Elisa Gabbert is the content manager at WordStream, where she runs the WordStream Internet Marketing Blog and helps market the company’s AdWords software, PPC management services and keyword research tools. She also writes poetry and perfume criticism. She currently lives in Denver. You can follow her on Twitter at @egabbert (but expect tasteless jokes and bad puns).

1. Can you give us a summary of your SEO experience thus far? What is your current niche?

I got into the SEO industry about five years ago, sort of by accident – I was working as an editorial assistant on a website at a big media company. Their model was to run a bunch of highly targeted websites (each aimed at a slice of the technology market, mostly B2B but some B2C as well – stuff like Oracle, Linux, server storage, etc.) and sell advertising against those sites. When I started, no one even knew what SEO was, but it slowly became a bigger and bigger part of our strategy company-wide. Most people hated it – the company employed a lot of journalists who were coming from a print background – but a few people saw how important it was and some (crazy nerds) even found it interesting (oh, hi). So I moved into an “SEO specialist” role, making recommendations for a group of websites.

Now I work as a copywriter for a venture-backed startup that offers search marketing software and services, including a PPC management platform and various SEO tools (free and paid). We like to say this is the Olympics of search, because we’re competing to rank on search marketing terms with other companies that, like us, really know search marketing. So it’s very challenging, and VERY META.

2. How do you feel about the recent Google privacy changes that will now prevent us from seeing logged-in Google keyword data in Google Analytics? It’s apparently not the case for PPC. Fair or not?

I actually just blogged about this news. I tend to side with the “privacy schmivacy” folks – clearly other motives were driving this decision. I think it sucks because that’s such useful data. The worry is that it will eventually affect all organic referrals, as opposed to just a fraction as it does now. Then keyword research/optimization for SEO officially becomes total guesswork.

3. Any tips on how to use PPC data for organic SEO and link building?

Especially now that Google is taking away some of your organic search query data, it’s super important to keep an eye on your search query report if you do PPC. Assuming you’re using broad match and modified broad match (and you should be, in concert with negative keywords), you’ll be able to discover all kinds of new keywords that you can then incorporate into your content strategy. If you manage pretty large, complicated accounts, you might want to take a look at Chad Summerhill’s tips for search query mining – he includes a link to an Excel download that can help you sort through the data. You can download the full series in PDF as part of our negative keyword e-book.

4. Besides Wordstream tools, what else do you use?

I usually use our own tool for keyword research, but I sometimes consult the Google keyword tool for comparison. I also use Google Analytics. Otherwise it’s mostly me and a Word doc. And Twitter! I’m on Twitter all day. As a writer, I can focus on content strategy and leave most of the hardcore geek stuff to our SEO guy. I avoid Excel whenever possible.

5. What are the best resources available for someone with a small budget, new to PPC?

How small is small? If we’re talking really tiny, Google offers “AdWords Express” which requires very little effort on the advertiser’s part, but you give up a lot of control, so that’s iffy unless you’re talking a budget of like $100 a month and no experience with PPC. Beyond that, I’d recommend reading a lot of blogs to keep up with PPC best practices and the constant changes and additions to the AdWords interface. Tom Demers is my point man for keeping up with AdWords. And here’s a big list of awesome PPC blogs from BoostCTR. (Speaking of which, BoostCTR is an affordable way to get help with your ad copy.) Attend webinars, download white papers – take advantage of all the free resources that PPC companies offer in order to get your email address. The amount you can afford to spend on getting help with PPC will depend on your monthly budget. If you’re spending $1,000 a month or more, you can probably afford to invest in some tools.

6. What’s a typical day like for you?

The first thing I do every morning – after checking my email and putting out any fires – is publish a new blog post on the WordStream blog. We try to do at least one new post every week day. The blog is my baby. Then I push it out through Twitter and poke around on TweetDeck to see what people are talking about. The rest of my day is some combination of meetings (talking strategy with the rest of the marketing team, planning for new features or product launches, etc.) and writing and/or editing (articles for our own blog, guest posts and contributed articles, email marketing, white papers, and so on and so on), with a little social media and link promotion sprinkled in for good measure.

7. Name your dream client and tell us why.

Anthropologie, because maybe we could work out some kind of discount? (Editor’s note: you and me both, sister.)

8. What’s the best piece of SEO advice you’ve ever received? Ever given?

I think the best advice I got was from Larry Kim, who told me to copy Wikipedia. Who else, aside from Google itself, enjoys first-page rankings for such a wide array of keywords? So we try to emulate them on a smaller scale – create encyclopedic content on a topic (for us, that’s search marketing); organize it taxonomically; interlink heavily; use the keyword in the URL, title, first sentence, subheads, image file names and alt text; build anchor text links; etc….

As for given? My favorite piece of advice is: When you don’t know what to blog about, consult your analytics. Inevitably, you’ll find a traffic-driving search query that you don’t have a dedicated post for yet. So write it, duh!
9. Write an SEO haiku. Just kidding!! Who’d win in a fight between Martin Amis and Ian McEwan?

I don’t know, they’re both pretty namby-pamby, wouldn’t you say? I think the ghost of Kingsley Amis, annoyed by their bickering, would hangover-vomit on them from above. (Editor’s note: I think Amis is less so than McEwan but McEwan is creepier, therefore he’d win. However that 9/11 book by Martin proved that he’s a bit scary, so…ok Amis would win.)

10. What’s the biggest bullshit SEO advice going around today? I’m quite annoyed by all of the “must do” items being pushed about. We didn’t have freaking wordpress tags in place and we still ranked, damn you all!!

The perpetual thorn in my side is the obsession with getting into Google News. Sure, it can send lots of traffic, but I think evergreen content is more useful for our business model.

11. If you were not working in SEO, what would you be doing, besides staying home watching Oprah reruns and eating moonpies? Or is that just me?

I’m a writer, so I’d spend my days writing about one of my other interests – mostly frivolous things like perfume and outfits, but I’m also into lofty pretentious stuff like poetry and women’s rights and “culture.” So if it weren’t for this SEO gig I’d probably be our generation’s Joan Didion.

12. Who are the most fun SEOs you’ve met and why? For the sake of not having to arsekiss this cannot include any of your bosses.

Can it include you or does that count as arsekissing? (Editor’s note: I’d have accepted that HAD YOU MENTIONED ME.) My former bosses, Tom Demers and Ken Lyons (who now run Measured SEM), are a laugh a minute. I’ve met a lot of great people through WordStream. If Twitter counts as a “meetingplace,” I’m a big fan of Dr. Pete.

13. What’s the ickiest search you’ve ever stumbled across? When I was researching the types of chickens I wanted to get (shut up) I accidentally searched for “black sex links” instead of “black sex link chickens.” Yeah. Unfun. Luckily it was a web search, not an image search.

I’m totally impressed that you have chickens. Please invite me over for breakfast. (I mean to eat eggs, not the chickens.) I don’t think I’ve ever “accidentally” searched for kinky sex tricks, but one of the common keyword referrals for my blog is “dave matthews band tattoos.” How icky is that? Also “emo gay sex blogspot,” but that’s just cute.

Now this is Julie talking…I realize there are a lot of links to Wordstream here so before any of you start thinking they’re giving me free stuff or in any way influencing me, let me say that I WISH THEY DID. They don’t. I just think Elisa is three hoots and I like to see literate folk in our industry. Thanks for the interview Ms. Gabbert!!

In the final of our SES London 2010 interviews, Tami Dalley of Acronym Media gives us some great in-depth advice about multi-layered approaches to data analysis; particularly useful for difficult, non-comparable and small data-sets.

In this second of a two- part interview with Fantomaster, we talk pills, porn, casino and the nature of risk in SEO; automation and the future in an increasingly social-interpersonal world.

Plus!.. “The Julie Joyce Inaugural Music Question.”

In tomorrow’s interview Tami Dalley, of Acronym Media will be talking to me about sophistocated keyword and data analysis for complex data-sets.

Hopefully by now you will be over your conference fatigue, post SES and pre SMX. We thought now might be a good time to share with you some of the video interviews we did at SES London.

In this first interview with Fantomaster, (Ralph Tegtemeier) gives a bit of insight into the history and evolution of the business.

In part II tomorrow, Fantomaster talks about the nature of automation and attitudes towards it…

It’s no secret that the SEO industry is full of stunning women. No, Jane and Lisa didn’t pay me to write that but I’d be happy to accept payment, if they insist. KeyRelevance‘s Christine Churchill, however, takes it to a new level. Obviously being a supermodel simply didn’t interest her. At the risk of gushing like a 14 year old boy, this woman is an absolute goddess. In our wonderful email conversations and during the unfortunately brief time we had to chat at LondonSEO, I discovered that pedestals were created especially for women like this.

Without further embarrassing nonsense on my part, I give you the lovely Christine Churchill, who was kind enough to let me interview her, something that made me giggle with glee.

KeyRelevance's Christine Churchill

Q: You have an utterly frighteningly impressive background, speaking at conferences, moderating forums, writing for industry publications, serving on boards and industry associations, running companies…I could go on and on, as anyone who reads this blog knows. However, what I find most striking about you is that with all these prolific contributions to online marketing and SEO, you continue to do interesting things. How do you keep yourself wanting to stay so involved?

