About Sourabh Rana
Sourabh Rana is an SEO consultant and has worked on being like sites google panda and penguin. He has a proven track record of getting out of penalty and recovery with over ten years of experience in SEO. In fact, he gained himself a popular title of SEO Rana. This showed the amount of expertise he has gained in this field and he is present here today to share his useful insights into the world of SEO.
Here is the Video
Ques 1. How did you start your journey?
It is not a coincidence for me just as many people because in the SEO industry 90 % to 95% come from coincidence. They are engineers, they are from the technology background and they were searching something and they entered in the SEO industry. But I have chosen it. I am a SEO guy by choice not by coincidence. I have chosen this field at that time when just few people in India knew about it. I have chosen SEO profession in 2008 just like my sister was in this SEO industry and just I was inspired by her and I also went for searching new industry, new line of career for myself then I realize that I can go and join this industry.
Ques 2. Had it not been SEO, would you do something else, anything else that you were passionate about at that time?
I would love to do PHd in political science. Because I was very good in general knowledge and social stuff at that time. So I asked my family to take either arts or a PCM. So I can go for a merchant navy or else phd in a social science. As general families ask them to go for this kind of thing. So I have chosen the education industry. If I was not in SEO then I would be a merchant navy or professor in phd.
Ques 3. What do you do in your free time?
I read new Articles I read new updates, new technologies so what is happening. Generally, free time is very very difficult in my schedule right now.in these days I hardly get free time. Since morning I am also doing classes, coaching, and my official work also continuously. Now I am with you also. If I get some free time I watch videos on prime or sleep. Sleeping is the best thing that you can do with yourself.
Ques 4. Let’s see 10 to 12 years back, just SEO was new at that time and many people were not looking forward to or may be taking it as that rather they would urge to take it today. So that time 10 to 12 years ago when you know that smartphone industry had not boomed and internet services were expensive. You know that earlier parents how they were. It is hard to explain to take them. So what does basically motivate you to take them ?
When I realized that this industry called SEO and you can do some fancy things. At that time I was using Internet because of Sifi cafes which was very popular . So I was paying around 35 rs per hr for using Internet. Now we are getting unlimited data in 35 rs in month with 1 gb, 2 gb. Etc. So that kind of penetration market in India, Internet was very fancy or glamorous. Apart from what has motivated me this when i researched about seo then i realised that who can be good seo or who can be successful SEO industry Who has analytical and good research skill? It is all about search optimization. If you are good in research then you can also do in SEO. Because when we are working with google then this is finding internet so you have to take a deep die when dig out the things from the Internet how to find things on the internet? When you are doing research then creative mind, analytical is very important. So i thought i am a very good researcher. That is why i have told you that i am by choice not by coincidence.
Ques 5. So you are SEO by choice as u said. In this particular choice of yours as i know people in the field seo like 8 to 10 years but really they are not able to make that kind of impact as your.You know like just you gained your name as a SEO owner here the transition that you had and so what was the reason that you remain same. Having seo specialisation of 8 to 10 year, so what was the constant learn and relearn or unlearn process?
Just a few weeks ago in some projects, I had interviewed with few experience people around more than 9 years to 15 yrs. Few guys came 10 years experience almost similar to mine. Just I am telling you it depends on person to person. One guy is taking 2.5 lac, one guy taking 75 thousand and one guy is taking just 45 thousand. It is not about SEO if you have the talent and that skill then you can also earn 2.5 lac and if you not updating yourself. Updation is the key to success in this SEO industry. I have done research with penguin branch and with very penalized websites and Clients have pressurized me because I am for clients in the agencies. From those 2 years SEO has changed. Their people were working with some agencies. Nobody has no idea what to do. So at that time I have transitioned myself from SEO to SEO expert. I have learned real SEO at that time. I used to read 100 articles daily. I have done this and have understood what is the procedure, what is the process, what is the best practices, what is the aftermaths. So I did a mistake and learned what was the best way.
Now, Should I have got success or found success? I was playing with failure and success at that time. Will I get recover of my site or not? I have continued thinking about the result and hard work. I did hard work and that pays me after 9 and 10 years. That confidence made me great. And people started to ask me how I have done this. I thought this is not rocket science. From the last year, I did event blogging just like merry Christmas. People said that this blogging is called event marketing. I told him that I was working for clients for so many years. I got a very good result. This is big for you but this is very normal for me. So i have also realized my importance in the market. Just like I have done this or I know this. Just the vast knowledge I had. I just say it is hard working.
Ques 6. So amid all this hard work, to what moments and what achievements do you construct as milestone achievement?
