Developing a strong SEO strategy is a smart way for cash-strapped business owners to build traction online. Just be careful to use the right tactics.
“There is no shortcut if you’re thinking about long-term business, because it is not possible to change the brand name if something happens to your site. As they say, better safe than sorry,” says Rajesh Namase, founder of tech site TechLila.com.
While there are some people who still prefer to use blackhat SEO techniques, Rajesh says if you want your business to succeed in the long run, you should steer clear.
“Don’t hire Fiverr gigs from people who are offering thousands of backlinks. They will create backlinks using software like Scrapebox and XRumer, which will ruin your business,” he says.
Check out more of Rajesh’s insight on common SEO myths, and read our interview with him about his site, SEO, and his favorite new digital marketing tools.
Tell us about your professional background. How did you become interested in blogging and Internet marketing?
I’m an IT engineer; I started blogging when I was in the third year of my degree. Our network technology professor had shown us his blog in one of his lectures; and inspired by that, one of my friends, Suraj Salunkhe, started his blog on the Blogspot platform. He thereafter contacted me to check out his blog; and subsequently, I started my own blog on Blogspot. After a few days, my uncle suggested I switch over to WordPress and he registered the domain Namase.com for me.
After three years of blogging, one of my friends, Vedant Kumar, suggested I think about Internet marketing by creating niche blogs for different products. I created hosting niche blogs and got huge success in that.
Tell us the story behind TechLila. When and why did you start your site? Who should be reading it?
I started Namase.com in September 2010, and my primary aim was to share my knowledge with the world. After starting Namase.com, I felt like I should make it more “brandable.” So I registered the techlila.com domain and redirected Namase.com to TechLila.
Any person with even a slight interest in technology can read TechLila.
How important is SEO to a business’s ability to attract customers online?
With the help of SEO, you can attract targeted customers. Targeted audiences will visit your sites, and the chances of them converting as a customer are high. So, I prefer SEO over paid advertising as paid advertising needs deeppockets, which is quite impossible in the beginning.
How has SEO changed in the past 10 years?
Google is stricter these days, but backlinks are still important and they’ll remain a major factor in the future as well. Google has changed many things; their algorithms like Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird have improved the overall search quality. So our focus should be quality and original content; write the content for real users. Try to get quality backlinks from your niche.
Outside of SEO, what are the best methods for increasing traffic to websites today?
Social media is the best source of generating traffic. You can drive huge traffic from Pinterest, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Twitter. Having an active account on all major social media sites helps a lot. I have also published a 5,700-word detailed guide to increase blog traffic.
What considerations should businesses make when building a site that customers will actually want to stay on?
Learn conversation optimization technique. Use heat-maps to get more information about how customers are using and navigating your sites, and then improve your site accordingly. Also, try to improve the page load speed. Site design also helps to reduce the bounce rate.
What headlines or trends are you following in Internet marketing today?
I suggest people don’t follow the crowd. Create something that can deliver a true value to the users and then money will follow. You can check http://inbound.org/ to keep an eye on the latest happenings.
What are some of your favorite Internet marketing tools or innovations?
Scrapebox is my one of my favorite tools as it has many features. But it is up to you how to use it, since one wrong move can ruin your site overnight. You can read Jacob King’s Scrapebox guide to know more about this awesome tool.
Connect with Rajesh on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter.