#Also check out the Alt Text there’s a whole other level of analysis going on there
Text
Recently, I’ve seen many posts (well… ‘many’ as per East of Eden standards, so like, 3 or 4) regretting Steinbeck’s treatment of Cathy/Kate. And I must admit, it puzzles me, because I am absolutely convinced he wanted us to feel sympathy towards her.
Many of her thoughts and alleged crimes are reported by an unreliable narrator who has no way of verifying any of this information. Most importantly, Steinbeck himself admits he is an unreliable narrator and that he is not equipped to understand or judge her:
[Chapter 8] You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstruous.
[Chapter 13] It doesn’t matter that Cathy was what I have called a monster. Perhaps we can’t understand Cathy, but on the other hand we are capable of many things in all directions, of great virtues and great sins. And who in his mind has not probed the black water?
[Chapter 17] When I said Cathy was a monster it seemed to me that it was so. Now I have bent close with a glass over the small print of her and re-read the footnotes, and I wonder if it was true. The trouble is that since we cannot know what she wanted, we will never know whether or not she got it. If rather than running toward something, she ran away from something, we cannot know whether she escaped. Who knows but that she tried to tell someone or everyone what she was like and could not, for lack of a common language. Her life may have been her language, formal, developed, indecipherable. It is easy to say she was bad, but there is little meaning unless we know why.
And, interestingly enough — even this kinder diagnosis is disproven later on.
What supposedly sets Cathy/Kate apart from the rest of humanity is the concept of timshel, the great choice that should ‘give [her] stature with the gods’: something she should be pitied, not demonised, for lacking. But does she actually lack it? Does she?
[Chapter 50] Kate was not thinking. Her mind drifted among impressions the way a bat drifts and swoops in the evening. She saw the face of the blonde and beautiful boy, his eyes mad with shock. She heard his ugly words aimed not so much at her as at himself. And she saw his dark brother leaning against the door and laughing.
Kate had laughed too — the quickest and best self-protection. What would her son do? What had he done after he went quietly away?
She loves Aron because she (erroneously) believes he is the one good thing that came out of her. She is terrified of Cal because she (erroneously) sees him as the incarnation of everything that is wrong with her, and paradoxically of a choice she thinks she does not have herself:
[Chapter 39] Cal said, “I was afraid I had you in me.”
“You have,” said Kate.
“No, I haven’t. I’m my own. I don’t have to be you.”
“How do you know that?” she demanded.
“I just know. It just came to me whole. If I’m mean, it’s my own mean. […] I don’t think the light hurts your eyes. I think you’re afraid.”
“Get out!” she cried. “Go on, get out!”
“I’m going.” He had his hand on the doorknob. “I don’t hate you,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re afraid.”
Were she truly incapable of doing good, she would not care that much. Which makes her a stellar foil to Adam (much like the twins are foils to each other), who is obsessed with the concept of timshel and keeps making all the wrong decisions in the pursuit of a noble ideal that causes more harm than good.
The bottom line is: Steinbeck did an incredible job writing Cathy/Kate and deserves much more credit than he gets.
#There is also something very touching about her death… which is a different yet somewhat related topic.#Also check out the Alt Text there’s a whole other level of analysis going on there#literature#american literature#east of eden#john steinbeck#cathy ames#kate trask#cal trask#caleb trask#aron trask#adam trask#random ramblings
10 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
#túi_giấy_epacking_việt_nam #túi_giấy_epacking #in_túi_giấy_giá_rẻ #in_túi_giấy #epackingvietnam #tuigiayepacking
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
https://ift.tt/2UKexGB
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Link
Identifying your competitors and evaluating their ways to work out their strengths and weaknesses relative to those of your own product or service. A competitive analysis could be an essential part of your company marketing plan. Competitor analysis comprised of the identification, analysis and analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors in relevancy your own business. This could be done at the platform, channel or business-wide level. Information gained from competitor analysis will be used to inform your own strategy by distinguishing opportunities and areas that your competitors aren’t present in (what we tend to sometimes call ‘content gap analyses).
An in depth understanding of who your competitors are and what they provide are massively helpful in determining a way to market your business in ways that can guarantee it stands out for the correct reasons. It conjointly permits you to contextualize what you’re doing and helps to determine what you would like to try and do to achieve ground on your competitors in areas like search engine rankings or social media presence
“The key to jumping over your competition to achieve your common customer”
Why can we have to be compelled to analyze your on-line competitors?
Competitor analysis will give abundant of the essential foundation knowledge needed to secure positive growth and establish your name inside your niche. While plenty of the info the knowledge gained from this analysis might not be very helpful it’s more than worthwhile for the nuggets of highly useful information that can be gained from an easy data gathering activity.
it’s one factor to acknowledge the presence of on-line competitors and another to totally perceive who they’re, what they are doing and the way they’re achieving the success they’re. Often, competitor analysis can show the bar to gaining traction within the search results and on social media is incredibly low so. On others, it should facilitate us establish that your target business is extraordinarily competitive. All of this can facilitate us adapt our approach consequently and manage your expectations when it involves how long it’ll take us to attain our objectives.
Its Importance Include:
Competitor analysis can offer us a valuable roadmap to making quick gains. Our comprehensive competitor analysis utilizes varied tools and techniques to assess what your competitors do that you’re not and vice versa. They’ll tailor the competition analysis to your specific business model, trade sector and marketing objectives to make sure that our digital strategy is totally conversant, measured, and laser targeted towards securing positive growth and complete exposure.
What should be included during a competitor analysis?
Your company’s competitors
Competitor product summaries
Competitor strengths and weaknesses.
The ways utilized by every competition to attain their objectives.
The market outlook.
How to Conduct Competitive Analysis?
Establish your prime 10 Competitors
Now this could be silly on behalf of me to rise, however have you ever known your company’s prime 10 competitors?
Every company has those dreaded competitors they cannot stand; regardless of what you do they’re continuously using your ideas and taking your potential customers. whether you’re a local, national, or international company there’s in all probability someone in your company, specifically the sales and marketing groups, which will quickly recite your prime competitors moreover as what differentiates them from you.
As a national company, you’re competing with probably a whole bunch, even thousands of firms going once an equivalent cluster of qualified leads.
So, perhaps you’ve got no plan that most of your competitors are. You may have that one company you are competitive with, however outside of them you are lost and confused.
If you would like a bit help distinguishing your competitors, Google could be a nice resource. By merely “Goggling” the kind of service or product you’re providing, it’s pretty likely a few of your prime competitors can show up.
Analyze and Compare competition Content
Once you have known your competitors, you’ll be able to kick start your competitive analysis and dig a bit deeper to achieve a higher understanding of what style of content they are publishing.