I have recovered a few websites from google to increase the traffic and around two times I have tried millions of traffic from the SEO for my clients for my websites. And if you say about this then it is a good achievement. If I say 1 million traffic only from the organic field that I have driven out from my client. Apart from this I worked as an SEO consultant for so many companies and conducted Manorma online. It had been 7 days workshop in their office and around in front of 100 people. There were all technology people, marketing people, and top management. So I have done this workshop. I have ordered this as the flow website. See you are doing this should be like this. This is the best practice. I work for a few clients also. I Worked for 40K sales from scratch and increased their conversion. I was a product manager there and SEO account manager. I worked for them and increased their conversion up to 4%.
Ques 7. How do you normally deal with these Google algorithms of updates which are rolling every now and then? Do you normally change the strategies according to them?
So it is a good question just how do you deal with google panel. What I am going to tell you, so don’t think I am egoist person.Trust me you will realize i have some ego but i do not give any kind of importance to these Google Algorithms. Until and unless they have changed the very big updates or you can say major updates like panda, penguin and humming bird. Then you have to work and add those things into your strategies but don’t change strategy. I updated my strategy. Generally i don’t read updates because I know regular work. So I don’t give so much importance to them. It is all about content user experience loading speed so work from basic.
Ques 8. As you conducted a Workshop and went for so many companies. You have you come across that Certain strategy of SEO which you believe dead but still being an agency for some companies.
Yes, you are right. Because I have seen so many agencies and even in SEO they just follow set patterns also which they just focus only on link building. At least 95% of Industry is focusing on only 5% SEO. They are not doing proper research on content topics, proper conversion, and analysis. Analyzing user patterns and user behavior must be done. Yes, link building is a good thing google gives the value but don’t base your strategies on the link building part.
Ques 9. What could be single best piece of SEO advice that you could share?
- Right content for user
- Focus on contents
Don’t publish 100 articles just publish 15 articles that would be good research topic and what user wants. Give all information and focus on user intent.
- User intent or search intent
If you see my interview 1 or 2 yr later then mark my word that search intent is the base of all the algorithms. He has launched a bird update via direction some transformations are very difficult. That bird update is also the same thing but this user intent is just like the keyword. As Tajmahal weight, I can say what is the weight of Tajmahal in Agra.
Ques 10. How can you we use social media in SEO?
Social media is not a crucial factor or a big ranking factor in SEO. It is kind of very marginal helps just like reputation or review what people talking about on social media. This social media help in traffic but not in SEO. It helps when you are doing great social media of marketing and you are turning your company of product into a brand. So when people are searching on the brand in Google that will help in SEO but social media directly helps in SEO is not true. It is a link and indirect proportion relation between social media and SEO. It is when your people searching for your brand just like SEO Rana so my social pages are coming there and it will help but not in the keyword of ranking that best SEO institute or best agency in India. Here social media can help you.
But there branding part company name it can help. So there is some demarkation also that google takes some data from social media. Google denies these things.
Ques 11. How do SEO help to optimize chatbots?
As social media doesn’t help SEO like that it also not help directly. They both are altogether different thing. SEO is based on the content of websites, mobile optimization, link building but chatbots is the process when user come into websites then chatbots plays their role. It is a conversion booster. It is not the research engine tool. Just like you can engage your customer by help of chat. It can be helpful to increase the bounce rate, dual time that is the only way. This can help SEO just to increase the time on site of user. But it is not a direct relationship. They both are two different thing.
Ques 12. How do you normally look towards this growth of voice search related to seo?
Here is the direct relationship between SEO and voice search because when people are searching voice search then they are searching google. It is an important SEO strategy. Now and future you should implement your brand and marketing strategy. To succeed in SEO, you have to be technical. You have to focus on the user, website design. If you go through a hummingbird rank brain and bird then these three updates show a direct relationship. Actually AI machine have the technology but we don’t have technologies. Google has given some helpful tools that can help us in implementing websites and by which google can understand easily in the right way. Just like a hotel website just we show a deluxe room or the normal premium room or semi-deluxe room. So we go on google to see the price of these rooms and available from this to this date. Google will understand With the help of these tools.
The second thing is content whatever I discussed earlier about Tajmahal. So you have to create conventional queries. So you have to create content from a user point of view.
Third thing is that website structure as to how do you construct from home safe category to what is the navigation part. These things will help google and users also. Just like if you have 10 categories one is for politics movie and another review of recipes. Then Google will show you whatever you have searched in content. Like reviews from reviews bucket and recipes from recipe bucket. In mobile 80 percent search happening. So experience between mobile and user is very important. So AI helps here you to make your website with product.
Ques 13. Now-a-days like people looking forward for career marketing. What could be your suggestion?
The majority of people are influenced by youtube. Experts income. I got to know a few people sir can I get 20 lac or 50 lac. My student was asking this question. Maybe he is getting 20 lac or he knows all the tricks of the game. He didn’t share with you how much experience he has and how much money he has invested to get 20 lac. Do you have this knowledge? So don’t compare it with him. Don’t think big, work from basic.
