Mark Bealin, Author at SearchLab Digital

Posts by

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 45 | Stephan Bajaio, Chief Evangelist and Co-founder of Conductor

January 14, 2021 Mark Bealin Best Practices, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Suds and Search

Also available as a Podcast:

My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Stephan Bajaio. Stephan is the Chief Evangelist and Co-founder of Conductor, a search and content intelligence platform that helps marketers create and optimize content to improve visibility online.

Stephan has a well-earned reputation for being one of the really good guys in our industry. He is an in-demand speaker, podcaster, and SEO expert. He co-hosts the extremely impressive podcast Search on Tap and the equally impressive webcast Search from Home.

His company, Conductor, puts on the C3 conference and the annual Searchie Awards.

Stephan has a gift for identifying problems. He has an innate sense of when things aren’t working right. I’m going to start our conversation asking him about some of those problems and how SEOs might begin to solve them.

Suds and Search 43 | Justin Sanger, Chief Revenue Officer of OMG National

December 17, 2020 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Google My Business, Local SEO, Suds and Search

Also available as a Podcast:

My guest on our last episode of Suds & Search for 2020 is Justin Sanger. Justin is the Chief Revenue Officer and Equity Investor at OMG National. For over two decades, Justin has been a pioneer in small business digital marketing.

He founded LocalLaunch back in 2003. LocalLaunch offered Paid Search, SEO, and landing page optimization services way back in the early 2000s just as Google was emerging as the leading advertising channel for SMBs. LocalLaunch was acquired by RH Donnelley in 2006.

Suds and Search 42 | Mike Blumenthal, Co-founder of GatherUp

December 10, 2020 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Local SEO, Reviews, Suds and Search

Also available as a Podcast:

My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Mike Blumenthal. Mike is the Founding Partner of GatherUp and the Co-founder of LocalU. Mike is one of the most important voices in Local SEO. His motto is all local, all the time. It’s hard to think of anyone who has contributed more to the Local SEO community than Mike.

Suds and Search 41 | Anders Hjorth, Founder of Innovell

December 3, 2020 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, PPC Advertising, Suds and Search

Also available as a Podcast:

My guest on this episode of Suds and Search is Anders Hjorth. Anders is a veteran digital marketer and the founder of Innovell, a company that provides Digital Marketing Insights based on in-depth research. Anders is a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple digital marketing agencies. In 2016, his agency BDBL was acquired by Accenture.

Anders appears on PPC Hero’s list of the top 25 influencers in the world. He is a regular presenter at conferences all over the world including HeroConf London, inOrbit, SMX Advanced Europe, and the International Search Summit in Barcelona.

Suds and Search 40 | David Mihm, Founder of Tidings

November 19, 2020 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Local SEO, Suds and Search

Also available as a Podcast:

My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is David Mihm. David is the founder of Tidings, a software product that automatically generates perfectly-branded email newsletters for small businesses.

For over a decade, David has been one of the leading voices on Local SEO. He founded GetListed in 2009 during the early days of Local SEO. GetListed was acquired by Moz, and David took a role at Moz as their Director of Local Search Strategy.

Over the years, David has been featured in blogs on pretty much every major SEO publication including GatherUp, BrighLocal, Moz, and Street Fight Mag.

He currently serves on the faculty at LocalU. He appears pretty every local SEO conference and on tons of podcasts and webinars.

I heard David present at Whitespark’s Local Search Summit a few weeks before he came on the show. I started our conversation by asking him about his presentation titled, “Email: Your Marketing Lifeline During COVID-19 (and Beyond).” It’s interesting to hear him talk about the ways that COVID has disrupted digital marketing and how email marketing has gained greater exposure.

We also talked about Local SEO. David published the original Local Search Ranking factors study way back in 2008, and a few years ago when he left Moz, he handed the study over to Darren Shaw of Whitespark. I asked him about the importance of reviews, how to set up a good Local SEO foundation and the ways the industry has changed, but also remained the same over the years.