Thank you for the kind words Julie.  I’m afraid my accomplishments are quite humble compared to many others in this industry, but I love search, so it feels natural to me to stay involved.   That said, there are a few things that motivate me and keep me excited about search.  I love how search continually morphs and evolves.  The SEO of today is different and better than the SEO of the 90s.

I also like the variety of working with different clients.  Online marketing is an industry that every business can benefit from.  Over the years I have had the honor to work in a variety of verticals and with a variety of niches including cruise lines and hotels, steel foundries, schools, ecommerce sites, security companies, babies to brides, software companies, service companies, etc.  I’ve worked with sole proprietorships, partnerships, and large publicly traded companies.  I’ve worked on nationally focused and locally focused companies.  This variety is an important part of what keeps the work fresh and interesting.  It is still fun for me to get involved with a company and help them to figure out what they need and how KeyRelevance can help them to solve their problems and achieve their goals.  My company is small, and I like it that way: I want to stay “hands-on” with my clients and not just be a figurehead.  That hands-on involvement as a part of their team is what keeps things “alive” for me.

If your day SEO work doesn’t give you exposure to a variety of niches, something you can do on your own time to help renew your love of search is to apply the knowledge to work on hobby and personal interests sites.  I would encourage any SEO to have a few fun sites.  Playing on these sites allows the SEO to hone skills, try out new ideas, and explore the changing landscape of the search engines.

Finally, I would have to say that one of the biggest ways I have found to keep search “fresh” is to find ways to use search skills to “give back.”  I still believe in that old saying “the more you give, the more you get in return.”   For me, I have found that getting involved with local non-profit and other local grassroots groups gives me a new energy and a positive intangible feeling.   Almost every organization wants a strong web presence and they rarely know how to go about achieving it.  When you offer search skills; it’s usually very welcomed.

I like to get involved with activities that overlap in my personal interests.  For example, I am an avid horse person and love children and the environment.  I didn’t have to look very far to find local organizations needing talent.   I’ve donated time to my local school district, a therapeutic horse riding school, and a local conservation organization.  In fact, I am on the Board of Directors of the local non-profit conservation group right now.   There is nothing like having to work on a shoestring budget to challenge your creative skills.  It will revitalize you, improve your skills, and remind you that search can be fun.  Isn’t that the reason we all got into search in the first place?

Q: Have you had instances where you felt that you weren’t taken as seriously as you would have been if you’d been a man? Strong women aren’t always 100% welcomed, sadly.

I grew up with four brothers who thought of me as their punk little sister, so I learned early in life how a woman often has to work twice as hard to be taken seriously.  The good news is that the Internet is a great equalizer.  It is new technology, and with the World Wide Web being around for less than 15 years, I think it has avoided some of the good-ol’-boys stigmatism that exists in other established industries.

I also feel that the generational difference in the WWW-era companies has helped women.  Younger generations are often very accepting of women as equals.  We do still see some problems when the SEO companies have to speak to old-school bricks-and-mortar companies and their sometimes entrenched philosophies, but overall I think women in search are taken very seriously.

If you can show positive results, it doesn’t matter what your gender is, you’ll be taken seriously.  One of my favorite tag lines belongs to my dear friend and SEO super star Rae Hoffman.  Rae is one of the most amazing and inspiring people I know, on or off the web.  Rae’s tag line sums up the essence of the strong capable woman who can hold her own in any world.  It reads “never mess with a woman who can pull rank.”  I still smile every time I read it.

Q: How do you like being a Ninja?

<Laughs>Well, it is always nice to be recognized.  When my daughter found out I was an Internet Marketing Ninja, she wanted to know if I was going to get one of those cool ninja uniforms.  So, Jim Boykin, if you read this, I’m still waiting for my ninja outfit to arrive.  Oh and Jim, I need it in Tall. 

Q: You’ve taught SEO classes before. You’ve probably also worked with people who haven’t been schooled in SEO. Do you think that SEO is something that can be learned, or do you think that you also need to possess an innate ability to do it well?

The old nature versus nurture question applied to SEO.    Taking a training course in basic SEO techniques and thinking that’s all you need to be successful in your new career, is akin to someone handing you the first ingredient in an award winning recipe and not telling you the amounts, the other ingredients, nor the techniques needed.  SEO, by itself,  is not rocket science and while there are a number of basic tenets that should be followed for all sites, there are many other essential ingredients that you need in the mix to cook up the tastiest dish.  Basic SEO tenets can be taught pretty easily, but there is definitely an art to the process and a finesse that takes time and experience to develop.