Analyzing their content will help you confirm what opportunities you’ve got to assist outperform your competitors. What styles of content creation do your competitors specialize in, a blog? Case studies? Premium content?
Once you recognize what variety of content and the quality of the content your competitors are publishing, it offers you a higher perspective of wherever you need to place in additional effort and resources. If your competitors tend to blog thrice per week compared to your one article each fortnight, it’ll be helpful for your company to start out generating a lot of traffic to your website by blogging a lot of frequently about relevant topics.
Do not simply web log as a result of you would like to feature a lot of content, it will not generate a lot of traffic if the content you are adding is not outstanding.
Analyze Their SEO Structure
So far your competitors have an equivalent style of content, update it even as often, and have awful quality. Therefore what are they doing differently from you?
It might be the structure of their SEO.
If your company encompasses a blog, you recognize how vital your SEO structure is. Whereas conducting a competitive analysis on the type of content your competitors are generating, it’s conjointly helpful to examine out the SEO structure of that content.
How are your competitors using keywords are they enclosed in?
The page title
The URL design
H1 Tags
Content
Internal links
Image alt text
Not only should you check the SEO structure of the content however conjointly what styles of keywords your competitors are utilizing.
When making an attempt to rank for specific keywords, instead of searching for keywords that have high search volumes, explore for keywords that have lower search volumes, these styles of keywords tend to be long-tail keywords making the keyword more specific.
Also by observing your competitors keywords, you’ll be able to generate an inventory of further keywords that you can begin to focus on.
Look at their Social Media Integration
A company’s presence on social media is changing into more and more vital everyday and every company is utilizing each platform differently. Social media networks are a good approach for firms to move with users and fans.
Additionally these sites permit you to share your content.
The next step of your competitive analysis should be to work out how your competitors are using social media (Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube etc..) and group action it into their marketing.
Not solely is it vital to check if your competitors will be found on social media platforms, however you also wish to check how effectively they are mistreatment their profiles.
What style of info are they posting? Do they ever post? Are individuals following them? Do they need cover photos and profile photos?
These are all queries you should be asking yourself once you are checking your competitor’s profiles. Simply because they need a profile doesn’t mean that they’re regularly updating the pages and adding new content.
Do your competitors have awful social media profiles? If they are doing, don’t just click off the page quickly, learn from what they’re doing. Are there things you may utilize and take ideas from to help establish your presence?
Maybe a company may not even be an immediate competition, however find a company in your business that is established and develops great content, and learn from key influencers in your industry.
Determine Areas for Improvement
After performing a competitive analysis, you currently have a higher plan and understanding of what your competitors do.
Take all the data you gathered concerning every competition and establish specific areas that require improvement. Once observing your competitors, you can’t tell me that you simply did not notice a minimum of one issue you would like to boost on.
Not only will you be able to identify key areas that you can improve upon in regards to your content creation, search engine optimization, and social media engagement, however you’ll be able to conjointly facilitate establish your company’s presence with potential customers, blog readers/subscribers, and social media users.
CONCLUSION
Competitor analysis is a vital a part of a firm’s development of its strategy. Its importance lies within the understanding of competitors, their strategy, and resources and capabilities. More specifically, competition analysis also permits a firm to assess its own firm versus competitors and plan for what competitors’ actions may be as a reaction to actions the firm may take.
A competition analysis provides a firm with the knowledge to leverage its strengths and address its weaknesses and, conversely, take advantage of weaknesses of competitors and counter their strengths.
Finally, competition analysis conjointly offers a firm a higher understanding not solely of the competitors but also their overall sector and where the emerging opportunities may be.
0 notes
Text
The 12 Best Crypto Signal Auto Traders for Binance and BitMEX
For a very long time, we got tons of requests for an Auto Trader review post, a short list for the best auto traders. However, it is really not easy to test them all, but I decided to make you a list of my favorites and the different kind of auto trader softwares and tools that are common right now. After all, I am often asked which crypto signal provider offers which auto trading solution. Here is an overview – if you just want the info, just skim to the bottom for an “At – A – Glance table”.
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_7673 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_7673 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7673 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_7673 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7673 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7673 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7673 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7673 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:center!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_7673 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Disclaimer
This article is for educational purposes only. We are no financial advisors. Do not make investment decisions based on this informations. The information provided from Smart Options is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice. You should consult with a financial advisor or other professional to find out what may be best for your individual needs and risk tolerance. Please do your own research and never let anyone trade your account for you. We do not support or advertise Fund Management in any kind of manner. We solely review signal providers, their work/analysis/provided education. Please read this disclaimer and leave the website if you disagree with it.
Constantly Updated Post
As this post gets much attention by our valued readership, we provide regular updates about the listed channels. Also, we stay in each of these channels to ensure they maintain the quality that made us list them. If we don't have access to these channels anymore, the quality drops significantly or something shady happens, we will delist them from this post immediately. The ranking of the providers is based on several factors like accuracy, the provided support, risk management, customer perception and more. You can rate for the services in their particular posts wiht the comments sections. Join our Telegram for the chance to win a Customer Insights Review seat.
Best Practice for Auto Traders
Affiliate link shiiillllll incoming! No, really – the best practice for auto traders is to setup one account for each provider, so you can clearly evaluate the results. I’d take a quick check on weekly base and a more in-depth check once a month. If you like our site, our work, or just want to take advantage of cheaper transaction fees, we’d appreciate if you signup for BitMEX and Binance with the following links for your auto trader accounts:
BITMEX SIGNUP |BINANCE SIGNUP
Reasons to Execute Binance & Bitmex Signals per Auto Trader
There are plenty of reasons why we get so many requests for auto trading solutions. We can feel the urging need for such a tool and why it comes in handy to many of you. However, despite the charm and attraction of the idea itself, it is essential to be aware. Scammers are always right next to you in crypto, and you should never forget about this fact. We would never promote a bitmex auto trader, which leaves the hint of a doubt that it could be a scam – too many of you guys have been scammed already, and we get quite a few messages like the one below:
Be careful when choosing a Bitmex Signal Provider
We are a bit proud, to be honest, that we have been able to find you a handful of providers which can deliver reliable results and are not a scam. We stay in all these channels and speak to the admins a few times a week. Besides all of that, let’s go through the reasons why an auto trader for BitMEX and Binance signals can make sense and if it could be something for you:
you don’t have the time to sit the whole day in front of Telegram and waiting for signals
you are challenged with all the configuration options Binance / Bitmex offers
you are a novice trader and don’t want to make a mistake
you are challenged by your emotions and can’t stop amending orders or revenge trading
you simply want a managed account by pros
You are under the impression to live in another time zone then the rest of the world and you keep missing out.
