WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HIRE AND BUILD YOUR OWN SEO TEAM IN MUMBAI?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has always been a mysterious side to Digital Marketing in India. Even though online advertising is growing at 35% every year since 2009, many digital marketing professionals in India are unaware of the contribution of SEO (organic results) to online advertising. Let’s take a quick look at some statistics that will give you the chills especially if you are an Internet Marketing professional yourself:-

1.       70% of the links search users click on are organic. (source: searchenginejournal.com)

2.       Inbound leads cost 61% lower than outbound leads. An example of an inbound lead might be from search engine optimization. An outbound lead might be from a cold call. (source: searchenginejournal.com)

3.       For Google, a study from Slingshot SEO shows 18% of organic clicks go to the #1 position, 10% of organic clicks go to the #2 position, and 7% of organic clicks go to the #3 position. (source: searchenginejournal.com)

4.       79% of search engine users say they always/frequently click on the natural search results. In contrast, 80% of search engine users say they occasionally/rarely/never click on the sponsored search results (source: searchenginejournal.com)

Here’s a quick look at the difference between organic results and paid results in case you don’t already know.

(picture source: SearchEngineJournal.com)

The data above clearly suggests the importance of SEO in online advertising. So, does India have the right SEO professionals that are capable of driving organic traffic, increasing search engine rankings, following webmaster guidelines? In the last 12 months I have interviewed over 40 candidates for different SEO positions i.e. senior and junior. And within a couple of minutes you will know what my experience has been like in the past 12 months

 “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you” - Oprah Winfrey

Because I’m so passionate about internet marketing, the first thing I ask the candidate is how did you get into internet marketing or more specifically SEO and one of the most common answers I get is “My friend suggested this for me”. And I’m not talking about candidates with less than a year into this field. I’m talking about candidates with 4-5 years on hands experience. So if you’re not passionate about what you are doing how can you be successful at what you do? So, the first thing to look out for in a great SEO candidate is the passion.

Before I started hiring to build my SEO team I obviously did some research (Google and Bing) on what type of questions one needs to ask a SEO expert before hiring and the most common among them were finding out results that were generated for the candidates previous clients. I was amazed to find out that the number one thing every candidate remembered was the rank of 2-3 primary keywords. Number 2 was the traffic, unique visitors and bounce rate. But as I went deeper trying to understand things like how did these numbers improve the clients ROI there was an uncomfortable silence. Over 50% of the candidates did not even know how you need to setup goals in Google Analytics. This made it evident that so called SEO experts in India were clearly missing something. There was a huge gap that exists. This gap exists because of the lack of passion. The passion to learn, the passion to stay up to date with what’s happening out in the real world, the passion to test and try out different things.

Search engine optimization is an art let’s get that straight. It does not matter how many books, articles you read or how many videos by Matt Cutts you watch. The only way you will perfect this skill is through persistent hard work and testing. It takes years of testing to reach a point where you can consult your clients.  You are robbing your client if you recommend ideas that have no real value, that do not justify their investments. I have had the privilege to interview a candidate who supposedly increased sales by over 100% within 2 months organically by building links using directory submission and social bookmarking. Is that supposed to be impress me or what?

Have you been in this situation before, whenever you’re hiring a SEO expert they inevitably consider themselves as social media marketing experts too. Hold on! Stuffing keywords in the about us section on Facebook fan page does not make you an expert. I’m sure this is a common experience with you too wherein the candidate tries to sell you his/her social media skills when they know that SEO is not going to work out. My suggestion, take the closest exit door and run!

During my sessions of interviewing various candidates I also discovered a trait very very common among all SEO professionals. It was the “I know it all” trait. Speaking as a recruiter or your future team lead this trait is only going to get you in trouble but also contribute to your downfall. Somehow the digital marketing professionals have assumed that creating a few tags (meta, alt) and dropping tons of grammatically incorrect links is the key to success in online advertising. A couple of key technical questions I ask candidates are:

• Do you know what LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing)?
• In GA (Google Analytics) under the keywords section, what does “no data” mean?
• Which keyword research tool do you use?

The basic idea here is to find out if the candidate has gone out of his/her way to read or stay up to date. Candidates who answer these questions do impress me as they make be believe that I could be surrounded by more passionate internet marketing professionals.

