Danny Sullivan has been covering search for over a decade and is known as the leading expert in the field of search. I recently asked Danny for an interview and he said sure. We talked about search, marketing, and doughnuts. What do you attribute your rapid increase in exposure and authority to?

That's a tough question, because I didn't feel I'd gained any massive new increase in authority, I suppose. I mean, I still get calls from reporters at about the same rate as always, and that's one measure of determining how much authority you might be seen as having, I suppose. I probably do have more exposure in the past few months about what I'm doing, and the answer for that is simple. I started a brand new web site, Search Engine Land, as well as an entire new company, Third Door Media. It disrupted a lot of things that I think people were used to, so there's some attention on what we're doing and how things will grow.

I didn't mean a massive new increase, but I didn't want to use the word old either. ;) Back when I was in high school, what did you do that made you the go to guy such that people like Page and Brin referenced your work over just about everyone else in the search engine space? If you were to start today do you think you could still acquire the kind of authority you currently have?

One advantage I had was being one of the first to recognize the importance of search engines and track them closely. Larry and Sergey cited me back then because practically no one was compiling this type of information about search engines. I thought they deserved much more love than they were getting. I always joke I'm glad I decided to write about search rather than "push," which was hot at the the time (though feeds did effectively take over from push, and they're pretty hot now).

Could I do that now? Sure, though I'd probably have to be much more focused. Look at Bill Slawski. He owns the search patents and research space, except when Gary Price grabs a moment and flexes his patent research muscles! Gord Hotchkiss said search behavior isn't getting love, so he dived in there. Those are just two examples where they've become such authorities that if I was asked about a topic in those particular areas, I would (and do) send people their way.

If I were doing this now from scratch, I'd like to think I'd look for that particular area that wasn't being covered -- or be able to spot an entirely new industry that's not getting the attention and tracking it should.

How have you been able to maintain at the top of the game for so long? Did you think you would still be at the top a search over a decade after you started tracking it?

I don't think I ever envisioned when I started that 10 years later, I'd still be doing it. I sort of figured when I announced I was leaving SEW last year that people might be saying, "Thanks, but probably time to see you go!" Maybe some were thinking it but didn't want to say! But instead, I got a lot of reaction from people who seemed to want me to continue doing what I'd been doing. That revitalized me. As for being at the top of the game, well, that's very kind of you to say. I guess it might be a combination of things. I tend to be cynical. I don't write about things just because they are new and shiny -- I write about stuff I think actually has legs. In terms of advice, I try to keep people focused on the long term strategies that will be successful. I really try to be fair in my writing -- that doesn't mean I'm not opinionated, but I'll try to show a variety of sides. I suppose more than anything, I really care about what I'm covering. It's not just a job. I don't start my day of thinking, "darn, have to write about search today." Instead, I still can't wait to see what's going on in an industry I love.

Does your background in journalism play a big role in how you report on search issues?

Sure, in the sense that I apply general interviewing skills, as well as trying to write in a style that explains stuff for both the fast reader and those who want to go more in depth.

You have been popular when much of the web was mostly newsletters, mostly forums, mostly blogs, and through the rise of social media. How do you see the web changing in the next 10 years?

Wow, 10 years is tough. Amazingly, email is still going -- as are email newsletters. I think they'll still be around. I'm sure there will be more audio and video content, and it might be that we have more applet-driving distribution. You content showing up within a smart TV box and so on. But who really knows!

As search companies swallow or influence more of the web, how do you decide if a story is search related or not?

Usually, a search related story is revolving around some type of expressed desire. Google's going to do banner ads? No one expresses a desire to see banners -- you just get them. Google's going to target banners using search history? That's search related! It's hard, because Google especially will do so many things -- and we're really try to focus just on search. But you have to touch on some other things. For example, if Google goes after wireless spectrum, that might not see like search. But when you understand they want to reach mobile searchers more directly, then having a little background can help make that later search story more relevant.

What are the most common things that hold new bloggers back from getting exposure on high authority websites? What separates the experts, and the citation worthy, from the other channels?

That's tough. For me, it's probably that they don't say much. They point at a news story and give me no value add beyond what I can get at the story. Another problem are too many short tips that don't drill down into actual examples. At this point, I want fewer top whatever lists and more closer looks at how single tips actually play out. Mainly, it's expressing a unique and valuable viewpoint. I do see new bloggers doing that, and I love when I find those gems.

