miercuri, 18 februarie 2015
Hiring for SEO: How to Find and Hire Someone with Little or No Experience - Moz Blog
| Hiring for SEO: How to Find and Hire Someone with Little or No Experience Posted on: Wednesday 18 February 2015 — 01:12 Posted by RuthBurrReedy SEO is a seller's market. The supply of people with SEO experience is currently no match for the demand for search engine marketing services, as anyone who has spent months searching for the right SEO candidate can tell you. Even in a big city with a booming tech scene (like Seattle, LA, New York, or Austin), experienced SEOs are thin on the ground. In a local market where the economy is less tech-driven (like, say, Oklahoma City, where I work), finding an experienced SEO (even one with just a year or two of experience) is like finding a unicorn. You're hired. (Photo via Pixabay) If you're looking for an in-house SEO or someone to run your whole program, you may have no choice but to hold out for a hero (and think about relocating someone). If you're an SEO trying to grow a team of digital marketers at an agency or to expand a large in-house team, sometimes your best bet is to hire someone with no digital marketing experience but a lot of potential and train them. However, you can't plug just anyone into an SEO role, train them up right and have them be fantastic (or enjoy their job); there are definite skills, talents and personality traits that contribute to success in digital marketing. Most advice on hiring SEOs is geared toward making sure they know their stuff and aren't spammers. That's not really applicable to hiring at the trainee level, though. So how can you tell whether someone is right for a job they've never done? At BigWing, we've had a lot of success hiring smart young people and turning them into digital marketers, and there are a few things we look for in a candidate. Are they an aggressive, independent learner?Successful SEOs spend a ton of time on continued learning—reading blogs, attending conferences and webinars, discussing and testing new techniques—and a lot of that learning happens outside of normal work hours. The right candidate should be someone who loves learning and has the ability to independently drive their ongoing education. Ask job candidates about another situation where they've had to quickly pick up a new skill. What did they do to learn it? How did that go? If it's never come up for them, ask what they might do in that situation. Interview prep is something I always look for in a candidate, since it shows they're actually interested in the job. Ask what they've done to prep for the interview. Did they take a look at your company website? Maybe do some Googling to find other informational resources on what digital marketing entails? What did they learn? Where did they learn it? How did they find it? Give your candidates some homework before the interview. Have them read the Beginner's Guide to SEO, maybe Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, or the demo modules at Distilled U. How much of it did they retain? More importantly, what did they learn? Which brings us to: Do they have a small understanding of what SEO is and why we do it?I've seen a lot of people get excited about learning SEO, do OK for a year or two, and then crash and burn. The number one cause of SEO flame-out or burn-out, in my experience, is an inability to pivot from old tactics to new ones. This failure often stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of what SEO is (marketing, connecting websites that have stuff with people who want that stuff) and what it is not (any single SEO tactic). It can be frustrating when the methods you originally learned on, or that used to work so well, dry up and blow away (I'm looking at you, siloing and PageRank sculpting). If you're focused on what tricks and tactics can get you ranking #1, instead of on how you're using digital techniques to market to and connect with potential customers, sooner or later the rug's going to get pulled out from under you. Ask your candidates: what did they retain from their research? Are they totally focused on the search engine, or have they thought about how visits can turn into revenue? Do they seem more interested in being a hacker, or a marketer? Some people really fall in love with the idea that they could manipulate search engines to do what they want; I look for people who are more in love with the idea of using the Internet as a tool to connect businesses with their customers, since ultimately your SEO client is going to want revenue, not just rankings. Another trait I look for in the interview process is empathy. Can they articulate why a business might want to invest in search? Ask them to imagine some fears or concerns a small business owner might have when starting up an Internet marketing program. This is especially important for agency work, where communicating success requires an understanding of your client's goals and concerns. Can they write? Photo via Pixabay Even if you're looking to grow someone into a technical SEO, not a content creator, SEO involves writing well. You're going to have to be able to create on-page elements that not only communicate topical relevance to search engines but also appeal to users. This should go without saying, but in my experience definitely doesn't: their resume should be free of typos and