How to setup a Binance or Bitmex Auto Trader?
Both Auto Traders, for BitMEX and for Binance are setup per an API conection. An API, short for Application Programming Interface, is a software intermediary that allows two parties to exchange information with each other. In our case, there is most often the chat tool Telegram, where the signals come in, and the API which transfers the signal information to Binance or BitMEX and places the orders for you there. This basically means, you have nothing to do, then to provide the API key and the secret. These are two sets of random characters and numbers, which you provide most likely to a telegram bot. This enables telegram to connect to BitMEX and Binance and transfer the needed information to buy and sell.
So we know now, that the Binance / Bitmex Auto traders are all based on an API connections to your Binance/Bitmex account. You can generate such an API key within your account settings (they won’t take your key if you have the withdrawal option enabled on it). You can define which abilities the key shall have you pass to Margin signals, so basically, you don’t tick “Withdrawal” and they cannot run with your account funds. Once the key is created, they have access to trigger your account into any trades that is published by their Telegram channel. Building the needed API key is as easy as 1-2-3.
Crypto Addicts Bot Setup with API
Cornix API Setup
CryptoMedics Bot Setup
An Auto Trader is not for you…
…if you are looking for fast money
…if you want to trade yourself
…if you are out for getting a “kick”
…if you want to play in the traded account yourself
…if you plan this for a short-term
It is crucial for this operation that you provide an API key for a funded account, solely traded by the signals group (you can have multiple accounts with Bitmex, register some more accounts here with discounted fees, thanks!) – if you log in and place your orders, interferences will mess up but still you should feel comfortable. Crypto trading can be dangerous, and you have to know that you can lose everything. BitMEX signal providers will make use of some leverage, plus most of them trade alts on Bitmex often (where contract prices can be much higher, like on BCH). These auto trader and the trading concepts behind are made for the long-term vision and should be seen as an investment. You enable professional traders to trade an account for you by paying a fee – that’s the magic behind and if you want to enroll, it is highly suggested, to have at least a few months in mind – there are no overnight riches to be found! Like with any investment, it go both ways – if you run ETFs for example, you see the account has growth and loss, it comes in waves – it is important to keep up with the big picture and to see it as an experiment. This should not be your retirement fund, more an experimental high-risk option, where you won’t shed a tear once the money is gone.
Auto Trader Software for Binance
For Binance we found groups that used the following auto trader bots, scripts and apps:
Cornix for Binance
Cornix is an advanced telegram bot, that works on different levels. You can run it semi-automatically for order replication and also for full auto trading. Cornix comes with tons of options for staggered and entries and exits, many pre-set strategies to buy in and sell out. If Cornix is free or not depends on the signal provider and if they pay the fees for you or not. On some providers like Verified Crypto Traders you are all set and can use the bot with all features (depending on your plan). Other groups just use to offer you the Cornix features, but they require an active Cornix membership from your side.
All trading speific criteria can be managed with the bot:
Amount of account balance at risk for the trade (10% max)
Entry Price
Stop Loss
Limit and Market close positions for quick or predetermined exits
Cancel and re-enter a stop loss (used to “Bullet Proof” positions and secure profit
It can also trail the stop loss as the trade progresses and make use of several entry and exit strategies.
Cornix Pricing (on top to the Signal Group Membership fees, if not included)
youtube
Profit Trading App
Profit Trading is a very cool freemium app for iOS and Android. It is a cool trading app itself and for a small fee you can buy extra features, like the ability to connect to a signal provider and to copy their signals with one click. Profit Trading enables signal providers to create a special link, which they can offer along the signal. If you have the paid add-on, you just click it and have the signal copied into your account.
Custom Solutions
Many signal providers have chosen proprietary solutions. This means they hired a coder to bridge their signals to your BitMEX or Binance account. These are most often the most convenient solutions for you, as you have no configuration setup to process. You provide only the API key and the secret and the rest is done by the provider. All customers receive the same results. If you chose such a solution, please make sure the provider uses proper risk management as you likely cannot influence it yourself.
Crypto Auto Traders for Binance
InfoCrypto
(Cornix Bot, Profit Trading App – additional costs)
Click Here To Read The Full InfoCrypto Review
InfoCrypto is one of the most accurate channels we have listed and they offered manual trading only for a very long time. Due to the high demand, they have now offered the Cornix* and the Profit Trading App solution into their channel.
Binance Auto Trader Example:
Binance Signal with Cornix And Profit Trading App
Click Here To Read The Full InfoCrypto Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_7644 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_7644 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7644 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_7644 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7644 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7644 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7644 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7644 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_7644 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Fact Sheet for INFOCRYPTO
Please contact @infocryptobr by Telegram to enroll or use their website to subscribe conveniently.
Website: https://infocrypto.online
Telegram Contact: http://t.me/infocryptobr
Discount code: Use the discount code SMARTOPTIONS for 15%.
Plans & Pricing:
1 Month: $99
3 Months: $280
6 Months: $530
1 Year: $990 (all prices shown without smartoptions discount)
Auto Trader: No
Special Features: Many Bots, Extreme Accuracy, Special Bitcoin Analysis channel.
Exchanges: Bittrex / Binance
Signals with technical analysis: Yes, Charts are attached
Results tracking: Verify their great results in their Results Tracking Channel
Bitmex Signals: Yes, their strength is BTC analysis and they present their analysis often to enable you to trade it on Bitmex
ICO Reviews: No / Rare
Further Information: Interview with Infocrypto
Trading Timezones: Infocrypto is based in Brazil, but the signals are well spread over the day.
Free Signals Channel: http://t.me/infocryptosignals (no cross promotions, offers sometimes free bitcoin price forecasts and a good amount of altcoin trading signals)
How the paid signal channel looks like:
Please contact @infocryptobr by Telegram to enroll or use their website to subscribe conveniently. Discount code: Use the discount code SMARTOPTIONS for 15%.
TRUSTED SIGNAL PROVIDER
InfoCrypto is allowed to use the TRUSTED PROVIDER SEAL
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_7644' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
Crypto Addicts
(Propietary Solution)
Click Here To Read The Full Crypto Addicts Review
Frankly, tech-wise, I like the bot solution by Crypto Addicts the most. For Binance as well as for BitMEX they developed a very nice and strongly field-tested bot solution that works like a charm. However, the bot is used only for bigger coins with volume fully automatically, as the slippage and poor fill rates with low liquidity coins caused some mess in the past. Since then, these coins are traded semi-automatically and you can chose just to place the order with these coins or market buy them. The coins with bigger liquidity are still done fully automatic if you wish. The bot has lots of features, and while everything can be configured to a pretty high level, it still remains easy and understandble. The menu workflow is clear and the execution flawless (if the market conditions allow). The signals bot and their community management bot can be purchased by Crypto Addicts (if you run a group yourself).
