SEO Lessons From Charles Lewis, aka SEO Rapper
By Andrea De La Rosa
When you think of the world of SEO you wouldn’t normally think of rap artists and viral videos on YouTube, but one man from Missouri City, TX — who goes by SEO Rapper — is helping to spread the word about digital marketing.
It all started in 2001 when Charles Lewis was challenged by a co-worker at a marketing agency to create an interesting presentation on link building — the whole thing was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube. After the video began receiving attention, more songs and videos soon followed, covering not just SEO but SEM and Social Media Marketing like “8 Point Site Launch”, “Page Rank”, “Paid Search 101 Rap” and “Social Media Marketing”.
SEO Rapper is the School House Rapper of digital marketing. His videos tackle concepts like how to run a successful site launch, what inbound marketing is and its benefits, and what content management systems work for SEO. The ideas are broken down into simple and catchy explanations. Anyone new to the marketing industry (like myself) or anyone curious about SEO will appreciate these fun, incredibly entertaining songs and videos.
After discovering SEO Rapper’s music through a team Slack message, I decided to find out a bit more about his music and writing process. I connected with SEO Rapper (Charles Lewis) on LinkedIn and we got to talking a bit about how he got started:
Q: Tell me a little about how you got started in this field and what you enjoy about it the most?
A: Sure. I started doing Internet marketing a long time ago, when Yahoo was everything, Google was new, and Bing didn’t exist. After learning how to build websites, making those websites get found by searches became very important to me.
Q: I read a little about how you got started rapping about SEO. What was your motivation and your intended audience when you decided to create these songs?
A: The motivation was simple: bring something entertaining to a typically boring and dry subject matter. My goal was to teach and explain marketing concepts in a way that would be memorable and informative.
Q: How long do they usually take to write?
A: It depends…usually 3–5 days to write a song. Plus, a couple of days creating/choosing the right production. Another day of recording, mixing, and mastering. That’s just audio…
Q: Who are your music and/or marketing influences?
A: My musical influences include artists like Jay Z, TIP, Bizzle, 2 Pac, J Cole, Scarface, Lecrae, and a bunch of others. Marketing influences would be guys like Duane Forester, Neil Patel, and Rand Fishkin.
Q: How do you pick a marketing topic to write a song about?
A: Just depends. If it’s something I’m actively working on, I’ll take notes throughout the process. Depending on available search volume, those notes will be used to compose another song. Sometimes I’m inspired because of changes in the industry. Other times, they’ve been by request.
Q: Your videos have gotten many views and ‘likes’. Have there been any surprises and benefits to your videos going viral?
A: I was genuinely surprised by the amount of industry people who saw the vids and cosigned my content. Viral benefits include traveling, performing, and of course, getting paid.
Q: I look forward to hearing more SEO raps from you in the future. What’s a marketing topic you would like to write about next?
My newest SEO Rap is called, SEO vs SEM. I aim to provide clarity on the two. The song is done and the video is being edited. It should be posted soon.
Q: What is one marketing lesson you’ve learned that you would pass down from one marketing specialist to another?
A: Communication across all parties is important. Especially when working in an agency. Make sure sales, production, marketing, and the client are always operating with the same data. Set clear goals and objectives and don’t be afraid to change when necessary.
If you’ve got an interest in learning some facts about SEO, or maybe want to pass some time on your lunch break, I recommend “Inbound Marketing”. You can see more of Charles’ content on his site theseorapper.com.
VERB Interactive is a leader in digital marketing, specializing in solutions for the travel and hospitality industry. Find out more at www.verbinteractive.com.
