I am pleased to publish an exclusive interview of Matt Hopkins (CEO; Vertical Leap) here in this blog. If you have anything else to ask, contact him here or post a comment under this post.
Q. What is SEO?
A. SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a marketing discipline that works with companies to help them achieve high rankings in the search engines. This is done by looking at the various attributes of a website (its structure, its content, who it links to, and who links to it) and then removing any impediments that may exist which are preventing it from achieving the relevant rankings for targeted keywords and phrases.
Q. What is next in SEO?
A. SEO is still a relatively new and growing field, but the major trend that is approaching will be optimising sites for Mobile and Local Search. More than 60% of searches currently conducted on the search engines today have what they call “local intent”. This means that someone is looking for a business that is close to them (even if they didn’t specify a geographical indicator such as the city name). The search engines recognise this and working to improve their technology to understand where the business behind a website is physically located. This, combined with the location of the searcher - will mean that the search engines can produce results that are more relevant to a user. For example, if the searcher types in “dentist” - they are usually looking for a dentist near them and not on the other side of the country or in a different part of the world.
Mobile search is an extension of local search - with the difference being that it will be easier (once GPS phones are more wide spread) for the search engines to know where the searcher is physically, so that it can return results nearest to them.
Q. Who needs SEO?
A. The vast majority (more than 85%) of everything that happens on the internet starts from a search engine. So any business that has a website and has a target market that uses the internet can benefit from SEO so that it can be sure to get in the top couple of pages of the search engines.
SEO can also benefit businesses that are purely “brand-oriented”. For example, Coca-cola probably doesn’t need SEO in order to increase its business in anyway. But if it wanted to ensure that its brand (through its website) is always present in the search engine rankings, then it would also benefit from SEO.
Q. Where does SEO stand in web 3.0?
A. Well, I guess it depends on your definition of Web 3.0 - there’s still a lot of debate about the meaning behind Web 2.0. If you are talking about web services becoming more ubiquitous, then I think you have to look at how search engines make their money. Google cannot make money from offering its data in a web service (certainly not for free) and so I can’t really see an impact here. The main issue will be when the search engines move completely to AJAX-based (web 2.0) interfaces and really only as this (along with personalisation) will make it more difficult to monitor the rankings of a particular web site so that you can track progress. But as long as there is a list of results being returned based on a computer’s algorithm, then there will be a need for search engine optimisation to help companies improve their position.
Q. SEO for search engines or better user experience?
A. You should always build a web site for the user - but you have to consider that there are two types of users for every website now. You have humans and machines. A website needs to also take the search engine spiders (the machines) into account when it is being designed and developed.
Q. What is SEM?
A. SEM (Search Engine Marketing) covers all types of marketing involving a search engine. There are primarily two main areas - search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click (PPC). PPC is a very powerful marketing channel that allows businesses to advertise on a search engine by bidding on specific keywords that when searched will trigger your ad to show. This was once a very straight forward process - but as with most things involving search engines has become far more complex. It is currently one of the most effective marketing channels available.
Q. What are some of the common mistakes people make in SEO (your pick)?
A. The biggest mistake that people make when it comes to SEO is to think that there are shortcuts or tricks. Everyone is looking for the fast gain - and there just isn’t one. Usually the techniques that people use to “fast track” any optimisation effort will result in a website becoming penalised or potentially banned (de-listed) from the search engine which would be devastating.
Q. SEO market in UK / USA / AU:
A. Its been fascinating for me to work in these three markets. The main difference is with the level of maturity in each market and how “mainstream” SEO is in each country.
The USA is the most advanced of course. Most marketing execs and business owners understand search and see it as an essential part of their marketing mix. The search industry is full of large search-only specialists who are continuously evolving.
The UK is not far behind the US. SEO and search is becoming more widespread and awareness is getting pretty high. The Search market has about a dozen major players and then hundreds of small companies and “one-man” bands.
Australia is still catching up. SEO and search is not yet “main stream” but it is growing in popularity and understanding. The search market has very few major (large) search-specialists but it has hundreds of freelancers.
Q. About your Company?
A. We are great at SEO - but so are several other companies - but we manage search better than anyone else on the planet. We have an approach (called TotalPropulsion) that combines leading-edge decision support technology with first class people.
Every campaign is assigned a team and has a dedicated campaign manager who is an SEO expert and remains involved with the client/campaign for the life of our relationship with a client (i.e. we don’t hand the client off from department to department). We have a well documented process/project plan that we implement with every campaign and the client is informed every step of the way (both in person and via a portal to our technology that is available 24×7).
The main element though is Proactivity. Our campaign managers review every one of their campaigns - every working day (no other company can make this claim) and we take action immediately when we notice something that is not quite going the way we would like.
Our service is always offered at a fixed price and is completely comprehensive (there is never any other fees and we never “up-sell” a client to “larger” packages etc).
Q. Any special occasion, story or achievement that you would like to share?
A. Off the top of my head - we are really pleased with a campaign that we are running for a company called dotmailer. They are an email marketing company and we have taken them from page 10 to #1 in Google UK for “email marketing”. This is a highly competitive phrase and the client is over the moon with the impact this has had to their business.
The difference is very obvious - Spok.com is typically a people search engine where the primary emphasis is on people associated with those key phrases; and we can not expect similar result from Google as the key phrase (SEO) is too generic to offer any human being. So what would you use next time when you would be searching for someone?
Hello readers, Here is an Interview of Saptarshi Roy Choudhury from 
