Depending on where you work, an end customer or agency, the day-to-day SEO consultant can vary greatly. In my case, I have developed my career 100% in different agencies, so I can only speak from that perspective. Agency SEO projects are varied, but limited in terms of time to be spent, so sometimes we can not do everything we would like.Things we do: factor audits on page, competitor analysis, profile study of links of own and others, very deep keyword research and above all, constantly training and updating everything that changes and evolves, to be able to optimize strategic aspects.
How do you see SEO within agencies? Do you think it is a profession that is valued every day more?
I believe that the role of the agencies continues to be important and has a great weight, since there are many professionals with travel and experience working from different agencies, who can take on multiple projects and deliver brilliant results to clients.
Perhaps the market still has room to grow, there are not enough professionals with enough experience in SEO projects to think of a negative trend for the agencies.
In a few years companies may start to create their own in-house departments, either to save costs or to hoard that knowledge that should remain within their organization and business.
SEO is not what is cheap and perhaps who does not understand the value of SEO, it is because they are not aware of the implications of bringing together certain knowledge and experiences: experiments, testing, specific training, constant research and much effort to improve skills, skills, knowledge …
That is one of the handicaps I see regarding the agency – client relationship, where the client pays an agency, but in many cases, is not hiring a dedicated consultant exclusively for the SEO project, and that in the day to-day, it is difficult to manage, separate and explain.
From your point of view and based on your experience, how do the changes in Google’s policies affect the life of an SEO?
Well with Google you can not be fooled even a moment, in their struggle to deliver quality results to the user and in the implicit persuasion to invest more in Adwords, we are genuine survivors.
The (not provided), panda and penguin update, and recently, another adjustment to try to pay attention to the “exact match domain” domains are adjustments that we must live with and that we have to know, to try to make the websites of our customers, do not suffer traffic losses, penalties, etc.
In my opinion, I think that these nuances are only highlighting one of the inherent characteristics of the facets that an SEO should develop: dynamism, restlessness, creativity …
How important do you think social networks are in positioning?
I find it quite interesting how Google is trying to get metrics of relevance and authority, through social networks. All these social signals that the search engine captures, can use them to give more value to the person who creates or shares a content, to the power to expand that information, to the capacity to influence ….
All these metrics that are so difficult to measure and numerically concrete, are taking form escaping subjectivity and with some kindness in SEO aspects, such as faster indexing.
Another thing is to talk about Google+ and the hyperconnection of Google services, with more and more registered users, but a priori, apparently without reaching out to users of social networks.
Perhaps the fact of combining SEO strategies with the optimization of impacts in social networks, in my opinion, pursue a more targeted goal to generate and channel traffic, versus getting positioning in the form of rankings.
In your opinion, do you consider that SEO and PPC strategies should converge towards one?
It is a good starting point, try to look for synergies between both areas, since not only can they coexist very well, in a joint project, but one can be nourished by the other and that can be translated into optimizations that lead to the company to save or adjust investments, with concrete figures.
In my case, as SEO, whenever there is PPC campaign in parallel, I try to absorb as much information as possible, the reports of keywords and conversions, already give us many super useful data.
And a little later, you could draw strategies aligned, either to try to position terms that work well in PPC, organic results, or to target the words that bill more, etc.
I believe it is essential that there be specialized programs to form professional profiles in the online field, which offer guarantees, especially since there is no official formal training or any association.
I think there is a certain bubble in terms of online area training, so many times the knowledge that is necessary to put the lead of SEO projects of a certain scale is being devalued.
That is why the opportunism that arises around the training needs, always affects the sector itself, especially in psychological aspects such as prices: cheap SEO courses, cheap SEO agencies … And it is already known that, many times, cheap is expensive.
The consequences are sometimes mistrust and ignorance when it comes to SEO, because you can not understand, perhaps because there is an exact formula to ensure organic positioning, unlike payment campaigns in Adwords, where you can control more the results.
The decision to take a higher degree program in these subjects is very personal and has to be considered, but without losing sight of the investment involved and the opportunity to get in touch with professionals with extensive experience in this sector.
Finally, what do you like most about the day to day work? How did you get here?
What I like most is the implied dynamism, the fact that I know that maybe next month, I have to think of alternatives to some aspect that will probably have less value.
The ability to adapt to changing situations, diverse sectors, some very competitive, others very boring and always creativity to add value to the client, suggesting, contributing …
And personally, I came to SEO a little rebound, but with a lot of effort, I managed to change my stable and linear work in a bank, for the online world, an environment that teaches me something everyday, motivates me to continue learning and puts me proof.
