20 Years of Watching Google Analytics Load (Happy Birthday Local SEO Guide!)

A little more than twenty years ago I lost about a billion dollars. I had just been fired from InsiderPages, an early Yelp competitor for spending too much time on SEO and not enough on actually creating a business. Luckily for me, the same day I got fired I happened to be having drinks with Jason Oberfest, then head of Product Management at LATimes.com. Jason needed some SEO help, and on November 10, 2006, I signed the Los Angeles Times as my very first SEO consulting client.

As my brother, Dave, likes to say, “I remember when you used to tell me you would be lucky if this thing lasts a year.”

I’ve been pretty lucky.

I never planned to start this business. Seems like that’s how a lot of SEOs of my generation got into it. It just sort of happened.

I didn’t launch LocalSEOGuide.com until September 12, 2007. Before that, I remember prospects asking how it was I could do SEO without a website. I used to respond “Real SEOs don’t need a website.” That almost always closed the deal.

In the early days, my theory was that the more crazy you came off, the more likely you were to get hired. SEO seemed like science for oddballs. Who would you rather hire to do it? Someone in a suit or someone who looked like they hadn’t slept, done laundry or gotten a haircut in months? It worked pretty well. I certainly owe Ted Levine for his inspiration in this area. Looking in the mirror this morning, I am feeling like not much has changed over two decades…

There are so many people who have been part of the journey. To name but a few, I probably should have named one of my daughters after Jason Dowdell. He taught me a lot about SEO in those early days. And let’s not forget about Aaron Wall, Rand Fishkin, Andy Beard, Tad Chef, Todd Malicoat, Greg Boser, OilMan, Chris Winfield, Marty Weintraub, Dennis G, Vanessa Fox and of course, ShoeMoney!. And many more of you who shared their knowledge on various message boards of ill repute.

And of course all those Local SEOs who created an amazing community back in the day: Mike Blumenthal, David Mihm, Mary Bowling, Mike Ramsey, Will Scott & Dev Basu, to name but a few. And I couldn’t not mention the amazing Joy Hawkins, who I recall musing about quitting her agency job and starting her own thing. Seemed to work out.

And thanks to Danny Goodwin, Danny Sullivan, Michelle Robbins, & Loren Baker for giving me the opportunity to say some ridiculous things on Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal.

For the first eight years, I ran this business as a solo operator. Eventually I decided I was being an idiot and started to build a team. I have had the good fortune to work with some great SEOs and to watch many of them go on to build amazing careers. Thanks particularly to Dan Leibson, who was a great partner in our crazy growth years. Other former LSGers of note: Daryl Osswald (the first person I ever hired!), Tessa Voecks, Steven Saldana, Wesley Anderson, Nik Wright, Lilli Xiova, Olivia Hormuz, Chai Fisher, Jess Peck, Drew Shamrock, Karl Kleinschmidt & Colton Miller. Not to mention the current team, who are all beautiful humans in the loop.

As you can see from the rest of the site, our client list is a bit too long to thank them all, but they are the real reason I am able to write this post. In particular, I’d like to thank Colleen Romero. Every client is our favorite client, but Colleen is our favoritest :)

Thanks to my board of friends/advisors, Cynthia Hill, Chris Hylen, Peter Smith, Jon Cooper & Jonathan Chajet (go IGen!),

And most of all, I’d just like to thank my wife, Jill, and our kids, Tess & Audrey, who had to listen to exciting tales of 301 redirects for the past twenty years; my bro, Dave and my sis-in-law, Liza, my sister, Lisa, who is so great at what she does, she still doesn’t need a website, and especially my parents, Chuck and Shelly, who whenever I told them I was going to do something ridiculous like quit my job, move to Idaho and become a ski bum, or start an SEO agency, never said “no.”

And of course thanks to all those LSG readers I’ve met over the years IRL. It always blows my mind that people actually read this stuff.

Most of all, thank you for making it all the way down the page and improving the site’s dwell time.

Andrew