grammatical errors. Not only is this an indicator of their ability to write while unsupervised, it's also an indicator of their attention to detail and how seriously they're taking the position. Any kind of writing experience is a major plus for me when looking at a resume, but isn't necessarily a requirement. It's helpful to get some idea of what they're capable of, though. Ask for a writing sample, and better yet, look for a writing sample in the wild online. Have they blogged before? You'll almost certainly be exchanging emails with a candidate before an interview—pay attention to how they communicate via email. Is it hard to tell what they're talking about? Good writing isn't just about grammar; it's about communicating ideas. I like to give candidates a scenario like "A client saw traffic to their website decline because of an error we failed to detect. We found and corrected the error, but their traffic numbers are still down for the month," and have them compose a pretend email to the client about what happened. This is a great way to test both their written communication skills and their empathy for the client. Are you going to have to proofread their client emails before they go out? That sounds tedious. How are their critical thinking and data analysis skills?A brand-new digital marketer probably won't have any experience with analytics tools like Google Analytics, and that's OK—you can teach them how to use those. What's harder to teach is an ability to think critically and to use data to make decisions. Have your candidates ever been in a situation where they needed to use data to figure out what to do next? What about tell a story, back up a claim or change someone's mind? Recent college grads should all have recent experience with this, regardless of their major—critical thinking and data analysis are what college is all about. How comfortable are they in Microsoft Excel? They don't have to love it, but if they absolutely loathe it, SEO probably isn't for them. Would it make them miserable to spend most of a day in a spreadsheet (not every day, but fairly regularly)? Are they a citizen of the web?Even if they've never heard of SEO, a new employee is going to have an easier time learning it if they're already pretty net savvy. An active web presence also indicates a general interest in the the Internet, which is one indicator of whether they'll have long-term interest in digital marketing as a field. Do some recon: are they active on social media? Have they ever blogged? What comes up when you Google them? Prior experienceDifferent applicants will have different backgrounds, and you'll have the best idea of what skills someone will need to bring to the table to fill the role you need. When I'm reading a resume, I take experience in any of these areas as a good sign:
Your mileage may vary Photo via Knowyourmeme Very few candidates are going to excel in all of the areas outlined above, and everyone you talk to is going to be stronger in some areas than others. Since digital marketing can include a wide variety of different tasks, keep in mind the things you'd actually like the person to do on the job; for example, written communication becomes somewhat less important in a non-client-facing role. At the very least, look for a smart, driven person who is excited about digital marketing as a career opportunity (not just as a next paycheck). Hiring inexperienced people has its risks: the person you hire may not actually turn out to be any good at SEO. They may have more trouble learning it than you anticipated, and once they start doing it, they may decide that SEO just isn't what they want to do long-term. On the other hand, hiring and training someone who's a great fit for your company culture and who is excited about learning often results in a better employee than hiring someone with experience who doesn't really mesh well with your team. Plus, teaching someone SEO is a great way to make sure they don't have any bad habits that could put your clients at risk. Best of all, you have the opportunity to unlock a whole career for someone and watch them grow into a world-class marketer—and that's a great feeling. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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Seth's Blog : Kicking and screaming (vs. singing and dancing)
Kicking and screaming (vs. singing and dancing)
Unfair things happen. You might be diagnosed with a disease, demoted for a mistake you didn't make, convicted of a crime you didn't commit. The ref might make a bad call, an agreement might be abrogated, a partner might let you down.
Our instinct is to fight these unfairnesses, to succumb if there's no choice, but to go down kicking and screaming. We want to make it clear that we won't accept injustice easily, we want to teach the system a lesson, we want them to know that we're not a pushover.
But will it change the situation? Will the diagnosis be changed, the outcome of the call be any different?
What if, instead, we went at it singing and dancing? What if we walked into our four-year prison sentence determined to learn more, do more and contribute more than anyone had ever dreamed? What if we saw the derailment of one path as the opportunity to grow or to invent or to find another path?
This is incredibly difficult work, but it seems far better than the alternative.