Here’s the essence of the problem.  You cannot simply and blindly follow formulas (X% Keyword density, Y # of out bound links per page, etc.) to make SEO work.  SEOs that follow this mechanical technical approach will get limited results.  Those techniques might have worked in 1999 when SEO was more formulaic, but today the SEO needs to be a marketer – they need to think bigger picture and more holistically.

Today you obviously still need to know the technical mechanics of optimization, but to be really successful you need to have many skill sets.  To stay successful in online marketing you have to keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to force yourself to learn new techniques and expand your abilities.  If you’re not actively out there developing new skills, you’ll wilt on the vine.  This drive to excel requires passion….it’s a characteristic I’ve seen in all successful search marketers.  Those who don’t have passion don’t stay in the industry long.

In addition to having a passion for search, there are some important skills sets that a good SEO needs to acquire.  First, an SEO needs to know HTML code.  You don’t necessarily have to be a coder, but  I would encourage anyone coming into the industry to at least learn a smattering of basic HTML….if they can’t do that, they will always be limited in how far they can go with SEO.  You need to be able to at least look at code because you need to be able to see a page as a search engine sees it.

Something else a good SEO needs to develop is persuasive copywriting skills.   Again, you don’t have to be Pulitzer Prize-caliber writer, but learning how to write for the web is a conscious effort that pays off many times more than the effort required to learn it.   Writing is something that improves the more you practice.

Another skill set a good marketer should acquire is a solid grounding in usability – the ability to know what makes a site easier to use.  There is strong synergy between SEO and usability.  The very things you do to make a web site easier for the user, is often the same things you do to make it easier for the search engines to crawl the site.   Visitors are like a search engine spider – if they don’t see an easy way to navigate and extract information from your site, they leave.  Having a good understanding for what makes a site usable and convert requires knowledge in motivational and behavioral psychology.  We are all complex beings motivated by different needs.  Identifying what a visitor needs and wants is the first step in satisfying them.  This is one of the reasons I’m a big advocate for live user testing.  I love data to identify a problem area on a web site, but there is nothing as effective as feedback straight from a user to tell you the “why” behind a problem.

A practical skill a good SEO should cultivate is the ability to see creative ways to get links.  Because the engines weigh linkage data so heavily in their ranking algorithms, linking is an essential ingredient for online success and being able to locate and secure topical links from high quality sites is a requirement.

Finally, a good SEO needs to be an expert in analytics.  This is where the SEO gets their feedback.  It’s the report card that tells the SEO whether the campaign worked or didn’t.  Analytics guide the search marketer on which direction to take.  It provides the search marketer the information they need to make good marketing decisions.

I hope my comments don’t make someone new to the industry feel overwhelmed.  What I’m really saying is that the basic SEO training is like learning the alphabet.  You grow and learn the power of words after you master the alphabet.  SEO training will help, but it by itself will only take you so far: you also need the passion and drive to keep pushing yourself to be a lifelong learner.

The appeal of search marketing is that it is complex and meshes together many disciplines.  My advice to anyone entering the industry is this:  fall in love with search, and let that passion ignite a fire inside you that will motivate you to commit to yourself to continually learn and grow.   If you take the learning in digestible pieces, it’s not overwhelming.  And this continual need to learn more has a great side effect – it will make the industry fascinating and will keep you engaged for years to come.

Q: How do you feel about the current trend of loads of people going to conferences but not actually attending them, only going for the networking aspect? How important IS networking to you?

From what I’ve observed, there are four main reasons people attend conferences:  1) advertising (on the part of vendors), 2) training (for those new to SEO or looking to expand/update their breadth and depth of knowledge, 3) renewing/maintaining friendships/business relationships, and 4) making new contacts/networking.  Most attendees have two or more of these reasons in mind when attending the conferences.

The search landscape is always changing (look at universal search, PPC changes, the emergence of social media, etc.), so keeping in touch with the changes in the landscape is important.  Personally I feel conferences are the best professional development opportunities we have.  Due to the rapid changes in the search industry, it is VERY difficult to stay current on your own.  Conferences are one way to be immersed in all the changes all at once.   Even if you work full time in this industry, you can’t keep up to speed with all the massive changes that occur on a regular basis in this industry, but conferences can at least alert you to the most important changes and give you the opportunity to talk directly with the people instrumental to the changes.  From my perspective, the benefits derived from conferences outweigh any monetary costs associated with them.

You asked specifically about how important is networking to me.  I’d say it ranks fairly high for me.  Online marketing today requires you to often reach beyond your own agency.  The conferences are opportunities to meet face to face and develop new friendships or explore new working relationships.  I’ve partnered on different contracts with a large number of people and companies over the years.   And with the growth of social media, I think the need to maintain and expand our networks has grown, so I see the networking role of conferences growing in the future.

