Martin Vassilev — founder of Ottawa SEO Inc. since 2014. Manages a 500+ domain portfolio. Twelve years of continuous SEO operating history across Canada and the US.
I'm Martin Vassilev, founder of Ottawa SEO Inc. I started this practice in 2014 and have run it continuously for the past twelve years. Every recommendation on this site, every published case study, and every client engagement we've shipped has been overseen by me personally. There is no 'pitch team versus delivery team' gap at our firm — I'm involved in sales, strategy, and the day-to-day implementation work for every active client.
My time splits roughly across four activities: (1) running active client engagements end-to-end (technical audits, content strategy, link-acquisition campaigns, monthly reporting); (2) managing a 500+ domain portfolio that generates real-time live data on what's working and what's not across Google's algorithm changes; (3) writing the substantive long-form content on this site (every page that says 'author: Martin Vassilev' was actually written or edited by me, not generated by a content farm); and (4) personally reviewing every monthly report we send to clients before it goes out.
Most SEO consultants and agencies sell SEO without operating SEO at scale on their own properties. I do both. Our practice operates a 500+ domain portfolio across Canadian and US markets — sites we own, optimize, monetize, and measure. This portfolio gives us real-time visibility into Google algorithm changes the day they happen rather than reading about them in trade press a week later. When a Helpful Content Update rolls out, we see the impact across hundreds of properties simultaneously and can adjust client work within hours, not weeks. That operational depth is the most meaningful difference between our practice and a typical agency that sells SEO theory without operating it at scale.
Twelve years of operating history across these specific disciplines: technical SEO at scale (handling sites with 5,000+ URLs without index bloat or template-bloat penalties), programmatic SEO (building thousands of legitimately useful pages without triggering spam classifiers), local SEO and Google Business Profile optimization, link-acquisition campaigns (real editorial placements, not link farms), schema.org markup engineering (Person, Organization, Service, FAQPage, HowTo, Article, Review, Product, AggregateRating), Core Web Vitals optimization, content audit and pruning workflows (the discipline of removing thin content to lift the ranking of remaining pages), Helpful Content System defense, E-E-A-T signal building, and AI-Overview / generative-search readiness.
Active engagements and case-study results across: legal (personal injury, family, real estate, criminal defence, immigration), dental (general, orthodontics, periodontics, oral surgery), healthcare (chiropractic, physiotherapy, naturopathic medicine, optometry, mental health), home services (HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical, general contracting, landscaping, moving, cleaning, pest control), professional services (accounting, financial advisory, insurance brokerage, business consulting, IT/MSP), real estate (agents and mortgage brokers), restaurants and hospitality, automotive (repair and dealerships), B2B SaaS, and ecommerce. We don't pretend to be specialists in everything — these are the verticals where we have shipped repeatable, measured wins.
Every engagement starts with a free 15-point live audit before any commercial conversation. If we proceed, contracts are month-to-month — we earn the next month every month. There are no annual minimums, no setup fees, and no 'agency markup'. Reports are sent monthly with measured before-and-after data on every metric we said we'd move. If a client wants to leave, they leave at the end of the current month with all of their content, accounts, and data intact. This works because we operate primarily on referral and reputation — twelve years of that compounds.
Continuous operating presence under the same business name (Ottawa SEO Inc.) since 2014. Over 500 active and historical domain assets in our managed portfolio. Active engagements across all Canadian provinces and the US continental market. Substantive published content footprint of 5,000+ pages of original SEO research, vertical-specific guidance, and case-documentation. LinkedIn profile (verified): linkedin.com/in/martinvassilev. The strongest credential, frankly, is the operating history itself — twelve years of continuous SEO practice through every major Google algorithm update is harder to fake than any certification.
If you want to talk SEO strategy, get a free audit, or just compare notes on what's working in your vertical, the fastest paths are: book a 30-minute strategy call, run a free 15-point audit on your current site, or see our case studies for representative engagements with measured before-and-after data. Email goes directly to me.
Yes. Every active client engagement is overseen by me personally — strategy, content review, technical audits, monthly reporting. We do not have a junior implementation team handling delivery while senior strategists are at sales.
Founder-led with a small specialist contractor network. We deliberately stay lean to avoid the agency-overhead premium that larger firms charge. The team scales by capability rather than by headcount.
Operating SEO at scale on our own properties means we see Google algorithm changes the day they happen, across hundreds of sites simultaneously. We adjust client work within hours of a major update, not weeks. Most agencies are reading about updates in trade press; we're seeing them live.
Yes. Wayback Machine archives of ottawaseo.com show continuous operation since 2014. Corporation Canada registry shows the entity in good standing throughout. LinkedIn shows the continuous role.