Mark Bealin, Author at SearchLab Digital

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Mark Bealin

Founder and Principal

Mark Bealin is the Founder and Principal at SearchLab, which was founded in March 2017. Under his leadership, Clutch and Manifest both named SearchLab one of the top agencies in Chicago in 2018 and 2019.

Mark has been helping small and medium-sized businesses with SEO and PPC since 2007. He is an in-demand speaker and contributor at events throughout the country, sought out for his expertise in SEO, Paid Search and Analytics.

He is a board member of EO Chicago and a guest lecturer at DePaul University. Mark lives in Chicago with his wife and three children. He's a former varsity high school football coach and remains active at St. Ignatius College Prep.

Suds and Search 111 | Shaun Raines, Founder of Dealer SuperHero

May 5, 2022 Mark Bealin Best Practices, Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Suds and Search, Uncategorized

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Our guest on this week’s episode of Suds & Search is Shaun Raines, Founder at Dealer SuperHero.

Shaun is an industry veteran with over 20 years of experience in sales, digital marketing, websites, PPC, SEO, social media, branding, management, leadership and team building.

He’s also an in-demand conference presenter. A few places you might’ve heard Shaun present include NADA, Digital Dealer, Driving Sales, and many, many more. Truth be told, this was one of the longest episodes we’ve ever filmed and we could’ve kept on going!

Suds and Search 110 | John Doherty, Founder of Credo

April 28, 2022 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Suds and Search

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Our guest on this episode of Suds & Search is John Doherty, Founder of Credo.

John spent the early part of his career as a digital marketer both in-house and agency side. He earned important job titles and gained recognition within the industry and then decided to go in a different direction entirely.

John started Credo in 2013. Credo matches agencies with qualified prospects from within Credo’s network. The value-proposition is very clear – Since they qualify the agencies they work with, Credo works as an ally to companies trying to find a new agency partner. From the agency’s point of view, they’ll have a reliable flow of new sales prospects each month. Smart.

As far as we know, Credo is the only SEO/PPC Agency Broker out there. We’re going to spend some of our conversation with John talking about how he even came up with the idea for Credo and how the business has grown over the years.

Because of the different roles he’s had, John is a great person to talk to about a range of things going on in the industry. We filmed this interview at a particularly crazy time for hiring. The demand for high quality digital marketers has never been more intense.

We’ll ask John about the market right now and how agencies can fill important roles.

Grab something cold to drink and join us for a conversation with John Doherty. We’ll have a wide ranging conversation about agency life, do a little cost-benefit analysis for SEO and PPC, and spend some time talking about a famous pet play date.

Suds and Search 109 | Kristian Bannister, Director of Product and Marketing at BrightLocal

April 21, 2022 Mark Bealin Best Practices, Digital Marketing, Google My Business, Google Updates, Local SEO, Marketing Analytics, Reputation Management, Reviews, Search Engine Optimization, Suds and Search

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Our guest on this weeks episode of Suds & Search is Kristian Bannister, Director of Product and Marketing at BrightLocal.

Kristian is a popular blogger, podcaster, and veteran digital marketer with over a decade of experience.

He is the host of the terribly impressive podcast, Adventures in Local Marketing, where he’s interviewed a who’s who of the top local SEOs in the world, covering a range of topics.

For those outside of Local SEO, it’s hard to overstate how important BrightLocal is for the Local SEO community. We can personally vouch for the effectiveness of their tool suite, which we’ve used at SearchLab for many years now.

What really separates BrightLocal is how much high-quality content they generate on their site. BrightLocal is constantly coming up with new webinars, compelling blogs posts, they’ve got a Learning Academy that is truly excellent, and the man at the center of building that community is Kristian Bannister.

Before we dive into local marketing, we’ll start our conversation by asking him a general marketing question, about a topic in which BrightLocal’s done an amazing job – how do you build a real, genuine community with your target audience?

It’s also gotta be extremely difficult to do marketing for a marketing SaaS company. We’ll dive into how Kristian approaches the works and what we can expect next from the team at BrightLocal.

Grab something cold to drink, and join us for a conversation with Kristian Bannister. We’ll talk about the BrightLocal tool suite, how SMBs can generate more (and better) reviews, and how Kristian is adjusting to Google My Business rebranding to Google Business Profile.

