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Get to know Nick Ilev, Director of Marketing, Gabriel Marketing Group

Nick-Ilev

Please introduce yourself and where you work.


Nick Ilev, Director of Marketing at Gabriel Marketing Group

How do you think SEO has changed over the last 10 years?


SEO has changed a great deal over the last 10 years. The main areas being:With Google. Google has really tightened up the search algorithm. Ten years ago, Black Hat SEO was its own field of study, but now with improved algorithms that are constantly changing, the rankings are truly fair and value oriented.The Hummingbird update of 2013. With this update, the importance of keywords started to fade in place of semantic search intent, or the ability to put typed searches into context. Google is now trying to decipher the meaning behind user search, even if the user is not fully sure of what they’re searching for. Third and final, SEO has become even more competitive over the last 10 years. As cost of Pay-Per Click (PPC) campaigns grows exponentially, the value of organic search rankings is even more important.

How did you get introduced to digital marketing, more specifically SEO?


I started off in web design project management, but it quickly became apparent that having a great website was not enough to ensure a successful web presence. My fascination with driving traffic dates back to the launch of my first website. As a beginner, with no marketing budget to speak of, I turned to organic means of driving visitors to my site, email, organic social and SEO.

What are the services you provide to your clients?


We provide full marketing stack solutions to technology companies. From web development, to paid search, video production and Go-To-Market Strategy; we do it all within the small and midsize tech company vertical.

What strategy according to you will prevail in 2017 for SEO?


Top down differentiation. I think that if you want to be successful in SEO, in 2017 and beyond, you must look at opportunities and niches that you can compete in. We ask ourselves 3 questions as we’re crafting our SEO strategy:
– Are keywords, messaging and Information Architecture all aligned with our core business service offerings?
– Are we optimizing for what our Buyer Personas are actually searching for?
– Are we optimizing for keywords/clusters that we can first-page rank in the first 6 months to a year?

What would your advice be to people who are looking to take up digital marketing as a career choice?


Read, watch videos and listen to podcasts. This industry is constantly changing, and as a result, you must constantly be learning

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