More Recent Articles
- "We need to hate them more"
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marți, 17 februarie 2015
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
| Hollande Risks Vote of Confidence Over Business-Friendly Legislation; National Debate Over Baguettes Posted: 17 Feb 2015 01:03 PM PST Hollande Risks Vote of Confidence French President Francois Hollande took an unusual step today of passing law by decree, with no parliamentary vote. Article 49.3 of the French constitution allows that, but doing so runs the risk of a no-confidence vote and dissolution of the government should the vote of confidence fail. 49.3 would seem to be an easy choice but it was last used 9 years ago. Business-Friendly Legislation It's amusing what France considers "Pro-Business". The reforms include increasing the number of Sundays that shops can stay open from five to twelve and deregulation of notaries. Please consider French Government Overrides Parliament to Ram Though Reforms French president François Hollande took drastic action on Tuesday to ram through a package of business-friendly economic reforms, overriding parliament to stamp out a rebellion within his own ruling Socialist party and avert a government crisis.Minimal Impact It is absurd to believe allowing shops to stay open an extra 7 Sundays will do anything meaningful for the economy. And if you are going to risk a vote of no-confidence, why not make it meaningful? The likely answer is had Hollande tried to do too much, he would fail the vote. National Debate Over Baguettes In a move that sparked a national debate, France's Top Baguette Baker Ordered to Stop Working Seven Days a Week. Stephane Cazenave, who runs a boulangerie in Saint-Paul-les-Dax, Landes, faces a 1,500 euro fine for flouting a 1999 prefectural order obliging any bakery to remain closed for at least one day per week.Debate Over Euros Please note the comment by the head of the baker's confederation: "It made sense to uphold the rules to encourage competition by obliging people to buy bread elsewhere at least once a week." Jean-Pierre Crouzet would have you believe that forcing people to buy inferior products is the way to increase competition. Why stop with baguettes? Why not cars, computers, and T-bone steaks? The debate over baguettes is but an amusing side-show of the insanity of French law. The euro was supposed to fix such problems but it didn't and won't. The reform moves by Hollande are at a glacial pace, as are reforms in Italy, Greece, and Portugal. Monetary policy cannot resolve differences in work rules, pension rules, minimum wages, retirement age, productivity, and a dozen other things. And France insists on inane agricultural policy to "save the farms". Of course they want to "save the bookstores as well". France is not serious about reform. Rather, France wants Germany to believe that it is. Eurosceptic Front National's Le Pen Consolidates Lead In "rally round the president" move Hollande's popularity soared following the Charlie Hebdo attack. Yet, that popularity was fleeting. In the first presidential poll since Charlie Hebdo, Front National's Le Pen Consolidates Lead. It's the first opinion poll on voting intentions this year, and the solid advantage enjoyed by Le Pen and her traditional-conservative Front National (FN) party appears to have been confirmed in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris earlier this month. Front National is the only mainstream French political movement that shows willing to tackle the problem of rising Islamism, and this appears to have delivered them an definite electoral advantage. Le Pen now sits with 30 percent of first-round votes, a gain of 3-5 points since August.Rise of Podemos Elsewhere, debt piles up and tensions mount. Spain which is supposedly in recovery, has seen the rise of eurosceptic Podemos. If there was a big recovery in Spain, we would not see results like this: Pessimism in Spain: 83% Say Economic Situation is Bad; Podemos Takes Huge Lead in Latest Poll. In Greece, Bailout Talks Collapse in 4 Hours; Greece Says Extension is "Absurd"; 79% Support Syriza's Negotiation Stance. Increasingly, people have had enough. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Home Prices Decline in 64 of 70 Tracked Chinese Cities; Asymmetric Central Bank Posted: 17 Feb 2015 11:49 AM PST For the 9th Consecutive month, Chinese Home Prices Decline. The average price of new homes in China's 70 major cities fell 0.4% in January from the month before, marking the ninth consecutive decline. On an annual basis, prices fell 5.1% in January - marking the fifth consecutive month that prices have fallen from a year earlier. Bloomberg reports China Property Recovery Fails to Gain Traction With Prices Dropping. Prices fell in 64 cities from the previous month, compared with 65 in December, and were unchanged in four, according to data from the bureau of statistics on Tuesday. Average prices fell 5.1 percent from a year earlier, the biggest drop on record, according to Tom Orlik, chief Asia economist at Bloomberg Intelligence. Ganzhou, in central China's Jiangxi province, joined Shenzhen in posting an increase in January from December.Asymmetric Central Bank Note the ridiculousness of Chinese central bank policy. The central bank was concerned the property sector was growing too fast, so they put on property curbs. Now the central bank is worried after a token 5% decline, a small down payment on what will eventually happen. Such is the nature of asymmetric central bank policy, globally, not just in China. Universally, central banks sponsor bubbles, then seek to re-blow them at the first sign of trouble. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
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Damn Cool Pics
Damn Cool Pics |
- Shelter Animals Before And After They Were Adopted
- When Your Grandmother Asks You To Fix Her Phone
- These Comedians Have The Best And Most Honest Relationship Advice
| Shelter Animals Before And After They Were Adopted Posted: 17 Feb 2015 11:03 AM PST If you're thinking about getting a new pet you might want to look into adopting one. Adopting an animal can make a huge difference in their attitude and life in general.                 |
| When Your Grandmother Asks You To Fix Her Phone Posted: 17 Feb 2015 10:48 AM PST This person's Grandmother asked them to fix her phone because "the outside clock is always showing the wrong time." This problem was solved pretty quick.   |
| These Comedians Have The Best And Most Honest Relationship Advice Posted: 17 Feb 2015 10:07 AM PST If you want to keep your relationship healthy, it's time to start taking what these comedians say seriously.          |
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