We take stock of the opportunities
and focus on the skill sets required to hone your talent and excel in this line
of work
Due to the rapid proliferation of the Web
and constantly-connected devices, digital marketing has become an inevitable
career option for number-crunching geeks. And two of the most engaging facets
of digital marketing are SEO and Web Analytics. SEO stands for Search Engine
Optimization, and as the name suggests it involves knowing the nitty-gritty of
search engines to attract users to your online properties making sure that you
gain a relevant audience and the search engine users gets exactly what they
came for. Analytics on the other hand is about collecting and analyzing data
collected from your websites and distilling the data into research which will
help improve your website’s performance.
And
two of the most engaging facets of digital marketing are SEO and Web Analytics.
Background
Before we proceed a quick primer. In
simplest terms SEO is all about boosting your search engine ranks. You don’t
pay for clicks but you employ other changes like website improvements,
copywriting, engaging your audience on social channels, building links and
content to make sure that your site gets to the top of the search engines. As
for how the search engines work, SEOs treat them like black-boxes you just
cannot make out what is going on inside rather you employ a combination of
reverse-engineering, experiments and educated guesswork to arrive on ways to
improve your search-listings.
Web analytics on the other hand is
measuring the footprints of a user’s activity on your website and outside it,
and regurgitating detailed reports and insights into user behavior, so that you
can calibrate all your marketing channels including SEO to better serve your
customers. According to Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist,
Web Analytics practitioners fall into two categories: Implementers and Data
Reporters. Implementers are the ones who integrate code from vendors into
websites while the data reporters liaison with the management to piece together
insights into how spending in different marketing channels is affecting your
website/brand.
Indian opportunities
India is uniquely poised in the digital
marketing scene as it has something very unique to offer to the marketers -
it’s fledgling online population. There are roughly some 120 million people
online in India from its population of nearly 1.2 billion which is only about
10% of the population. About 13 billion advertisements are served month on
month.
This industry is particularly on the
lookout for experienced professionals in Analytics. This is just one part of
the story though, “There are a lot of firms out there who specialize in SEO
consulting, i.e. handle SEO for firms which outsource this work, but there is a
dearth of organizations which provide the same services in Web Analytics”, says
Rakesh Makhija, Senior Business Analyst at Tatvic, one such Web Analytics
consulting firm. On the whole there are opportunities galore, both on the
in-house and consulting fronts; the industry is thirsty for talent and
experience.
This
industry is particularly on the lookout for experienced professionals in
Analytics.
Profile and requirements
Passion and a keen insight in data are the
very essential for a job in either of these paradigms. Aspirants looking for
jobs in SEO also need a background in web development with hands on skills in
both frontend and backend technologies. Apart from this they’re also expected
to diversify and curate content on the website particularly the user
interaction and comments, implement high-quality link building strategies for
the websites in their portfolio. SEO also is very much about reverse
engineering and second guessing the search engine, skills which can only be
accrued and honed after years of experience. From our previous dichotomy of
avail-able job profiles in Analytics, if you’re more interested in the
technical aspects of things then the companies expect you to be well versed
with front-end technologies especially JavaScript. There are a lot of
tools/vendors in the market which aid analysts in collecting, organizing and
reporting the data viz. Google Analytics, Omniture, IBM Digital Analytics,
Webtrends and so on. It’s onus on the analytics implementers to make sure that
all the systems active on your web properties are completely in sync as errors
or mis-calibration can lead to catastrophic result. “We look for
people who have a logical bend and enjoy number crunching, also they should be
willing to work as a part of a team as collaboration is a part of the job
profile.” adds Rakesh.
Passion
and a keen insight in data are the very essential for a job in either of these
paradigms.
As for the degree certification, companies
usually don’t demand any particular degree but as a minimum the aspirant should
possess a Bachelor’s degree, a background in science or technology is an added
bonus but not a necessity. Along with this some workable knowledge of HTML and
JavaScript is expected. As an entry level SEO executive/business analyst you
can expect anything from 1.8 lac p.a. to 2.5 lac p.a.; an experienced SEO
executive/Analyst stands to rake in a minimum of 4.8 lac p.a. though the exact
amount varies from company to company.
Training
A recent survey by Adobe and CMO Council
taken by 295 senior marketers in Asia-Pacific show that the industry in the
APAC region lags behind its global counterparts in terms of experienced talent.
Although we have excellent resources as far as the web development skills go,
the marketing teams don’t have the right skills and/or experience to handle
digital marketing strategies at scale but this is partly due to the fact that
such corporations suffered from a paucity of hiring budget which prevented them
from recruiting senior talent. All in all an experienced SEO expert/analyst
will be welcomed with open arms by organizations all around.
All
in all an experienced SEO expert/analyst will be welcomed with open arms by
organizations all around.
When it comes to training, it boils down to
your ability to grasp the essentials and your aptitude for learning. It is
easier for students with technical background to pick up things faster as far
as SEO is concerned, while in the case of Web Analytics you need to understand
the nitty-gritties of an analytics tool to get a clear picture of what’s taking
place. Usually a digital marketing agency or an SEO/Analytics Consultancy
doesn’t limit itself to one particular tool but chooses to work with a vendor
which best meets their budget and requirements, so a new entrant has to first
train with the experienced staff and find his way around the tool. After
understanding the working of the various vendor platforms, an aspirant is
bumped up to design and implement strategies at an industry-level. You usually
progress to a vertical after accruing enough experience in dealing with
industries.
Conclusion
What we’ve offered is a glimpse of what is
awaiting those of you who are interested in a career in SEO and Web Analytics.
Something to look out for here would be business intelligence, which involves
providing the management with business specific decisions based on the data
coming in from various marketing platforms.
But the digital marketing scene just
doesn’t end here; we haven’t even broached the topics of Paid Search Marketing,
Social Media Marketing and Mobile Marketing. There is no denying the fact that
digital marketing is poised to bring about a revolution in how people interact
with brands and businesses both online and offline, the key is to keep one-self
updated and never stop learning.
