Founder, Gen1 Media
Armin Jonker
I build websites and run local SEO for service businesses in Paarl, across South Africa, and for clients in the United States and Canada.
My journey
From building websites to getting them found.
I studied a BSc in IT at North-West University, played a season of rugby in France, and travelled through Europe. Then COVID hit, and I started building websites for my parents’ law firm and a software company. I fell in love with it straight away.
But I noticed something. I had built them a good website, and they still were not getting clients from it. A website on its own was not enough. So I went and learned from the best SEOs in the world, bought their courses, and put every lesson to work on my parents’ business.
The traffic went up. The clients came in. Before long they were even getting enquiries from overseas. Being able to control that felt like a superpower, and I was hooked.
To push it further, I started building my own local directory sites to test what really works. One of them is under a year old and already pulling close to 4,000 clicks in 28 days. Meanwhile there are businesses that have had a website for three years and get five clicks a month. That gap is exactly the problem I solve.
The hard part is not the work. It is that most South African business owners have never seen this done properly. They think it is a scam, or that it is just social media marketing. It is neither. It is a whole new channel for winning customers, and I make content to show people how it actually works. I have been building websites since 2020 and doing SEO since 2024.
How I work
Simple, personal, and honest.
- One client per industry per suburb. I never work with your competitor. Your area stays yours.
- You deal with me directly. First call to long-term partnership. When you message, I answer.
- We sit down every month. I show you the leads you got and what we are doing next. No guessing where your money went.
I would rather have a handful of clients I can genuinely move the needle for than a full roster I cannot serve properly.
Not just theory
I play the game, not just coach it.
In 2025 I wanted to get into e-commerce SEO. Almost all my clients were local service businesses, so I went looking for an online store to work with. After a lot of cold calls and no luck, I did the obvious thing. I built my own.
That store is SoftFlask, a running brand selling soft flasks, now with over 1,500 followers on Instagram. It started because I did not want to wait for someone to give me the green light to learn.
So I am not advising from the sidelines. I have my own money, my own products, and my own websites on the line, the same as you. I know what it feels like to need the phone to ring.
SEO is a data game, and that is exactly why I love it. I do not guess. I follow what the numbers say, I stay on top of every Google change, and I focus on the one thing that pays your bills: real leads and new customers, not clicks and impressions. I have built and ranked sites for businesses in South Africa, America, and Canada, so the playbook I use is not just local. It is what works across the world.
Let’s talk about your business.
Book a free audit and I will show you exactly where you stand and what it takes to get found. Or just grab a coffee with me in Paarl. No pressure, no pitch deck.