Meet the influencers: Lukasz Zelezny
London based Polish SEO and marketing expert Lukasz Zelezny is considered one of the top digital influencers in the world. We learn more about him and his approach.
Where did your story begin?
I graduated from University in 2005 and moved to London, then working in several positions—including web developer and project manager in SEO and PPC at various companies, such as uSwitch and Zoopla.
How did you become so influential?
I have been actively involved in SEO and strategic acquisitions for some time, and cultivated business relationships with as many people as possible. As it’s a close-knit community you see a lot of the same faces.
I’m quite active on social media with frequent tweets and have a complete LinkedIn profile too. I’ve attended and given presentations at many conferences on SEO and related topics over the last decade—meeting influential people and widening my circle of influence, as Warren Buffett once put it.
Do you have any golden rules/mantras for life or work?
It’s very important to stay true to your roots, so I make sure to travel back to Poland as often as I can. I also find that foreign travel is invigorating and provides a growing world view.
It’s beneficial to have some kind of work-life balance. I use my commute to update my Twitter feed and read the latest information about SEO. It’s a rapidly-evolving discipline and so it’s necessary to keep up with it to perform at your best.
What are your three biggest tips for building an audience?
Firstly, building an audience is all about providing well-conceived ideas and hopefully insights into the subject matter. Many blogs repeat the same content written from a different perspective while adding little to the conversation. I find I must boldly put ideas forth, even if I have to adjust the details as I experiment with new theories and test them out in the wild with the search engines.
Secondly, patience is required to build an audience. People don’t necessarily know who you are right away. It takes time, good work, and steady word-of-mouth.
Thirdly, sometimes less is more. Brian Dean has a highly regarded blog about SEO and link-building techniques. He only writes a new blog post every three to six weeks, but he gets a huge response to each new post. He is focused on quality over quantity.
What are your favourite tools/software?
The SEO tools I like to use change and evolve depending on what’s newly available, and old standards that I don’t like to move away from:
- AccuRanker tracks many different keywords and multiple websites across different search engines.
- SEMSTORM is made in Poland, so I have a soft spot for this one.
- SEMRush is great for providing excellent keyword research, backlink analysis and more.
- DeepCrawl: I couldn’t live without their powerful crawler.