Victor Smushkevich is the CEO of one of the web’s most influential search engine optimization (SEO) services. His company, Smart Street Media, has optimized websites for hundreds of businesses, both large and small. They’ve achieved the #1 Google search ranking for over 41,000 keywords, and generated more than a million phone calls from free web traffic. In total, they manage more than $30 million in online advertising, and have generated more than $100 million for their clients. Some of their most well-known clients include Mr. Rooter and Acorn, for whom they’ve generated over 600,000 app downloads. In all, Smart Street Media is currently valued in the high seven figures.
In addition to founding Smart Street Media, Victor is also a published writer. His work has been featured in several top-tier publications, including HuffPost, Business.com, and Business2Community. He’s also published several pieces in Forbes, where he’s a member of their elite Forbes Councils. And Victor doesn’t just publish his own work. As part of his business at Smart Street Media, he also helps his clients to get published in some of these same major publications. This helps them to gain visibility for their businesses, which is just as important as having a well-optimized website.
But Victor wasn’t always a successful media guru. Back in 2012, he had recently dropped out of college, and was working as a Domino’s Pizza delivery driver. At first glance, no-one would have expected him to become successful. But Victor wasn’t wasting his time. He was using his spare time to study SEO algorithms, and learning how to boost websites to the top of Google’s search results. Instead of working for someone else, he wanted to become an entrepreneur and run his own business. And he’d identified problems with current SEO practices that left an opening for new, better-informed SEO experts.
In the early 2010s, most SEO experts recommended web pages with large word counts and lots of keywords. Both of these trends were mistakes. In the first place, Victor discovered that word counts are irrelevant to search ranking. A short, well-optimized page will rank just as well as a longer page that’s equally well-optimized. The important thing is to ensure proper use of relevant keywords, which SEO experts of the time constantly flubbed. Rather than clusters of keywords, Victor discovered that keywords should be sprinkled throughout a web page. For whatever reason, that type of keyword use is better tailored for Google’s search algorithms.
After founding Smart Street Media in 2013, Victor wasn’t content to remain CEO of “just” one company. He founded SEOGuestPost.com, a back link agency that services a wide array of SEO agencies, over 500 at the time of this writing. However, Victor preferred to focus on his work at Smart Street Media. Once SEOGuestPost.com became successful, he sold it to outside investors. Nonetheless, Victor had cemented his status as one of the biggest serial entrepreneurs in the online business world.
