Manikarthik is a well known Professional Blogger and an Seo expert from Kerala,India.He blogs on Daily Seo blog on Seo Techniques and Social Media Marketing.Apart from daily Seo Blog he also blogs at Manikarthik.com and helps  online companies with SEO, SMM with online marketing efforts. He Helps people with Online Marketing Techniques and if you are an absolute Beginner then Daily SEO Blog is what you want !

On Basic Blogging,Posture and methodology

Amit : When did you start blogging and what made you started blogging?
Manikarthik : I started almost 2 years ago. But technically moved to dailyseoblog.com by July 2007. It was an experiment.

Amit : How many blogs do you have or write for currently ?
Manikarthik :I have several projects on blogging, some are group blogging projects, some are passion oriented ones. They are 14 in number and some of them are dead.However I guest blog at webbizideas.com,mashable.com,and seohosting.com.

Amit : How many hours do you dedicate to your Blog every day? Are you a full time blogger?
Manikarthik :I’m a full time blogger, I spent most of my time online, that’s more than eight hours a day may be.

Amit : Three Bloggers whom you admire the most ?
Manikarthik :Darren Rowse for consistency, Amit Agarwal for exclusivity and John Chow for his strategies.

Amit : Digg or Stumbleupon?
Manikarthik :Both.

Amit : Best Seo analyst acording to you ?
Manikarthik :Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz.

Amit : What would you suggest for a blogger, who have just started his blog ?
Manikarthik:Write exclusive and refreshingly different content. I won’t say dont follow the normal cliched stuff, but atleast present it in a different manner. And also, try to be consistent.

On SEO.

Amit : Yours is an Seo Blog and it is quite different from Other Blogs in the Niche.Where do you Find Compelling Content ? What Inspires you to Write ?

Manikarthik :Thanks for the comment. Well, I’ve been experimenting things myself right when I started off, so most of the articles were inferences of those. I always tried to write simple, easy to understand content and not the regular BS. So inspiration is my practices and experiments if they can be called so.

Amit : Are there any mistakes that lots of people make that end up doing more harm than good concerning Seo?
Manikarthik :I guess yes. For instance following a 6% Keyword density was a formula many people followed. But it’s not relevant anymore. And that’s one thing about SEO, algorithms change and you have to be on the edge to follow the right ones. Those who were following strict mathematical keyword densities did well once, but when Google moved away from it, they were pushed to the “spam crowd”. Unfortunately, even today many “SEO’s” claim that Keyword density is relevant, but it is their loss not understanding it properly. The biggest mistake in SEO is when you follow a pattern or formula. It’s a dangerous trend.

Amit : What are the Basic Seo practices you would Suggest For Beginners ?
Manikarthik:Write lot of textual content that’s got a lot of food for the engines. That may mean very long articles. And use a balanced onsite optimization strategy on them. Follow a good link building habit, that’s healthy for you. Quit thinking that things happen fast and quick fixes work. No. Things happen really slow but once you achieve the quality bar, things will probably soar from there.

Amit : What are some of the biggest misconceptions about SEO that you hear from Bloggers ? From other SEOs?

Manikarthik :
1 – Keyword densities work.
2 – Page rank is all about one thousand link backs.
3 – Page rank affects SERPs positions.
4 – SEO methods are 100% guaranteed.

Amit : Webmasters give a lot of attention to Meta tags and submission tricks for high rankings. What part does relevant content play in the search engine marketing ? How important is keyword-rich content in an SEO campaign?
Manikarthik :Meta tags does not affect directly in your SERPs. They are only an additional detail. But yes relevant content is very important. Keyword rich content is important, but more important would be a natural richness brought through use of keyword variations and highlighting.

Amit : What kind of effect do you think social media has had on the search marketing industry?
Manikarthik :Social Media is the next big thing (It is already). My guess is social media will be closely involved in search and deciding what is popular and not. Like the Google Search Wiki that’s introduced lately, I won’t be surprised if a certain part of SEPRs is controlled by user generated content.

Amit : What do you think the most important SEO trends will be in the coming years?
Manikarthik :Mobile search and off web SEO will soar up and more platforms that run parallel to the web will come into existence.

Personal Experiences

Amit : What have been some of the challenges?
Manikarthik :Ensuring quality for the articles and not endind up as a “yet another guy” .

Amit : What has been the most satisfying part of growing Daily Seo Blog ?
Manikarthik :A healthy readership base and recognition. It might sound silly, but I outsource some of my work to the US, we all thought it’s the other way round, right ? So DSB has helped me build a platform to establish myself as an authority, or so I prefer to believe.

Amit : How has your blog audience changed over the years?
Manikarthik :They’ve grown in numbers, which is great.

Amit : Your Biggest Blogging Success?
Manikarthik :Well, DSB of course. Being able to work from home, earning four times a daily job, and being in company with your kid almost all the time is fantastic. Is it not?