Q: What voids need to be filled in the industry? Some people want women-only conferences, or blackhat conferences; some people think that we need a set of industry standards, or professional certifications. What do you see as being the next big steps that we take as a group?

I’d have to better understand what you mean by a women only conference.  I wouldn’t want to be part of a conference that excludes anyone.  A conference that excludes men is just as sexist as one that only allows men.

That said, I am in favor of woman-focused conferences that focus on women related subjects so long as the conferences allow men.  Women are nurturers and often only another woman can understand the struggles another woman is facing.  Women often get societal and familial pressures that aren’t exerted on men.  There is a sisterhood of support that often develops between women as a result.  I know other women have helped me along the way and I’m happy to help other women as well.

You asked about industry standards and certifications.  Most professions have standards to maintain quality and to control entrance into a profession.  At some point I do see the search industry moving to standards, but currently I have some heartburn with many of the certification programs I’ve seen.  With the exception of Google’s professional certification which offers a free Learning Center, most certification programs require you to sign up for an expensive training program before you can take the certification test.  If I were a cynical person I might say a certification program that first required you to pay for expensive  training gives the perception of a money making scam.  I think you should be able to take the test without having to buy the training program.  This would take experience and prior knowledge into account.    I think for someone new in the industry who doesn’t have years of experience that getting certified is one way to show that you have some knowledge of SEO.  However I have to say, years experience and past SEO success rate are a better metric for future SEO success than a certification paper any day.

Q: How have things changed for you over the past 10 years? I’ve only been doing SEO for 5 years and the changes have been dramatic. Has it gotten more difficult? Or have things become more interesting?

Nothing remains so constant as change.  Since I became involved in SEO back in the mid 90s, there have been tremendous changes.  I’ve seen engines come and go in importance.   AltaVista, Lycos, and Netscape were the big targets back then.   Google didn’t even exist back then, except perhaps in the minds of Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Over the years, the changes have fortunately been more evolutionary than revolutionary.  For those of us who have been in the industry awhile have been able to learn gradually and adapt to those changes.   I think the width and depth required for a new person coming into the industry can be intimidating.  Their learning curve is certainly larger than ours, but still very achievable.  I think my earlier comments about SEO training as a starting point express my philosophy on how someone entering the industry should approach it.  I am in the camp where if you’re going to do something – do it the best you can.  And it’s easier to do your best if you love what you’re doing.  So cultivate a love for search.  It has to be more than a job.  Embrace it with unabashed passion and you’ll go far.

Q: How do you feel about social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter? Useful, or timewasters?

I have mixed feelings on social media.  I like connecting with my friends via the social sites, but I’m a very private person, I am not one to twitter about what I ate for breakfast.  The internet has made us all live hybrid existences – there is a blurring of our online and offline selves.  This brings with it a bit of a danger.  Sometimes we reveal more than we should online – so there may be privacy issues at risk.  Also, and blame my years of working in corporate America for this, but I think professional image can be tarnished by the informality that people adopt on social sites.   People need to stop a minute and think more about what they are transmitting on the live web.  Sure you’re friends are reading your online rant, but so are your clients, competitors, potential investors and others…..  I think if people slowed down and proof read their post before pressing enter, it might save them some embarrassment and heart ache.

On the positive side, social media is a valuable way to communicate and open a dialog with your customer base.  The breath of social media and the ease of using it make it an effective way to get direct feedback from users and to learn what users want – so from a marketing perspective it is a powerful tool.  That back and forth exchange of information also makes social media a great way for companies to let their target audience know about what the company is doing and about new products or services it might be offering.  So, from this relationship building point of view I’m very pro social media.

Q: Lastly, what are your hopes for women in this field? How can we continue to gain the respect we deserve without it being a women’s issue?

I am optimistic about women in search.  Because it’s a new profession, you don’t have the long-time glass ceilings you have in other industries.  The skill sets required for search are in high demand, so companies are vying to hire and keep search skills.  They don’t care the gender; they want to attract the best talent.

I think search offers a special appeal for women.   Because you can do a lot of search related work over the Internet, all you need are the skills and an Internet connection.  I think for women juggling the demands of a family and a job, the ability to work from home holds extra attraction.  I originally started KeyRelevance so I could be at home when my daughter arrived from school.   I had worked in the corporate world for years and was tired of the long commute each day – I couldn’t find a job that allowed me to work from home, so I created one.

The Internet has changed the work environment.  Twitter and IM are the online equivalents of the watercooler.   I think for people with a strong work ethic and who can work independently, working from home is ideal.  That is a plus for both men and women.  Many people who work from home tell me they are more productive at home and really enjoy the benefits.   So as long as people work hard and do their job, I see the work at home option growing for both genders.

