How to get started with SEO - an interview with Kaushik Prakash

I'm excited about this episode with my friend Kaushik Prakash and can't wait to share it with you! Kaushik and I met a few years ago when I considered making a career change into marketing, and he's been an advisor ever since. Kaushik attended Korea University in Seoul, South Korea, to study Mechanical Engineering to follow his passion for cars, just to find out that he liked to admire them more than to build them. Always on the pulse and seeing upcoming trends, Kaushik rode the Instagram wave when it first arrived in East Asia, started marketing small businesses on social media, and fully emerged himself in the digital marketing game during college. Upon graduation, he landed a job as Marketing Manager at a Korean law firm, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic suffered a layoff six months into his stint. The entrepreneurial spirit that got him into digital marketing during his studies at Korea U prompted him to partner with his best mate Ethan Brooke to start Valeo Legal Marketing, an agency specializing in content marketing and search engine optimization for law firms. A big proponent of SEO, Kaushik evangelizes the benefits of SEO on his LinkedIn channel daily, emphasizing that properly optimized content results in consistent lead generation. "When it comes to paid advertising, once you stop running these ads when your marketing budget dries up, your lead flow completely shuts down," he says. "But if you're doing the foundational work with 'evergreen' content, you'll reap the results even three years after publication." Brand visibility is another benefit of proper SEO. And the more your content is featured by prominent media outlets, the better the backlinks and the more relevant your site becomes, leading to higher search engine rankings. The way to earn high-quality backlinks, Kaushik says, "starts with creating high-quality content."About keyword research tools: "invest in proper paid SEO tools," Kaushik says to help you get the most out of the content marketing efforts and create articles people actually search for. Ahrefs, Semrush, or Keysearch, are a few he recommends if you are serious about raising your SEO content marketing game. Once on the platform, type in the service you offer, then pick low-competition, mid to high-volume keywords and create content around those. If you're stretched thin and want to hire an SEO company, make sure that the agency provides you with testimonials, references, and industry-specific case studies. "Choose an agency that is industry specific to get the most out of the partnership," Kaushik advises. If you want to learn more about SEO, check out HubSpot SEO-related content and take one of their courses, and if you'd like to learn more about the different tips and tricks legal marketers should know about, tune into "The Legal 2¢" podcast and follow Kaushik Prakash right here on LinkedIn for your daily dose of SEO related content. Until next time. ✌️