Today's episode features Marcus Tandler who cofounded and runs the enterprise SEO software company OnPage.org, which has the goal of helping people create better websites that rank better in search engines. Marcus, a native of Munich, Germany, is a former super affiliate who was at one point in Commission Junction's top 5 earners in all of Europe. also runs a super-exclusive conference (or think tank, to use his terms) called SEOktoberfest in Munich every year. In our chat, Marcus takes the time to share much many of his work experiences with us.

Find Out More About Marcus Here:

MarcusTandler on LinkedIn@mediadonis on TwitterMarcus Tandler on Facebook

In This Episode:

• [01:06] - Why did Marcus decide to switch from affiliate marketing to running a software service company?
• [05:18] - Stephan steps in for a moment to share an origin story of his own.
• [06:55] - Marcus shares his thoughts on what Stephan did, which he believes was a smart strategy. He and Stephan then go on to discuss their companies and work experiences.
• [11:27] - Stephan brings up the idea of surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you. Marcus agrees and gives an example of having done this.
• [14:17] - We learn about how private SEOktoberfest is, and how it's structured in terms of experts and attendees.
• [16:52] - Marcus and Stephan engage in a role-playing exercise by giving each other cool information, the way they might at a mastermind or think tank.
• [18:02] - Stephan's first contribution involves YouTube searching on Google Trends. His second is about Christoph Cemper's research on 302s being better at passing the SEO benefit over time (versus 301s).
• [20:36] - Stephan shares a story about Greg Boser and Todd Friesen.
• [25:01] - We hear about Marcus' and Stephan's thoughts on the pill-pushing game.
• [27:22] - Certain black hat techniques stopped working in 2007 or 2008, Marcus explains.
• [32:49] - Stephan and Marcus talk about the featured snippet, or instant answer, on Google.
• [34:23] - We hear more about SEMrush, and a tool it offers related to featured snippets.
• [35:37] - Marcus takes his turn for sharing ideas. He talks about TF-IDF analysis, a major topic in German SEO circles.
• [38:41] - Marcus offers a reverse example of what he's been talking about.
• [45:11] - We hear an example about the kind of thought process Marcus has been describing, from Stephan this time. He talks about Homesteading.com and the fact that one of their articles outranks the home page on Google.
• [48-31] - What does Marcus think of latent semantic indexing (LSI)?
• [52:42] - Are there any free tools that give some actionable insight into TF-IDF? Marcus reveals that a limited version of this tool is available in the free version of OnPage.
• [54:31] - Stephan and Marcus touch on the problem of using the disallow directive instead of no-indexing pages.
• [55:22] - Marcus talks about some common SEO screw-ups that OnPage can find.
• [60:14] - Marcus' company doesn't offer any consulting services. Here, he explains why.

Links and Resources:

MarcusTandler on LinkedIn@mediadonis on TwitterMarcus Tandler on FacebookOnPage.orgScreaming FrogAlta VistaBlack hat SEOFireballWar Room MastermindChristoph Cemper11 More Things You Didn't Know About Links and Redirects by Christoph CemperGreg BoserTodd FriesenSEMrushTF-IDF Homesteading.comMarcus Tober on Marketing Speak