Meet our Steve
Steve Hanson
Steve Hanson has been part of the Slightly Different crew for long enough to know that if we ask him to dress as a bumble bee for the front cover of our March newsletter to smile and say yes! Steve heads up our online marketing team and is by admission a true nerd when it comes to online tools. Steve’s expertise in online marketing is often referred to as a black art! I thought I’d drag him away from his PC for a few tweets to find out more..
At this point its worth mentioning that Steve is not from around these parts. No he’s not local.. he’s from abroad in Huddersfield, which apparently is a town in the Frozen North. Any of this conversation I felt required translation has been done for your comfort and understanding.
Me: Hi Steve, great Bee outfit! Obviously you were happy about that, as I could tell by your smile!
Steve: I loved it. It wasn’t easy to find a bee costume that actually fitted, good job I’m only small.
Me: So, I see you pretty much every day but for the sake of our readers who are you and what is it you do?
Steve: Well, in a nutshell, I make sure that our clients site’s get found. But the role is much more collaborative than the standard online marketing approach. I get involved right at the start when a design is first being discussed. I sit down with the design guys and we brainstorm some ideas, discuss calls to action and how we see things working, both from a users point of view and from the clients. From an online marketing perspective, it is my job to make sure the site is fully optimised for search, carry out link building and social media marketing. Basically, all the bits and bobs that mean our sites get found for the right words when people are searching. Really though, it’s about results, traffic isn’t enough, I want that traffiic to convert.
Me: joking aside, do you think that Google Buzz will outshine Twitter and Facebook then? Or is this just another box Goolge can tick as done?
Steve: To be quite honest, I’m not sure just how successful it will be. Their previous social networking outings haven’t been earth shatteringly successful. It does smack a bit of Google trying to get in on the act, and it would appear they are just trying to leverage their existing customer base, but to what end remains to be seen. Interesting that a Google spokeperson recently said they are going to be ‘all about mobile’ which suggest this may be just one of the many pies they have their fingers in and their main focus, especially for revenue generation, will continue to be ads, be it online or on mobile.
Me: It seems that the constant stream of new tools and changes in the way search engines work are pretty fast paced, how does this affect what you do for clients on a day to day basis?
Steve: It can be a bit of a nightmare! There are a lot of things that will always be the same, such as link building, it’s just the way we go about it that changes. Social Media has changed the landscape a lot. What concerns me the most are all the new ’social media experts’ who have sprung up, shouting about how everyone must twitter and twitter now! Personally, I see social media as a tool which has it’s uses, but also has it’s limitations. When you’ve been around the web as long as I have, you learn to be a bit more pragmatic. What is new and shiny right now, may be dead in the water next year. Take a look at FriendsReunited or even MySpace for a couple of over valued sites which are declining rapidly.
The hardest thing about my job is search engines constantly changing the way they display results. Google has rolled out personalised search results which means that no two people wills see the same thing. Makes it kind of hard to maintain a high search engine position when you don’t know what everyone else will be seeing! It means that I have to be very proactive and adapt existing techniques to an ever changing landscape. The bonus is that you never get chance to be bored by it, as there is always a fresh challenge out there.
Me: Sounds like a constant challenge then.. so tell us more about you Steve, who’s the man behind the black and gold stripes?
Steve: Well, after I retired from being an international spy, I got into web stuff by accident. A training company I worked for put me on a web design course so that I could then build their site. This was back in the early 90s, and it was all done in text pads and uploaded via a DOS prompt. Although I was technically OK, I didn’t have the design skill needed to cut it as a pro. I got into the marketing side after reading a book about permission marketing by Seth Godin. I was always interested in marketing as a career, and web marketing seemed to be a growth area, so seemed ideal. I then worked as a consultant in this area before starting for Slightly Different. I’ll always remember the day I got the phone call about whether I would be willing to move to Cornwall. I turned to my partner Sarah who was with me at the time and asked her, she nodded so fast her head almost fell off! Within months Sarah, our hairy son/dog Dexter and I made the move for good. It’s great to live in Cornwall, although I didn’t expect this much rain.
Me: The more rain we get the better the pasties taste Steve! Come on then, what’s the best bit about your job?
Steve: That’s a tough one as there any many ‘best bits’. I love brainstorming new ideas with the team, I love the way we always look to push what’s possible, but I suppose most of all I love it when our clients win, which normally means a top spot on Google.
Me: And the most challenging? (Aside from the dressing up you’re made to do)
Steve: Keeping those top spots! Whenever I approach a new client’s marketing, I always look at who is in the position I want to be in and then set out to beat them. The only thing is, once you’ve done that, you can guarantee someone is doing the same to you!
If you are interested to find out how Steve can help your business grow, sell more products online, improve your search engine position or learn more about email marketing, please contact him direct steve@slightlydifferent.co.uk or pick up the phone 01326 372416..
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