Jason Acidre From Kaiserthesage Interview: How to Be SEO Ninja

So today I have SEO Ninja Jason Acidre From Kaiserthesage who shares lot on link building and SEO strategies on his blog. I learned a lot from his blog when I started SEO and his case studies were so indepth that I used to make notes from his blog posts and implement those on my office projects. This guy is literally internet marketing Ninja. I am glad that he accepted my interview request.

Lets start with interview.

How did you get involved with online marketing? Introduce yourself to BloggersIdeas readers?

I believe it was by pure accident, or perhaps fate. Most of the things I did before (I started building a career in digital marketing) were really unrelated to marketing.

I took civil engineering back in college, I tried building a career as a pro-gamer (counterstrike) for 8 years, and then I became a full-time writer (eventually editor) back in 2007.

But now I realize how almost everything I’ve experienced from my previous endeavors has somehow collectively developed me into someone who can thrive in a very competitive space (digital).

Jason Acidre

Anyway, I came across SEO back in early 2010, when I tried applying for another writing job (for an Australian-based SEO agency). I didn’t have any clue what SEO was back then, but the managers/recruiters processing my application thought that I’d be a better fit for an SEO position.

So I took the offer. They gave me a week to study (they provided tons of ebooks for me to read all week). Luckily, I got really addicted to it. While I was working for them as a newbie SEO (mostly doing grey hat), I was also doing a lot of research and testing on my free time.

A month after, I got nixed (not my fault though – the client I was working on fired the company, so they had to let me go). And fortunately enough, I was immediately hired by Simon Slade just a week after to work on their sites (Salehoo, Affilorama and TrafficTravis). I believe that’s the point where I was really able to take my SEO skills to the next level (major upgrade!).

That was also the time when I started my own blog – Kaiserthesage – to freely do tests on anything related to online marketing.

My career in digital progressed quickly (and unexpectedly) when I started blogging about SEO, as I started receiving service inquiries a couple of weeks after publishing my first 2-part case study. In a stretch of 3 months working in this field, I’ve experienced the 3 types of SEO:

  • An agency guy (the first job I took)
  • In-house SEO
  • Freelance SEO consultant

A year later, with the influx of client inquiries, I decided to start our own agency (Xight Interactive). Then the rest was history.

What do you do now apart from blogging? How many blogs you have?

Majority of my time (60 – 70%) is still spent on consulting work and in promoting our agency (through blogging and speaking gigs). Whereas the rest are spent on building our side projects.

I used to run several websites/blogs a few years back for purely testing purposes (particularly when I was closely working on Affilorama, where I had to test a lot of strategies for affiliate marketing). Though, now we’re mostly focused on building high authority sites (we launched 2 sites earlier this year, and have 2 more on the works – and launched this one yesterday: Grit).

What makes you different than your competitors?

We’re an all-Filipino team, working in the Philippines, helping global brands.

And there’s a huge advantage in working with teams setup here in the Philippines:

  • High literacy rate
  • English is the second language
  • Web-tech savvy (or mostly social – given that we’re a Facebook country).
  • Attractive rates – since cost-of-living is cheaper compared to US, AU and UK.
  • Lastly, we have a solid SEO community here.

Basically, it’s easy to build and scale teams here. But I think what really sets us apart is that we focused on improving our outreach and link building process, which is genuinely a lucrative part of digital marketing, plus the fact that the talent we need is somehow easy for us to acquire here.

Do you think blogging is dead? As Google is bringing a lot of Algo updates and many blogs are dying in 2017?

No! As long as the main objective of the content/blogging campaign is to exemplify a brand’s expertise/authority and to build a strong reputation in its space, it will always remain relevant.

As having a pool of information-rich and highly actionable blog posts will not just help you improve your search visibility, but it can also help attract/earn you more potential customers to your business.

What have you done that you are very proud of? How you take care of your personal life and professional life?

Not really sure at this point. As I’ve been just doing things that I want. It’s just that I really enjoy a lot of things about digital marketing.

But I guess, the one thing I can probably be proud of is that I’ve somehow helped our SEO community here in the Philippines make a dent in the international scene.

As for work-life balance, honestly, I’m not really good at it. Because no matter where I am, I always seem to come up with intriguing/interesting ideas to try and test – I easily get inspired by the things I observe outside of work.

What is your biggest success in Making money online?

The majority are definitely from the consulting/service contracts we’ve landed through my blog.