Suds and Search 108 | Andi Jarvis, Strategy Director at Eximo Marketing

April 14, 2022 Mark Bealin Best Practices, Digital Marketing, Suds and Search

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Our guest on this week’s episode of Suds & Search is Andi Jarivs, Strategy Director at Eximo Marketing.

Andi is one of our favorite conference presenters. We filmed this conversation a few weeks before Andi keynote the Brighton SEO conference.

He hosts a really excellent podcast called Strategy Sessions. Andi frequently guest lectures at universities in Northern Ireland including his alma mater Ulster University.

He’s also a must follow on social media. If you’re not following him already check him out on Twitter at the handle, @andijarvis (Andi with an “i” at the end).

We have a lot of guests who are very good at a specific thing – link building, Facebook ads, or technical SEO. Andi is really good at something that’s a little more holistic. He’s a strategist.

Good tactics without a good strategy seldom workout well. A strategist’s expertise lies in their ability to humbly listen to the person paying the bills to make sure that tactics are aligned with goals and everyone involved in a project is rowing in the same direction.

We love marketing strategy and so it was a real treat to sit down with someone who has Andi’s level of expertise.

Grab something cold to drink and join us for a conversation with Andi Jarvis. We’ll talk about academically trained marketers vis-à-vis self-taught marketers, he’ll tell us a little bit about destination marketing, and we’ll see if we can get Andi to tell one of his famous dad jokes.

Suds and Search 107 | Dan Moore, President of Vistadash

April 7, 2022 Mark Bealin Best Practices, Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Suds and Search

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My guest on this week’s episode of Suds & Search is Dan Moore, President of Vistadash.

Dan is an extremely popular conference speaker. You may have heard him present at Gary Vayberchuck’s Agent 2021, TedTalks, or as a frequent presenter at automotive conferences like NADA, Digital Dealer, and The Automotive Analytics & Attribution Summit.

“Half of my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” You’ve probably heard this phrase before. Dan’s company helps dealerships find out what’s working and maybe more importantly, what isn’t. Vistadash is a marketing dashboard for automotive dealerships that combines all of the useful data for the dealership and puts it on one screen.

Dan, unsurprisingly, specializes in helping automotive dealerships understand what’s happening with their marketing dollars. The good stuff, the bad stuff, and the ugly stuff. I was really excited to have him on so that we could nerd out about data and analytics.

Grab something cold to drink and join me for a conversation with Dan Moore. We’ll talk about the most common problems dealerships have when collecting their data, we’ll chat a little bit about how the chip shortage has made data collection more complicated, and I’ll ask him a couple of questions about his book, “Do Moore, Get More.”

Suds and Search 106 | Justin Sanger, Founder and CEO of SMB Chain

March 31, 2022 Mark Bealin Best Practices, Digital Marketing, Suds and Search

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My guest on this week’s episode of Suds & Search is Justin Sanger, Founder and CEO at SMBchain, Justin is a serial entrepreneur who’s dedicated his professional life to solving the marketing challenges facing small businesses. This is Justin’s second appearance on the show.

My guest on this week’s episode of Suds & Search is Justin Sanger, Founder and CEO of SMBchain. Justin is a serial entrepreneur who’s dedicated his professional life to solving the marketing challenges facing small businesses. This is Justin’s second appearance on the show.

He founded LocalLaunch back in 2003. LocalLaunch capitalized on the massive shift from print to digital. I started my career at LocalLaunch and I was captivated by Justin’s foresight then and I still find him to be one of the most fascinating people in the industry.

What’s he doing with SMBchain?

Justin looks at the promise of Web3 and blockchain technology as the next big frontier for innovation that can improve people’s lives.

Crypto, blockchain, web3, NFTs – these are some of the most popular topics on social media. There are skeptics, there are people investing large sums of money into it, and there are plenty of people who don’t get it. I’ve wanted to have a conversation like this one for a while now but I needed someone with Justin’s level expertise to do it right.

This episode isn’t only about web3, it’s also about how Justin is positioning SMBchain to solve a major problem for smbs. In short, he thinks SMBs should own their own data online and he’s on a quest to make sure that they can.