Binance Auto Trader Example
Crypto Addicts Bot Setup with API
Binance Auto Trader Bot by Crypto Addicts
Binance Signal with Cornix And Profit Trading App
Click Here To Read The Full Crypto Addicts Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_7633 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_7633 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7633 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_7633 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7633 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7633 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7633 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7633 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_7633 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Fact Sheet for CRYPTO ADDICTS
PLEASE NOTE DOWN THIS DISCOUNT CODE: smartoptions (current promotion: 35%!)
You can subscribe discounted to the service on this page or the bot.
Website: https://www.crypto-addicts.com/
Telegram Contact: Telegram Support
Awards: 2x Provider of the Month (September & October 2018)
Discount Code: smartoptions (to be used with their signup bot or with the registration here) - Limited Offer: 35%
Pricing:
Crypto Addicts Pricing
Special Features: Strong direct support, Best Binance Auto Trader Technology, Magazine, SMART BTC Bot, Great daily Market updates.
Exchanges: Binance
Results tracking: To see the recent results, simply create an account. They will be visible within the dashboard.
Signals with technical analysis: Yes, Tradingview charts are attached
Bitmex Signals: Yes, a separate Bitmex channel available
Further Information: Interview with Crypto Addicts
ICO Reviews: Yes, in the magazine sometimes
Magazine: Diamond Report Example(March'19)
Trading Timezones: We saw most of the trade in the European trading session, but starting early in the Asian trading session.
Languages: The channels are available in English and French
How the paid signal channel looks like:
Currently even a 35% discount code: SMARTOPTIONS
You can subscribe discounted to the service on this page or the bot.
TRUSTED SIGNAL PROVIDER
Crypto Addicts is allowed to use the TRUSTED PROVIDER SEAL
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_7633' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
Universal Crypto Signals
(Cornix Bot – additional costs)
Click Here To Read The Full USC Review
Another highly accurate crypto signals provider for Binance, which provides his signals per Cornix Auto Trader. For this provider you will need a seperate Cornix subscription. Full Automation is recommended, as the signals are sometimes amended, especially stops come often later, if the market sentiment changes.
Binance Auto Trader Example:
Cornix Signal with Universal Crypto Signals
Click Here To Read The Full USC Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_8519 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_8519 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8519 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_8519 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8519 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8519 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8519 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8519 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_8519 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
FACT SHEET for UNIVERSAL CRYPTO SIGNALS
Please contact @cryptosaviour by Telegram to enroll. Discount code: Use the discount code SMARTSAVIOUR for 5%.
Website: In Progress
Telegram Contact: t.me/team_ucs1 and t.me/cryptosaviour
Discount Code: SMARTSAVIOUR (5% off)
Results Tracking: Altcoin results sheet on Google Docs | BitMEX results on Google Docs
Features:
Daily 1-5 HIGHLY ACCURATE signals as per market conditions
VIP chat group for members
Portfolio advise and Personal Support
Crypto News, Special Information
Trading Strategies
Hidden Gems
Short, Mid, Long Term Signals
Semi-automated and Fully Automated Trading
Dedicated BitMEX Premium Channel with great accuracy ( separate Channel)
BitMEX Dedicated Premium channels for Swing and Scalp Trades and All Trades with great Risk Management
Upcoming Features: 1. Margin Trading on all alts available on binance 2. Confidential report
Pricing and Plans:
Plan A. Semi-automated Altcoin Premium Price: 1. $66 one month | 2. $171 three months | 3. $306 Six Months | 4. $540 one year
Plan B. Fully Automated Altcoin Premium Price: Plan A + $234/year ($25 per month)
Plan C. Semi-automated Margin Trading Premium Price: 1. $81 one month | 2. $199 three months | 3. $351 Six Months | 4. $621 one year
Plan D. Fully Automated Margin Premium Price: Plan C + $270/year ($30 per month)
Plan E. Semi-automated Altcoin + Margin Premium Price: 1. $120 one month | 2. $295 three months | 3. $484 six months | 4. $900 one year
Plan F. Fully Automated Altcoin + Margin Premium Price: Plan E + $300/year ($35 per month)
Auto Trader: Semi-automated + Fully Automated Both (Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, BitMEX)
Special Features / What makes the channel unique: High Accuracy, Fast Target Achievement, Automated Trading on Binance/Bittrex, Fully Personal assistance and learning activities through VIP Trollbox, Hidden Gem Signals
Exchanges: Binance, Bittrex, IdEx , Huobi, Kucoin, and some Hidden Gems on other exchanges. Also Dedicated Premium channel For BitMEX signals with high accuracy
Signals with technical analysis (for manual entries): Yes on Demand. Full Support about Analysis and Educational activities in Chatbox/Trollbox
Trading Timezones: 24 hours
Free Channels: t.me/universalcryptosignals (Warning: Cross Promotions!) and t.me/bitmexsaviours
How the paid signals channel looks like:
Please contact @cryptosaviour by Telegram to enroll. Discount code: Use the discount code SMARTSAVIOUR for 5%.
TRUSTED SIGNAL PROVIDER
Trusted Signal Provider
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_8519' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
Fat Pig Signals
(Cornix Bot – additional costs)
Click Here To Read The Full Fat Pig Signals Review
FPS recently joined the Cornix party for a limited amount of members. Only new members have the chance to get their signals copied. With Fat Pig Signals you will need an active Cornix Subscription. As they have very successful signals often on smaller Binance coins, they apparently don’t want to create a pump and dump scenario. If you want to get into the FPS auto trader programme, you have to get into the line first.
Fat Pigs Signal with Cornix
Signal Tracking with Cornix
Click Here To Read The Full Fat Pig Signals Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_7872 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_7872 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7872 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_7872 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7872 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7872 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7872 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7872 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_7872 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Fact Sheet for Fat Pig Signals
Official website: www.fatpigsignals.com
Telegram Contact: @dad10 or @gangplank123
Discount Code: SmartOptions (-10%)
Plans & Pricing: 3 months 1 ETH | 6 months 1.5 ETH | 12 months 2.5 ETH (spot conversion to BTC possible; Discount not deducted)
Auto Trader: No
Special Features: Great Community behind this service, relative safe quality signals - even in the worst bear markets, trades only in highly liquid coins to avoid risky pumps.
