In 2007, Pete Pekofsky went from owning and marketing one of Miami’s longest running nightclubs to establishing an Internet marketing agency like no other. Pekofsky had been burnt by Internet Marketing companies previously while running his nightclub, Club Deep. He realized that other entrepreneurs had likely been burnt by bad and untrustworthy Internet Marketing firms too. Pekofsky knew he could do better, which led to him and wife Tina founding Top Ten Website Marketing.
Since founding the company over a decade ago, Top Ten Internet Marketing has worked with a wide variety of clients around the world. Many of Pekofsky’s clients have been with the company since the beginning in 2007. It is the trustworthy approach of doing business that has kept clients onboard and Top Ten Internet Marketing thriving.
Pete, you started your career in the Internet Marketing sector in 1997, just when online shopping was starting to boom. What led you into the world of Internet Marketing?
My wife and I, Tina, owned a nightclub in South Beach, Club Deep, the longest running nightclub at the time from 1997 to 2006. I was doing all the promotions, newspaper and radio marketing and eventually took over our Internet Marketing for Club Deep and when we sold Club Deep a vendor of ours hired me to do his Internet Marketing because he saw the success we had at the club and that is when Top Ten Website Marketing was born.
Can you tell us about Top Ten Website Marketing and what it offers customers?
Top Ten Website Marketing is a full-service Website Development and Internet Marketing Agency with a 90% client retention rate. We offer Search Engine Optimization, Google Ads Management, Website Design, and Premium Local Listings services. We make ourselves totally available to our clients, we take their calls at night and weekends, we always do more than we say, we do not work with contracts, this makes our team work harder in order to keep a high client retention rate. We have been managing most of our clients’ SEO campaign and Google Ads accounts for over 10 years. We will not work with our clients’ competitors in the same counties. We turn away business often because of this code of ethics.
We provide our clients with monthly keyword ranking reports along with an online visibility report of their website and conversion tracking so they can see the progress from the work that our team does each month. The reports provide simple yet valuable information to our clients. Our technical detailed reports help me so I can review and let our team know what changes are needed to the website for improvements. The services that we offer include Website Designing, SEM, PPC Management, Press Releases, Social Media services, Video Marketing, AdWords, Display Ads, Local Listings, Reputation Management, and local, national, and international marketing. We also provide a FREE 33-point website audit report to test for quality, errors and warnings for a website.
The key to client success is developing high-quality websites, according to Pekofsky. The company uses bespoke products developed specifically for each client.
How can customers benefit from partnering with the company?
SEO is constantly changing. We are always learning new strategies and we use multiple SEO software tools because not one single software subscription does it all. The key to a client’s success is by having us develop a high-quality website that is custom and SEO friendly so it would rank better in the search engine result. We never use templates, website builders or WordPress. We custom design and hand-code our websites with html5 + CSS + JS frameworks. Our clients benefit by ranking higher in the search engines and surpassing their competitors resulting in better online visibility and traffic to their website. We use white hat strategies and advanced online SEO tools that are highly effective in providing our clients with a successful Internet Marketing campaign that works and delivers excellent results.
How much does website and search optimization really help online retailers and entrepreneurs make money?
SEO works best for service industries and not online stores. For SEO, we target our clients service type and geo local or national target. Our clients get a very high ROI using our services. Our clients pay month to month, and most have been with us since the beginning, and we can see their business expanding. Some of our clients say that their business increased by as much as 400%. Our goal is higher online ranking and visibility for our client’s website.
Pekofsky started Top Ten Website Marketing almost by accident. So-called “professionals” were hired to do the online marketing for Pekofsky’s nightclub. Having had a poor experience, Pekofsky started his own Internet Marketing company. His success led to further developing the business.
At one time, before establishing Top Ten Website Marketing, you hired companies to market your business online. However, these “professionals” used tactics such as spamming. How different is online marketing today compared to 10 years ago when many marketing companies used unethical Blackhat SEO?
Back in the day many marketing companies used keyword stuffing and the same content on many landing pages with only the keyword changed on each landing page plus other Blackhat tactics. Now Google is better at finding bad practices and it negatively affects a website’s ranking.
We only practice Whitehat SEO because this is by far the number one way that our clients rank well and get new leads. SEO is much more technical now, the first step of SEO is to have a quality website, it should be responsive to any device such as a desktop, tablet or mobile phone so website architecture is important, page speed, W3C compliance, image optimization, website security, schema markups ADA compliance and so much more.
WE ARE CONSTANTLY REVOLVING, RESEARCHING AND CHANGING OUR STRATEGIES TO HELP OUR CLIENTS RANK BETTER. BY DELIVERING WORLD-CLASS SERVICE, TOP TEN WEBSITE MARKETING CONTINUES TO GROW AND DELIVER RESULTS TO OUR CLIENTS.
Can you tell us about the evolution of online marketing over the last 20 years? What are some of the tactics that work today to reach customers?
