Abbas Ugur

Abbas Ugur, the Lead Generation SEO Ninja, rarely talks. But when he does, he definitely makes lead generation and Google My Business (GMB) optimization sound like a walk in the park. Lead generation is described as “the process of marketing, stimulating and capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing a sales pipeline.” 

He graciously agreed for an interview to give us a rare glimpse of what he does, as well as really valuable tips about search engine optimization (SEO). One of the most important things I learned from him as well is the value of time. As he said, “One can never get back lost time.”

So, here it goes:

Please tell us about yourself.

I was born in Germany and raised in the United States. I graduated from Towson University with a finance degree.

My background is in the finance industry. I was the founder & president of USR Financial which has a lending operation locally in South Florida.  After the 2008 financial meltdown, I started hyper-focusing on marketing, specifically SEO.

I have been living in Miami since 2001.

What does your normal workday look like?

I spend most of the day on the computer hoping to find more knowledge via testing.  I keep track of the performance of our Google My Business (GMB),  and keep adding more assets in our lead gen platforms (either verifying more GMBs and/or setting up mass pages ).

I  have a daily phone meeting with my monetization partner, who runs our dispatch and sends appointments to our technician in Miami. I also have daily chat with our support manager who works from overseas in Bangladesh. This team is in charge of building out the Google My Business (GMB) like profiles.

I also spend time with the Facebook Mastermind group called Cash Flow Crew. I am one of the moderators of the group where we share our findings about SEO and try to build on them.

What are your top 3 “SEO hacks” and will you give us more insights into each, please?

SEO Hack No. 1 – GMB Verification

I can get Google My Business (GMBs) at will. I have found out a few methods. Here is one method I would not mind sharing:

Call 844 491 9665 after setting up service area GMB at a residential address and say, “Could you please help me verify my dog walking business – (say the brand name)?”

The Google representative will put you on hold, call the number on the GMB to verify the business name, address and phone number (NAP data). Once verified over the phone, it then goes active. After the GMB goes live, you can change the business details.

P.S. The word is that there is an independent office hired by the Google Corporate people which are compartmentalized. If you are comfortable with talking your way into loads of GMBs, you can simply ask these nice Indian people who love to practice their English with Americans.

Another method – ads on the get-go.

Offer up, like “Make $ 20 for 2 minutes of work for receiving a coupon code at (your business address).”

SEO Hack No. 2

GMB  listing on page optimization & Google stacking.

I grab inner picture URLs, GMB post URLs, GMB review URLs and stack them in Google sites. I add geo-tagged pictures with keywords saved. I  would then try to manipulate GMB dashboard stats. Like if you share GMB post in your social profiles, you should get more views in your GMB dashboard, etc.

SEO Hack No. 3

Google custom maps.

It is a universe in there. There are lots of ways to leverage  Google maps. The saying Google loves Google can be applied here. This way, not only do you get a link from Google but you can also get your profiles indexed.

Custom maps allow for so many integrations like uploading images, videos, creating direction to and from the brand name. We also embed the custom map in our landing pages and in our profiles. You must get embeds after the custom maps.

Do you think building lots of citations is important for a local business to get better rankings on search results pages? If yes or no, why?

I  only get the top 10 citations like Yelp, Manta, YellowPage, Apple Maps, etc.

I would highly recommend semantic connection between social profiles. For instance, if you are opening a Reddit page, then you may have the option to sign in with your Twitter account.  This way, you will create a semantic connection. We do this for each profile.

Needless to say, each profile must be completely filled-out 100 percent.

We getter results by getting profiles, WEB 2.0 and blogs, etc.   We add images, our business name, address and phone number (NAP) on top with keywords sprinkled around the NAP. We drop our custom maps in there and also drop wrap-around links to Google properties.

We focus on quality rather than quantity. For instance, when we create a profile, like Reddit — we don’t just fill out on-page. NO,  we STACK REDDIT profile by adding our other properties in there.

I would stack each link before getting more links. In other words, like I mentioned before, let’s build links with love.  If we take our links seriously, they will come back to us with more rankings.

If you could give one piece of advice to those aspiring to be a Lead Gen SEO Ninja like you, what would it be?

To those aspiring to specialize in SEO,  I would say 2 words — FOCUS & KISS.

F – Follow

O – One

C – Course

U – Until you

S – Succeed

and

K – Keep

I – It

S – Simple

S –  Stupid

What projects are you working on right now?

Right now, I am working on two nationwide projects where we will be backing them up with thousands of GMBs and mass pages.  I have accidentally figured out we can leverage GMBS in affiliate niches.

We are working on a platform which is frictionless compared to our lead generation platforms in Miami.

Thanks for reading!

We know that’s a lot of value shared with us here. So better get to work and apply the tips shared with us by Abbas.

If there are other experts you want us to feature here, please do feel free to get in touch with us.