Todays guest joining us on the Join Up Dots podcast is a man who has built a thriving business around SEO. Yeah, as we know Search and being found is a huge part of business success He has worked extensively in SEO since 2013, trying and testing all of the primary strategies to see what is most effective to boost rankings and organic traffic. Tom spearheaded the success of Life Coach Spotter to 20,000+ unique monthly visitors from organic traffic. As he says "I grew up in the suburbs of Long Island, New York, a 3rd-generation Italian. I went to public school and excelled in sports. I studied Philosophy at Providence College and spent a lot of time reading and learning from ancient philosophers. After graduating from college, I went off to work on Wall Street, day trading at a proprietary equities firm in Manhattan. In 2013 I started digital marketing for LifeCoachSpotter.com where I learned SEO from the ground up. I struggled with SEO for Life Coach Spotter for years, trying every tactic the so-called “experts” had recommended. When I finally “figured it out”, I knew I had to share my own expertise to drive results for other businesses who were struggling with their own SEO.  Most of what experts advise drives little to no impact. There are only 3 areas to focus on to drive impact for your site’s SEO:  links, optimization, and content. That’s it.  I spent years banging my head against the wall so that now you don’t have to.  It’s both fun and profitable to get monthly recurring traffic back to your business’s website. Today I serve a number of clients through my SEO agency Sure Oak.  We work with clients from around the world and I am lucky to have a passionate and dedicated team to work with who is well-versed in SEO, content-marketing, technical development, outreach, and more.  I am forever grateful to the amazing team at Sure Oak. So are the days of black hat, white hat techniques long gone, or just simmering below the surface for the next SEO fad to appear? And how does he market his own company, free traffic or paid? Well let's find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Tom Casano Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weighty topics with Tom Casano such as: Why organic traffic is such a powerful and under used form of traffic generation, that pays you back time and time again. Tom shares how his first 50 blog posts led to crickets in his business, but it taught him so much as to what actually works in SEO.  and lastly…. We discuss why it is such a good idea to walk away from a business when it gets really hard, just to allow yourself space to find an easier way.