You recently moved from Search Engine Watch to Search Engine Land. I don't think I have ever seen a person change sites and have the shift go so smoothly (even when they use 301 redirects). What did you do to make the site shift go so well?

Well, it helped to have my team come with me! Barry's fantastic on the day-to-day blogging, plus we had our correspondents and Chris Sherman and Greg Sterling especially diving into articles. We also had a fresh start. There was no legacy of content to redesign or reposition. We just dived in and went into coverage, always knowing that in the middle of the year, our archives would have built out enough for the new Lands navigation that we launched to make sense.

You are universally known as one of the nicest guys in search. As your exposure increased what have been some of your key tips and tricks to remaining so accessible, keeping ego in check, and balancing work and play with family life?

I have a very narrow door frame that won't allow me to walk into my office with a big head! Seriously, I don't know. I try to treat people the way I would like to be treated, and especially online, constantly try to think how I'd interact with them if we were face to face. Plus, you do have to keep in mind that outside our industry, no one knows who's "big" or not anyway. Even in our industry, you've got so many new people that they don't know that you think you're supposed to be super hot! And if you think that, you're setting yourself up for a big disappointment. As for the balancing, I've been terrible at it this year, a consequence of bringing the new company up. But generally, I've long at least tried not to work on weekends. Get into that habit, and suddenly you realize the world keeps revolving even if you aren't at your computer 24/7.

Many of the most popular channels became so due to their edginess and/or bias. How does one create a Switzerland, and yet be able to build such a large audience?

I'd like to think that when so many people are shouting out, people do like to find a place that's not going for the hype or the edge but rather calmly laying out the facts of what's going on. In the short term, that may mean you grow an audience more slowly than the hype approach. But in the long term, I think you may build an audience that finds you a consistent resource -- and thus tells others to come on over.

Which will have a larger impact on searchers and search marketers: personalization or universal search?

Universal search, if it continues as it has been going. Personalized search only alters a few listings. Universal search brings in new databases much more dramatically.

Why do doughnuts have holes in them? What is the best doughnut in the world?

The holes make it easier to eat certain kinds without having frosting get lost on your fingers. Ken Horton's Boston Cream is the best doughnut I've personally had, followed by Dunkin' Donuts Boston Creme, when they are fresh.

What story do you most regret publishing? What are the biggest stories you wish you had covered earlier that you didn't realize the importance of until much later?

I've written so many stories over the years, and nothing is leaping to mind as something I regret running. There are occasional stories where I regret taking a particular tone or not contacting someone first. David Berlind back in 2005 was pretty upset with a critique I did on his review of Google Alerts, and I later apologized for being too personalize in what I wrote. When the thing about Associated Content came out with Google's Tim Armstrong being connected, I regretted not having waited to ask him about it before writing. It might not have changed what I wrote, but it was fair to ask first. Especially with blogging, there can be a tendency to rush, and I have to resist that. As for the biggest story, probably not seeing the rise of YouTube early on. I heard about it, couldn't believe it was that popular when, of course, it was.

When I ran Threadwatch I deleted a story about a client's site, and saw another editor do the same. Do you get privy to search or search marketing information that you can't share? Have you ever not covered a story because someone asked you to not cover it?

I'm constantly briefed on a variety of things from various companies off-the-record that I can't share until a certain deadline or unless they give the nod. I can't think of someone asking me not to cover a story, but most of the PR people I deal with are far too savvy to ask directly like that. Instead, you might call them about something and they'll spin it as not that big of a deal. And honestly, sometimes it's not -- you think there's some major thing, and it turns out to have a logical explanation. I might then not do a story simply because it would make a small or non-issue into something bigger. But in plenty of cases, I'll still do a story, but at least I have an official explanation to go with it.

Have you ever cloaked a page? What is the shadiest thing you have ever marketed via search? Do you still do much search marketing on the sideline to test current search marketing theories?

Back in like 1998, I think I did a few "poor man's cloaking" pages, where I used a frame to list the same content that my client had in images. I simply couldn't get the site changed, and Excite in particular wanted text. It wasn't misleading in my view and might not have even been against the guidelines back then. Plus, I didn't inhale. As for shady stuff, I never took on any shady clients. And no, I don't do stuff on the side. Ages ago, I had to decide if I was going to run a search marketing service or a search marketing news service. The two are difficult to combine, because search engines and other search marketers don't trust you as much, if they think you are just trying to get inside information for your own purposes. I see search marketing activities through my own sites, of course -- but those can be skewed as can be the sites of anyone with only a small portfolio or "window" into the space. That's why I do a lot of listening and reading and try to ensure with conferences that I'm putting people who are in the trenches forward to share knowledge.