Signals with technical analysis: All signals came with a technical analysis
Chatroom: @fatpigtrollbox
ResultTracking: Constantly updated sheet on Google Docs
Exchanges: Binance
Trading Timezones: 24hrs
Free Channel: @fatpigsignals
How the paid channel looks like:
Trusted Signal Provider
Fat Pig Signals is a Trusted Signal Provider
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_7872' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
Verified Crypto Traders
(Cornix Bot – In some plans included)
Click Here To Read The Full VCT Review
With several months of 100% hit rates, Verified Crypto Trades are surely a nice partner when it comes to setup an auto trading for your Binance account. The trading team is actively researching for altcoin setups based on technical analysis but also on fundamentals. Crypto Coffee is a well-known Twitter personality and offers her trading knowledge to this channel. The also do offer a Cornix Auto Trader solution for their BitMEX Service “Verified Margin Signals“. Additionally, the team has two Platinum signal options, where their best traders trade your account on fully managed automatic mode with unpublished signals, available for Binance and BitMEX (see the intro for BitMEX here)
Binance Auto Trader Example:
Binance Trade Verified Crypto Traders
Notification Bot keeps you updated
Click Here To Read The Full VCT Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Fact Sheet for VERIFIED CRYPTO TRADERS
Discount Code: VCTSOVIP1 (5% discount)
Official website: Verifiedcryptotraders.com
Discount Code: VCTSOVIP1 (5%)
Plans & Pricing: Please check the website for the current pricing.
Special Features: Full Auto Trader for Binance and BitMEX, Several Traders, Special Platinum Service
Awards: Provider of the Month January '19
Exchanges: Markets on Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, Kucoin and BitMEX.
Auto Trader: Yes (Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, Bitmex)
Results Tracking: Tracking Dashboard
Signals with TA: Yes, Tradingview charts are attached
Bitmex Signals: Yes, separate Bitmex Channel (review here)
ICO Reviews / Seed Sale Opportunities: Yes
Trading Timezones: VCT has been smart when hiring their traders, and took care that they have for every timezone.
Further Informations: Interview with VCG
How the paid crypto signal channel looks like:
Discount Code: VCTSOVIP1 (5% discount)
TRUSTED SIGNAL PROVIDER
VCT is allowed to use the TRUSTED PROVIDER seal
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_7640' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
Coin Observatory
(Custom Bot – Included)
Click Here To Read The Full Coin Observatory Review
Coin Observatory developed their own custom bot with outstanding results! Not every trade is a winner, but it is surely a winner in the long run. The Coin Observatory guys developproped their own great trade replication tool for Binance to copy their trades into your account.
Click Here To Read The Full Coin Observatory Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_7686 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_7686 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7686 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_7686 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7686 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7686 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7686 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7686 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_7686 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Fact Sheet for COIN OBSERVATORY
Discount Codes: trade smart (10% off / monthly) | SmartAltSeason (15% off / 6 - 12 months)
Website: https://coinobservatory.com/
Results Tracking: Constantly updated Google Sheet
Discord Contact: albinomonkey#5909
Discount Code: trade smart (10% off) | SmartAltSeason (15% off / 6 - 12 months)
Plans & Pricing: 0.025btc Monthly (or $245usd/month, USD recurring) | 0.07 btc 3 month | 0.13btc 6 month | 0.25 Yearly (all -10%, valid only for first purchase)
Special Features: Power Hours education - Video Trading, active trading support, Hedging with Bitmex XTB trades, Mentorship
Further Information: Interview with Coin Observatory
Auto Trader: No
Exchanges: Markets on Bitmex, Binance, Bittrex
Results Tracking: -to be added soon-
Signals with TA: All signals include a screenshot of the Technical Analysis behind the trade and we also write a brief description on why they are taking the trade. All trades have appropriate Risk to reward
Bitmex Signals: Yes, separate Bitmex Channel
ICO Reviews / Seed Sale Opportunities: No
Trading Timezones: EST, but analyst team is all over the globe. There’s always someone online guiding the community and supporting
Free Discord Signals Channel: https://discordapp.com/invite/evWnaK9
How the paid crypto signal channel looks like:
Discount Codes: trade smart (10% off / monthly) | SmartAltSeason (15% off / 6 - 12 months)
TRUSTED SIGNAL PROVIDER
Coin Observatory is allowed to use the Trusted Provider Seal
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_7686' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
Auto Trader Software for BitMEX
BitMEX offers a great API as well. However, trading BitMEX over API won’t help you with overload issues or slippage on altcoin futures. There are basically two options channels are using for auto replication signals to your BitMEX account: Cornix and custom solutions.
Cornix for BitMEX
Cornix for BitMEX is not (yet) an optimal solution. The coding team behind the bot is still ironing out quite a few things. Recently, stops have been placed as limit orders, which was not really really good – but it is fixed now. Right now there are some problems in the order process flow, depending on the chosen strategy. It has still lots of potential, but I think it will take some time.
Custom Solutions for BitMEX
As there are not much alternatives on the market (besides buggy Chrome Add ons, etc.) many signal provider went their own way and coded their own auto trader solution for BitMEX. Most are hands-free solutions, so you just overhand your API key and your secret and let them roll.
CryptoMedics
(Custom Solution – included in the Elite Plan)
Click Here To Read The Full CryptoMedics Review
CryptoMedics took their time to develop custom auto trader bot, but now it is ready and works pretty well. The first week saw some hickups but now it is just great. The best thing is, that you really just provide the API key and the secret, and the bot takes over from there. The mathematician in their team developed an awesome risk/bank roll management concept for maximum gains/maximum risk reduction. This fantastic strategy will be automatically applied to your account, according to your equity size, nice job!
CryptoMedics Bot Setup
Click Here To Read The Full CryptoMedics Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_7640 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Fact Sheet for VERIFIED CRYPTO TRADERS
Discount Code: VCTSOVIP1 (5% discount)
Official website: Verifiedcryptotraders.com
Discount Code: VCTSOVIP1 (5%)
Plans & Pricing: Please check the website for the current pricing.
Special Features: Full Auto Trader for Binance and BitMEX, Several Traders, Special Platinum Service
Awards: Provider of the Month January '19
Exchanges: Markets on Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, Kucoin and BitMEX.
Auto Trader: Yes (Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, Bitmex)
Results Tracking: Tracking Dashboard
Signals with TA: Yes, Tradingview charts are attached
Bitmex Signals: Yes, separate Bitmex Channel (review here)
ICO Reviews / Seed Sale Opportunities: Yes
Trading Timezones: VCT has been smart when hiring their traders, and took care that they have for every timezone.
