Interview with Inbound Marketer Moosa Hemani

iBlogzone.com and Blurbpoint.com are honoured to feature their first interview with SEO Consultant, search blogger and well known person in the search industry, Moosa Hemani. He is in the SEO/search industry, having been involved in it from the beginning. He is a regular SEO columnist with SEO giants like SEOmoz, Search Engine Journal, Daily SEO Tip, Kaiser the SAGE, The Gonzo SEO and more…

Question 1: How did you start up with computers and SEO?

The incident of falling in love with computers precisely SEO was purely coincidental. I was a biology student when started to work in my cousin’s start-up and all I was suppose to do back then was copy paste work, well known as Article Submission today.

The question of why would any one will pay me for just copy paste work made me dig more in to it and then with lot of comprehension, self-education, interaction with Peers and of course experimentation got me here, where I am today 🙂

Question 2: What is Moosa Hemani best known for?

I am not even sure, if I am famous or not but if I had a choice, Link Building would have been my pick as my forte because I really enjoy doing.

Question 3: Where do you see SEO, as a business, going from here?

SEO landscape has changed drastically over the past 1-year and it has come to a situation where there is no choice left for professionals to transform their style of work to a creative yet ethical (or may be die, or find some other profession – as per their personal choice). However, in my personal opinion SEO is growing and will keep growing in 2013 as well.

From service providers point of view if you are not changing the way you were working few years back, your clients will eventually leave you because you will not be able to meet the expectations. At the same time if you are providing quality services you can expect lot of businesses coming your way.

Question 4: How you see the SEO in Pakistan vs other countries?

Repetition is something I do not really prefer but honestly, I cannot help myself saying this constantly that SEO is highly misunderstood here in Pakistan. I have attended many IT events and I hate the fact that many people have no or wrong idea about SEO and how to go with it.

I think SEO around the world is smart (especially UK) and they are working on all the latest tactics that allow the SEO community to grow professionally as well as technically. I think what we need to focus upon is having more SEO gatherings and discussions so that some SEO misconceptions can be resolved and we can have more healthy competition on a professional level.

Question 5: Of all your interviews with industry experts, which one is your favourite? Why?

Interviewing search celebrities is one of my favorites and it is because of the fact that I get a chance to learn first hand knowledge from industry leaders like Julie Joyce, Don Rhoades, Ann Smarty and more.

Out of all the interviews, I think my preferred one is the Interview with Don and that is only because I prepared some really tough question but he answered them all of just so effortlessly. Well I must say he is a real kick ass.

Question 6: What are the couple of SEO tools you used or you can’t live without it?

SEO Tools I cannot live without

• Screaming Frog
• Rank Watch
• Search Enabler
• Link Prospector by Citation Labs
• Yesware
• SEOmoz tool bar

There must be more but these are few of many that I use on frequent basis.

Question 7: Any content strategy you want to recommend for SEOs?

I think the best content strategy when developing content for web is to be real. Worrying about adding keywords in the 1^st paragraph and similar are mere stupidities, avoid them! In my opinion, what works best is to draft content for your targeted audience and keep their taste in mind because at the end of the day, it is not search engine but your readers who matters the most, as they are the one who are going to read it, get influenced and eventually converted.

Question 8: Any advice how to handle negative SEO after Google’s latest update? From your perspective, Have they solved it all now?

I did a post about Negative SEO on SEJ and what I figured out of it is the fact that nobody exactly know if Negative SEO works or not but I think it very much depends upon the kind of website you have. I mean Negative SEO can affect the new brands with no reputation but if you have a website that has certain level of positive reputation and strong back link profile, it will be difficult for anyone to outrank through negative SEO.

I highly disagree with the statement that Negative SEO doesn’t exist, in my opinion it does exist and works but the effect of it is very much depend upon many different factors.

Question 9: Some Tips for beginners: Do you have any advice for people new to SEO? What should they focus to learn firstly?

I have worked with quite a few beginner level SEOs and I think there are few things that are really needed other then technical abilities, which includes writing skills and reading habit. SEO is a rapidly changing industry and if one will not have the mentioned abilities; it will be difficult for anyone to survive in the longer run.

Question 10: Can you tell us a bit about your blog, www.setalks.com. What are you passionate about in this site?

SETalks.com came up in the blogging map with the plan to provide some real and original information to readers and allow them to learn what is new in the search, social and inbound marketing world.

These days I have been focusing Link Building a lot as this is one of the area where people need to change a lot but slowly I will start writing about social and inbound marketing stuff as well.

Question 11: What do you do on your spare time?

Didn’t find the spare time since ages, but whenever I get some I am a movie buff I am fond of watch good movies but after SETalks.com, watching a movie for complete 2 hours seems more like a dream to me! J

Some Personal Question:

Status: In Love with SEO J

Education: Dropout but do not recommend this to anyone.

Favourite Place: to work? Any quite place with low lights and less people around.

SEOmoz or SETalks.com: You love your Baby but you never compare your baby with Mike Tyson… do you? I think there is no comparison I have lot of respect and love for SEOmoz but at the same time SETalks.com is my baby and I had to do everything to let SETalks.com grow.

Lastly great thanks to Sanket for conducting the interview and to Moosa for taking the time to respond to them.

image credit: 123rf.com