2014 SEO in India Characterized by ‘A Hunger to Get to the Right Knowledge’

SEO in India is headed in the right direction, according to Siddharth Lal, managing director of Bruce Clay India — “there is a hunger to get to the right knowledge,” he said.

“With Google tightening the screws on spam, SEOs who really know what they’re doing are coming into the limelight,” Lal said. “In years past, people could do link building and directory submissions and rank — but that doesn’t work anymore. The focus is starting to shift to strong site architecture, page rank transfer and quality content — things that Bruce Clay Inc. has been doing right since the beginning.”

In years past, Lal observed a “lack of understanding in the (Indian) market about the quality of work and level of work that is required” for SEO. Now, however, SEOs in India are looking beyond link building, as evidenced in the fact that the recent SEOToolSet Training in India was sold out.

“We’re in our fourth year of the SEOToolSet Training. Bruce’s name is well known here, and quality of the training is spreading among SEOs in India,” Lal said. “Twenty percent of the SEOToolSet Training students are repeat students. They keep coming back so they can stay on top of the latest SEO trends. It’s a constantly changing industry and we (Bruce Clay India) are filling a very important gap for proper SEO training.”

“Social media is also very big in India,” Lal said. “A lot of clients want to know more about how social media plays into SEO.”

When it comes to social media, Lal is definitely a strong resource — Lal was recognized by the Chief Marketing Officer Council as the “Most Talented Social Media Professional in India” at the annual CMO Asia Awards for Excellence in Branding and Marketing last month. The reward came as a result of Lal’s innovative social media initiatives and proven SEO skills — under Lal’s direction, BCI India manages SEO for leading Asian corporations, including NEC, AtoS, and India Brand Equity Foundation.

“Recently, we’ve also signed Saavn.com, which is one of India’s largest music-streaming sites, and AmericanSwan.com, which is in the e-commerce space,” Lal said. “Both Saavn.com and AmericanSwan.com have had significant boosts in their organic traffic since we have started working with them. We have also started working with a few brands in the education industry.”

Lal said there is also a high demand for link pruning projects and penalty assessments.

“We have been working with new clients who have been penalized by Google — now we have the responsibility of trying to get them out from the penalty box. These projects are long and hard and require lots of effort,” he said.

Lal will be featured as a speaker at this week’s ad:tech conference in New Delhi (Mar. 20-21). If you’re headed to ad:tech New Dehli, Lal is speaking in the “Goodbye Keywords. Say Hello to the New SEO” session at 3 p.m. on Mar. 21. Lal and Vivek Bhargava (managing director of iProspect Communicate 2) will discuss the the evolution of search engines and reveal new methods for promoting credibility and improving rank online.

Lal on SEO Best Practices at ad:tech New Delhi 2012

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Kristi Kellogg is a journalist, news hound, professional copywriter, and social (media) butterfly. Currently, she is a senior SEO content writer for Conde Nast. Her articles appear in newspapers, magazines, across the Internet and in books such as "Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals" and "The Media Relations Guidebook." Formerly, she was the social media editor at Bruce Clay Inc.

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