By: Sophie Allen Apr 8/2025
Kavan Sohal is a man of many talents. Whether diving into data to find new marketing insights or gracing the silver screen with a cameo in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, he approaches everything with a genuine desire to help and a curiosity to learn more. I’ve known Kavan since 2017 when he was an SEO strategist with a killer shoe collection and a computer screen full of desktop icons. Now, with Snaptech’s remote work offering, I can no longer admire his trendy footwear or marvel at the chaos of desktop icons, but he is honest when I ask how many are currently on his screen.
“34 browser windows all with probably 9-20 tabs.” I know he is laughing as he types this.
It is not the question I asked, but I can see that the overabundance of desktop icons was merely the tip of the iceberg.
All jokes aside, witnessing Kavan’s career progression over the years and getting to work alongside him in two different companies has been a privilege. He is an excellent manager and, above all, a great friend. We managed to find some time in our busy schedules to sit down and talk about marketing, SEO, and what we’re seeing in 2025. Read our chat below.
What does the Head of SEO do and what does that look like at Snaptech?
Great question–it’s a lot of meetings. Meetings with the team itself, sometimes cross-departmental meetings or with the leadership team. So, a lot of that, doing some client work as well and then client comms. That’s pretty much what a day looks like for me, but I do enjoy talking to people, especially since we’re remote.
Are meetings the main difference?
Yeah, I would say it’s the biggest thing since I’m still doing strategy or involved in implementation. The main difference is not just the number of meetings, but also the types of meetings you’re involved in (departmental, leadership, 1-on-1s). At all levels, we’re meeting with clients, so it’s the other meetings that make the biggest difference. I’m also overseeing everybody in SEO, helping out anyone who needs it, etc.
What skills do you need to be a department head?
Being able to manage and deal with people. I think that’s really important. Whether that is coworkers or your direct reports you’re helping with their career goals, skills, and development. There’s that aspect of being able to manage people and be involved there as well as having a good grasp of the department itself and the type of work involved. The rest of the team comes to you for questions that you should be able to answer or at least find a way to get a solution. I think having that is very important.
Why do you like working in marketing?
The biggest reason is because I feel like there’s a bit more creative freedom. That’s why I wanted to go into marketing. I think especially when it comes to SEO, being able to test things and see how that works, helping companies grow–whether that’s the company you’re working for or the clients you’re working with–just seeing the impact that your work is having on the business landscape. Also, working in marketing gives you a pretty good idea of how businesses run because you have to know if their sales are working, if there are organizational issues, and what their data is telling you. I find that all very fascinating.
What aspects do you find to be the most enjoyable?
There are a few. I like interacting with the team, it’s always a pleasure. I like to see what they’re doing and find out if they have any new ideas. I also like to see what the results from the work are–if you’re optimizing a landing page or doing keyword research, are you seeing the rankings improving? Is the page bringing in more traffic and conversions? Is it hitting the types of goals that we want? I like to test out all these different ideas and I think it is really cool and interesting to do and then see the impact of it.
What aspects do you think are the most difficult?
I think the most difficult aspect of marketing is when you get stuck. Sometimes there are things when it comes to maybe certain keywords, a client or company may have expectations for it to jump at a certain level and you’re not able to push it that much further. There’s also the fact that things are always changing, whatever worked yesterday may not work today, which can be difficult. I think that’s the other thing, so that problem-solving ability can sometimes impact things like if something has gone wrong and you don’t know why.
Yeah, there’s no real magic solution to fixing anything, you just have to test and hope that what has worked before will work again or try something new.
Yeah, exactly. It’s not like data entry, for example, where certain formulas work and that doesn’t change. SEO is constantly changing.
What keeps you motivated?
I think what keeps me motivated is the fact that things are always changing; you don’t get bored. You can’t get complacent because things are changing like we’ve seen so much in the past year, one of the biggest examples is with AI and how that will impact everything. Does it impact the way we work? Our processes? I think that’s what motivates me–being able to learn and grow more because I think those skills are very transferable in a lot of different aspects.
Where do you see marketing going in the next five years?
It’s difficult with how much is changing, as you see with AI taking over everything. Even now, with AI Overviews on Google Search is exponentially growing. I can see a lot more AI involvement, we’ll probably get a world filled with a lot of AI content because it’s easier and sometimes it will be good and sometimes it will have the same issues we are currently seeing with it.
I think it’s easier to put it like in a movie. Before, maybe you were the actor and now you’re the director and you’re kind of directing AI to go in a certain way. That’s how I see things going in the next five years, but five years is a long time and I don’t think five years ago people could have predicted where we are now so who knows.
Do you have any advice for someone looking to get into SEO?
You need to be good at problem-solving and researching because as we just talked about, the field is always changing. You need to be on top of all of these changes. If you can be organized with your tasks, be on top of things, and keep up with best practices, that’s the biggest thing. Lastly, you need to be able to just do things–get your hands in and start doing things is the best practice you can get.
For anybody new to SEO, who would you recommend they follow or is there anything they should be reading?
There’s a great newsletter called SEO FOMO that a lot of us are subscribed to here. It’s always got the latest updates in the field. Look at Search Engine Journal and those search news websites, there’s always a lot of information. Moz is also good as they have a really good beginner’s guide to SEO which I highly recommend reading.
Any free or low-cost resources you’d recommend? Like a tool someone could practice with?
Yeah, for sure. Screaming Frog, a technical SEO crawler. It gives you a lot of information to see what a website is optimized for. Look for some type of keyword tracker–there’s a lot out there. You can get some low-cost tools or trials that will give you a basic set of keywords to track.
What would you say has been a career highlight for you?
As far as career highlights go, working with the team here has been really awesome. I’ve gotten to be in a management role which is something I’d been wanting to do for a few years, so working with the team here at Snaptech has been a highlight.
If you weren’t in SEO, what industry would you want to be in or could you see yourself in?
Project management or product marketing would be an area I could see myself getting into because there are a lot of transferable skills. We write product descriptions and manage projects for clients all the time, so I think there are a lot of similar aspects and they’re all creative, so that would be fun.
What about if we erased the last 10-20 years, you’re just coming out of high school, what are you doing with your life?
I always kind of liked the idea of going into movies and acting. Or game development. Keeping that creative aspect going has always been something I’ve been interested in.
Right, and as our resident Snaptech movie star, tell us about your acting career.
Yeah, former Mission Impossible star. Haha. I was a background extra for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. That was a cool experience. I hadn’t done anything like that before and I’ve taken a couple of acting classes for fun. It’s a cool thing that I’ve always enjoyed doing. Nothing big, that’s pretty much my claim to fame.
If you could be in any Marvel movie, who would you want to play? (It can be a reboot or something completely new)
You know, I think I’m going to have to go with Iron Man. He’s got the money, he’s got the suit and everything, like his lifestyle, it seems like that would be pretty fun. I love Spider-Man, but his life is way too depressing.
Oh yeah, definitely. Do you think you could do that though, the Infinity Gauntlet snap? Could you make that sacrifice for everybody…and then come back as Doctor Doom?
Oh, that’s a good question. Yeah. You know what? Yeah, I could, and come back as Doctor Doom, exactly. So yeah, we’ll go with a yes.
Any final words you would like to say?
Marketing is a really interesting career and I encourage anybody interested in something a little more creative to check it out. There are data drive aspects of it too, which are cool to see, but it’s a blend of both and I think when it comes to SEO, it’s fun because of all the changes that are happening to keep it interesting.
Interested in learning more about SEO or about the Snaptech Team? Click the links or send us a message.
About the Author
Sophie Allen