by Hans van Putten - Digital Artist and Marketer | Business Consultant

Does Age Matter in SEO?

Age and SEO - Hans van Putten - Blog - ben-kolde-430909-unsplash-350x350Does age matter in SEO is the big question. It is not easy for any “Old” guy or girl (read 40+) to get work that can be done much faster by a 14 year old, right?! Well not so fast, pardon my pun, an intended one.

A Brief Flashback

I worked for the Gillette Co. for 10 years, had my food manufacturing business for close to 20 years and sold it successfully in 2014. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Starting a new business under my 40ParkLane, llc umbrella or looking for a steady (read paying) job. So I signed up for the top employment sites like www.Indeed.com and www.careerbuilder.com just to see how my impressive (other people’s words) resume would stack up against my (often much younger) competitors.

I created various resumes, one for financial planning, one for business management of any sort, one for webdesign and one for digital marketing. I started getting a lot of interest and requests for interviews and as long as they did not know my age everything was fine. Although from the length of my resume they could guess I was no Spring Chicken, haha. I started getting invited to face to face interviews, even second and third ones! Most of them in the Digital Marketing area because I was pushing that most as that’s the area where my passion and recent expertise lies.

But here came the crux, during several interviews I was facing teens! And they were facing someone who was clearly not a teen anymore! I was more nervous facing an interview with teens who were looking like I was their step-dad trying to replace them than being interviewed by a CEO. On most occasions I was told that everything was great but that they were still interviewing. But each time it seemed like they were looking for a young one, straight out of college whose life was Digital Marketing 24/7 and who could back that up with certificates I had not even heard of.

Is Business Experience Needed in Digital Marketing?

During most of my initial interviews it was clear, experience took a back-seat. You would almost get the impression that the Digital Marketing world is a young one.What is often missing is exactly the experience, not just the Digital Marketing experience but also and maybe more importantly the business experience. Digital marketing is not just a technical game, it is very much a strategic game and young, inexperienced graduates often don’t have the vision or insight into what is needed strategically.

Alternatively people with experience are immediately seen as “Consultant” material, and a lot of companies don’t like to pay for a consultant, who tells them what to do, which more often than not is what we all knew had to be done in the first place.

Oh how great it is to be a 14 year old like Laloshi, whose story you can read in the article below. Age should not matter, as the outside of any person should not matter, right?! Like “Don’t judge a book by its cover!”. Reality is, and maybe I should say, the other side of the coin is simply that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and perception often takes precedence over reality.

But good for Laloshi! We at www.WorlWidelocalConnect.com are working to create a community of experienced people of any field, who don’t need to make the mistakes anymore that young prodigies like Laloshi no doubt will make, possibly at great expense to himself or others.

If you want to read more about Laloshi click on the link below to read the original article on inc.com

Discover how a 13-year-old living in Fort Lauderdale turned his SEO obsession into a thriving, 6 figure business with clients across the country.

Source: How a 13-Year-Old Immigrant Built a 6-Figure SEO Business From Scratch

Hans van Putten - Digital Artist - Marketer and Business Advisor