Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – An interview

Which role does Search Engine Optimization play nowadays? Different methods, techniques and tools are being used to increase traffic and popularity of websites on the well-known search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. What is behind all this? Which impacts does Social Media have in this field? Julius Parisius, who finished his master studies in industrial engineering and who is working as a search engine optimizer at the moment found the time to answer some general questions about SEO.

1. Tell me something about you.

Actually, with only 2 years of experience in the SEO field I am a real ‘Newbie’. Due to several projects related to my studies I had to acquire a lot of knowledge in a short period of time – this is why i started working for become.com in the search engine optimization department. I attended more than 30 workshops and seminars in the last 15 months to improve skills and expertise.

2. How would you explain Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

In my opinion search engine optimization is a very important segment in online-marketing. To deal with SEO means especially to deal with competitors. So it is possible that a search engine optimizer has more insight in potential and ability to respond as its customer. SEO makes it possible optimize websites in order to get a good ranking in the search results. Therefore it is essential to create unique and relevant content and generate links. (link-building)

3. How can a website be optimized nowadays to appear in the top results of Google?

SEO consist of two basis methods: The identification of Keywords and the implication of reference links of other website, which are highly frequented, on On-Page-Optimization.

4. You are active on Twitter and Facebook. Do you also use other networks and tools? How do entrepreneurs benefit from that?

In my opinion Twitter is essential for information retrieval nowadays in order to be up to date. In order to spread information effectively you need to have many followers on twitter or rather fans (friends) on Facebook. The build-up can take a lot of time but once the network is existent it can be immensely helpful. Whereas it is always possible that followers or fans on Twitter/Facebook consist of like-minded people, which means that traffic does not increase necessarily. Social media, however, has a great potential to increase popularity through likes or links.

5. How long does it take to acquire new customers and to gain profit with a website?

It depends on if only the website is renewed or even the whole company. Furthermore it depends on what kind of customers are involved. Is it only a self-made site or are there any service provider involved? It is always hard to make generalizations but as a benchmark you can estimate one year, in which you need more than half of the time for planning and realization of the website. The second half will be needed to develop content step by step and making the website known simultaneously.

6. Companies often authorize external companies for SEO. Is this advantageous?

SEO still does not attract that interest by companies as it should nowadays. Even though they spend a lot of money for that, they do not control the outcome. Many people still think that they can manipulate search engines in order to get top rankings. In fact: there are SEO agencies, which offer such services but search engines are able to detect manipulation. Search engine providers like Google penalize such procedures so that websites can even be thrown out of the index for a certain period of time.

7. Is it important to communicate with other bloggers or rather search engine optimizers?

In order to broaden your horizon its always of great importance to communicate with other colleagues. Having a look on abroad markets with a focus on trends and working models. It is always advantageous to share experiences about tools for example – to avoid beginner mistakes.

8. Can you give any tips for prospectives bloggers, how to create an own homepage?

First you have to think about your goals, what you need for it and if there are sufficient cash resources. Then you can think about target groups, potential, demand, competition, domain-name, hosting etc. Starting to create the website itself should be done after thinking about the just mentioned things. Every blogger should be aware that blogging is not scalable. Everything what can be moved, has to be bought with content generation and expenditure of time.

9. Which impact does the recently launched Google Panda Update on search engine optimizers?

Google has executed an algorithm update which increases the quality of the search results, which is the permanent goal. However the new algorithm is able to valuate a website on the basis of its content. Especially factors like obtrusiveness of advertising and trustability are being considered. Many companies are suffering significant traffic decreases and still did not recover as the certain causalities cannot be deducted. Google keeps a low profile concerning their algorithms.

10. Even though SEO is really new to many people it underwent several changes. Which role does SEO play in the future?

Nowadays, the search engine result pages (serps) are being affected through content by many different sources of social media. For this reason ‘Social Media Optimization’ is becoming the key for SEO.