BARRYTON — In a world where technology and websites are more important in business than ever, one Barryton resident has spent years putting in work in the digital world to help other’s business and startup dreams a reality with his digital marketing agency.
Fred Skaff, a resident of Barryton for over 10 years, founded his digital marketing agency Six Gun Group in 2012. The company focuses on helping businesses and individuals with website and profile building, as well as search engine, content, and on-page optimization.
Skaff said he saw a need for a more personal digital marketing approach.
“I’ve had this agency for quite a while and it’s a passion that just started because I was always fascinated with what makes a website become number one in a ranking,” Skaff said. “It turned into talking with a bunch of other guys and learning code and script and stuff like that. Then trying to gauge Google’s algorithm which nobody ever gets right. There’s really a mathematical science to it.
“A lot of small businesses don’t realize how much free traffic they could capture by hiring a guy like me,” he added. “We’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars of free traffic because if you just put up a website, chances are it’s equivalent to putting up a lemonade stand in a sea of lemonade stands. Just because you have a website does not mean you’re going to get shown in rankings, to some degree.”
Search engine optimization, or the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine, has become a major tool for many businesses.
Whether online or physical, Skaff explained that any business can benefit from an online presence.
Skaff runs his agency entirely from his home, which is one of the biggest perks of working with online and technology-based services.
He explained that there are simple ways to get started with an online presence that many don’t pursue.
“I work from home and then I hire people through Upwork and whatnot that helped me, like graphic artists,” Skaff said. “Most of the stuff I keep in-house, but I’m horrible with graphic design and graphic characters, so I hire that out. I just have a passion for helping small businesses.”
Throughout his years with his agency, Skaffs’ Six Gun Group has amassed 106 satisfied clients and has seen 120% increased traffic and 250% increased revenue for webpages he has helped to create or optimize.
HELPING BUSINESSES THRIVE
Six Gun Group also does data analysis for businesses and individuals looking to understand their online traffic on a deeper level.
Skaff said website creation nowadays is complex and having someone versed in online marketing can be helpful.
“There’s a lot that goes into the back end of getting a website to rank,” Skaff said. “It’s not just code, script, monitoring and keywords and writing articles content. Nobody ever puts content on their website, and content is king. I use tools like Semrush to monitor my clients, and I know exactly where they stand on a daily basis. I know where they stand in the rankings, we monitor everything.
Skaff told about working with a young man in appliance repair out of Grand Rapids, who was just a one-man operation.
“Everybody told me he was just starting the appliance repair game, and that’s a very competitive niche,” Skaff said. “Everybody told him not to spend money with me, and he did. It was a struggle for him to be a new business. Fast forward a year and a half later, I’ve got him in and he dominates in maps, he dominates in search. He went from a one-man broke down van to four full-time employees, all new vans, and bought out two competitors in a year and a half flat.”
As a mainly one-man operation with Six Gun Group, Skaff understands the struggle of becoming a successful business, and this inspires him daily to put his best foot forward for his clients.
The COVID-19 pandemic also saw Six Gun Group taking on a few more clients as more businesses needed help with developing an online presence and SEO work.
“When the pandemic first hit, everything froze,” Skaff said. “We’re getting busier and busier. To me, I was raised that if a man gives you $1, by God, you’d better work hard enough to give that man back $2. That’s just my philosophy, so every client I bring on like that young man with the appliance business, I gave him ten times the value of what he spent on my services.”
Skaffs’ website for Six Gun Group prioritizes modernity and simplicity, which he says is a big reason people have paid his work attention. With regular updates and new skills, he’s learning on a weekly basis, Skaff is continuously improving the quality of service he provides.
“I’m always preaching the cutting edge for my clients,” Skaff said. “I’m always looking for new ways to help and improve.”
For more information on Six Gun Group, visit the agency’s website at www.sixgungroup.com.
https://www.bigrapidsnews.com/news/article/Barryton-man-s-digital-marketing-helps-make-17056898.php
