About me

Who is Don Mazonas?

Hi there! My name is Don Mazonas. I have been on the interwebs for the past 16 years … I would like to believe that I am a decent marketerer (SEO, especially) and entrepreneur.

I am 32 years of age (as of writing this). I come from a very small town called Plungė in a very small country called Lithuania. However, I have moved to the UK in 2006. Yep, I lived half of my life in Lithuania and the other half – in the UK.

History of Don Mazonas

So I have been into SEO (for the most part) for 16 years. Back in 2006 I started learning how to program and build websites. In 2007 I started learning more about SEO and in 2009 I had my first clients. 30 of them, actually. Back in a day SEO was so much more different and easier. You just get a pack of ALN backlinks and you would most likely rank any page for any keyword. But then Google cracked on this loophole in 2011 by release their penguin update that erradicated ALN and similar services.

In 2013 I had a very powerful service – selling backlinks on my own very private blog netowrk (PBN). That year was a breakthrough year as I bought my dream car (2010 Whilte Mercedes Benz C200) which I still drive and I discovered swing dance which I still pursue to this day (well, maybe not for the past 2.5 years due pandemic but I will be back in autumn).

Fast forward to a few years – 2018 and that’s when I had the biggest income, moved in to Essex and then biggest crash. You see, I was making around 5 figures a month back then but I was very isolated. There was no proper dancing in Southend-on-Sea and dancing is very important for me (I will tell you why later). I had quite a good business by building PBNs for client. Each client would pay at least $2,500 / mo (or one-off, depending on client’s needs). I had a few of them. Time-wise it was brilliant. I probably worked less than 40 hours a month. That equates to 10 hours a week or 2 hours a day. I was living alone and no friends in sight, only my cousing in a neighbouring town in Essex. So I started playing video games pretty much all day long with a cocktail or two. However, due to certain bad financial decisions, my business crashed and while I still had some savings, I was living off my savings for couple of months before I was hired by a canvas printing company.

I worked there for about half year until I was headhunted by another company that paid me more than double what I was earning in my previous role. Of course, it didn’t last long due to COVID-19 hitting us in March 2020 (I started working at that company in January that year). There were some redundancies and I was affected. However, I earned a lot and I did work from home. I didn’t have to drive so I saved quite a lot of money. Then I did some SEO consulting for the next 10 months until I was hired by a CBD company in April 2021. It wasn’t profitable when I was consulting as I was still spending more than earning but lucky I had savings.

I worked there for about 8 months and achieved phenomenal results. However, I was living in Hertfordshire and I was considering buying my own place. However, it’s Hertfordshire and homes are expensive. So I decided to move to Yorkshire where my sister lives. Of course, due to dancing, I had made a lot of friends in Leeds, Manchester, York, Hull and surrounding areas. It made sense to move over there. However, the role that I was in didn’t fit the “work from home” scheme so I had to leave the work that I really loved … but my own happiness, family and welbeing is most important (call me narcissist or egoist if you will but that’s my view and you can’t change it).

So, once I left the CBD company in December 2021, in January 2022, I started my own SEO agency in restrictive industries (gambling, adult, escort, pharmaceutivals, CBD, healthcare, etc …). Of course, I said I would work with other industries outside restrictive if the clients can afford me. So fast forward 6 months or so while I was working hard on my own agency website and closing some clients – I couldn’t be happier. Will be reaching highest income in my life soon, working on my own terms and being able to travel wherever I want. Soon to get my own place in Yorkshire, upgrading my car and life will be fantastic.

2013 – the year of breakthrough

OK, let’s talk about the year that changed it all. So, basically, in 2013 I bought my dream car (at that time, now I have set my eyes on another car) and discovered swing dancing (lindy hop, jazz, etc …). The car purchase is very important to me because it tells me that dreams can be real and achieved with smart work (I would say hard work but it’s never the case 😉 ). I decided to buy Mercedes in January 2013. In June, I already had the car. It took around 6 months to save £15,000 and buy my dream car. Of course, now, I am more matured and more experienced. Currently, my dream car is Porsche Panamera … or Masseratti Quatroporte. Both cars are worth about the same so I will decide which one I want once I test drive both cars. Hopefully in 2023.

On 22 of May, I did my first rock step (the most fundamental step in lindy hop). Little did I know that this discovery would take me across half of Europe, make me tons of friends, convert me from being in-doors all the time to, basically, never home and so much more. Look, the most exciting part about swing dancing is its social aspect. Whenever you come to dance something like bachata (this is my view and I might be wrong as I never tried bachata), you will most likely need to come with your own partner. To dance swing – you do not need to bring anyone. You will find people to dance with. The other amazing thing about swing dancing is that you can find camps and festivals all over the world.

So when I started dancing in mid 2013, I had my first camp in January 2014 called DJAM. It was event based in Durham city. Sadly, it shut down a few years ago but I was honoured to attend it for the last time. After that, I had another event called Maytime Messaround which happened in May 2014. In Novermber that year I also did the first festival outside the UK. I believe that my first adventure was Lindyshock in 2014 in Budapest, Hungary. It was dancing on the boats on the river Danube. Sadly, this event also had to shut down due to policitical reasons or something. From 2015 I started travelling quite a bit. Also, in 2016 I started DJing swing music. So in 2016 and 2017 I was travelling a lot for DJing, dancing, etc … I mean I was running my own business where I needed only my laptop to work so I was not location bound.

Since 2015 I DJed and danced in countries like Spain, Italy (Siciliy), Hungary, Lithuania (obviously), Poland, Germany, Norway, Serbia, Netherlands, Belgium, Croatia, etc … the swing dancing has showed me that travelling is such a great hobby.

I should probably include 2019 as well – that’s the year when I started growing a beard. It makes me look a lot more matured, not the little baby face anymore 😀

Who is Don Mazonas?

I am entrepreneur, businessman, traveller, dancer, DJ, gamer, book reader, etc ... you can learn more about me here.

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