Grab a beer and join me for a conversation with David Mihm. We talk about email marketing for small businesses, Local SEO best practices, and his efforts to remain a scratch golfer during the global pandemic.

Suds and Search 39 | Wil Reynolds, Founder of Seer Interactive

November 12, 2020 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics, PPC Advertising, Suds and Search

Also available as a Podcast:

Donate to Wil’s sleep out: click here

Link to Seer’s YouTube channel where you can learn to use big data: click here
Link to the animated illustration about the CEO swap with Rand Fishkin: click here

My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is the incomparable, Wil Reynolds. Wil is the Founder and Vice President of Innovation at Seer Interactive, a 150 person digital marketing agency specializing in using Big Data to improve SEO and Paid media campaigns.

Suds and Search 38 | Rand Fishkin, Founder of SparkToro

November 5, 2020 Mark Bealin Digital Marketing, Marketing Analytics, Search Engine Optimization, Suds and Search

Also available as a Podcast:

My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is a man who needs no introduction. Rand is one of – if not the most recognizable personalities in SEO. He is the co-founder and CEO of SparkToro.

Previously, he co-founded SEOMoz, which later rebranded to Moz, along with his mother Gillian. Moz is one of the most important brands in SEO. From Whiteboard Fridays to the Beginner’s Guide to SEO to MozCon and all the impressive tools Moz has created, Rand has been at the center of this incredible company from the start.

Rand resigned from his board position at Moz in October 2020 just after we spoke. You can learn more about his personal journey and that of his company in his incredibly impressive book, Lost and Founder. I’ll spend some of our conversation talking about the book, but honestly, I could’ve talked to Rand all day about it. I couldn’t recommend a book more strongly. It’s not just for SEOs! It’s not just for entrepreneurs. It’s an incredible human story. Rand courageously tells all the great and gory details of his entrepreneurial life.

I’m going to start our conversation talking about his new company SparkToro. I’ll get Rand’s reaction to some use cases for Local SEOs and pick his brain on a post he wrote titled, “Six Ways SparkToro’s Early Customers Use Our Product.”

Grab something cold to drink and join me for a conversation with Rand Fishkin. We talk about the importance of core values in business, how to become less reliant on the duopoly of Facebook and Google, why he chose to make canceling a subscription with SparkToro easier, and we’ll spend a little time talking about his love for pasta and al pastor tacos.

Suds and Search 37 | Will Critchlow, Founder and CEO of SearchPilot

October 29, 2020 Mark Bealin Marketing Analytics, Search Engine Optimization, Suds and Search

Also available as a Podcast:

My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Will Critchlow, CEO at SearchPilot and SEO Partner at Brainlabs. Will is one of the most famous SEO presenters in the world. His content is ubiquitous on blogs, webinars, and at industry conferences.

Will co-founded Distilled in 2005 with Duncan Morris. Distilled became an iconic brand in SEO, winning numerous industry awards. Will and the team at Distilled started the conference series SearchLove, one of the most popular search marketing conferences with events held in London, San Diego, and New York.

Earlier this year, Distilled’s consulting services were acquired by BrainLabs. I’m going to start our conversation by talking about what it was like to go through an acquisition.

His new project, SearchPilot, was originally software Distilled used to help their clients. Now they’ve developed a really interesting way for SEOs to do A/B tests. A/B testing is popular in Conversion Rate Optimization and Paid Media, but not as much in SEO. I’m going to ask him about some of the findings from the A/B tests he and the team at SearchPilot have performed.

Will and Distilled have had an amazing relationship with Moz and Moz’s co-founder Rand Fishkin that I’ve followed from afar. We talk about how building genuine relationships rather than transactional relationships was a key to Distilled’s rapid growth.

Grab a beer and join me for a conversation with Will Critchlow one of the most important voices in SEO. We’ll talk about how the industry has evolved over his 15-year career, how to do a proper a/b test in SEO, we’ll talk about his love for basketball and what he learned from having his children perform a handful of searches on Google.