Eric Enge is the President of Stone Temple Consulting, a 17 person SEO and PPC consulting firm with offices in Boston and Northern California. Eric is a crusty old veteran with 30 years working experience in technology and the Internet.
Eric is co-author of a book titled The Art of SEO, along with Rand Fishkin, Stephan Spencer, and Jessie Stricchiola. The book is published by O'Reilly Media.
Eric writes for Search Engine Land, and is also an "SEW Expert" where he contributes a column every two weeks to Search Engine Watch. On the Stone Temple web site, Eric has a blog that contains the highly regarded Interview series, in which Eric interviews top people from the search industry. Eric also is the author of SEOmoz' Link Building Pro Guide.
STC provides SEO and PPC services to companies ranging from startups to Fortune 25 companies.
Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been making money online?
Since 1993 or so! I led the effort to bring America Online into the PC manufacturer's channel when I was at Phoenix Technologies Ltd. My real career in SEO did not begin until the early 2000's though.
Do you have any experience with affiliate marketing? If so, to what extent?
I have been in affiliate marketing since 2003. While I have a SEO Consulting Company call Stone Temple Consulting (STC), I also have put a lot of energy into publishing deep content web sites, where the largest revenue stream is from affiliate marketing. To us, it is just a form of advertiser.
What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
We have had two exits, with the second of those occurring in May of 2010. It is a good feeling every time that you are able to accomplish that.
How did you become successful? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in the Internet? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I got involved back in 2003. I had heard good things about the potential of affiliate marketing from a trusted friend and simply decided to give it a try. Then it took off very quickly.
Our first exit took place in 2006, so I guess that is when I hit the "big time". What made us successful is that we focused on bringing real value to users, and to the search engines.
What do you think it takes to be successful?
There are many smart people out there. They can all learn a lot of good things to do in Internet marketing. The real key, in my opinion, is integrating all of this into a successful business operation. This means basic things like knowing how much money you have available, what to invest in, and how to structure a plan that works within your financial means to get your business to accomplish what it needs to.
What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
In my consulting business, Stone Temple Consulting, one of the biggest frustrations is dealing with clients who won't take good advice and implement it. I know that it is often true that there are real limitations in what a company can do, often related to the current implementation of their web site. But, a lot of times people don't understand what we are trying to do, and what it will take for them to be successful.
What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
Good question. Sometimes we can't implement all the ideas we want to, either because of development limitations or budget limitations. The way we get through it is to be ruthless in prioritizing. Frustrating because you want to do it all, but you just can't.
Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
Not really. If I hate doing something, I hire someone else to do it. .gif){kind=icon}
More seriously, there are plenty of tedious tasks in any small business. Not much you can do about but to keep doing them.
What is the future of marketing?
I believe that the nature of marketing will continue to evolve. We have seen an increasing rate of change over the past 20 years, and I believe that the rate of change will continue to accelerate. Smart marketers will be the ones who capitalize on new opportunities before their competitors do.
What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
Two main areas of effort:
1. Continuing to grow the consulting business. This includes pushing in to Fortune 100 companies and growing the consulting team.
2. Rolling out more high quality web sites and promoting them.
What problems have you had with those new projects?
The main problem is scaling as fast as we can. We want to do everything at once (like everyone else!), but must make choices and work our way through the process with patience.
Do you think anything particular in your past prepared you for this industry? Your education? Jobs you’ve held before?
The main thing is that my father provided consulting services to entrepreneurs when I was growing up, I got some visibility into what they did, their responsibilities, how they approached things, etc. This helped give me the mental mindset of an entrepreneur. His industry was entirely different, but that visibility was incredibly important to my development.
What are your greatest strengths?
I think my greatest strength is that I know how to build and run profitable and growing companies with minimal upfront cash investment. I also have a lot of experience as an SEO.
What are your greatest weaknesses?
At times I am too impatient. Everything takes a bit of time, and I usually want it now. .gif){kind=icon}
What motivates you?
One word: winning. I like creating success stories, wherever I go. This is more important than the compensation at this point.
What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
A good friend of mine, Steve Kalman, was the first to teach me how to manage the numbers of a business. He gave me the ability to see its economics and efficiently use the available cash to achieve my business goals.
Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
None other than my father, Ron Fisher, the chairman of Softbank North America. Ron taught me to apply my basic character and sense of how to deal with people to the businesses I have been involved in. He was a pretty low key, but powerful personality, and that is what I hope to be.
What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
The main people I have trouble working with are those who will not listen, or can’t absorb what they have been told. It frustrates me, and I become impatient.
What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
I am in my 50s at this point, so I think about things a little bit differently. I have 3 kids in high school, and seeing to their success is critical to me. Of course, I hope to have success in my future business pursuits too.
If money was no object, I would be working on improving the standard of living of the poor and destitute, or helping improving the chances of children in developing companies. I have been very fortunate in my life, and I would like to "give back".
Where do you want to be ten years from now?
I hope to be involved heavily in charity oriented endeavors! I mentioned a couple of my ideas in that regard above.
How do you like to spend your free time? What does work-life balance mean to you?
I have three children in high school. Spending time with them, and my wife, is my primary goal for my free time. Not always easily done, but incredibly important! I also play basketball, workout, and enjoy fine dining - and fine wine.
If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
The main thing I would have done was get into the Internet sooner. While we had a false gold rush at the end of the 20th century, earlier involvement would have created new and different opportunities to do more. Of course, who knows how well I would have used such opportunities!
What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
My greatest non-work achievement is my 3 children. They all are well adjusted and doing well in their lives. What could be better than that?
Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
Why yes I do! You can see me at @stonetemple as well as at my Facebook page.
It seems there’s always something new to learn in the world of search engine optimization or, at the very least, something needs to be refreshed. This week I had a client who told me to reintroduce the use of stop words so my keywords sounded more natural in the framework of the text.
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