About Shane Dutka
Hey, there. Shane here! 👋
I’d like to share a little about my story and how I transitioned from accounting to becoming an SEO expert building multiple 6 and 7-figure SEO-driven businesses.
Today I help clients achieve similar business transforming results with SEO and optimizing for LLM visibility.
The Start Of My Journey
It was November 2014, and I was working as an accounting consultant for PwC, one of the Big Four accounting firms.
I sat at my desk crunching numbers all day, making dozens of PowerPoint “decks”, day after day, no excitement, same predictable schedule, always looking forward to the weekend.
It was a job, and I was grateful for the opportunity, but it wasn’t fulfilling.
Accountants are often looked at as ‘overhead’ in that they are a cost center not a profit center, which means your earning potential and ability to generate wealth is limited.
Around the end of 2015 I finally got fed up with the accounting path. I wanted to develop skills that would allow me to help generate real wealth.
But I just didn’t know what that would be… or how I’d accomplish that.
What I DID know is that I didn’t want to quit my job to do it. I’m too risk averse. As much as I wanted to just go all-in and throw caution to the wind, I wanted to be safe and smart about it. I had to be able to build something on the side while still collecting my vital paycheck.
This was key.
With all the constraints and barriers I propped up for myself, I figured the best way to make this happen would be to leverage the internet to make money.
Given the rise of Amazon, Shopify and people just buying more stuff online rather than going to brick-and-mortar stores, I figured there had to be a way for me generate revenue online, right?
So…
I searched around the internet and eventually landed on the idea to start an e-commerce store and sell something.
What would I sell?
(drum roll please)
Bow ties.
Crazy, right?
The Bow Tie Failure (Kinda)
Out of all the things, why try selling bow ties?
Well, because I was getting into men’s fashion at the time, and it seemed like a good idea to align an interest of mine with a business idea.
That and bow ties were easy to ship, lightweight, had good profit margin, and the typical bow tie customer buys multiple bow ties, so the average order value could potentially support paid ads.
And, well, I didn’t have any better ideas. So why not just start, right?
So I took a leap of faith and started digging around for the next steps.
It was like, “Okay so I have a product idea, but what’s next?”.
Well, I needed a logo, a website, and someone to actually make the bow ties. All things I didn’t know the first thing about.
So what did I do?
I Googled it…. all of it.
I researched every detail, watching hours of YouTube videos.
Admittedly, I probably consumed too much information and didn’t take enough action, but I’m analytical and an accountant at heart.
I think I spent at least 6 months trying to get a logo together, a website, and start designing the bow ties I wanted to manufacture.
I worked with freelancers I found on Upwork to design the bow ties, negotiated with manufacturers in China to produce the product, and contracted with freight forwarders to arrange the logistics for shipping the bow ties across the Pacific Ocean through customs to my house in Washington, D.C.
Below is a picture of me opening up my first box of brand new bow ties, crazy right?
At this point, I had invested $38k in inventory with $0 revenue.
It was all financed by my salary and credit card debt.
Pretty much everyone thought I was crazy, and I’ll be honest, there were a lot of “what did I get myself into” moments.
A Hard Knocks Lesson In Marketing
At one point, I decided to hire a marketing agency to help with building the website and some of the brand messaging.
I figured, “I have some extra money, I can do things right and bring in professionals to help refine the logo, build a decent website, and get started on the right foot.”
Good idea in theory, but in practice, this was a colossal waste of money and ultimately left me (and the agency) extremely frustrated.
Given the fact that I was new to building businesses and digital marketing in general, I didn’t know what I needed or the right questions to ask.
Here are some other things I wish I knew (but didn’t):
- How to structure the checkout experience to increase conversions
- How cross-sells or up-sells worked
- Where to place email opt-ins
- Branding, design, or product photography
Needless to say, it was a frustrating experience.
But… I kept pushing through.
The agency ultimately built my site on Shopify invoice below.
The Shopify site was good because it allowed me to start selling products quickly, but it was also bad because it was extremely difficult to make changes to the site (I’m not that technical).
After about three months in, having gained some experience, I realized the site they built for me was poorly optimized for any type of conversion. Again, my fault for not understanding what I needed at the time.
While there were plenty of things that went wrong, I did learn a lot.