And honestly, making money wasn’t the biggest success. It’s learning a ton of things I wouldn’t learn elsewhere, through working with either small businesses or bigger brands, meeting other brilliant people in marketing, through failing and the overall experience of building something from ground-up. There’s nothing more rewarding than those.

Also, read our other interviews:

Yeah, (and again) for research and testing purposes. Since we’ve been working with several brands in the e-commerce-education space for the past couple of years.

I actually wrote a comprehensive case study on how to make your first sale on Shopify. You can check some of my tests/insights on that post.

What kind of opportunities are you seeking towards your business? Will you be a blogger forever or will leave blogging after making some handsome money.

I’m not really passionate about writing/blogging – and I don’t really consider myself good at it as well (I think I just have a good feel on how to create uniquely valuable content and understand what sorts of content topics/formats that really work).

Despite that, I don’t see myself quitting it. I enjoy sharing my ideas, especially when I think people will find value in it. Even if I stopped doing SEO (or any online marketing discipline), I think I’d still write.

With regards to opportunities, we’re really focused on building and growing our own web properties now. That’s where our business is headed. But we’re still pretty much open to long-term strategic partnerships with businesses that share our same goal/vision (wherein we can offer our workforce in exchange for equity).

Which are the best affiliates you have tied up with so far?

As I’ve mentioned above, I only did affiliate marketing for tests. The networks that I’ve had the most success with in the past were from Amazon Associates and ClickBank.

How much money do you make through your blog every month? This is a crucial question that every curious on my blog wants to read.

From my blog alone we have above $60K/month worth of contracts for SEO/link building services. But it’s a stressful way to make money from a blog because it requires time, effort and workforce to scale and sustain.

Which are the countries you usually target through your content marketing efforts?

100% of our clients are businesses and brands from US, UK and Australia.

What plugins do you use on your blog?

  • Yoast
  • W3C Total Cache
  • WP DBManager
  • Ninja Forms
  • ManyContacts
  • WP Smush
  • PixelYourSite

How important is social media and SEO for someone’s business to succeed in today’s competitive world?

It’s crucial, and it’s obvious that a lot of businesses are already realizing the importance of getting their brands more visible over the web. Knowing that it’s measurable, cheaper (than traditional channels), and can be specifically targeted. These disciplines are continuously evolving, and they definitely have more firepower now more than ever.

What are your plans for 2018? Are you leaving SEO please share something as SEO is now getting very difficult?

No plans of getting out of the game yet. I find it more exciting these days (I have a lot of tests lined up before the year ends).

I actually published an in-depth guide that features the most effective SEO strategies (with actual case studies) we’ve been using these past couples of years (that we’re also continuously refining, to make sure we’ll be on top of our game when 2018 comes). I highly encourage BloggersIdeas’ readers to check that one out!

The best advice I can give when it comes to SEO is to aim to improve the overall quality and experience of the site, through optimizing on these areas:

  • Architecture – Make it easy for Google to understand, crawl and index your website
  • E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) through all their content and brand assets.
  • Build a positive reputation for your brand (by building more content-based and relationship-driven links).

What will be your message to newbies all over the world who are starting out in make money online?

Never stop learning. The best way to really succeed in this line of business is to make sure you’re well-equipped in terms of skills and experience. Invest more time in improving your knowledge in general internet marketing.

  • Read more. Read every day.
  • Don’t just trust what you’ve read, test everything you’re learning (that’s the best way to know if they will really work). Doing is going to be the most important part of your journey.
  • Analyze your tests. If they work, refine them.

What things you didn’t like about internet marketing gurus? How do you see yourself as guru

I don’t really have any negative comments towards other influencers in the industry. They’re popular for a reason, and people follow them because they did something right.

Honestly, I don’t see myself as a guru. We’re all students of the game. Given that we have to be constantly updated with everything that’s happening in our space. Especially when you’re a consultant, you’ll only be as good as your last reports.

 

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Jitendra Vaswani
This author is verified on BloggersIdeas.com

Jitendra Vaswani is a Digital Marketing Practitioner and renowned international keynote speaker who has embraced the digital nomad lifestyle as he travels around the world. He founded two successful websites, BloggersIdeas.com & Digital Marketing Agency DigiExe of which his success stories have expanded to authoring "Inside A Hustler's Brain : In Pursuit of Financial Freedom” (20,000 copies sold worldwide) and contributing to “International Best Selling Author of Growth Hacking Book 2". Jitendra designed workshops for over 10000+ professionals in Digital marketing across continents; with intentions ultimately anchored towards creating an impactable difference by helping people build their dream business online. Jitendra Vaswani is a high-powered investor with an impressive portfolio that includes Imagestation. To learn more about his investments, Find him on Linkedin, Twitter, & Facebook.