For service type industry looking to expand their business, SEO is still and will always be No. 1 in terms of conversions and ROI. Now social media is good for client retention and there are many new lead generating platforms as well. We have a team of SEO experts that work on driving quality website traffic that converts well, so that clients don’t lose business to their competitors. Our SEO experts research the right keywords for a client’s business to drive qualified traffic to their website, which then converts to a lead.
You have been an entrepreneur for quite some time. Pete, can you tell us about your career prior to working in online marketing?
I worked for several of my family’s businesses. I started when I was 15 years old, and I worked at our family’s motor home business in New York. From this, I learned about almost every industry that you can think of from mechanics, painting vehicles, carpentry, electrical, plumbing and so much more. Then my parents, brother and I opened a successful high-end furniture store and factory, this is where I learned sales and building furniture. Then my wife, Tina, and I along with my sister opened a successful nightclub in New York, this is where I started to learn about marketing and promotions. Then, we moved to Florida in 1997 and opened what had become a famous and the longest running nightclub, at the time, in South Beach (Club Deep) which is when we got into Internet Marketing for our club. Then after we sold Club Deep, we started our new marketing agency Top Ten Website Marketing. My entire work history has always been about hard work, sales, services and customer service.
Like many entrepreneurs, Pekofsky experienced challenges when he started Top Ten Website Marketing. He learned a lot over the years after starting the business and continues to grow as an entrepreneur.
What were some of the challenges you experienced in the early days of Top Ten Website Marketing?
Gaining trust in clients, getting our foot in the door to speak to potential clients, especially the ones that had a bad experience from prior SEO companies and had gotten locked into contracts with false promises. Companies that try to beat the algorithm and do Blackhat SEO made our industry not trusted. When we take on new clients, we hear the horror stories that their previous marketing companies practice. Such as holding the client’s website or domain registry “hostage” and will not release it to the owner of the business and making them pay the full terms of the contract. We tell all of our clients we do not force them to sign contracts and they must register their domain themselves. No one but the rightful owner of the business should own the domain name.
How do you stay on top of the changing trends in online marketing with tech being altered at a rapid pace?
Many marketing companies have different strategies; Over the years we found what works best for our clients. I am always learning new strategies from SEO news blogs, Google recommendations and other SEO fundamental courses almost on a daily basis. We are constantly revolving, researching and changing our strategies to help our clients rank better.
Pete, what is next for you and the company?
We want to stick with what we do best and that is developing quality websites that rank well, Search Engine Optimization and Google Ads management. This is what brings in the most leads for our clients and when they succeed, we succeed. Our business is continuously growing each year. We consistently maintain a 90% client retention rate.
What is a day in your life like?
Waking up at 6 am, 7 days a week, and start by checking emails and responding to any client needs. Going back and forth between my web developers and clients for approval of new website designs before we convert the design to html. Searching and learning anything new in the world of SEO. Contacting new leads. Speaking to existing clients about any questions or concerns that they might have. For us it is all about customer service and making sure that we are doing everything possible to help our clients website rank. There is not a moment of my day that I am not multitasking on three monitors. Most companies in our industry work hours are 8 to 5 Monday to Friday. I am available any day or anytime that a client needs me, I can always be reached.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
It’s a great feeling to succeed and to help our clients succeed. When we were starting Club Deep, it was hard, it was a struggle at first. People in the industry said you won’t make it, give up, the competition of 10 nightclubs on our block is too much. I have proven them all wrong; they went out of business, and we were the longest lasting nightclub on South Beach in Miami, making the cover of industry international magazines. I love what I do, and I have never given up on anything. If something isn’t working, I will keep moving forward until it does. When I make a commitment to myself, my wife, my family and my clients I follow through.
What makes you smile?
The few vacations that I get with my wife (Tina) and when a client tells me what a great week they had.
What scares you?
Like most people, Covid-19. We still have a few clients that are not fully back up and running.
If you had the power to change just one thing in the world, what would it be?
Cut off all news channels, and together as a community, a society find the answers to stop violence and hate towards one another.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
In our industry it is hard for businesses that have been burned in the past, to trust other Internet Marketing companies. What we ask and tell our potential new clients, give us a chance, we do not make anyone sign a contract, just give us that chance and see what we can and will do for your business. Just speak with any of our clients and ask them how we do business or check our reviews on Google. Our core principles and promises to our new and existing clients have never changed, we work hard and are available to all our clients, we enjoy what we do, and the best reward is our client retention and hearing from them that they are doing good, that makes all the hard work, long hours, weekends and holidays all worth it to us.
Everything Pekofsky touches turns to gold. They built a long-running nightclub in South Beach Miami which led to the opening of Top Ten Website Marketing, a Website Development and Internet Marketing agency that has helped clients from around the world.
Pekofsky has succeeded after seeing a gap in the marketplace. He started the company having experienced poor service from Internet Marketing businesses, and has become a leader in the industry. By delivering world-class service, Top Ten Website Marketing continues to grow and deliver results to customers.
For more information on Pete and Tina Pekofsky and Top Ten Website Marketing, please visit https://www.top-ten-website-marketing.com
Journalist and author. Contributor
