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Below is our recent interview with Steve Wiideman, President of Wiideman Consulting Group:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Wiideman Consulting Group?
A: Since 2015, the characters here at Wiideman Consulting Group have provided research, audits and strategy to help businesses attract more website visitors from online search engines. Our team is comprised of extremely fun to work with experts in each discipline of search, including paid search, local and multi-location SEO, technical optimization, content strategy, and off-page visibility (formerly “link building”, a term that has become somewhat taboo with today’ webmaster guidelines), all part of the formula needed to improve keyword rankings in Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon and other engines.
We have about two dozen clients on retainer to help them through tasks and to help keep the collective teams accountable to their roles and our KPI’s. We’re often called “The Agency’s Agency” as we’re asked to fill in resource gaps when agencies are looking for new senior-level talent. Procurement is a sweet spot for us. On any given day, you’ll find us spending 1-2 hours on interviews on behalf of our agency clients.
Q: Steve, let’s start with your background. What were you doing before Wiideman Consulting Group?
A: Before starting Wiideman, I was an independent consultant working with an assistant on a handful of accounts that included Skechers, Meineke Car Care Centers, Public Storage, and a few other noteworthy clients. I also supported 4 digital marketing agencies with training and white label thought leadership. Prior to leaving leaving the corporate world, I was employed by Disney Parks and Resorts to help manage paid and organic search for Disneyland.com and AdventuresByDisney.com, by IBM Global Services and PacifiCare Health System, and a handful of agencies, all working with web and digital technology.
I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in E-Business Management and have written several information products on the topics of technical, contextual and off-page search engine optimization. My love for search comes second to traveling and spending time with my wife and two daughters.
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Q: Can you give us insights into your services?
A: At the moment we offer two tiers of service: SMB and Enterprise. Both tiers include options for strategy and retainer, which I’ve broken down below:
SMB Options:
-SEO Strategic Plan
-PPC Review and Recommendations
-“SEO Navigator” Retainer (with monthly calls)
Enterprise Options:
-SEO Strategic Plan
-PPC Audit & Recommendations
-Advanced Keyword Research and Website Taxonomy Plan
-“SEO Guide” (2 calls/mo) and “SEO Consultant” (weekly call)
Other Ways to Work with Us:
-Custom audits (ORM, local SEO, post-algorithm updates, and other troubleshooting)
-Site upgrade and site migration support to reduce the risk of ranking loss
-Training – 3-day bootcamp and custom training
-Procurement support for search marketing professionals
-Report and checklist templates (available at ProblemHound.com at the moment)
-Industry roadmaps (out of the box content and link strategies for a handful of industries)
Q: Why should a business care about SEO?
A: If a business owner were to search for a product or service they offer and not see their company name in the search results, they are missing out on free traffic from search engines. Worse, they are allowing their competitors to receive all the business and brand awareness that took very little time to acquire. There’s a huge sense of deficit that businesses should have when don’t appear for non-company name searches.
One of the brands we work with is a national restaurant franchise. We worked with them to add keyword-rich copy to local pages for each restaurant and saw a $500k lift in online orders month over month. Their excitement turned to concern once they realized that they had been missing out on over $6,000,000 per year in revenue all due to a lack of a few contextual elements that took a whopping hour to put together.
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Q: From your perspective, how can search engine optimization change a business owner’s life?
A: We’ve watched one client who owned an online pawn shop start a luxury watch website in 2010 using our taxonomy recommendations. Last year that client brought in over 24 million in sales. Watching this client and his adventures when not at work is almost as incredible as watching the numbers in Google Analytics. I’d say the business and our support on the SEO front definitely changed the lifestyle level of this client, and likely others.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: In 2019, our team is going to put 100% focus toward new areas of search and two of the most difficult areas: structured data and web analytics. New areas we hope to explore and support clients with include Voice and “Touch-Free” search along with rank recovery for healthcare professionals.
Other goals include building more industry roadmaps, including law office, dentistry, auto dealerships and cosmetic surgery. The end goal is to eventually move from services to solutions, but isn’t that every business’s dream?
On a personal level, I hope to publish my first book on search engine optimization, contribute as much volunteer time as possible to helping Veteran-owned businesses, and really spoil this small team here at Wiideman Consulting Group who have worked so hard to help us get where we are today.