In a nutshell my experience hiring SEO experts from Mumbai has not been very easy to say the least. I’m not implying that there are no SEO experts out in Mumbai. I did manage to find some really smart and passionate individuals who I didn’t waste a single second in hiring. I’m also a strong believer of sharing information and helping people who belong to this field. Wasn’t internet developed for this purpose in the first place; sharing information and data? It’s time consuming and expensive to hire a SEO expert in Mumbai trust me. In order to save your time and money I have prepared a small table i.e. a guide to hiring the right SEO candidate based on my experience

What you should look for?	Which candidates you should avoid?
Candidates who are passionate	Candidates who took up this profession because someone else suggested
Candidates with fabulous communication skills (especially writing)	Candidates with poor communication skills
Candidates who know what effect their contribution has to made to the site’s ROI on which they are working or have worked in the past	Candidates who boast about keyword rankings
Candidates who know how to setup goals and track them	Candidates who give you jargon about how directory submission, social bookmarks got them results
Candidates who are willing to learn	Candidates who think they know it all

About the author: Cilvan Patrao is an Internet Marketing professional for the last 4 years having worked with E-commerce companies in UK and India. Under the mentorship of Donna Rougeau (CEO and MD Executive ID Web Club) who has over 25 years of digital marketing business, Cilvan has managed SEO and SMO teams that have worked on projects such as Identiti Home, Advanced Nutrients, Ebeez, Rosebud Magazine, Big buds Magazine, Executive Web Club and hundreds more

Unlock the Secret to Dramatically INCREASE Web Traffic through Keyword Research

A great piece of content is no good if nobody finds it. Search engines like Google are spending millions of dollars to ensure they improve search experience for its users. Now obviously keyword research is an essential part of ensuring your users can find you or else how would you expect to make sales online?

Good keyword research ensures users online can find what they are looking for. What are users looking for? Users are looking for answers or solutions to a problem. For e.g. I want to buy an English movie dvd. Another example could be how to install antivirus on Windows?

Technically speaking we do not want to spam an article or any other piece of content with keywords. Neither do we want to write something for the sake of using particular keywords.       

source: www.linkdex.com

 

So..Why do we need Keyword Research?

Good question! Because we need to provide answer or a solution to the problem the user is currently faced with. Additionally you want to ensure you provide content that is relevant to the user.

Which is the Best tool out there for Keyword Research?

Before I answer this let’s see what kind of information would one need to choose the best keywords for business.

1.       Demand – That’s right! First and foremost you need to find out what are people searching and what is the volume of those searches. That is the fundamental rule of business right?

2.       Supply – Where there is demand there ought to be supply. You need to find out how many businesses are competing for a particular keyword if you want to succeed that’s how you strategize.

3.       Market share available – Wouldn't it be great to know the market share for a product and service that is available before venturing out blindly?

There are handful tools that are doing all the 3 above accurately day in and day out. Wordtracker! Yes that’s the tool I’m hinting at. Now I’m not getting paid to promote Wordtracker neither I’m I working for them. I have been using this tool for the past 3 years now. Yes it is expensive, but if you want REAL scientific data out there you must try it out. Here is the link http://www.wordtracker.com/

Use the trial version and tell me how it goes. 

If content is King, 

........ is Queen!

Stay tuned to find out who is the Queen. 

What is Democracy without Freedom of Speech?

A single tweet by celeb and author Shobaa De has sparked controversies among irresponsible political parties and has resulted in a backlash in Mumbai.

There were unpleasant reactions by the political parties after De tweeted "Maharashtra and Mumbai??? Why not? Mumbai has always fancied itself as an independent entity, anyway. This game has countless possibilities". Political parties like Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena have been hurt majorly by this tweet.

Now that tweet wouldn't come from a drunkard..would it? or maybe it did. BUT what I'm really curious to know is that in a democratic country like ours can't we raise our voices or oppose to others. Well the political parties seem to excel at opposing but when a common man (aam aadmi like Arnab Goswami) raises his voice against them they somehow come together on a single platform to defend  ............................................. NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I'm just feeling sorry for all those children in school; 2 more states to remember for their geography exams :(

Before I leave I'd like to share a small video that really explains the sorry state of Mumbai, once considered as the city of dreams in India. I would personally focus on the job at hand i.e. developing the city and state rather than being glued to someone's tweets if I were a government servant. So check out the video and share your comments in the comments box below.

