In our new section, we will occasionally host leading figures in the digital industry and ask them to answer both professional and personal questions. The goal of this section is to provide a platform for leading people in the digital community, so they can share their knowledge and experience with others.
Last time we hosted Ido Sela, click here to read his answers to the questions.
This time on the A-List section - Anidor Hakak!
How did you start your career?
I’ve always been a content person, ever since childhood. So during my bachelor’s degree (Industrial Engineering & Management), when I was looking for a way to support myself, I identified that there was a demand for online content, so I offered my services. Very quickly, interesting clients arrived who were satisfied with the deliverables, and from that, my first business was born – a content company. From there it evolved into SEO, and the rest is history.
How did you take your first steps in the industry?
A lot of self-taught learning and personal experimentation. I didn’t really know what I was getting into or where I was going; I just started moving forward and exploring. I discovered a world that simply fascinated me and drew me to put aside the entire engineering field I studied in my degree and jump into the deep end of being “self-employed” in Israel. As soon as I realized that my content was helping my clients grow and also rank higher on Google, and I discovered the world of SEO, I decided to go all-in on the field and advance in it.
My way of gaining exposure to new clients and industry colleagues was to do what I do best – write and make information accessible. Very quickly, I set up several blogs and began producing a lot of content, which later helped me build my name and recruit the first clients for the business.
What main platforms do you recommend advertisers use?
The main platform that I have always recommended is your website. I meet a lot of marketers who choose the tactic of “not needing” a website and that everything can be run directly from their Facebook page. In my eyes, this is a misunderstanding and incorrect use of marketing channels. Facebook is a great marketing channel, but not the center of operations. The center of operations for any digital professional must be their website, where channels like Google and social networks should serve as traffic sources. You also can’t create a presence on all social networks; focus on a few channels where you are strong and build a presence there.
Naturally, I strongly recommend that every marketer build an SEO strategy based on consistent content creation on the website. Appearing in the top results on Google for topics related to your professional field is a great way to build reputation and professional authority, which increases the volume of inquiries from potential clients.
What do you think is the next big thing in digital marketing?
Automation and personalization. More focused and personalized marketing for the client while creating automations that will manage this activity for you behind the scenes.
What does your daily work routine look like?
My day starts with a high-level overview – emails, client ranking status and issues to handle, conversations with employees, client calls. Later in the day, I try to find time for focused personal work on various projects, strategies, research, preparing lectures, and more. I try to be available to my team for ongoing work.
My schedule is planned a month in advance with defined times for each activity so that important tasks also get prioritized, not just urgent ones. I definitely leave room for unexpected events, but I don’t compromise on including projects and tasks that are important for me to prioritize.
Every week, I try to lecture two to three times at most and create professional content. This allows me to maintain contact with the audience and gain great satisfaction from sharing knowledge, alongside increasing exposure to additional target audiences.
What was the marketing move you made that kept you up for a few nights?
I’ve had the chance to oversee several site migrations for massive portals where any error could cost the client huge financial losses. The responsibility and the desire to produce as smooth a transition as possible with zero volatility definitely cause some sleepless nights.
What advice would you give to someone who has just started their journey in the digital world?
Start a blog and begin writing / launch a YouTube channel for YouTube advertising / start a podcast = create professional content consistently.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
Case studies of marketers and entrepreneurs that mainly reveal their day-to-day challenges and not just their successes. Over the years, I’ve learned that the people who impress me aren’t necessarily the ones who talk a lot, but those I can sit with for an hour in a meeting and later discover in retrospect about an amazing venture they founded in the past or an incredible marketing move they took part in (and I only found out in retrospect, not directly from them).
How do you stay updated on what's new in the world and in general?
I try to consume professional content as much as possible (and still feel I don’t do as much as I’d like). Videos, articles, infographics, etc. I try not to get sucked into pointless debates in Facebook groups.
Did you feel at any stage of your career that you made a breakthrough?
At a certain point after creating quite a bit of content and sharing lots of information and value online, I noticed that suddenly every day people were tagging me in numerous discussions, my articles were getting shared and linked to from various sites across the web, and I received quite a few recommendations from people who read my blogs. Very quickly I found myself invited to lecture at quite a few colleges and conferences, and I realized something was happening.
How do you summarize the year 2021?
Deconstruction and reconstruction. The manpower challenges of COVID-19 and the tech boom.
And out of deconstruction and reconstruction, moving toward renewal and growth.
What was one of the biggest challenges during this period for you?
Manpower and preserving organizational knowledge.
Do you have new tools or activities that you credit to the COVID-19 period? Ones that without it, you might not have implemented?
On one hand, the COVID-19 pandemic helped me refine myself and the business by focusing on the services we excel at and want to continue providing, alongside letting go of services that generate more noise than profitable income for us.
Additionally, I took advantage of the pandemic to introduce quite a bit of automation into ongoing operations (Airtable is one of the tools!), which also helped in better organizational knowledge management and smarter, more proper management of some organizational activities.
Following the COVID-19 crisis, what should we take with us moving forward to preserve?
Do what you do best and outsource the rest
Focus on what we’re good at, stop taking on projects that aren’t “us” – it’s better to be small, efficient, and professional than large, scattered, inefficient, and full of noise (with seemingly more revenue)
A bit about the interviewee
Anidor Hakak
Industrial Management Engineer, veteran lecturer in academia and various colleges such as: Ono Academic College, Hadassah College, The Open University, Tel-Hai College, Azrieli College of Engineering, HackerU, The New Media College, MATI Digital, and more.
Owner of a web content writing and management business since 2006 – AD Content and Media
Founder of an SEO and Internet Marketing company since 2009 – Hayde Digital.
And partner in Pinetree, a company providing SEO and digital marketing services in the US.