Further Informations: Interview with VCG
How the paid crypto signal channel looks like:
Discount Code: VCTSOVIP1 (5% discount)
TRUSTED SIGNAL PROVIDER
VCT is allowed to use the TRUSTED PROVIDER seal
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_7640' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
BitMEX Syndicate
(Custom Solution – Included)
Click Here To Read The Full BitMEX Syndicate Review
BitMEX Syndicate invested their earnings right from their first subscribers into an API Bot solution. It works flawless and the customers are pretty happy, as we saw it recently from the customer insights review. The BitMEX Syndicate is completely hands-off and they will take you by the hand all along with their regular signals, and if you wish also with their 0.1BTC to 1BTC challenge (it can be replicated in your account). This is more an investment kind of solution, which you just start and let it run and look into it from time to time. There might be ups and downs, but after all these are pros who handle your account.
Customer Review Results
Click Here To Read The Full BitMEX Syndicate Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_8053 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_8053 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8053 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_8053 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8053 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8053 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8053 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8053 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_8053 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
FACT SHEET for BITMEX SYNDICATE
Website: https://synnit.com
Telegram Contact: @whoisdanbrown
Discount Code: smartoptions (50% discount) - only for the next 20 clients
Plan features: Lifetime access to analysis and signals (20 spots with discount left)
Included: Analysis, Preset signals, Real-time signals
Pricing: regular $888, with our discount $444 (limited to the next 20 Seats; Crypto payment option available)
Special Features: Top bitmex accuracy channel with 97% success rate (till December)
Auto Trader: Yes, fully managed
Chat Room: No
Further Information: Interview with BitMEX Signals
Exchanges: Bitmex only (signals work on Deribit but are made for bitmex)
Results Tracking: Constantly updated tracking sheet on Google Docs
Signals with technical analysis: Yes
Trading Timezones: EST
Free Signals Channel: @bitmexsyndicate
How the signals look like:
Bitmex Syndicate is a TRUSTED SIGNAL PROVIDER
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_8053' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
Shaggad’s BitMEX Signals
Shaggad’s BitMEX Signals
(Custom Solution – included)
Click Here To Read The Full Shaggad Review
Shaggad’S BitMEX Signals run a proprietary auto trader coded by a member of the channel who seams to be really satisified with their amazing hit rate. Shaggad’s accuracy doesn’t come out of the blue, as his stops are usually very far away. On one hand, this protects his trades from becoming wicked out, on the other hand, if it doesn’t work out as planned, the loss can be pretty high. Shaggad trades often altcoin futures, and this is where most of the auto traders run into problems with the fill rate. Hence the results on your auto trader account can be skewed from the ones you find on the results sheet. Nevertheless, I had some amazing successful trades with Shaggad and likely it is the best way to have them on auto trader, as they are not for the faint hearted.
Click Here To Read The Full Shaggad Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_8261 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_8261 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8261 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_8261 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8261 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8261 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8261 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_8261 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_8261 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
FACT SHEET for SHAGGAD's BITMEX SIGNALS
Website: Telegram Bot
Telegram Contact: @shaggad
Discount Code: 25% off with the discount code MEXOPTIONS (valid for all packages)
Plan and features: 15-25 Quality Bitmex Signals per Month
Pricing: Check the most current pricing with the Bitmex Bot
Auto Trader: Yes, proprietary solution available.
Special Features: Shaggad provides “Future Trades”, these trades are simple and easy to follow which you just set up and don't have to stay in front of the screen.
Results Tracking: Updated Tracker on Google Docs
Signals with technical analysis: No
Trading Timezones: EST
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_8261' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
Margin Signals
(Custom Solution – Included)
Click Here To Read The Full Margin Signals Review
Margin Signals run a full auto trader for BitMEX (Binance is in development) in handss-free mode for you. They make us of a custom solution and trade only the liquid pairs on BitMEX with the auto trader, to avoid slippage issues. In the past they traded only one entry – one exit swing trades, but due to the recent market conditions, they started to provide scalp trades as well.
Margin Signals Auto Trader Back Office
Click Here To Read The Full Margin Signals Review
WebFont.load({ google: { families: ['Merriweather'] } }); #colorbox_main_container_7668 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: #ffffff; border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 1px; -webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 15px 0px #000000; } #colorbox_main_container_7668 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: #ffffff !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 1px; border-top-right-radius: 1px; text-align:center !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7668 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_7668 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 18px !important; color: #000000 !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align:center !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7668 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 25px !important; color: #000000 !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7668 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7668 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: #000000 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_7668 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: #000000 !important; background-color:#ffffff !important; font-size:16px !important; font-family: Merriweather !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:left!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 1px; border-bottom-right-radius: 1px; } #colorbox_main_container_7668 .wpsm_panel-heading { background-image: none !important; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Fact Sheet for MARGIN SIGNALS
Discount code: "SmartOptions" (15% Discount)
Website: MarginSignals.com
Telegram Contact: CapFive
Discount Code: 15% with "SmartOptions"
Pricing (Discount not included): Per Month (3 mon. min): $129USD ($1548 p.a) 6 months: $699USD ($1398 p.a) 1 year: $1299 USD BTC accepted. Auto Trader included in all plans.
Results Tracking: Trade Results February2019
Auto Trader: Yes
Further Information: Article about the Margin Signals Autotrader
Signals with TA: Yes. After each trade, you receive a PDF with the full trade analysis.
Chat Room: Yes.
Trading Timezones: Does not matter, due to the auto trader opportunity
Free Channel: https://t.me/MarginSignalsFree
How the channel looks inside:
Discount code: "SmartOptions" (15% Discount)
Trusted Signal Provider
Margin Signals is a Trusted Signal Provider
new AnimOnScroll( document.getElementById( 'colorbox_main_container_7668' ), { minDuration : 0.4, maxDuration : 0.7, viewportFactor : 0.1 } );
G-CryptoTargets
(Custom Solution – Included)
G-CryptoTargets is currently under audit with SmartOptions. These guys are only for risk takers. They are flowing through the trades and it is all good and fine, as long as the flow is there. Sometimes they have mini-risk trades with an insane Risk:Reward, but also often trades that risk 20-30%. Their auto trader is trading all of the regular signals of the channel, but has so-called mirror trades on top of that. This means the master account of Glen, the head trader of the group, is mirrored one to one to your BitMEX account.