Note from Julie: I’m including this last bit so that it’s on record and I can refer to it whenever I am having a bad day…

Julie, it was a pleasure talking with you today.  I’m honored that you deemed me worth interviewing.   I’m also glad I had the opportunity to meet you in person at SMX London.  I will attest that your warm personality is as delightful in person as it comes across in your writing.  I hope to visit with you again very soon.

If anybody remembers the IMNY Charity Party last year, it was a great place to network.

It was also my very first networking event in the industry and it is also where I met a very friendly Brian Wallace, President of NowSourcing. He is the writer of the NowSourcing blog, which is the place to be if you are interested in learning more about Digg, Mixx, Twitter, etc.

Brian also founded a new blog that is making a lot of noise: Collective-Thoughts, the collective Social Media blog who’s contributors are impressive to say the least. Brian rounded up some of my most favorite SMM people on the net; Andy Beard, Glen Allsopp, Mark Laymon, Marty Weintraub, Rose Sylvia, Shana Albert (who I nominate to make a guest appearance on the SEO-Chicks blog), Tadeusz Szewczyk (onReact), Tim Nash, and then there is Brian’s cat who is quite popular on Twitter.

Brian is really on top of his Social Media game! I often catch him online at 2:00 AM, Sphinning, Digging, and other things that can easily turn into verbs. So I asked him to share some of his expertise with me!

1. You are very active in the blogosphere. How long have you been blogging? And when did you learn that blogging became crucial to your social media status?

I�ve been blogging off and on since 2001. Blogging is an inherent factor in social media success since social media needs content to thrive. Think about it: if you post once a week, that�s 52 pieces of content. It looked to me the blogging and social media would be a huge driver about a year ago.

2. Often we see many posts about falling victim to Social Media time consumption. How often do you spend on Social Media per day?

More than I�d like to admit some days. However, I try to lead a balanced schedule, and fit social media in when time will allow. Social media can really lead to burnout, so everyone should be careful of this.

3. Why is everyone so crazy about twitter? Can it be used as a Marketing tool, or is it just social noise?

People are crazy about Twitter since it has been gaining adoption with a larger audience. A tool is only as good as its adoption. So if you look at the rise in the number of users, average time spent per user, and the number of mashup applications being developed, things start to make sense.

Regarding the noise factor: if you find specific individuals to be too noisy for your tastes, you can simply just stop following them. Some users create a company Twitter account while others keep their more personal Tweets (gosh, personal Tweets should be an oxymoron) over on their own name. Businesses can and should leverage Twitter, but as always, try to understand the community before you potentially damage your brand.

4. Digg has been retiring top diggers left and right with no remorse. Some people say Digg is cleaning itself up to get ready to be sold…What do you predict for the future of Digg? And how will it reflect on its top Diggers?

I think a better word for �retiring� would be �banning� . Many top Diggers, banned or not, are getting a bit fed up with the state of Digg these days.

My prediction is for Digg to be sold within the year, and some of the top Diggers will bail from Digg and go out to other social sites. Mixx in particular has become a Banned Digger magnet. This isn�t to say that all influential Diggers will leave, but it will likely change the landscape.

5. You launched the Social Media Ninjas Contest not too long ago… Is it really all just a popularity contest?

Much of social media is a popularity contest. Seriously though, we are about to announce the final winners, so stay tuned!

6. Everyone tries to have the most recognizable avatar. It seems like it’s all been done before. If you had to create a new avatar for yourself today, how would it look?

I�m pretty fond of the big green N, and it is recognizable. Sometimes people put too much thought into their avatar and make it too detailed and complex. Nearly all sites keep your avatar at 120×120 or less, so think about sizing issues.

If I had to make a new avatar today, I�d be sure to make something creative, colorful, and memorable � and pass it out to a few friends for feedback.

7. Feed readers are as important as breakfast nowadays, skip it in the morning and your whole day is thrown off. It is sometimes hard to find good Social Media Bloggers who share really great tips, without reading the same thing over and over and wasting time. Can you recommend a few Social Media bloggers who have changed the way you do things?

Not particularly fond of RSS, as I prefer to really get the feel for the post and the community by visiting the site directly. That being said, it is difficult through all the noise and regurgitation to see which social media bloggers are truly worth watching. Folks that truly have a unique voice that have had my attention recently are: Lyndon, Copyblogger.com, CopyBrighter, Glen (viperchill.com), Tim, and Shana (socialdesire.com). They all talk about different things that hold my interest.
However, Kathy Sierra�s blog headrush.typepad.com is probably the best of anything like this, but unfortunately she may never be posting again.

