Branded Content by Cosmic Press

The formula behind Jonathan Zacharias’ life is just as unconventional as the tool that he has capitalized on with his digital marketing company, GR0. As the cofounder of an SEO-driven traffic growth service, Jon Zacharias offers businesses the chance to promote their work with content geared to optimize results in relevant Google searches. However, his journey to this point was not always easy.

Zacharias, a law school graduate, always felt a pull towards information accessibility online. “I realized that I was way more interested in getting the cases than litigating them,” he shares. However, it wasn’t until he met his future business partner Kevin Miller at the rehabilitation facility CRI-Help in November of 2016 that he was pulled in a clear direction.

“We immediately became best friends, talking every single second,” Zacharias remembers. “I feel like my entire life shifted as soon as I met him.” Now proudly sober, Zacharias was on a mission to bring search engine optimization to the e-commerce industry. Miller, then the head of growth at Opendoor, had previously held a position at Google and was interested in entering into this endeavor.

Zacharias says, “I spent the next seven, eight years, from 2011 to 2019 when we started the company perfecting the science behind SEO, and then once I had that perfected, I basically started applying tactics that had never been used in e-commerce.” With incredible tact, he saw that the future of SEO would not focus only around those already using it — lawyers and medical professionals — but rather retailers and businesses hoping to grow their platforms online. Producing traffic for these companies would help them immensely.

Miller asked Zacharias to teach him how to optimize SEO, and it sparked a brilliant lightbulb.

He told his friend, “‘Let’s just start a business and do this for as many direct-to-consumer brands as we can because it’s such a powerful channel.’” Zacharias agreed immediately. “Everyone trusts Google, and obviously if you can get high on Google for certain words, it’s incredibly valuable to the client,” Zacharias shares.

The business partners have come a long way since that fateful conversation two years ago, and GR0 has continued to flourish under their care. Successful marketing has been done for clients such as Venus et fleur — florist to the stars. Massage company Theragun, exercise equipment producers Hydrow, supplement providers Nugenix, and inflatable manufacturers Funboy have all utilized the SEO tools created by Zacharias and Miller.

GR0 caters to companies who strive for digital marketing exposure, but don’t want to break the bank looking for an endorsement from Hollywood. That can be challenging to balance. Zacharias explains, “But they can afford for us to basically do a whitelisting campaign. It’s a new type of campaigns that we’re doing, and they are very, very powerful.”

While meeting Miller and finding peace in his personal life allowed Zacharias to pursue his dream, it is undeniable that GR0 will only continue to thrive. Passion and perseverance are the most essential components needed to front a company, and this industry leader has them mastered!