Affiliate disclosure: In full transparency – some of the links on our website are affiliate links, if you use them to make a purchase we will earn a commission at no additional cost for you (none whatsoever!).

Comments (37)

  1. Good to see Jason Acidre From Kaiserthesage with this amazing & interesting interview.

    This type of interview with legends is always amazing to learn & share some unique valuable things.

  2. You share some great tips on how to work on link building strategies.I like how you explain in detail it’s valuable for the newbie thankyou for sharing
    keep it up

  3. Hi Jitendra,
    I have just started my career in Digital Marketing. Thanks for sharing this great post. I am looking forward to more post to enhance my knowledge in this field. Thanks

  4. Hi, Jitendra,
    I am Very Happy.I am searching for SEO tips and Very Nice Blog, this article is very good.
    More posts from your side is expected from readers of your blog. I like how you explain in detail it’s valuable for the newbie thank you.

  5. A best guide for any type for agency or for freelancer as well like me.

  6. nice article i learn a lot in this article sir pls tell me how to index images in google webmaster tool becoz I have a wallpaper download site so I want to index images tell me, sir.

  7. Hi.. there very nice article and informative as well keep up the good work
    thankyou

  8. Nice blogger thanks for sharing.
    SEO tips and I found this great piece of content.

    THanks
    Mr. Azeem

  9. I am searching for SEO tips and I found this great piece of content .
    Thanks for sharing this.
    Sir can you tell me that,adding keywords in your blog post is good or not

  10. You share some great tips on how to work on link building strategies.

  11. You share some great tips on how to work on link building strategies.I like how you explain in detail it’s valuable for the newbie thankyou for sharing

  12. Wow it was really a great great articles, made to understand much about the SEO , WONDERFUL job keep going. Extremely informative post. New bloggers definitely miss such well explained tutorial articles. More posts from your side is expected from readers of your blog.
    Thanks

  13. Extremely informative post. New bloggers definitely miss such well explained tutorial articles. More posts from your side is expected from readers of your blog.
    Thanks,

  14. You share some great tips on how to work on link building strategies.I like how you explain in detail it’s valuable for the newbie thankyou for sharing
    keep it up

  15. You share some great tips on how to work on link building strategies.I like how you explain in detail it’s valuable for the newbie thankyou for sharing
    keep it up

  16. Extremely informative post. New bloggers definitely miss such well explained tutorial articles. More posts from your side is expected from readers of your blog.
    Thanks,

  17. Hi .. Thank you for sharing seo tips. You explain everything in an easy way. Thank you for shearing this tips .

  18. Very Useful and helpful tips you shared and explained, thank for sharing this wonder full knowledge

  19. Hi .. Thank you for sharing tips. You explain everything in an easy way. Thank you for opening the horizon of knowledge to me.

  20. Nice blog. One of the most useful site for promoting business. Thank you for sharing this with us.

  21. Wow it was really a great great articles, made to understand much about the SEO , WONDERFUL job keep going.

  22. Hello Jitendra,

    Good to know Jason over from your space.

    Some great tips shared by his side on how to work on link building strategies and how to boost up our blogs apart from
    promoting. Very important tips from his side on how to get our sites rank well among the SEO and how link building can
    be one of the quickest ways to make money out from our blogs

    Internet marketing is changing every day, so one can not say that he has learned every tip to dip things, one should never
    stop learning because there is always something new which is happening around.

    Thanks for the share.

    Shantanu.

  23. Hi Jason,
    Great meeting you here on Jitendra’s place.
    I like the way you explained your background and how you like to do testing, especially your SEO tactics. I too like to test things before I share it with others. It’s like a game to me…fun stuff.

    Most of all I like your advice to newbies that are starting to make money online. Never stop learning… I do believe that marketing is one part of constantly learning and the other applying it. We can never stop because new things happen fast online and we need to be on the cutting edge of the market. It all gets back to testing to see if it works well.

    Thank you for a wonderful share!

    -Donna

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