About
My name is James Taylor, not to be confused with the other guy who saw fire and rain and carries a good tune. I am the owner and founder of Samurai Marketing and will be the primary author on this blog (guest bloggers will be clearly identified). My mission is to help small and medium-sized businesses become more searchable by their target market on the internet, in order to attract highly relevant web traffic to grow their business.
I have a degree from Canada’s top business school, at Queen’s University, in Marketing and IT; training and certifications from the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) and Google; and over a decade of experience working intensely in the field of internet marketing with a diverse client base in the private and public sectors.
In recent years my focus has been working with clients across North America and particularly in Canada’s National Capital Region, Ottawa, Ontario, on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM, a.k.a. Pay Per Click Advertising, or PPC), as these channels are the cutting edge media of proactive search. If you have something interesting and valuable to offer, there is an excellent chance that someone out there right now is actively googling for what you’ve got… they just need to find you when they do a search!
I am using the Samurai metaphor in part to distinguish my methods from less scrupulous SEO experts and consultants, sometimes known as ninja or guerilla marketers, many of whom believe that any traffic is good traffic, and it doesn’t really matter how you go about getting it. I practice and promote White Hat SEO Techniques, believing that reputation counts and real growth occurs over the long haul.
Samurai were the fierce warrior class who ruled feudal Japan for centuries. They lived by a code known as “Bushido” which stressed loyalty to their noble lords, frugality, and martial arts mastery – placing a high value on personal honour in combat.
In addition to being a search marketer, I am also a 4th Degree Black Belt Karate Instructor with nearly 20 years experience in various martial arts. This background has provided me with an appreciation for Samurai traditions, such as fighting to win, in an honourable fashion on the field of battle – principles directly applicable to search marketing.
There are a vast array of SEO Techniques promoted in this intensely competitive and combative space, on the frontier of how we conduct business and discover information. Fighting to stand out from your competition is essential, but exactly how you fight this battle is equally important, to gain and sustain your ground, particularly in the eyes of the search god Google.
How Google Search and Advertising Works…
“Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Google’s ideal search experience occurs when you “find what you want, when you want it, where you want it.” Google spends billions of dollars fulfilling its mission, a big part of which is to weed out the millions of sites promoted by methods that don’t align with its ideals, while rewarding those that do.
I intend to use this blog to share some of what I’ve learned helping many companies and organizations connect with those looking for exactly what they have to offer on the world wide web, in the context of new and exciting developments as they unfold in the industry. I look forward to rich dialogue, a dynamic exchange of ideas and some amazing connections. So feel free to add comments, express your views or drop me a line… possibility exists everywhere!
James Taylor