SEO - Search Engine Optimization

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is fast emerging as a lucrative career option. It gives you the flexibility to either opt for a full time job or freelance as a SEO Manager.

The Internet is our biggest source of information, whether we're looking to buy something, book a vacation, renovate our homes, or even complete our projects. Businesses, organizations, schools, movies, and even celebrities have websites today. These websites do more than just provide information; they are a source of income as well and play a crucial role in marketing.

With an estimated 185 million websites in existence today, there is a constant struggle to be on top and stand out. This is where the job of an SEO or Search Engine Optimization Manager comes in. Not so long ago, it was the webmaster who would perform the tasks of an SEO manager, like adding optimized keywords, adding links to search engines, etc; all to ensure that the website gets more traffic and generates revenue. These days, however, due to the cut-throat competition and increasing number of websites, there is a need for a dedicated specialist to perform these tasks.

Jagadeesh Mohan Kumar Nambiar is an SEO professional who has been working in the web field for the past ten years, and has been specializing in SEO for six years. Jagadeesh shares his insights about a career as a SEO manager.

Why is a SEO manager needed?

SEO helps website owners to maximize their web page visibility in organic search for their consumers to find them through search queries (normally called keywords or key phrases). The world now depends a lot on the Internet and people like to use their favorite search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing to find information they need. With SEO, you find what your customers search for and you can bring an online presence to your web pages based on your customers’ search queries. Having a well designed service or product site without an online presence is of no use. With SEO, we can have long term results and greater return on investment.

There are many SEO professionals who may do SEO benchmark reports, on-page SEO, competitor and keyword reports, off-page SEO, SEO ROI progress reports, SEO consultation, analytics, and so on. Someone who has knowledge in all these areas with various industries expertise, technical knowledge, and the ability to forecast the online business growth can qualify as a SEO Manager.

How different is it from the job of a webmaster?

The main difference is that a qualified SEO professional has the ability get his client’s site visibility to their customers by finding online competition, desired search keywords and user behavior with the site. User behavior is as important as getting them to the sites and it leads to sales conversion.

What does the job of a SEO professional entail?

Understanding industry standards, advising clients on the latest trends to improve online presence, training the team with the latest industry updates, managing the campaign handled by the SEO team, client communication, and reporting on the work done.

Other tasks include evaluating the existing website structure, competitor analysis, keyword analysis and research, search engine marketing report, right keyword identification according to targeted audience related to website, improving web page presentation, improving the HTML structure, adding links to the identified search engines, business directories and websites, continuous link building to achieve page rank, configuring analytics, monitoring inbound links, monitoring search results for optimized pages as well as ongoing SEO campaign report with analytics observation and ROI.

What are the challenges involved to achieve high hits?

First of all, you need to ensure that you have web statistics. Google Analytics does a good job and the interesting thing is that it is a free service. The main challenge is to get to know your online business competition and analyze the competitor’s sites for their targeted search keywords and get to know where their websites are listed for referrals. The core area you need to focus on is the content that sells your business service and products, having a relevant page title with unique meta tags, images with 'alt' attribute that represent the content and to get good amount of quality links to your site from directories (like dmoz, Botw), articles, news, press releases, blogs and social sites.

SEO is a long term process and we can see good progress within six months or one year. Over the long term, we can generate mass quality traffic even for a single keyword term.

What are the technical qualifications required?

Understanding search engine-friendly code is the key qualification. That includes HTML, and knowledge of CSS, JS, PHP, .Net and other platforms. Server side and internal protocol knowledge is an added advantage. Not many companies know about the advantages of an SEO manager. But now I see a good amount of demand and good pay packages being offered for SEO managers in Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai and Cochin. Also many people undertake SEO as freelance by working on on-page and off-page optimization methods. Others offer consultation services on client sites and on their online business growth. These people are called SEO consultants.

What is the job ladder and growth prospect like?

Job ladder, growth and salary differ based on the organization and the location. Here is a general view:

SEO Trainee – up to Rs 7,500 per month

SEO Analyst/Link Analyst - up to Rs 15,000 per month

Senior SEO Analyst/Strategist - up to Rs 25,000 per month

SEO Manager - up to Rs 50,000

Senior SEO Manager/Account Manager - up to Rs 75,000

SEO Director - Rs 1,00,000 and above

There are companies that pay much better than stated above, and I see good growth for SEO, because due to the recession, more SEO projects from the US and Europe are being outsourced to India than ever before. SEO is one of the industries that were not down in India during recession.