For example, working with the agency showed me the process of starting with an idea, branding around it, and creating photography to bring the idea to life.
Photography is everything when it comes to e-commerce, and it’s really the backbone of a great website.
So, about an $8,000 marketing lesson learned, fun.
So What Else Didn’t Work? And What Did?
There were several more things I did during the time I built the bow tie site that were a complete waste of time.
For example, I tried to start a podcast called “Real Guys With Bow Ties”.
I was like… I bet bow tie guys would be into listening to other bow tie guy stories.
This only lasted for 6 episodes until my motivation fizzled. The episodes got some engagement, but enough to warrant continued investment.
But hey, if you’re curious, they still exist today here’s the link.
I also started a YouTube channel trying to promote the bow tie lifestyle along with bow tie style guides.
They didn’t really move the needle.
What did work was SEO and content marketing.
At the time, I didn’t fully understand SEO, but one of the guests I had on the podcast was a marketer who explained how he used SEMrush (and SEO tool) for keyword research.
I had never heard of SEMrush so as soon as we wrapped the recording I started digging.
I found the keyword “bow ties with suits” had a fair bit of search volume, so I decided to create an article targeting the keyword.
Here’s a link if you’re curious (pictured below).
I wrote a bunch of these and after a few months of waiting, it started to rank and traffic started to roll in.
That traffic turned into bow tie sales and I was hooked.
Pivot To Pest Control
With this knowledge of what works, I wanted to pivot to a niche with broader appeal, like pest control.
I figured that people hate bugs; there are a ton of people searching for good information and willing to buy products to remedy their bug problems.
I could also sell leads to pest control companies using the traffic generated by the website.
So I started a pest control website, peststrategies.com in 2017.
This decision changed my life.
Below is a screenshot from my Amazon Associates dashboard, which shows how much revenue I was generating by referring customers to Amazon products (like bed bug traps, etc).
With this success I started my sites similar to PestStrategies.com in other niches.
One of those was LearningJewelry.com, a website that focused on diamonds.
In 2018, I ended up quitting my job focusing full time on these websites.
In 2019, I sold PestStrategies.com for $1.3M and in 2021 I sold LearningJewelry for $500K without ever hiring a single person. Just using freelancers and contracted workers.
Through trial and error I’ve developed the systems and processes allowing the sites to run themselves.
I’m obsessed with efficiency, which makes it EASY for me to build projects up and then let them hum along in the background while I re-focus my energy somewhere else.
Joining Three Ships (Home Services Division)
In 2020, with this experience and track record, I decided to join up with a company called Three Ships.
Three Ships is an enterprise publishing company that owns 50+ website assets spanning niches like sleep, health, auto, home, and others.
I led SEO strategy and growth for their home services division.
I get questions fairly often as to why I didn’t just stay an entrepreneur and keep building sites. Why join a company?
The answer is pretty simple.
I had success building small SEO driven businesses, but I had a lot to learn about building and leading truly great teams.
Setting strategy, getting alignment with cross-functional groups, and executing. I also had a lot to learn about what it takes to grow and scale large-scale businesses generating millions in annual revenue.
Since starting in 2020, I’ve overseen dozens of different web properties and led multiple cross-functional digital initiatives that have helped propel Three Ships into double-digit EBITDA growth each year since joining.
In 2023, I was promoted to VP of SEO, overseeing four of our largest assets that collectively generated over $30 million in annual revenue.
Three Ships is now among the top digital marketplaces, growing to 200+ employees (starting at just 9 when I joined).
Where I’m At Today…
At the end of 2024, I decided to part ways with Three Ships and start my own ventures, helping businesses grow their SEO programs through services and software.
With experience executing both small-scale, bootstrapped SEO programs and large-scale, multi-million-dollar SEO programs, I bring a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective.
Today, I run a boutique SEO agency that not only helps my clients dominate in traditional search but also navigate the new frontier of AI search, as more clicks are going to LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and others.
Having success in search in 2025 requires more of a holistic approach to strategy that takes into consideration a brand’s entire digital footprint vs just what’s published on their website.
If you’re interested in working together, feel free to book an informal ‘get to know each other’ call to see if there’s a fit.
Talk soon
-Shane Dutka