Do you believe in the whole white hat black hat debate? Is there such a thing as spam? Other search engines have done interesting things too, but is it reasonable for Yahoo! to buy links for their lead generation subdomains?

Sure, there are hats, but I did a chart once where I showed how on some issues, white hats and black hats might be a lot closer than the think. And sure, there's spam. Scrape a bunch of pages, get me to your web site when I search for some city name plus pizza, and you don't have what I want but rather a bunch of AdSense -- that's spam to me a searcher. And you've wasted my time. Spam because you cloaked a page that's virtually the same as the text you might render in a Flash file? Technically, yes -- but for me, it's always been about the intention rather than the exact technique. It certainly continues to get grayer, especially when courtesy of Google, anyone can cloak using Google Website Optimizer and not have to worry about it. If Yahoo's buying links, then turning around and penalizing others for doing so is pretty sucky. But it's really Google that's been leading the don't buy links campaign. I think that's a losing battle, but I understand why the keep wanting to fight it.

Search engines tell people to not buy links, and in some verticals individual companies own dozens or hundreds of sites. Do you see the search market consolidating traffic to popular offline businesses, or will there still be room for small players 10 years down the road?

I think small players will still find room, because they're often smarter and more nimble than the big people. Local, for example, still seems wide open for many smaller players.

Given your authority, many people likely pitch stuff to you every day. What do you find to be good proxies for determining intent?

Telling me you're the next Google of anything generally is a bad way to start the conversation. There's a variety of other clues I don't want to list so as to not spoil that filtering. But they aren't hard to guess -- emails that clearly don't indicate any knowledge of my site, my actual name and so on.

How have you avoided becoming jaded by some of the dirtier aspects of Internet marketing? In a world with paid blog comments, and social media manipulation sites like subvertandprofit.com, what made you bold enough to create http://sphinn.com, catering to marketers?

Part of it is the hopes that marketers aren't going to want to mess up their own nest, so to speak. But also, part of the approach is to say that people should feel free to submit their own stuff. After all, who knows what your best stuff is better than you. Why make you play some tricks or feel bad? In addition, it's kind of fun -- are you really going to want to spam a bunch of marketers, many of whom will spot it and call foul seconds after it appears? Forums have had to deal with this already. For me, Sphinn is in many ways simply an extension of forums with voting.

How long is your current work day? Do you have any tips for minimizing the potential downsides for spending too much time at the computer?

I tend to be up around 11am my time, and work sadly through 1 or 2am, though I'm trying to pull back. My best tip right now is to build a tree house!

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Thanks Danny.

You can check out Search Engine Land for the latest search engine news, and track Danny's tree house building adventures at Daggle. If you would like to meet Danny in person he holds many Search Marketing Expo conferences each year.

Having coined the term domain investor, Frank Schilling is a recognized leader in the domaining field. He talks about domaining on his blog at Seven Mile.com

I recently asked Frank Schilling if he would be up for an interview and he said sure.

What makes domain names so powerful from an investment standpoint?

Several things.. When you build on a domain name you are the master of your destiny because you are not beholden to anyone else's platform. It's the Internet comparison to owning the building vs. leasing from a landlord. Internet law is new and undefined. Google and Ebay can be brutal landlords changing rules or algorithms that put you back out on the street without notice. If you own a powerful generic name or name phrase; you will get internet traffic independent of what the search engines and auction marketplaces try to do to you.

Why are [secondary market] .com's typically so much more expensive than other extensions?

Dot com's are the most readily understood domain extension. They are so powerful even my daughter knows what they are (she's 3) .. Many people will simply append the subject matter they seek with '.com' in their address bar, expecting to find products and services that match the generic keywords they entered. That world-wide mindshare has been reinforced since the very beginnings of the Internet via trillions of dollars in collective global marketing and serve to create a premium value for the extension. The marketing that you, I and others have done, has served to make .com the first extension most of us try in the browser's address bar.

Have you ever sold a domain name for a loss?

No. Even names where folks scoffed saying I overpaid at the time, look cheap in hindsight.

What is the best domain you regret not purchasing?

