Chapter 4: Searching For Myself

The period of time that followed was one of the most confusing points in my life. I was lost. I had financial obligations and no means of financing them.

But I knew photography had to work for me. I would make it work. I sat around brainstorming other strategies and solutions. I was determined to make this happen.

I had remembered a while back hearing that sometimes brides would go online and discuss things in forums. They would discuss the quality of services of vendors. I was curious to see if I made it into any of these forums.

This was the first step in searching for myself…

I opened up good old Google and typed myself in. I had made a website a while back (this was the one I used when registering with TheKnot) and was wondering where my website would appear in a Google search. I knew it had to be pretty far down the list because I wasn’t getting inquiries anyway.

The results were devastating. I was not page 1…or 10…or 100 for that matter. I found myself on page 210. Two-hundred-freaken-ten! And yes, to answer the question you’re probably thinking, I did click that far. I was going to stop on page 215, anyway.

What bride was going to click that far to find me?

This got me thinking. How did the people who appeared on the first page of Google get there? We were all in a pool of search results. How did they get to be on page 1 while I was on page 215? This didn’t seem fair.

Needless to say my next goal was to be on page 1. This became the story of my life for the next two years.

How do you think I tackled search engine optimization?

• I overthrew Google with my Lego army
• A magical cat whispered all of the secret answers to me
• I am secretly the creator of Google

The answer – none of the above. At first, I knew of no other way but to get a book on search engine optimization. I devoured the book in a day and attempted to apply all of the strategies, but found that while there were some great ideas, this was just skimming the surface of SEO…I needed more.

This was followed by many attempts, struggles and studies of Google’s search engine patterns. It wasn’t until 6 months later that I saw some results. I became so engrossed with SEO that I decided to get into coding. And that’s when things really started to make a lot of sense.

With my newfound success in SEO, what took me 6 months to achieve before could be attained in a matter of days. I felt like I finally conquered the world of SEO when I appeared not only on page 1 of Google, but as the #1 listing right at the top. YES!!!!!

This was the epitome of locations that brides would click, as would any search engine user, and I had gotten there. I had finally gotten there.

P.S. This is for the most part the introduction to how I got started. If you have enjoyed the story please let me know and I will try to continue writing.

Now that you have heard my story, I would love to hear yours. When I return from my vacation, I am thinking about visiting a number of cities in the U.S. Hopefully you can come out and have a cup of coffee on me! Stay tuned for details… Add yourself to the mailing list for instructions on how to get your cup of joe.

P.P.S. I enjoy Italy’s cappuccino’s most. For updates on my European trip, follow @tofurious

Tagged as: story of lawrence