What is your advice for people considering a career in SEO?

Initially, the person needs to know how the search engine behaves on listing sites. That includes site tags, quality content relevancy, internal links, search engine-friendly code format. He must know how links point to sites. Website popularity increases as it gets more backlinks. To the search engine, backlinks are like votes in the site’s favor. Apart from that, participating in forums like Search Engine Watch and Cre8asite is a great way to learn fast. 

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Shareholder Value : Nirma University

 Shareholder Value: Creation, Maximization, Destruction And Restoration

 Shareholder value is widely discussed and debated. The

simple understanding is “the value addition to the equity

contributed by the shareholder of a business enterprise”. It

is supported on the ground that the equity contributor,

who assumes the highest and ultimate risk in a business

venture, is entitled to all residual surpluses of the gains.

This value addition is measured in monitory term, since the

equity contributed is also in that term. The yardstick is the

enhancement in value of initial equity and the

accumulation over a period of time commonly known as

net worth. When such net worth is represented by higher

tangible market value than the initial amount of equity, it

may be called as a creation of shareholder value over a

period of time.

Since, the entire concept is described and measured in

monetary terms, the Finance function assumes lead among

other functional management. Thus, the goal set for

Financial Management is “Shareholder Value Creation”.

Further, the shareholder is assuming highest risk among

other stakeholders; it is argued that the he is entitled to

have maximum share in the fruits of the success of the

business venture. Therefore, all literature echoes the goal

of Financial Management as “Maximising Shareholder

Value”.

The Financial Management is expected to achieve this goal

through three vital decision, viz. Investment Decision

(What project should be selected to invest so that the

return on investment exceeds the cost of capital );

Financing Decision ( What should be the mix of borrowed

funds carrying fixed charge on the earning and owned

funds having claim on all residual earning) and Dividend

Decision ( How much of the residual earning should

distributed among the equity contributors and how much

should be reinvested in the business).These 3 decisions, if

taken in a most prudent manner on a continuous basis,

then it obliviously enhances shareholder value.

As regards, small and medium business ventures, where

the ownership and management is one, the issue of

shareholder value is normally insulated from the agency

problem. But for large and publicly owned corporate, this

agency problem affects the goal. The agency issues means,

when the business is managed by appointed agents

(Directors, CEO, top management executives, etc.), who

have their own goals to achieve and if these personal goals

are in conflict with the main goal of “Maximizing

shareholder value” then the decision making process may

not always be prudent. Management science advocates for

goal congruence between individual one and organization

goal, but it is difficult to practice successfully on continuous

basis. Thus, the shareholder value, even if created by one

set of agents can be destroyed by another. Though, the
system has made at attempt to address this issue through
corporate governance, transparency and regulatory
mechanism, but the recurrence of corporate scam could
not be altogether stopped.
The financial services business has further aggravated the
issues of destruction of share holder value, through agency
problem. This business produces financial products and
provides allied services. The financial products are quite
different then ordinary goods and services. Ordinary goods
and services have present utility for the buyers. The seller
does some value addition to the original goods before
selling them to the buyer and therefore, the buyer pays
higher price. Further, the buyer has legal remedy if the
product / services do not fulfill the condition claimed, or
he cannot enjoy peaceful consumption. A financial product
is differing here on all fronts. The buyer has future utility
and that to a perceived one. The seller hardly does any
value addition. (A mutual fund or a share can not be made
beautiful by seller). There is no remedy for product failure
because it the future utility is sold. Thus, when the future
hopes are sold, such deals become very dangerous
especially when the buyer (investors) awareness is lacking.
A financial service by its nature does the business on
“Others People Money”. Thus, if it is infected by severe
agency problems, then the shareholder value of those
business enterprises is damaged heavily. Further, such
events have chain effect because of shaking of confidence
in the system. As results stock market crashes and
shareholder value (though created by one set of agents)
get reduced across all business.
The world and India, both have witnessed such
phenomena on regular intervals and it is evident that
directly or indirectly, the financial service sector has played
major role in such disaster. For example, the world has
witnessed major cataclysm such as 9/11, tsunami, etc. but
the insurance sector is not adversely affected as compared
to recent one when largest insurance group face crises
because of debacle of financial services giants.
The above discussion leads to two issues. First, whether
the goal of financial management should be redefined,
especially for the financial sector, and second what further
measures society as whole (not only governments) should
undertake to check the impact of agency problem. The
answers are sought in next NICOM 10 by our institute. We
invite one and all concerned with above topic to contribute
in the conference.