"Perks" of Being The Boss!

My son is in a big post!. Have you heard that before? Well yes you guessed it right, this is a common phrase people in India would use to describe anybody they knew who is either a manager or someone senior at their work place (nobody knows what managers do leave alone the company’s name at times).

Oh yes it feels great to be some kinda senior dude at a work place, it feels darn good if you can take all the decisions or choose what you want your team members to do or attend the top executive meetings where you have to be at your best BUT hello! It isn’t that easy. Well I’m sure there are many of you out there who feel just like me. Has anybody bothered asking you ‘how freaking stressful it is to get shit done from the most annoying team members?’ OR how difficult it is to deliver a project when your boss tells you MAKE THIS VIRAL! Is it some kinda joke to make everything go viral! Do I look like a Korean singer or an Indian politician getting slapped in the face during a press conference? Hell No!

To make matters worse you have to deal with the crappiest people around who don’t like you. They don’t hate you because you’re the new boss; they hate you because you’re just too good for them. Well you’re on the firing line all the time. On one hand your seniors/owners are on your back because they want to see you get the results and on the other hand your team member’s wouldn’t support you because they simply HATE YOU. Have you been there before? Keep reading if you have...

I thought I’d share a few perks of being a manager or the boss (at least that’s what they call it in Asia) and here are 5 of them

First, you are always wrong – Like what the phuck? How can I always be wrong? Nobody thought it was wrong to offer me assignments that needed to get my hands dirty all the time.

Second, you are not a true professional – What is that even supposed to mean? Now I can’t request anything from my team because they think I’m not being a professional if I request them to do me a favor. Like Hello! I’m a dude you worked with for over a year, can’t we be friends now?

Third, you’re watched by everybody at all times. Everybody will have their eyes on you at all times waiting for you to slip up.

Fourth, you’re the lone wolf. Since you’re the boss you will always be on the top and not many besides other managers will have anything to do with you. Obviously you are not trusted by any of your team members. You’re the BAD guy at all times.  

Fifth, you will be stressed at all times. Sometimes you will not be able to handle this but trust me if you are able to you can go a long way.

Let’s hope you feel a little better after reading this especially if you have been there before. I would really appreciate if you take some time off and share you experiences in the comments box below

What Makes Content Go VIRAL?

It is the ultimate dream of every marketer on this planet to make a piece of content go viral.
Creating viral content is all the more important for companies as it can prove to be highly valuable. Any content that builds awareness of your brand and what you have to offer is a great way to start your business and improve the sales of a product/service. When I think of viral content a few of these names come to my mind i.e. Dove, Psy, Old Spice are few examples of successful content going viral on the internet only by its Digital Campaigns.

 Now let’s drill down to the key areas you should focus to make a content go viral

1.      Type of content – While creating any piece of content you need to answer the following questions.

·         Are you creating practically useful content?

·         Is the content useful to others?

·         Can you surprise others with your content?

·         How interesting is it for your niche?

2.      After creating the content – Once you have created the content that will be promoted online you MUST answer the following questions

·         Are there any emotional drivers in the content that you created?

·         How engaging or disengagaing is the content to the masses?

3.      Where are you going to share the content – Target social media channels period!. It is here where all your influencers.

·         Target facebook, twitter and google+ for all types of content whether it is textual or visual or audio.

·         If your content is purely visual target video promotional sites like youtube and vimeo or daily motion.

·         If its images or infographics, hit the pinterest button especially if your content is exclusively for women. Pinterest has more females users than male users. 

4.      How are you sharing the content – Think about personalizing your content or adding your own little touch while creating content firstly.

 NOW that you have all the basic steps in place to create a viral content sketch out a blue print of what your content looks like and A/B test for the best results.Creating content that goes viral no doubt has the potential to reach massive audiences but in practice is difficult, no wonder everybody can’t create viral videos or viral content.

Please feel free to share your experiences with creating viral content in the comments box below!