Alex is the founder of Ratynski Digital, a custom web design & Local SEO Consultancy.
He has been in the SEO/marketing field since 2014 and has extensive experience around Local SEO.
Alex is insanely motivated to help businesses succeed and works tirelessly to ensure it happens.
When he’s not knee-deep in data, research, and content, he enjoys fishing in the PNW, being outdoors, and spending time with his wife.
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How did you start out as a marketer?
I actually started out as an intern at an agency that specialized in the dental industry, Roadside Dental Marketing.
I started out doing some basic website changes and helping with the content team.
From there, I taught myself how to code and learned design from some of the top designers on the team and began building websites at home.
After a few months of that, I was hired onto the website team until there was a need in the SEO department.
SEO was something I had studied from the beginning because there was no point in building an amazing website if it wasn’t going to be seen by anyone.
Looking back what is your hardest struggle when it came to delivering results?
I think one of the hardest struggles I face when it comes to delivering results for clients is when they don’t have a budget to spend on marketing.
The reality is that great marketing needs a healthy budget to be sustainable, and the results always come when things are done right.
When you only give 50% because you can’t afford the full 100%, then your results are going to suffer.
If you aren’t willing to invest in your business then don’t waste time or money doing it halfway.
How did you get your first client back then, and what kind of service did you do for them?
One of my first clients was actually a weight loss clinic in my local town.
They reached out to me and asked me to build them a website.
I learned pretty quickly how competitive the weight loss niche is.
Thankfully, I wasn’t deterred and I pressed on. Now, they see more than 30,000 visits a month and have more than doubled their revenue.
They are still a client today.
What do you find most rewarding about what you do?
The bulk of my work is spent working on SEO campaigns for local businesses.
For me, there is no greater joy than knowing the work that I am doing is directly impacting the business owners, their families, and their employees.
This is a sobering reminder for me, and one of the reasons I will only work with a client if I am confident I can get them positive results.
We have a lot of readers who are bent on becoming freelancers, aside from freelancing how else can someone earn online, and what is your advise?
I would say start with a side-project. Dedicate 10-15 hours a week to it and learn how to build an audience online.
This is one of the most powerful tools you can possibly teach yourself.
For example, start blogging about a topic or industry you’re passionate about and cut your teeth as an affiliate marketer.
I truly believe side-projects are one of the best ways to learn.
If you were given the chance to build your career all over again what would you do differently so that you will achieve your dreams faster?
I would invest more in the people around me and in myself.
How is your typical workday structured?
I generally wake up around 7am and do some reading, and then I have a consulting call from 8am-9am.
After that, I usually eat breakfast and write out my priorities for the day.
From there, I start working on the most important tasks piece by piece.
This usually continues until around 5 or 6pm, when I go to the gym.
Then I spend the rest of the evening with my wife.
What recently-developed marketing strategy, technique or tool interests you the most right now?
I wouldn’t consider this anything new, but I love the “topic cluster” model.
I think whenever you’re able to organize and structure content in a meaningful and clean way, you are only going to create better experiences for both your customers and for Google.
What do you do to stay up to date with new marketing techniques?
I find that most of the marketing community is easily caught up in “shiny object syndrome”, so I actually try not to spend all my time only consuming hacks or tactics, however, I find that Twitter, Sparktoro’s Trending page, Product Hunt, and my own curated list of blogs, always has a plethora of great information.
Can you tell us about a project you’re most proud of from your past work history?
Absolutely! This is for a small single-location dental office in Oregon. You can imagine the traffic to the website is normally nothing overly impressive.
Last year, I really encouraged them to pay for high-quality, keyword researched blog articles, and they finally agreed.
And now a year later their website is getting over 2.2 million impressions and 63.4 thousand clicks from organic search in the last 3 months!
As a result, they are completely booked out until the end of November. And that’s during COVID.
In the last 30 days, their website has received almost 30,000 page views, and 95% of that traffic is coming from just a handful of blog articles that they have published.
Here is their growth over the last year:
Which one book/blog post would you recommend every Marketer should read?
Joey Coleman’s “Never Lose A Customer Again”. It’s an outstanding book.
What advice would you share with other marketers who want to become more productive?
Read Cal Newport’s “Deep Work”. It’s an outstanding book.
But really I would say stop allowing distractions to take you away from the work you need to be doing.
Dedicate time for undivided attention on specific tasks.
You can do this by planning out your day each morning and listing a few of the things you know you must get done.
Then prioritize those. Focus on nothing other than accomplishing those tasks.