Donald McKenzie, Founder and Owner of Greenwich SEO Services. Contributed photo
The way he tells it, Greenwich SEO Services came into being after countless friends, and friends of friends, asked for help with search engine optimization. Donald McKenzie Jr obliged, and through word of mouth, countless bloggers and webmasters boosted their rankings on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
While growing an audience, nothing replaces a regular stream of original content. However, if people can’t find that content easily, that’s a big problem. Fortunately, there are ways to foster the likelihood that a target audience finds the content: Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
“Key words are always important,” Donald said. “But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Donald McKenzie Jr was raised in Greenwich, attending Hamilton Ave, Western Middle School and Greenwich High School. A fixture at the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich as a kid and becoming a counselor at Camp Simmons, where he worked for 10 years, Donald went on to major in Economics at UConn. The longtime Greenwich resident, whose mother worked at Nathaniel Witherell for over 30 years and whose father, Donald McKenzie Sr, was former Athletic Director at the local Boys & Girls Club, counts many residents as his clients.
Donald’s fascination with the different ways websites gain prominence on the internet, transferred smoothly into a business. And, after ten years of steady word-of- mouth, Greenwich SEO Services was born in 2016.
“There is a gap in knowledge. People don’t understand search engine optimization,” he said. “I can help to keep them ranked for profitable key words, which brings targeted traffic directly from the internet.”
McKenzie explained that there is a technical process for optimizing websites and other digital assets like blogs or videos, so that they have a better chance to be found on the internet by the targeted audience.
“The idea is to incorporate key words and phrases that your audience is most likely to input into search engines to find you,” he said, adding that digital assets include much more than just the website itself.
“It’s your website, but it’s also every single individual page of the website,” McKenzie explained. “Each page is ranking for different keywords.”
An important part of SEO is earning high quality back links.
“When one of your URLs goes live on another website, the search engines see that, and it helps to build your authority, which is major part of the SEO process,” he said. McKenzie said there are two main concepts in SEO: optimization and authority.
“You first want to technically optimize your digital assets, then build their authority. This involves generating high quality content that is helpful to your visitors, and making it as easy as possible for them to share and link back to you.”
“What I’ve noticed when talking to real estate agents and attorneys, for example, is that they often times back away from SEO because they see it as being shrouded in mystery,” he said. “It is just really a comprehensive process, though it is technical and nitty gritty on the back end.”
McKenzie explained that it takes time for results to be reflected across the search engines. “It’s never overnight,” he said. “When people make updates to their websites, I’ve noticed that the search engine crawlers scan their sites, and it takes a while to see the optimization efforts reflected in the results. It can take anywhere from one to three months to see a listing change, and improve ranking placement with respect to keywords.”
Once people understand how SEO works, they get excited because they realize how much potential there is for their site – or their blog or video channel. McKenzie said he worked with a local photographer to maximize SEO for her YouTube video.
First, he said it was key for her to describe her channel in the description section. For his client, Heather Prescott Liebensohn, aka, “That Photographer Girl,” that meant using specific tags and targeted key words.
As a result, when someone searches “Fine Art Portrait Photographer in CT” or “Lifestyle Photographer in CT,” what pops up high in the search results is his client’s video.
“I really want website owners to understand that there is massive potential on the internet. Whether you want more clients or more sales, I want people to understand the nitty-gritty,” he said, adding that he enjoys simplifying the SEO process for clients and seeing them become more visible online.
Greenwich SEO Services offers clients two options. “The first option is that we’ll focus on a select number of profitable keywords and work on improving their rankings – we’ll assess what they have so far and build on that to maximize their visibility across the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.”
Donald said clients can also choose to purchase consulting services where Greenwich SEO Services comes in and teaches them how to implement a proper search engine optimization (SEO) strategy on their websites. “Many clients opt for us to teach their staff so they can implement it themselves for the long term. If they don’t have time, they will select one of the packages to improve search engine rankings.”
“We are transparent because when you purchase SEO services, you should know exactly what you’ve got, including back links and rankings. Again, search engine optimization (SEO) is a long term comprehensive process that provides a great deal of benefits in both the short and long term.”
Donald McKenzie Jr can be reached at (203) 559-2373, by email at info@GreenwichSEOServices.com or visit the company website Greenwich SEO Services.
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