8. What is your quick advice for anyone looking to improve their social media campaigns ?

Quick advice: Don�t be stupid. Many people dive head first thinking that if they just submit their own stuff, people will automatically love it. Guess again. Understand your community before submitting a thing. Observe, take notes, ask around.

I want to thank Brian for allowing me to interview him and learn from him. You can add him on all social networks as “nowsourcing”, and I advise that you do! Follow Brian’s advice and maybe you too could be a Social Media Superstar!

After interviewing Danny Sullivan for Technology Weekly (while you have to sign up for it, it is free), I decided to create a blog post from it and scavange up bits from the internet to fill in my blanks (future of search taken from “Out of my Gord“).

Danny Sullivan is one of the best-known names in the world of internet search technology. Since first researching how search engine algorithms worked back in 1995, Danny Sullivan has remained one of the world�s foremost public authorities on search algorithms. Everyone from Google�s founders to ordinary business people have looked to him as an expert as they discovered the importance of relevant search results. His early monitoring of search engine changes, �Search Engine Watch�, developed into a large business from which he opted out in 2006 to start his own new company.

In 1995, before Google existed and there were about 40 different algorithms, Danny Sullivan was working in the area of web development. Even while the internet was still somewhat new, ecommerce had emerged on the scene and some companies were putting significant time and money into creating web versions of their offline shops. One client of Danny�s was not ranking well for a term they desired to be found for on many of the search engines. At the time, there were no tips online for people to look at and learn from. Danny spent a significant amount of time investigating what factors influenced search engine rankings, then published his seminal findings online.

Danny�s work was the first attempt to understand the complex algorithms that various search engines used, as well as divine from that how to rank well for a given term. While others within the field stumbled and guessed, Danny codified what it took to rank well. As a result of this pioneering work, he received a lot of attention and his search research became an online �must-read�. This attention, combined with his professional interest led him to create �Search Engine Watch� – a place where anyone could turn to and find information on how search engines were ranking sites.

As a result of his pioneering work, the founders of Google referenced his early work as they progressed with their own engine. Danny�s early work on search rankings sparked a passion within him that has followed him throughout his life to the present. Search was never something he expected to be writing about more than ten years later. When he made a recent change from Search Engine Watch to his newly created Search Engine Land, the community appreciation and �love� revitalised him and kept him interested in staying involved. Since December 2006 he has been working on Search Engine Land which has quickly become the primary point of information on and about search engines and related activities.

Working further to keep in touch and on top of changes and affect change, he has gotten involved in running a series of conferences with the inagural event in London in November. Focusing on a more general basic to intermediate level, he is also trying to push more networking based on his own experiences. He has found that one of the most important things about a conference isn�t just the conference sessions � it is the exchange of knowledge and expertise that happens while people socialise. This vital knowledge exchange has spurred Danny in to changing his own conferences, adding formal networking sessions both around break times and after the day ends.

When looking to the future, Danny was asked if social search would dominate search anytime soon? �I really don�t see this happening� he adamantly commented. While he cited Maholo as probably the best example of a social search engine, he also stated that it was not threatening the existing engines. �Not even Wikipedia has all the answers�, he said, �and so I think a search engine can present different options to answer a question.� Search is evolving with the introduction of universal search, one boxes and the like and as a result nothing else seems poised to replace it.

Recently on Sphinn, a news aggregator site Danny runs, there was a suggestion that he could and should build a better search engine. And while he said he was never tempted, he also said that he felt a yearning to actually work on a search engine. He would like to be able to make changes and effect the way things get ranked rather than simply writing about it after the fact. He would love to be proactively involved. It would be a huge challenge though, he admits, citing Microsoft who are still struggling to build a better search engine.

For the future, Danny sees a greater push towards personalisation within search engines. With search having crept in to almost every facet of our lives and gadgets increasingly web-enabled with search built in, having an engine that understands what you mean when you search for �Fire London� will be indispensable. The future of search is still firmly with search engines. When asked about what search engine he would use if Google did not exist or was down for a week, he very quickly answered that Yahoo would get his search business. With the most mature and longest established crawler, it has excellent search results and so would easily be his first choice. The old ones are still the best, it seems.

It�s not a secret that the SEO-Chicks are big Dazzlin Donna stalkers (ermmm fans..), so we begged (erm asked) if we could interview her for our blog.

For those of you that don’t know who Dazzlin Donna is, shame on you! Donna Fontenot (aka Dazzlin Donna) is a SEO guru from Southern Louisiana, she has been in the SEO industry for a very long time, she runs the excellent SEO blog SEO Scoop as well as the blog Dazzlin Donna. Donna is an SEO Chick of the highest class and someone we very much look up to.

