SEO ANALYST- TOLA FAMAKINWA

AG: Position and Name of Company?
TF: I’m a SEO Analyst at a UK based Search Marketing company called Epiphany Solutions Ltd

AG: How long have you been with Company?
TF: I recently moved to this company and 1st of September would make it exactly 2 months I’ve been with them.

AG: What does your job entail?
TF: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is about optimizing websites for users and search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing etc) alike on the Internet. As a SEO Analyst, my job is to analyse and report strategies and ways of increasing goals conversion on websites. These goals conversions could be anything from increasing brand awareness, traffic to the website or getting a website ranking top 10 for keywords suitable to their business. Bottomline, No, I don’t work for Google, Yahoo or Bing, but I try very hard to know their business!
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AG: how did you end up on this career path, is this what you saw yourself doing 5years ago
TF: Five years ago, I was just rounding up my first degree in Industrial Mathematics, and to be honest, I had no idea what I wanted to do! I figured I’d end up in a bank or something… But I was fortunate. In 2007 I went on to do my Masters in Computing science in the UK. When I graduated, I started looking for work, ranging from Junior Web developer to Software developer and even Software engineer. I knew programming wasn’t my strong point but the industry was booming so I said what the heck, might as well jump in!

I attended tons of interviews but never quite made it. After over a year of searching, one of the companies I had an interview with called me back a few months after rejecting me for a Junior PHP developer role; they offered me a “less technical role” – a Junior SEO Developer. I jumped at it and since then, I haven’t looked back!

AG: What is your typical day like
TF: 9AM - check my emails, see if any important emails came through and also read SEO blogs and catch up generally on the Web news (I love this part of the day, pretty chilled, just surfing the web really)
10AM – analyse website reports, check website traffic, keyword ranking, see if they’ve jumped up (that’s always great) or mysteriously dropped (not so great), then prepare reports.
11AM - go for client meetings to discuss my report and strategies to increase website goal conversions.
12AM – lunch break!
1PM - check my emails again
2PM - begin the simplest and most boring part of the job – Link-building. This is generally about creating links to a website on as many other websites as possible.
4PM - I prepare for the next day
5PM - Go home! (If we’re lucky we have an office night out!)

AG: Most challenging aspect of job and why?
TF: It would have to be staying on top of the competition, the industry and finding the right SEO balance. There is so much competition out there because lots of other companies are doing SEO, so everyone is competing to be the found on the first page of search engines search results. They’re all coming up with new strategies and ideas, so we have to keep on top of things and make sure our client’s don’t get knocked out of the race, or else we’re going to get very unhappy customers.

AG: What is it that most people assume about your job that's not true?
TF: Other IT professionals don’t believe we’re technical enough and the rest of the world thinks we’re just plain geeks! I am really not a geek and what I do isn’t that complicated. I’m a computer professional but I’m not a geek. Then again, our work can get quite technical, especially if you want to go into the actual “Google Algorithm” but I haven’t taken that path yet.

AG: Favorite aspect of job, least favorite?
TF: My favorite aspect would be the fact that I get paid to the surf the web and go on social media sites like facebook and twitter during office hours! But you know what they say, with great power come great responsibility; you need to be able to manage your time and be accountable for it.

My main challenge is that things are always changing. Everyone’s keeps trying to guess the infamous algorithm to be number one on search engines hence they keep switching things around. The SEO industry ends up keeping everyone on their toes. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it would be nice for things to be quiet…

AG: What is the most important part about a career to you?(Good work, money, security, life balance)
TF: I’ll have to say a job I enjoy doing. Then I’ll go for money, after all, I can’t work for nothing and finally job security.

AG: Future plans?
TF: I’ll love to take on some private consultations and possibly start my own thing, especially back home in Nigeria. The Nigeria Internet market has so much potential, what with mobile Internet and broadband coming up. There are also lots of developers out there designing and building great websites in Nigeria so I believe it’s only a matter of time before digital/search marketing gets as busy in Nigeria as it is over here in the UK and I would love to be part of the action!!!

Follow Tola Famakinwa on:
Twitter: @Tola_SEO
Website: www.tolafamakinwa.net
Blog: seo.tolafamakinwa.net