SEOblog Interview: Chicago SEO Expert Bradley Fogel from Operation Technology

We’re excited to have talked to Chicago SEO expert Bradley Fogel from Operation Technology for the next installment of our Featured SEO Expert Series! Operation Technology is one of SEOblog’s Top SEO agencies in Chicago.

Bradley Fogel is the president of Operation Technology, an award-winning boutique marketing agency in Chicago, Illinois, for small to medium-sized businesses. Fogel is an SEO consultant with more than 18 years of digital marketing experience, which also includes working for a Fortune 500 company and an Illinois state agency. Fogel is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) designated by the Project Management Institute.

What would you say is unique and/or challenging about the Illinois SEO industry?

“I would say standing out from all the other SEO agencies in the Illinois area. Illinois and, specifically, Chicago is a very competitive market with many high-performing SEO and digital marketing companies. You need to really sell your value proposition, success stories and how you can help companies from various industries grow online and acquire more sales.”

How does your agency stand out in a crowded market like Illinois?

“Our agency is focused on creating opportunities to generate word-of-mouth, get people to talk about our company and generate a buzz, like awards from sites such as SEOblog.com. Also, we decided to brand ourselves as a provider to other agencies that want to sell white label services such as SEO. We’ve found many web design agencies are good at design, however, but lack the expertise in search engine optimization techniques that are always changing. That’s where we come in to assist.”

Can you share a success story from a local SEO campaign centered around the Illinois area?

“We’ve been able to grow organic traffic for a manufacturing company here in Illinois by 300% since 2015 and 150% since 2017 with a limited budget. Each year has seen higher organic traffic because of new content, technical SEO and onsite optimization of existing content, including old, neglected blog posts along with continual link building. This has led to more leads and targeted traffic to its existing site.”

What is the best advice you ever received in business?

“I was told to ‘Earn Their Trust’ by an old mentor. Whether it’s a coworker, client or a boss, once you have earned someone’s trust, new opportunities come your way. I’ve found this to be true for three decades of my career as an owner of an agency and as an employee of a Fortune 500 company.”

What do you think is the most important quality that makes an agency truly great?

“Good communication, creativity, problem solving and the ability to execute high-performance digital marketing plans.”

Any predictions for the future of SEO?

“I’m expecting Google to find more ways to replace organic search results that keep users on one of Google’s properties. This includes search engine results that replace many website offerings in the same way that weather, live sports scores, hotel bookings and flights have. Also, you can expect (and it’s already being tested!) new lead-gen models may potentially be released in the future as Google aims to monetize more of the local and map results. Lastly, artificial intelligence will start to make things more personal, which can result in businesses changing their marketing tactics. That’s why we want to make sure our clients continually create content that is engaging and informative and answer questions related to what people are asking each day in Google.”

What is your reaction when you hear that “SEO is dying”?

“I would say SEO is always evolving, not dying. SEO techniques in the past may not or do not work like they used to. Also, Google has been rolling out more algorithm changes that have impacted traffic and keyword rankings in recent years. This is a result of Google wanting to serve up the best user experience to those searching for products and services online. As an agency we need to constantly monitor and adapt to these algorithm changes.”

What do you think is the most important contributor of keeping clients happy?

“Communication and business results. If you can keep the client informed and help them understand how things are changing (algorithm changes) or why things are happening (traffic or lead generation increases or decreases), clients are able to appreciate your hard work more.”

Interested in being considered as an SEOblog “Featured SEO Expert”? Reach out to our team at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you and give you a high-traffic platform to share your SEO agency’s story and insights.