SEO Consultant at Seo.London
How did you start out as a marketer?
For me, marketing started as a hobby. I was curious about the power of digital advertising.
After teaching myself the tools of the trade, learning how to create digital ads, and getting to grips with terms like ‘audience curation,’ I was able to put together a portfolio.
I made some mock-up projects and started applying for work on freelancing messaging boards.
Looking back what is your hardest struggle when it came to delivering results?
My biggest challenge was learning about data. Everyone knows that data is essential for digital marketers today.
But until you have experienced working in the field first-hand, it is difficult to appreciate just how much data digital marketers need to keep track of to do their jobs well.
How did you get your first client back then, and what kind of service did you do for them?
My first client was a business that my friend owned.
His computer repair business was doing well on the high street, so he commissioned a professional website for it.
I helped him to start generating traffic for it.
What do you find most rewarding about what you do?
If I do my job right, I can help a small underdog business compete with a much larger rival. Most of my clients aren’t looking to wipe out the competition.
They just want to increase their market share. My work can be the difference between a business being viable and failing.
We have a lot of readers who are bent on becoming freelancers, aside from freelancing how else can someone earn online, and what is your advise?
If you aren’t going to be freelancing, you will want to find an employer who can offer you a stable source of income.
If you’re going to go down this route, you will need a strong portfolio. Choose a business, do some research, and apply for a job by sending them your marketing strategy.
You should also keep an up to date CV and cover letter.
Apply for open positions frequently.
If you were given the chance to build your career all over again what would you do differently so that you will achieve your dreams faster?
If I could do it all again, I would try to be bolder in my approach to finding work.
Far too often, when I was just starting my career, I would abandon the chase at the first whiff of complexity.
But I soon learned that if you want to keep generating work, you need to be persistent.
How is your typical work day structured?
Every day is different! It depends on my client roster.
I have divided my free time into units of 20 minutes, giving me 24 of these units to use each day.
I like to plan my days out in advance. But I find that an approach that is too regimented stifles creativity.
Can you tell us about a time where you had to put in significant effort up front and then wait a long time for success?
When I landed a job with my first big client, it was as the head of their SEO team, replacing an outgoing leader.
We were on a very tight deadline. I had to learn how to scrape data and conduct keyword research for a business that was much bigger than any other I had worked with before.
It all paid off at the end of the year, however.
You’ve been tasked with redesigning the company’s brand strategy from the ground up. Walk us through your process.
First, a post-mortem of the previous strategy, what lessons can we learn? Next, we need clear goals and objectives.
I would get clear instructions from the business about what kind of brand they want to create. Many companies don’t think about this until you make them.
Can you tell us about a past situation where you had to juggle multiple projects with competing deadlines?
Struggling to juggle numerous different clients and pieces of work is not fun, to put it mildly.
It was exactly this juggling act that led me to devise the time management system that I outlined above—trying to keep which tasks relate to which client can also become difficult when you have a lot of them.
What recently-developed marketing strategy, technique or tool interests you the most right now?
Right now, I am fascinated by the potential that augmented reality offers to digital marketers.
However, the thing specifically related to marketing that interests me the most is behaviour prediction.
Being able to anticipate how audiences are likely to react to specific triggers is a potent tool for marketers to have.
What do you do to stay up to date with new marketing techniques?
I would recommend that every SEO professional and digital marketer finds 4-5 industry websites that they like reading and find informative.
Set these as your homepage, each one in a different tab.
If you want to get fancy, set up an RSS feed so you always see new articles.
Can you tell us about a project you’re most proud of from your past work history?
I worked with Totality Services, an independent IT support company, to boost their visibility.
I am proud to say that within a few weeks, I was able to bring them within touching distance of the top result on SERPs for keywords relating to their business.
For several keywords, we were able to take and hold the top spot.
Which one book/blog post would you recommend every Marketer should read?
The book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is not specifically about marketing, but it contains some of the most profound insights into the psychology of marketing.
There is an enormous number of variables that affect the way we perceive products.
What advice would you share with other Marketer’s who want to become more productive?
Find a work routine that works for you. Start keeping a journal and make sure that you regularly read it back to yourself as well as writing in it.
This technique creates a connection between the past, present, and future you.
It encourages you to consider all three when you are making decisions.