Greg Ichshenko

Calgary SEO expert and digital marketing specialist,
developing advertising strategies for businesses of all sizes

(403) 308-5949

greg@to-the-top.ca
1509 14 Ave SW, Calgary,
AB T3C 0W4

    Submit your request or question, and I will get back
    to you shortly

    How to Stay Updated on SEO Algorithm Changes

    Read the source before anybody’s commentary. Bookmark two places. Prune the rest. That is the standard answer, and a sound one. Which sources, and how many, is a question for another page.

    So this page is about the other word in the query. Updated.

    (more…)

    What Is Brand Bidding in PPC?

    A client phoned last spring, annoyed. Somebody else’s ad was sitting on top of his own company name. He wanted to know what it would cost to shove that ad off the page.

    Brand bidding usually starts with exactly that phone call. Nobody plans it. You search yourself one Tuesday. Something you did not expect turns up. Then paid search on your own name lands on the agenda.

    (more…)

    What Is AEO vs SEO? The Difference Between Ranking and Getting Chosen as the Answer

    AEO stands for answer engine optimisation. SEO is search engine optimisation. Same alphabet soup, different job entirely.

    SEO gets your page ranked in Google’s results. AEO gets your content selected as the direct answer at the top. Featured snippets, AI Overviews, voice results, zero-click summaries. That gap between those two outcomes is growing. Worth understanding now, not later.

    (more…)

    How to Do an SEO Migration

    You move a website. Search engines have to find it again.

    That is the mechanic. Nobody calls us about the moving, though. They call about the drop that came after it.

    (more…)

    How to Find SEO Competitors and Why the Obvious Ones Are Often Wrong

    Your SEO competitors are not necessarily your business competitors. That distinction trips up almost every business owner starting a competitive analysis. A local plumber’s real-world rival might not even show up in the top ten results for the plumber’s target keywords.

    SEO competitors are whoever actually ranks for the terms that matter. Nothing more, nothing less.

    (more…)

    What Is Disavow in SEO?

    Somebody bought links for your site in 2019. Maybe an agency did it without telling anyone. Disavow is how you ask Google to ignore them.

    It lives inside Google Search Console. You upload a plain text file listing the backlinks you want discounted. Google then treats those links roughly the way it treats a nofollow link.

    (more…)

    Is an SEO Company a SaaS Business?

    No. An SEO company sells labour and judgment. A SaaS product sells software you log into and run yourself. Different category, different economics, different thing entirely.

    The question comes up for a real reason, though. Both bills arrive monthly. Each one charges a recurring fee. From a bank statement alone, an SEO retainer and a subscription bill look almost identical. SEO Company To-The-TOP! gets asked this fairly often. Usually by a Calgary business owner setting up their accounting categories for the first time.

    (more…)

    Why Is My SEO Dropping?

    Traffic came in low this month. Or a keyword moved down the page. Either way the question comes out the same shape. Why is my SEO dropping.

    Every answer online names a cause. An update. A competitor. Something broken on the website. All of those are real causes. None of them is the first thing worth checking, because the question is missing a word.

    (more…)

    What Is SEO and How It Actually Works Behind the Scenes

    Search engine optimization, SEO for short. Making a site show up when people search relevant terms on a search engine like Google. The mechanism behind that, though, runs through three distinct stages most people never see.

    Crawling. Indexing. Ranking. Each stage filters what makes it through to the next one.

    (more…)

    Why SEO Costs Vary for Law Firms

    Ask three agencies what SEO will cost your firm. Three numbers come back. They are not close.

    The stock answer to that is competition. Crowded market, dearer work. That answer is right. This site publishes it properly already, with the pricing models and the ranges and everything else moving the figure. So none of it gets repeated here.

    (more…)