If Donna was a character from Star Wars we think she would be Princess Leia!

Here are the questions we asked Donna and her answers:

1. What do you see as the primary motivation for SEO bloggers?

In most cases, an SEO blogger establishes credibility, which leads to social networking and links, which leads to traffic. Once the blogger has credibility and traffic, she can do whatever she wants with it from there.

I originally started SEO Scoop long before social networking was a �thing�, and I started it as a reference point. Instead of constantly answering the same questions over and over again, I wanted to be able to just point to a blog post that had the answer. Turned out to not be such a great idea, because it was just as much work to find the relevant blog post, as it was to just answer the question again. But luckily, I discovered that blogging had many other advantages beyond my original plan for it, so it went from there.

2. Why is there such a celebrity cult in the SEO industry?

Is it just the SEO industry? I think human nature tends to make us seek out the celebs in any field of interest to us. What I think is even more interesting is looking at what kind of person becomes a celebrity. In the entertainment industry, one might assume it’s beauty, but of course there are millions of gorgeous beauties who never make it to celeb status. In the SEO world, is it outspokenness? Integrity? Most visible?

But if you’re looking for a reason that might be unique to SEO, it’s probably that the industry is still shrouded in mystery. We can’t simply open up the Encylopedia Brittanica to find the answers to ranking in the top 10 for our selected keywords. Instead, we begin by reading and listening to others who claim to have accomplished the goals we seek. Once we find someone who appears to have the magical answers, we wrap that person in Merlin’s cloak, put a wand in her hand, and call her a wizard. Or maybe we wrap her in a long white robe, shave her head, place her atop a high mountain, and call her a guru. Whatever status we bestow upon her, she is now an official celebrity, and we wait nearby, hoping she will look upon us favorably and throw us a magic token or a profound truth now and then that we can use for ourselves. The more tokens and words of wisdom we receive, the higher our opinion of her.

3. How can we better use social media?

Use? Or abuse? LOL, j/k. I’m not sure I have any profound answers for this question. It takes a bit of work and skill to be able to remain consistently attractive to the social hounds, and there are some that are far better at it than I. Tamar is a great example of someone who has an incredible knack for playing social media like a skilled violinist. I think everyone probably starts out by trying to use more social networks than they should, and eventually figures out that there isn’t enough time in the day to really be able to keep up with them all. Once you figure that part out, the next step is analyzing which networks are most useful to you and your topic, and focus in on those. You’ll get farther � quicker � that way. But I’d go ask this same question to Tamar, if I were you.

4. Why don�t more good-looking men wear kilts?

Silly preconceived notions of what manhood is prevents many men from doing things that would otherwise attract women to them in droves. Or at least that’s my theory, but I’m no authority on such matters.

5. With the rapid popularity of SEO, why haven�t we yet seen a major movie/sitcom/novel about it?

I remember getting all excited when Sandra Bullock starred in The Net, way back in 1995, when only a few of us (relatively speaking) had actually used the Internet. It was still a mystery to much of the world, and that’s still how SEO is. We think it is popular, and it is certainly gaining in popularity all the time, but it is still a mystery to the world at large. I’m not sure everyone would really �get it� if it were turned into a major entertainment piece just yet. Then again, it might be educational!

6. What actor would play you in a movie?

Now that’s a really tough question. I spent more time on this one question than all the rest combined, but I finally made a decision. Jodie Foster.

7. Which SEO is your Obi One Kenobi?
There isn’t one. When the SEO Dream Team meme was going around, I had a heckuva time trying to cull it down to 7, as the rules stated. There’s no way I could narrow it down to one. Instead, I’d rather expand it to include several dozen. So many people out there have strengths that I look up to and strive to emulate. To choose one would require that I place them all into a mixing machine, shake them up, and magically turn them into one SuperSEO.

8. What�s your favourite movie?

As silly as it will sound, I’ll be honest � Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. What can I say? I’m a big fan of chicks kicking butt movies.

9. What is the last thing that really made you laugh?

The look on my grandbaby’s face when she opened up a present, revealing her first �real� laptop on her second birthday. She’s already a major gadget geek, and she’s constantly trying to sneak time on any of our computers. (She’s 2, remember). When she saw her very own laptop, complete with mouse, she went wild. Totally cracked me up.

10. If you went to your last ever SEO conference, who would you hang out with and why?

I haven’t yet been to one of the women’s luncheons, and I’m jealous as all get out that I haven’t been able to attend one yet. Nothing against the guys…I love ‘em all…but I really, really want to spend an hour or two just hangin’ with all the gals. All of you inspire me every single day.

Donna, thanks very much for a great interview. You rock!!