#colorbox_main_container_9123 .wpsm_panel { margin-bottom: 0px !important; background-color: ; border: 0px solid ; border-radius: 0px; } #colorbox_main_container_9123 .wpsm_panel-default > .wpsm_panel-heading { background-color: !important; border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.05); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; text-align: !important; padding:14px 15px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_9123 .colorbox_singel_box{ margin-bottom:20px !important; padding-top: 5px; } #colorbox_main_container_9123 .wpsm_panel-title{ margin-top: 0 !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; font-size: 0px !important; color: !important; word-wrap:break-word; text-align: !important; padding: 0px !important; line-height:1.5 !important; } #colorbox_main_container_9123 .wpsm_panel-title span{ font-size: 0px !important; color: !important; vertical-align: middle; display:inline-block !important; } #colorbox_main_container_9123 .wpsm_panel-title a{ padding:0px !important; margin:0px !important; text-decoration:none !important; outline:none !important; border:0px !important; } #colorbox_main_container_9123 .wpsm_panel-title a:hover{ color: !important; } #colorbox_main_container_9123 .wpsm_panel-body{ color: !important; background-color: !important; font-size:5px !important; overflow:hidden; text-align:!important; line-height:1.5 !important; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; } @media (max-width: 992px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:50% !important; } } @media (max-width: 786px){ .colorbox_singel_box{ width:100% !important; } }
Website: www.g-cryptotargets.com Telegram Contact for signups: @Gcryptotargets Discount Code: SMARTIO20 15% Pricing: Monthly membership : 0.0250 BTC 3 months membership : 0.0600 BTC 6 months membership : 0.0900 BTC 1 year membership : 0.1200 BTC * Membership fees also payable in ETH, BCH and XRP. Auto Trader: Yes, Mirrorbot What makes the channel unique: - Extraordinary support - Accuracy (almost 85% accurate calls) - +6600% profit in just over 3 months - Less calls than other channels (we prefer to give less signals but signals with a high successrate instead of giving an overload of signals per day which may confuse our members and might be less accurate. - We advise our members on which amount of their balance to enter in our signals. We do this to protect their money in case of a bad signal (loss). Our members appreciate this a lot. Exchanges: 99% on Bitmex Results Tracking: Sheet on Google Docs Signals with technical analysis (for manual entries): No. We provide our signals without technical analysis but often we do give the technical analysis for our signals in our premium chatroom when our members are discussing the signal. Trading Timezones: UTC+1 Free Channel:https://t.me/G_cryptotargets
Alpha Trade Zone Auto Trader
Alpha Trade Zone
(Cornix Bot – additional costs)
Click Here To Read The Full ATZ Review
Alpha Trade Zone is one of my personal gems , when it comes to signals groups. They have a great set of traders, an ultimately cheap pricing, offer Discord and Telegram support and have a great success rate. What can we ask more for?
Click Here To Read The Full ATZ Review
Binance and BitMEX Auto Traders at a Glance
Performance Tracker February 2019( Duplicate )
This table compares all Signal Providers against each other. They are ranked by our Consistency Rate formula.
Agenda:
Telegram Group | Discord Group | Auto Trader available
ProviderTrading StyleCornixProfit TradingCustom SolutionReview InfocryptoBinancexx
Full Review
Crypto AddictsBinancexx
Full Review
Universal Crypto SignalsBinancexFull Review Fat Pig SignalsBinancex
Full Review
Verified Crypto Traders (Altcoin)Binancex
Full Review
Coin ObservatoryBinance Signals hedged with BitMEXx
Full Review
Cryptomedics (Margin)BitMEXx
Full Review
BitMEX SyndicateBitMEXxFull Review Shaggad'S BitMEX SignalsBitMEXxFull Review Margin SignalsBitMEXx
Full Review
G-CryptoTradingBitMEX & Binancex-coming soon- Alpha Trading ZoneBinancex
Full Review
Conclusion about Crypto Auto Trader Solutions
Auto Traders and Crypto is yet in an infantile stage it seems. Cornix is a great solution when it comes to Binance but has some steps to go for BitMEX as well. TradingApp is a great solution with a perfectly working app for Binance signals. The proprietary solutions are often a great way to go, if the signals and the risk management are good.These hands-free solutions shall be seen as long-term investement and not an overnight-riches solution. Anyone who has held an ETF of other Fund knows about the about and downs of it. Crypto however, is way more volatile, so you might observe a rollercoster for of your investment. I would not use auto traders as my retirement fund option, but as my experimental long-term option for sure. There are some great providers in this list, but you have to get out the glassbowl mentality seeing 1-2 month and take 1-2 years instead. Great things can be achvieved in this timeframe in Crypto. However, if it is not money you can lose with an “Oh well” on your lips, you might consider something else. For all others, this might be a very interesting investment possibility, but you have to be aware that you can lose the complete investment.
0 notes
Text
The Top Skills to Look for When Hiring Your Next In-House SEO
SEO is one of the most crucial digital marketing strategies, but it’s such an in-depth concept that it pays off in the long-term to work with a qualified professional. Putting it off or hiring the wrong person can waste time, energy, and resources (not to mention all the lost revenue and business opportunities).
While there are as many SEO strategies as there are SEO experts, there are still essential skills that you should look for when hiring for your next in-house SEO expert.
With that said, open a new Google Doc… it’s time to take notes!
An overview of the SEO knowledge tree
There are a lot more to SEO experts than meets the eye, but let’s start with a basic overview of what an SEO specialist should be proficient in. I’ll also note here that not all specialists have the same knowledge, and typically specialize in one area, but may know some parts of all of these subtopics: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly what you think it is: everything on a website that you have control over from keyword optimization to internal linking. Other elements include title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL structure, and the quality of the content. While this type of SEO is most often the star of the show, a well-designed SEO strategy also includes the next two elements.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO has more to do with how popular your website is. Think back to high school for a moment… if you were someone who had a lot of friends, you may have been considered “popular”. The same goes for off-page SEO — the more websites that know and link back to your website, the higher the chances of ranking on search engines. However, this is only true if the links are high quality and the sources are credible. Aside from backlinks, other contributing factors include website age, domain name, and how many of your social networks link to your website.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a bit more complex. To put it simply, a website that has optimized specific features allows it to be crawled easier by search engine spiders, which in return ranks your site more efficiently. This might mean that your site is mobile-friendly, has quick loading times, and/or has an XML sitemap (like a roadmap but for search engine spiders). All these items work in unison to ensure a website has the highest probability of ranking. When it comes to the detailed elements, there is a lot of overlap between on-page and technical SEO, so I don’t recommend viewing these as entirely separate.
Top skills today’s in-house SEOs must have
You might think, “Isn’t SEO only about the technical side of digital marketing?” However, the reality is that emotional intelligence and logic are integral skills that an SEO specialist needs to succeed. The top candidate will have a balance of these top skills.
#1 Empathy
One might argue if we all had a bit more empathy, the world would be a better place. But that’s a topic for another day. For the context of this article, let’s think back to 2020 in its entirety. Brands that lacked empathy and failed to adapt to the COVID crisis or the Black Lives Matter movement lost customers.
You see, at the very core, SEO experts put themselves in the shoes of the reader. They might ask, “would my reader care about this?” or “would my reader search for this topic?” To back it up even further, an empathetic SEO specialist would first fully understand the target audience as a whole.
