How it all started...

When I was 15 years old...

...I was no different from my peers and classmates in the 9th grade at the Elementary School in Smolenice. Yes, that's the nice village at the foot of the Little Carpathians with a castle, a cave, the highest peak of Záruba and at the same time the village where Štefan Banič - the inventor of the parachute - comes from.

I was interested in the world of the Internet, like every young person today. But it was very different, the Internet environment was still something new, unknown and unexplored. My father ran a business, and it seemed terribly expensive to me even at the time, when he was able to pay Sk 5,000 (approx. €166) for a small advertisement in a regional newspaper, where there were plenty of such advertising windows.

So I created my first website using the knowledge I learned about HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript. It was a website where every single character was written by hand in the editor from A to Z. I also thank programujte.cz for helping me discover the world of programming and for publishing so many amazing courses for me for free that gave me a solid foundation in the world of IT .

The competitive advantage was that very few companies from the small and medium business segment had a website because, like my father, they not only did not believe in it, but also did not understand it.

Participation in the Junior Internet competition (year 2007)

At that time, with the website, I entered a competition called Junior Internet, where I did not win, but it was a great experience for me. The selected projects had the opportunity to present themselves in person at the Barónka Hotel in Bratislava, where I gave a presentation about the online world for the first time in my life.

How did I get into PPC, SEO and other acronyms?

Having a website was, and still is, just the first step in the online world. In my opinion, having a website without visitors is the same as having a restaurant without guests. Would you like to be a restaurant owner without guests? You probably wouldn't be happy about it, and it would also be unsustainable from a financial point of view.

"In my opinion, having a website without visitors is the same as having a restaurant without guests. " 

Lukáš Bednár

After publishing the website, it was a logical step to get as much relevant traffic to the website as possible. Thus, the magical abbreviation PPC, or pay-per-click, when it was not paid for the number of times the advertisement was displayed, but for the visit to the website. I created an account on Google AdWords and Etarget in a few minutes, while the first investment in advertising went from "my piggy bank" in the form of 1000 crowns to Google and 1000 crowns to Etarget. I remember those were the "golden times" in terms of prices. Can you imagine the CPC in pennies? (converted to under €0.01 per click).

And how was the traffic evaluation? To tell the truth, server data about the number of PVs per day and hours, but that was enough. Even back then, lead statistics could be made, since a person looked at a subpage with contact information and then called. It could be tracked manually due to the number of phone calls and the absence of other communication channels. It was only later that various analytical tools were implemented, such as Google Analytics. (but about that some other time :)

Website in first place on Google.sk (SEO)

Subsequently, I started gradually in areas such as SEO and after incorporating several onpage and offpage factors together with appropriate link building, the website found itself in the first place for a long time.

The work with the website did not end with its publication, in fact it just began. Constant changes, improvements, bug fixes and innovations were a regular part of free time after school, weekends and holidays. Everything was new, interesting and I was full of excitement as things improved.

I remember that the website had 5 subpages and every single change was multiplied by five steps. Why? Well, the website was made from 5 html files, no CMS, so a change in one meant copy+paste to another html file. Otherwise, the menu or some common elements would look different on each subpage, which would not be pleasant for the visitor with such a small website.

What was once different than it is today? Year 2006 vs 2023

In my opinion, the only thing that has changed since 2006 is that suddenly everyone believes and knows that they should have a website or social media and the like, everyone talks about it as they know it, but I still feel that a small handful of people understand it very well, even if everyone thinks how they understand it. My intention is not to offend anyone, just to subjectively describe how the situation changed between 2006 and 2023 in my opinion. The positive fact is that today no one disputes the importance of having your own website, profile and communication on social networks, e-shop, etc. But personally, I believe that we can all do it much better, with better quality, and together move the level of the digital economy and digital advertising by leaps and bounds. Yes, everyone together, and although it may seem strange among competitors, as the old saying goes "where two fight, the third wins", so if we pretend in our small Slovak market that we are all doing well and someone from abroad will come who does it better, we will whine for nothing why it is so. How do you see people in marketing as global players changing the market share of the local market.

...let's move to 2022/2023....

In October 2022, I asked myself: "What can I do for the Slovak digital world?"

The answer is simple:

• educate marketing students at universities

• to motivate people around me to do things better

• to constantly increase knowledge on the market through training

• to ensure independent feedback for companies through external consultations

• to show a personal career story to a wide range of people

• mentoring for the non-profit sector

• leadership of a team of marketing students at competitions

...if you can think of anything else, feel free to write to me at lukas@lukasbednar.com 

What do I offer for companies?

• workshops for a maximum of 10 people

• trainings of marketers

• 1-on-1 mentoring

• external consultations (I have experience from media, agencies, clients, own companies)

• audits and analysis of results - independent commentary and opinion on achieved results

Thank you for reading this far. I hope my story inspired you and I believe your story is interesting too. Feel free to write to me about him at lukas@lukasbednar.com 

Have a nice day,

  Lukáš Bednár