Cameras.com sold for 1.5 million.. That was a really tasty one.. I chickened out over a million. Wish I could get in the Delorean and go back in time on that one. Also Food.com sold to the food network in a San Francisco bankruptcy court in 2003. it went for $300,000 ish .. I should have bid 500k back then.

Is it too late to get into domaining? If you were starting today which model would you go after? Would you try to buy a few strong domains or try to own a much larger portfolio of weaker ones?

I think there are so many untapped opportunities here.. Within a few years, hundreds of thousands globally are going to be directly employed in this industry. It is early not late. This is like California in the 1960's. -- yes, it's not the 1920's anymore, but there are still mountains of untapped opportunity. I would probably focus on buying and selling, flipping up and bootstrapping profits back into the business if I had to start today. Also SEO and PPC keyword arbitrage.

Are new heavily marketed extensions like .tv or .mobi a good opportunity?

Only to flip.. If you can get something good cheaply and sell it to somebody else then do it, but I am avoiding those extensions completely. I like .com, .net, .org and the CCtld of the Country you are in because the name spaces are established, the renewal fees are certain (consistent/predictable) and because that's where the organic, generic intent type-in traffic is.

What are your favorite cities to visit? How does real estate there compare with domain name prices?

I like Los Angles and Las Vegas a lot. It's funny because those cities real estate histories have parallels to the domain industry. In Southern California you have Irvine where one man basically acquired millions of acres through the early 1900's and then sold to a large corporation in the later 1900's. Today the seller looks like a fool because he sold so cheap when viewed against the development which has occurred in the surrounding area. Yet had he not sold, none of the roads, utilities, infrastructure would be there, so the area would not really be as valuable. So if there is a comparison between domains and real estate, I think "development naturally follows acquiring the land" and "prices increase as the people come in" are the two over-riding factors.

If I am planning on developing a site, and am working with a small budget, do you think it is better to buy the .com, or to buy a .net or .org and spend the difference on more marketing and development? What about country level domains?

I like Country Code domains in Countries that have even-handed registration rules which allow all all sorts registrants to invest and develop there. Country codes I like include .CA (Canada), .co.uk (UK), .de (Germany), .br (Brazil), .cn (China), .in (India). In many circumstances Country Codes are stronger than .com. There are a host of reasons for this including currency issues, language, nationalism. I would always try to get the .com because it helps you to build traffic outside of the search-engines (everybody winds up at the .com eventually). I do like .nets and .orgs when they are priced low enough.

Years down the road when all the best names are gone and many of them are beyond the budgets of individuals and small businesses do you see outlier names like .info, .biz, or .cc getting any traction?

I do not.. I think it will be .com, .net, .org and the CC TLD of the Country Code you live in, ten years from now. If the Web extension gets approved, it could eventually unseat .net but it would take time to catch on. That forecast is assuming names get rolled out in their current way. The only other thing that could change destiny is the wholesale addition of hundreds of new extensions such as .GOOG, .MSN, .IBM, .YHOO, where every company got its own extension. It's problematic because corporate jealousy precludes adding just one or two.. and companies can barely manage their names, let alone an entire GTLD. It would take a generation to roll out and would ultimately strengthen .com relating to generic words such as Maps, Books, Shopping etc.. So while I find that kind of wholesale change revolutionary (ICANN and Verisign would resist it), it still 'could' happen.. and that would change to weaken .net and .org.

If I'm planning on developing a site when is it best to buy the core related keyword domain? When does it make more sense to create a unique word or add a common word like "hub" or "community" to the name to get an $8 domain name instead of spending thousands more for the exact match domain?

You can focus on building a great company without a great name. I like generic word + 'hub' or 'web' or 'world' style domain names. But if you build the world's biggest ceiling fan company at fanhub.com and then you want to acquire ceilingfans.com .. it is going to get much more expensive as time goes by. Names like those are going to be worth millions one day, so the time to acquire them is when they seem cheapest and unimportant to you. That's always the best time to acquire great names btw.

Are there any good $8 domain names available right now?

Yes.. but mining for them is getting harder. I don't buy anything in the available space anymore.. haven't in a long time. Too time intensive and "domain tasting" has creamed off most of the generic defensible undiscovered names.

How many ways do you categorize domains? What types of domains are the best from an investment perspective?