Grab something cold to drink and join me for a conversation with Justin Sanger. We’ll talk about the enormous potential of web3, he’ll tell me about SMBchain’s “proof of business” concept, and we’ll spend a little time talking about how SMBs can regain their authenticity online.

Suds and Search 105 | Gary May, Founder and President at [email protected]

March 24, 2022 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Google My Business, Google Updates, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization, Suds and Search

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My guest on this week’s episode of Suds & Search is Gary May, Founder and President at [email protected].

Gary is a veteran automotive digital marketer and one of the most popular conference presenters in the industry. Gary has presented at virtually every major automotive digital marketing conference including NADA, Innovative Dealer Summit, Driving Sales, and Digital Dealer.

Gary is a tough guy to put in a box. He’s not specifically only an SEO or only a PPC marketer. He’s got a lot of skills. He understands the pain points for auto dealers and is able to use his skills to help with whatever issue they are having.

One of the biggest issues that Gary has noticed is the inaccuracy of measuring the data that dealerships collect. Gary is on a quest to improve the ways dealerships measure their campaigns and increase ROI simply by measuring programs correctly.

This is a crazy couple of years for automotive digital marketers. First, we had the COVID pandemic and then a chip shortage lead to inventory shortages at dealerships all across the country. Gary is a perfect guest to talk to about all the craziness in automotive digital marketing.

Grab something cold to drink and join me for a conversation with Gary May. We’ll talk about holding a digital marketing vendor accountable, we’ll talk about how the chip shortage has changed the way auto dealerships are marketing themselves, and we’ll spend a little time talking about Gary’s experience as a competitive cyclist.

Suds and Search 104 | Dave Spannhake and Dane Saville from Reunion Marketing

March 17, 2022 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics, PPC Advertising, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Advertising, Suds and Search

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My guests on this week’s episode of Suds & Search are Dave Spannhake and Dane Saville from Reunion Marketing.

Reunion Marketing is an automotive digital marketing agency with specialists in SEO, PPC, and a suite of customized services for dealerships. Dave and Dane both worked together at a large dealer group. In 2015, Dave and Dane were part of a group that founded Reunion Marketing, which has grown steadily since its inception.

Suds and Search 103 | Claire Carlile, Local Search Expert at BrightLocal

March 10, 2022 Mark Bealin Google My Business, Google Updates, Local SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Suds and Search

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My guest on this week’s episode of Suds & Search is Claire Carlile, Local Search Expert at BrightLocal and Independent Digital Marketing Consultant at Claire Carlile Marketing.

For years now, Claire has been one of the most popular Local SEO experts in the world. She’s presented at many SEO conferences including Local U, Whitespark Local Search Summit, Brighton SEO, and SMX London.

Her work for BrightLocal has been extraordinarily good. If you like this episode be sure to check out the BrightLocal Academy. You can take courses taught by Claire as well as other Local SEO experts like Amanda Jordan and Niki Mosier. They’re really well done and at least at the time this episode airs, it’s totally free.

Suds and Search 102 | Zeph Snapp, CEO and Founder of Altura Interactive

March 4, 2022 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Google Updates, Local SEO, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, Suds and Search

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My guest on this week’s episode of Suds & Search is Zeph Snapp, CEO and Founder at Altura Interactive.

Zeph is a veteran digital marketer and an in-demand conference presenter. A few places you might’ve heard him speak include MozCon, Content Marketing World, and Pubcon.

He’s also an excellent writer. If you like this interview check out Zeph’s column at Search Engine Journal.

Altura offers a really interesting service. They provide Spanish digital marketing to international brands. Usually, these brands are growing from the United States into Latin America and need digital marketing expertise along the way.

I can tell you from experience that it’s hard enough to know SEO in one language. Zeph’s agency has a bigger burden. They have to be good at SEO, which is interesting enough, but they also have to overcome communication challenges with stakeholders speaking different languages, they have to be mindful of a zillion little regional language nuances when creating and optimizing content, and there are SEO implications with each decision that they make.

It’s a fascinating topic and Zeph is an entertaining and engaging guest to take us through it all.

Grab something cold to drink and join me for a conversation with Zeph Snapp. We’ll talk about how to avoid disaster when launching a website internationally, he’ll explain the difference between translation and transcreation, and we’ll spend a little time talking about MozCon shenanigans.