When you are learning SEO and trying to rank a website on the top of SERP one should know “Why SEO is important?” and “How it affects Digital Marketing?” – It looks pretty easy but is it so?
The answer is no in many cases in the SEO scenario. It’s time you think to ask someone for help, an expert. In response to this Digication hosted a meet up with the SEO expert Devendra Saini to get a better insight into the topic.
Devendra is a Passionate Digital Marketer and SEO strategist and contributing in this field for last 5 years. His major interests are SEO, Affiliate & Internet Marketing, Bitcoin, Trading, and Blogging. He is currently working as SEO leader at Obbserv.
Interacting and discussing the latest trends in Search Engine Optimization and how it has changed over the period of time, he handed out a mantra ‘Jo user ko pasand hai, wo google ko pasand hai’.
He also told about the recent changes in the Google algorithms which have given the current SEO a brand new scenario and raised the bar of competition even further. He portrayed the difference between just learning about SEO and actually doing SEO for someone. Further, he shared his experience of working for a company and working as a freelancer.
In a chat with Devendra Saini at Digification Meetup
1. What was the spark that initiated your journey to SEO?
My Passion Towards digital world & Technology and when I can create my career around my passion and make money out of it, leaving all the odds behind is what motivated me to initiate the Journey into SEO.
2.What is SEO in your perspective?
In my perspective SEO is a Marathon rather than a sprint. It’s Takes Time, Resources, Money & Patience to grow a brand organically. It’s an Art for me. It has the power to create exponential growth for any brand out there if done Strategically.
3. According to you, what place does SEO holds in Digital Marketing
SEO is driven by Google Majorly & Other small search engines. Google is no.1 Trafficked Website in this world. It clearly proves that SEO holds the No.1 Position in Digital Marketing. Still, for some brands who don’t have Search visibility, the Social media will play an important role. But all in a whole SEO hold the First Position in Digital Marketing.
4. Suggest some SEO tools that you personally prefer.
Majestic SEO, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Keyword everywhere, Scrapebox etc.
5.What were the challenges faced by you in your initial days of SEO?
To analyze the current ranking factors, Lack of experimentation, Lack of automation & Availability of best industry tools.
6. How is your experience working as a SEO Lead at obbserv? What do you feel is important to make sure the work gets done efficiently?
Working as an SEO expert at Obbserv to Leading a team of 7 people is an amazing journey so far. We have worked with a lot of clients with a very diversified range of Niches and able to deliver the projected performance to them. We are completely Performance driven SEO team at Obbserv and have a data-driven approach.
Understanding the Objective of client and Following an agile tracking method to break our bigger target into smaller parts and achieving them is very Important to get our work done efficiently. Secondly, Keeping a Precise track on each and every activity we do in a set timeline is important to work efficiently.
7. What challenges do you feel one might face in this domain?
The downfall in Rankings due to algorithms even if you follow good ranking strategies. You never know what Google is up to. Upgrading yourself with Google’s Vision of Search is pretty challenging you can’t stop even if you rank on the first page. Someday a strong competitor might outrank you in one night so keeping yourself running and growing with ever-changing Google is pretty challenging.
8.How do you measure the success of your SEO campaigns?
The Projections we set after working for a particular time period and ability to achieve them will measure the success of our SEO campaign. Projections could be in form of Keyword Rankings, Traffic growth, Overall brand visibility, No. of conversions/sales/leads etc.
- 10 keywords to be ranked in 3 months
- Double the traffic in 1 Year
- Double the sales/leads in 1 Year etc.
Achieving the right numbers for the brand is the success of our SEO campaign.
9. What is the major scope for SEO in the coming years?
The scope of Good SEOs will always be good and growing. If You are able to deliver what a brand is looking for then SEO is always the good career choice for you. If one has command on Technical Part of SEO and knows the Impact of what he is doing then it will always do good. Doing something blindly and analyzing will not take him anywhere.
10. What are the most important Google Ranking Factors?
Quality & Relevant Referring domains, Structured Content & Website, Page Speed & Social Presence.
11. Tell us about a time when SEO strategy went wrong. What did you learn from it?
Improper Usage of anchors and Bad on-page SEO . No matter how many backlinks you send the Rankings will get stuck and go down. Follow a proper off -page strategy there is a time for each part, so it should be done very strategically especially for new and small websites.
12. What are some of the most common myths people have about SEO?
- Keyword Density should be x%.
- Meta descriptions help in Rankings.
- Blog comments and directory submissions are major part off page SEO.
- SEO is cheap.
- Content is King and all you need is Great Content!
- SEO is Dead.
13. What are your future plans?
To Keep learning new ways of getting better results for the clients. To travel around the world and would work from any part of the world and make money.
He also shared the statistical data of Semrush which is as follows:
Devendra also told us about SEO Conference 2018 to be held at Chiang Mai in November 2018.
14. Message for the students to get into SEO.
Being passionate about Digital marketing is only going to keep you motivated and build a strong career. Keep practicing and keep experimenting. You are only going to get better if you do it, otherwise, you will be just a part of the herd.
As always our motto of the meetup is learning with fun and so we had a super interesting quiz on SEO to see how much we learned.
It was indeed brain opener session, thanks Devendra, for joining us at Udaipur DIGICATION Meetup.
To join our meetups & For more information write us at hi@getdigication.com.