until we get a grasp of a way to react and utilize what is working for others.

No part of it drives me nuts. I find it challenging. I think rankings in Google are ever harder and more expensive. I think that PPC is encroaching on SEO and strong PPC can easily replace lots of SEO efforts.

The engines change. That is a challenge. Best thing to do is simply try and go with the flow and apply new techniques that work better.

I got into sales a long time ago. What I loved about it initially was that it was very competitive. It was a lot like sports which I loved as a youth. Best thing about sales competition was that it was just like sports but you didn’t get physically beat up day after day. The same goes for SEO and rankings competition. To me its a challenge.

Where do you see SEO going?

I’m a lousy predictor. I have little idea. I think everything is going more and more mobile. I’m surprised to see sources of traffic coming from mobile sources. But I’m old and I don’t embrace that as do younger people.

I think young people grasp technology better and drive trends. Whatever they are doing will probably become commonplace in a few years.

Any favorite tips?

Yeah. Read vociferously. Check lots and lots of sources. Look for the best people. Try and connect from them. Learn as much as you can. Try stuff. If you don’t try stuff you won’t learn it.

How has SEO benefited you the most?

Frankly we grabbed the web better than a lot of competitors. We obtained higher rankings earlier. We glommed onto some things that work before others. Our business has gone from zero web impact to currently being responsible for approximately 2/3 of our revenues. That is ridiculous change. I’m also aware of competitors with a lousy web presence. I’m shocked at how low their revenues are. Similarly I’m aware of competitors and other businesses with lousy SERPs but aggressive PPC that is winning them a lot of business.

Since the Search Engines and specifically Google derive virtually all their revenues from PPC and since spending on PPC is growing at an extraordinary rate I think PPC is becoming dramatically more important for businesses.

Even a small change that Google made some months ago when they slightly but perceptively increased the fonts on PPC probably made a big aggregate difference for them. Over the last few months Google revealed a lot of data that is primarily oriented toward making PPC easier for businesses to use. The same information is tangentially helpful for SERPs and SEO but it was oriented to make PPC easier and more available for more customers.
I’m sure it will drive up PPC usage and costs.

What industries do you work in?

Primarily local business stuff. I work primarily privately but take on a few friendly clients on local stuff.

What is your SEO Philosophy?

Hah. I don’t have one.

The difference between a brick and mortar business and just a web site? We speak with every customer and most potential customers. We gain more insights from that than from simply looking at keyword phrases that convert. It gives us better, deeper insights. Than the challenge is to use convert those insights into things that work.

Cross-Promotions? I try lots of them. If they work I keep doing them. If they don’t work I try something different.

One thing about business is to keep doing and learning and trying. Once you stop and rest on your laurels some other dude is going to pass you.

Anything else?

Yeah, RMC, find someone else to interview who I can learn from :D

Ed: No problem!