Meet Mike Rux of Ciphers Digital

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Rux.

Hi Mike, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was working in my father’s business as an auto technician in 2007. We were struggling to make ends meet with new work coming in. I would go business to business and pass out flyers to business owners. Although that was driving some work to the door it was not enough. After a long hot day of passing out flyers and not getting any response, but the classic soliciting push back. I decided it was time to figure something out, I knew I had to work hard to figure out how to market for my dad’s business, with little to no money. So, I called a meeting with my father and said “Dad I am going to build a website.

I will build this website and we will get a ton of work flooding from Google, as people will search and find us”. My father said to me “Son, I tried that back in 2001 & it did not work”. Once I heard him say those words, I knew that if I worked hard on the website, it would pay off. So, I built the site, added a bunch of service-related content, and launched it. It was a basic site on the Yahoo website builder. I would workday in and day out optimizing the content, building links, and sharing the site anywhere I could. After about 3 to 6 months, we started seeing a return. My father left me alone at that point to continue marketing the new website we had. After another few months, the website was driving ALL our revenue from Google Organic search queries.

I knew I had something great to work from. So, in 2008, I began a rigorous schedule. I would wake up at 6 am, take my 1-year-old daughter to her grandma’s, as my wife was already leaving for work. I would then go to work with my father and fix cars until about 5pm and drive home. From about 6pm to 3am I would work on Google and figure out Search Engine Optimization. Then get back up at 6am and start the cycle all over again. On the weekends I would work all day and sometimes all night to figure out this “Digital Marketing” Thing. I remember my wife getting up at 12am, 1, 2, 3am and saying honey you are still up working. I would be at the kitchen table in our 1 room apartment and say, YES, I must figure this out sweetheart. Go back to sleep. I am ok.

During the learning storm, one day my wife said “I am tired of working and not taking care of our daughter” she is getting mad at me. I told her at that moment “QUIT” I will make this happen and you will stay at home with the kids. She quit and has been a stay-at-home mother with our 2 kids ever since. I continued working day and night and opened my digital marketing freelance business. I knew of a gym I worked out at called Fitness Works Athletic Clubs. So, I performed an audit with what I had learned in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I called the owner, who I knew and requested a meeting to go over my findings. He agreed. After the meeting, he decided to let my try. I offered the Organic Search Engine Optimization service for Free to show that I had what it takes. After about 6 months, the club started getting online leads. He agreed to pay me, and I ended up working with the club for 7 years and built their website and entire online presence. We were generating approx. 1,500 to 1,700 qualified leads per month, with 4 gyms.

Fitness works was sold in 2014, I continued to work for them as the web guy (freelancer). They sold again in 2016 to an organization called You Fit Health Clubs. A 150M per year big box gym, with over 115 locations nationwide. I became their Digital Marketing & SEO manager and remained in that position remotely until Jan 2019 (over 2.5 years). Although I was calling all the website shots and sustainable online search efforts. I was solely remote and met the executives only once, when they called a weekend celebration and production seminar at the Youfit headquarters in Florida for the hard work and success we achieved with the website and online marketing. I had nearly tripled the organic traffic to the website in just 8 months. You fit went from approx. 78K organic visits per month to approx. 328,000 visit per month from the Google organic marketing channel. This allowed them to reduce their Google add spend over 4x.

Although during this time, Youfit was my main gig as a free-lancer. I managed to work with a portable sanitation company and ended up with a similar story. I worked for a company called United Site Services, they were just valued at 1.15B. After they had purchased, a smaller portable sanitation company, who I was driving leads for with lead generation, using Search engine optimization. I worked for that company for approx. 1 year and helped them with a new website launch and other SEO related tasks. While working with these large corporations, I had managed to pick up some smaller businesses and do SEO & Google Ads (PPC) for. As well as some web design and content development. In 2019, I decided to start building my brand “Ciphers Digital”. I was tired of being the “Web Guy”. During this process of building a start-up digital marketing business. I have had some major tragedies & struggles. From gaining new high-end clients and moving on after small 6-month contracts to my father and mother both dying unexpectedly, my nephew was also murdered in early 2020. I tell the personal tragedy, because during the storm. I kept my faith and perseverance and continued to push forward. As this is all I have known in my life. To work hard and balance myself. Over the last few years. I have learned to keep my emotions in check. Always give to those who value your hard work and knowledge, never quit & have true integrity. When I began Ciphers Digital. I vowed to myself, that If I build an asset for a business online. I would never delete it, and those businesses would always own the assets no matter what or how they treated me & my company. This has been a blessing, as I have seen many other digital marketing companies hold websites and marketing assets hostage and the business owner never retaining them back. Maybe, their contracts state this and the business stopped paying for the “Website Rental”. Although, this is a grey area. I always vow to provide a transparent agreement and retain online marketing assets for businesses, giving the power of the website and SEO results to the business owner.

