Ankit Pandey of SEOEaze on Content Marketing and SEO Copywriting

• Updated on: 2017-04-02
• Read original article here

Ankit Pandey is the founder & CEO of Wisden Infotech, which runs multiple brands like SEOEaze, Wisden Writers, and more. He takes care of all strategy implementations and monitors the success rate of the company’s campaigns. We recently chatted with Ankit about Google’s changes in recent years, the various SEO techniques that produce success, and how to maximize the effectiveness of web content and social media marketing.

Tell us a bit about your background. Why did you decide to create an Internet marketing company?

I have a bachelor’s degree in information technology, and I started my company during my engineering days when I made my first website related to Orkut in 2008 and started getting some revenue from AdSense. After that, I started reading about blogging and SEO. I was a tech-savvy person from the very start, so when I learned a bit about content development, I started Wisden Infotech in 2009 with a small team of content writers. Initially, I was only into content writing, but within a few months, many clients started asking about SEO. So I finally added more people to my team and started SeoEaze.com to provide Internet marketing services to our clients.

Since your company offers complete link building, forum link building, and industry based links, could you explain the difference between these services and tell us about the advantages of each approach?

These all are content-based link building services. Complete link building is not an individual link building technique, but rather a combination of all main content-based link building services including forum link building and industry-based links. In forum link building, we create links for clients by replying to the client’s industry-related forums with signature links. It helps with SEO as well as spreading brand awareness. On the other hand, industry-based links are earned by connecting with blogs in the same industry and providing them with high-quality blog posts to gain backlinks from the most relevant and same-industry blogs. Backlinks from such blogs are the most trusted, since these links come from closely related blogs.

What are Panda and Penguin, and what do bloggers and site owners need to know about them?

Google keeps working on improving the search results and trying to show the best content for users; so they keep making changes in their result-ranking algorithm to guard against spam, unnatural link building, and poor content. They introduced Google Panda first in February 2011 to counter low-quality sites with thin content, particularly content farms which just posted content to rank highly using keyword stuffing and didn’t bother with readability, Google clearly explained through this update that the reader is the boss and you need to write what’s best for the reader. They have been doing the Panda update from time to time ever since then.

On the other hand, Google Penguin was introduced to counter low-quality backlinks. Penguin changed the fundamentals of the entire SEO realm, and websites which used black hat link building techniques or were involved in link spamming got penalized by this update. They first introduced a Google Penguin update in April 2012, which was an earthquake for all SEO firms. In September 2016, Google did the last Penguin update and stated that every future Penguin update would be in real time instead of through periodic updates.

What is a link wheel, and how does it help websites improve their visibility on the Internet?

A link wheel is a specific kind of link building in which we keep the client’s site at the center and build some content-based web 2.0 properties that link to the client website as well as another web 2.0 property we make. We connect the first property to the second, the second to the third, and so on to make a type of wheel-like structure. All properties link to the client’s website as well. The main benefit of this kind of structure is that all the backlinks we make are also connected and linked, so this passes “link juice” to the main website as well as the other backlinks. This way, we make a strong backlink profile to improve the visibility of the main site on the Internet.

Name one simple thing that most bloggers or site owners can start doing TODAY to increase their web traffic.

Write engaging content that you have an interest in.

Everyone likes to share content if it’s worth reading or is something unique. So write in a way that the readers can’t resist sharing it. Plus, always be interactive with your readers because reader engagement is very important. Make sure the person visiting your site or blog asks something from you or shares their thoughts as well.

When it comes to social media marketing, what are many site owners and bloggers doing wrong?

Most times, our clients don’t give much weight to social media marketing and want to focus on SEO only; however, social media marketing is an essential part of digital marketing. Any digital marketing campaign that doesn’t focus on social media is not complete.

With the introduction of artificial intelligence, Google is close to thinking like a real person, not just as a bot. So content which is popular on social media has a greater chance to earn links and rank better. Therefore, you must focus on SMM as much as search engine marketing.

Could you give us some suggestions on how to maximize the quality of a site’s web content writing?

Always make the content user-friendly and easy to read. Do not use jargon or fancy language. Be clear and to the point, while at the same time explaining what your site is all about or what it offers. Include studies, research analysis, and surveys in your content to make it factual.

What do you expect to see for the future of SEO? Will it change drastically over the next several years?

Much has already changed since the time I started my company, and it keeps changing with each update. SEO will become more focused and strict, and companies will have to shed all the wrong ways of ranking highly if they really want to be successful. Infographics are the latest additions to SEO; many more new changes will come with time. SEO will evolve as we get more into mobile marketing and other technological advances.

Can your website’s content marketing be better? Request a free content marketing assessment today!