An SEO expert is not just in tune with SEO, oh no. They’re aware of how copy evokes emotions in your readers, how it makes them think, inspires them, and urges them to take action. This person guides you in understanding how tweaking your copy can result in ripples of success for your business.
So, how do you know if a candidate has empathy? During the interview, observe the following:
How are their listening skills? Candidates that genuinely listen instead of formulating a response while you’re still talking have high levels of empathy.
How much effort do they make in trying to understand you and your target audience? Do they ask questions about the company’s business goals during the interview? Do they share suggestions on how to engage with your target audience? Do they make an effort to explain how SEO is not just about numbers, but it involves the human side, too?
The next one on this list goes hand in hand with empathy: critical thinking.
#2 Critical thinking
An SEO expert has essential critical thinking skills. This quality is needed to go from following a template, to looking at your business from a holistic standpoint and understanding how to take action accordingly.
Digital marketing is a forever-changing industry and SEOs must adapt by actively searching for solutions. Give your potential hire an SEO problem on the spot and see how effectively they can propose a solution to you (I emphasize that this is a fair question, because it is truly what experienced SEOs do every day). If they struggle to come up with suggestions, they may not be the best candidate.
#3 Data analysis
Using data to drive decisions is another crucial skill for an SEO expert.
Consider this: SEO is the makeup of a trial, error, analyze, readjust, and relaunch cycle. Nothing more, nothing less. All SEOs are learning as we go. Those who learn more than others and have the ability to better understand how data drives strategic decision-making are able to come up with better solutions.
To put it simply, being able to gather and analyze marketing data gives you the competitive advantage to quickly iterate and optimize your SEO strategy.
You might consider compiling some of your SEO data and asking your interviewee what they think about it. Ask them what they notice and what they’d change in the next campaign to get more attractive results. This is a surefire way to get a pulse on their data analysis skills.
#4 T-shaped marketing expertise
The term “T-shaped marketer” refers to someone competent in many marketing disciplines, and an expert in one or two specific niches. We’re often told to find our niche or specialize in one area, but the truth is that having broad knowledge in the many different areas of marketing cultivates more connections.
How? Let’s say, for example, the potential hire knows about copywriting, email marketing, and social media marketing. With all this information, they’d be more likely to enhance all these areas using their overlapping insights of SEO.
Look for this element by asking hypothetical questions like:
What role does SEO play in a social media strategy?
How can we use SEO to drive lead generation and conversions?
Their answers will provide valuable information to find out how they plan to leverage SEO to grow the business as a whole.
#5 Strategic planning
You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it’s partially true. The true power lies in the combination of knowledge and action. A strategic plan is the key to propelling your business forward, and without it, you’ll be left in the dust. Strategizing involves assessing the data, understanding the goals, and curating a detailed plan to make progress.
The ability to tend to the details while also acknowledging long-term goals is a large piece of the SEO puzzle. And considering SEO efforts take months to get results anyways, your next in-house SEO hire should be comfortable with short-term and long-term strategic planning.
To test for this ability, tell the interviewee your goals, share some insights, and see what sort of plan they present to you. If they’ve listened to your needs and prioritized key factors, they’re a winner!
#6 Technology skills
Even our grandparents are on Facebook these days, so the phrase “tech-savvy” has become watered down. Technology skills expand far beyond using Google Docs, navigating through Facebook, or hosting a Zoom call. Experienced SEO experts should be familiar with some helpful tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console or be willing to learn these platforms.
These tools should be used in appropriate ways to derive the right data and make relevant strategic decisions, as well as compile reports. Here’s how to test for it:
Ask them to find the top keywords on a certain topic in your niche
Ask them to provide an outline of the content with those top keywords
Ask them how they’d track the results from that content once it’s live
It’s crucial to gain an overall sense of where your in-house SEO hire is before onboarding them. To truly gauge this, keep reading for a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
How to screen and test in-house SEO hires
Because SEO efforts only truly started in the early 2000s, the concept is still relatively new in the grand scheme of the internet. So when testing your potential hire, test them, but also be fair. Below are a few factors to think about.
#1 Be clear on what you need
First, understand what your company needs specifically. Review the previous sections and break down the areas of your business that you’ll need to focus your SEO efforts on. Then, write it down for yourself and in the job description. If you don’t take the time to investigate this, it may be difficult to distinguish if this person is a good fit.
Important note: I’ve seen many job descriptions that list the job title as something like “SEO Manager” but then also include that this person is responsible for a bazillion other types of marketing. So when formulating your job description, consider a balance of the most important elements you need this person to accomplish — don’t go overboard. If you’re unsure about what to include, check with another SEO or someone in your marketing department to make sure the job description is accurate and fair.
#2 Look for someone with proven results
Ask for a portfolio. Their portfolio may include strategy work and/or optimized content (depending on the type of SEO they specialize in). However, it can be the case that company data is restricted, so if they’re unable to provide this, a trial test (see #4) will clarify their skills.
You want someone with a good balance of experience in your industry and other industries, as they are most likely to find creative solutions and approach SEO strategies more holistically. If they can explain to you how they’ve guided another business towards success using the SEO strategy they developed, then keep them in mind when you make your final decision.
#3 Assess SEO know-how during an interview
Assess their knowledge of SEO using the questions mentioned earlier. Other important questions I’d recommend asking are:
What are the top SEO KPIs to track on a monthly basis?
How do you know when content needs to be optimized after it’s already published?
How do you know when your SEO strategy is working vs. not working?
Someone quick on their feet with well-thought answers will tell you a great deal about their ability to adapt and help your business grow.
#4 Give them a trial test to check their strategic planning skills
As I noted before, knowledge doesn’t do much without action. To determine if a candidate for an SEO position is a match for your needs, they should be able to create a mock strategic plan. One of the best testing methods is to ask candidates to do a mini SEO audit to see how they approach combining data with strategic insights. In combination with their SEO knowledge, their process will tell you everything you need to know to make your choice.
Hiring an in-house SEO is one of the best decisions you’ll make for the longevity of your business
Ultimately, putting in the work upfront to fully vet your next in-house SEO position will pay dividends in the long term. SEO can skyrocket your business efforts to a whole new level, but only with assistance from the right person and with the right strategy.
Without these ingredients, missed opportunities could prevail. To avoid this, be sure to first understand what your marketing team needs and make sure this aligns with the candidate’s particular skill set.
At the end of the day, the most important skill is the ability to keep on learning and improving, because, like SEO, we must all continually optimize.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
loviielilies
aviehehe ⁉️
theeverythingelizabethblog
The Everything Elizabeth Blog
koneko11
Don Patch
latine-panda
The Panda Goes Meow
superbsexyasfuckfunnybailiff
Untitled