I have also been providing nonprofit digital marketing and website work for those who qualify Pro-bono. I have over 160K of impact in the non-profit sector and will continue to drive my impact to over $1m in the next 2 years. I am working diligently to build Ciphers Digital online and continue to provide, sustainable online presence results for small businesses. Our goal at Ciphers Digital is to provide the client with quality digital marketing results, using sustainable internet marketing assets. We vow to put our heart & soul into your online business marketing efforts. As an “Impact Driven Company’. I will continue to drive online leads generation, while providing businesses sustainable results and obtainable online assets.

A few other parts to my story. I was a professional sprint car driver for 17+ years. I regularly practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and took 3rd in the world in 2016.

Business Resources for Claims:

Home

https://clutch.co/profile/ciphers-digital
https://www.catchafire.org/profiles/453784/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeruxjr

Personal Resources for Claims:

https://www.ascsracing.com/profile/?r=2713&rt=driver
https://www.flograppling.com/video/5976862-michael-david-rux-jr-vs-robert-andrew-gushel-world-master-jiu-jitsu-ibjjf-championship

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Personally:

Both my mother & father died. Father in 2017 mother in 2021. My nephew was murdered in 2020. When my father died in 2017. I had to quit my 17-year race career and set my business on hold to take care of my mother. I built a 39 old’s, 66 bronco, 80 corvette and did other work, giving all of the money to my mother and to help her pay the bills and get back on her feet. Again, this took me 1 year at about 16 hours per day. I would then go to my office and work on my business. This brutal time reminded me of the days of working day and night to learn digital marketing but had many more emotions involved. I would work at the shop all day, go home cry in my wife’s arms, then work on my business some. It was a huge tax and stress to my family, marriage, and business of digital marketing.

Business Translation:

I managed to stay above water, thanks to hard work and the Ciphers Digital Team. What was happening year after year. We would build up the client list, then it would drop down, we were building up the revenue just for it to get cut in half every time during Christmas. This happen for approx. 2 years strait and was a very stressful period. I also tried partnering in 2020 with a great professional, who was determined and hungry just like me. This partnership ending too quickly, but taught me a lot about the businesses.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We provide sustainable digital marketing assets for businesses to retain. We put the power of websites in the hands of business owners. We are known as an impact driven company. Ciphers Digital provides nonprofits and other organizations what they need to grow online. Both paid and some community pro bono work. We have over $160K of impact among nonprofits all over the world. From Australia to MN and many other regions. We offer comprehensive Search Engine Optimization, Website design, Content development and Google Ads (PPC) Marketing services. What sets us apart is when you hire Ciphers Digital your business becomes our passion. We love to partner with the right clients & provide sustainable “White Hat” digital marketing results, that last for years. We help businesses build online presences that last for years.

What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most to me is giving back to the community and providing the knowledge and efforts to improve business bottom lines. If they value their business and value, the services we provide. This matters the most, because it harnesses the most impact an provides added jobs and value to companies. We also believe in a great culture within our company. Ciphers Digital believes employees should enjoy working together and to be able to support their families. This improves family life and strengthens family ties.

Pricing:

• Web Design $2,500 to 7,500
• SEO $5oo to $9,500/month
• Content Development $900 to $2,500
• Website hosting $25 to $75/month
• Google Ads %15 of budget

Contact Info:

• Email: help@ciphersdigital.com
• Website: https://www.ciphersdigital.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ciphersdigital