Meet your SEO : Peter Attia

Hello guys! I know you were waiting for a new episode of the ‘Meet your SEO‘ interview series, and today I am here to present another great SEO: Peter Attia , senior search marketing specialist at Page One. You can read more about him and his thoughts on his blog.

So…ready to this journey? Let’s have fun! (disclaimer: I choose this photo of him because it was called “Big Smiles 1″…isn’t he cute? 😀 and moreover, since in the name there is “1”…maybe he has other big smile photos somewhere?)

Peter Attia and his big smile

When did you enter the SEO world, and why ?

I got into SEO about 6 years ago. I actually didn’t mean to at all! I was just walking my dog and ran into another guy walking his dog. We were right by a pub and decided to grab a pint and let the dogs play. That guy was Jay Young. Him and his wife Julie Joyce were starting a link building agency called Link Fish Media and I thought it sounded interesting, so I joined them.

A great tip about onpage optimization?

Write for people… not for robots. Sure, you might rank a little better if you write for bots, but it will keep people from feeling an emotional connection to your brand. Having a dedicated fan base will give your company a massive amount of momentum.

The most stupid thing people believe about onpage optimization?

I think the one that bothers me the most is people shoving keywords into the meta description. The description should be written in a way to coerce someone to click your link in a search result. It’s basically your 150 character elevator pitch.

A great tip on how you build links?

Don’t try so hard to get the perfect anchor text. If someone accidentally attaches another word or two to your keyword, leave it. It looks more natural anyways and will only help your back link profile.

The most stupid thing you heard about linkbuilding?

HAH! I’m not sure where to begin. I think the worst thing is when companies want to link build for their competitors names. For some reason they don’t seem to be able to grasp that if someone is searching for a brand name, they’re looking for that brand and aren’t going to click something else.

If you have to explain what you do at a 10 year-old kid , what are you gonna say?

I’m actually terrified of children, so this is incredibly difficult. I think I would simply say I try to make the internet easier.

What do you drink when seoing?

Coffee if it’s before 5pm. Wine if I’m writing and whiskey otherwise.

What do you think about SEO community?

The SEO community is really quite unique. Everyone is so open and willing to help each other out. I think my favorite thing is everyone gives great, honest, and blunt constructive criticismPeople won’t hold back. If you did something wrong, you’ll hear about it and learn from it.

Make yourself a question and give an answer: What do you think is the most underrated SEO tactic?

Giving stuff away for bloggers to review. It creates perfect content and it gets displayed right in front of your target audience. Also, you usually don’t have to try and sneak in a link. Since they’re writing about your product, they’re going to give you a link anyways. I’m surprised at how often this isn’t utilized.

Who is your biggest SEO influence?

New link builders. They’re some of the most creative SEO’s I know. Some of the out of the box ideas I’ve heard from new talent has been quite incredible. When you’ve been doing SEO for a while you start to get some tunnel thought. New folks still don’t know what is and isn’t doable, so they come up with some really clever concepts.

If you weren’t an SEO, what would you like to do?

Actually, I always wanted to be a marine biologist. I love being in the ocean and I find the environment fascinating. We still know very little about the deepest parts of the ocean and well… I’m very curious!

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Thanks a lot to Peter for this nice chat. 

I saw many people worried about the fact SEOs seem to drink quite a lot when SEOing. I want to make this clear:

1) it DOESN’T seem, it’s like that indeed 🙂

2) as Peter said: “Drinking is another way to call creativity”. Nice one Peter, I’m gonna make a tattoo out of this.

3) I would like to reassure my mom. I know these guys only virtually (hopefully I will have the chance to meet them in the future for real), and they are all great and good people. You understand mom? Yeah, I know you read about Chris and what he drinks…don’t worry, he likes to joke. 

4) Drink responsibly.