We have 60 main categories such as 'cars' and then 1600 subcategories including 'car accessories', 'towing', 'insurance'. etc. The best domain-names are generic defensible keyword-style (one two and three word) phrases which get some trickle of organic generic-intent type-in traffic; for nothing more than the keyword-weight, gravity and resonance of the generic words that make up the domain name.

What are your favorite spots for buying domains right now? Which auction do you like the best? What changes would you like to see to how domain names are auctioned off?

We are going through a seasonal dry-spell at the moment.. There is still an annual echo effect of expiring domain names which results from the dot-com bust where millions of folks in 2001,2,3 let their domain names expire.. the expiring name echo-period runs from November through April, so we are in the quiet season at the moment. I like Snapnames, Enom, BuyDomains, Godaddy. The auctions are presently run by for-profit clearing houses which inject themselves between expiring names and bidder registrants. One day ICANN will probably get involved auctioning new names like the FCC does with reissued airwave licenses.

What percent of domain sales do you estimate are publicly known?

About 5%.. maybe less. I was at my daughter's friend's birthday party recently and the father of one of the children confided that he sold a terrible made up brand-like sounding name for $23,000 (it was either 23 or 33k.. can't quite recall) This guy was not a domainer.. you would never hear about the sale. I get folks from regular walks of life coming up to me all the time confiding that they are part time domainers.. These are folks who have never visited a domain chat room, have never visited another domain site. Their only connection to the industry is through their registrar. It is a billion dollar business.

Many domains tend to sell for a multiple of PPC earnings. In 10 years time do you think the baseline will move to some other metric?

It already has.. No good domain portfolio has changed hands since BuyDomains and that business would have sold for considerably more than the rumored amount had the company's former owner been engaged in selling advertising alone, vs selling his names. Prior to that there was Name Development's sale to Marchex (Yun Ye transaction). No large, high-quality portfolios have changed hands since. Other sales have been smaller or split-portfolios consisting of good names interspersed with trademark issues. Individual names often sell for 100 years PPC.. No high quality domainer would dream of selling a portfolio worth potential billions to a third party for 10-12X PPC revenues. PPC is a flawed multiple because it works off a rev-share. If you buy a portfolio for 10X and it is on a 50/50 rev share (after 'cost of services' through Google Adsense) that means you sold your portfolio for 5X what Google could make with it. Maybe 3X if you exclude the amount Google shaves for smart pricing. That is so insanely cheap. Only a fool would give names away like that. If I were selling I would pick a walk away number (the youtube style multiple) or I would sell names individually. The breakup value of large portfolios will be in the billions if they aren't already.

You have mentioned that you thought search was promoting too many anchor stores vs smaller boutique websites. Do you think this creates an opportunity for other search players or adds value to topical community resources? Do you see it becoming more or less profitable to make niche websites and domain names?

I think of every domain name as an alternative search engine under the keyword embodied within the name. Search-engines by their nature can only display 5 to 10 results above the fold. As markets get more competitive that 11th result will become a different website, with a greater frequency. It's always getting harder for search engines to rank the top results.. as that competition intensifies as domain implementations get better, the domain name becomes a more viable alternative browsing experience. It's going to become much more profitable to run boutiques that sell things in the years ahead because software, fulfillment, products are all becoming cheaper as marketing costs go up. A good domain name reduces your lifetime marketing costs and increases marketing opportunities.

Are you concerned with large web companies claiming certain websites and types of websites as being unsafe to end users?

It depends how far they take it. Clearly I'd be concerned if browsers incorrectly claimed that advertising was bad and tried to block all sites with ppc ads.. While that wouldn't impact my lifestyle it would stymie newcomers and limit folks abilities to browse the web. I think the browsers are already on thin ice with a lot of the error search stealing to the right of the dot.. type your favorite website with .xom or .con watch where you go, think about where you were intending to go. That's stealing in the browser. It's unseemly to see that kind of conduct coming from a major US Corporation. I think in time there will be more freedom of navigation not less. Users (by their nature) want to be free. So to answer your question, there are probably too many sites with advertising on them for the browsers to do something draconian or to limit browsing freedoms. People would type in a website and say the internet's broken, my browser won't let me go anywhere .. too many sites would be impacted.

As the web gets more competitive, I believe any single sign of quality will likely have less of an overall effect on a website's position on the web. Do you believe that is true for domain names as well, or will everything being so gamed only increase the value of domain names?

I think probably the later.. Mark Twain said: "History doesn't repeat but it rhymes" .. The past may not be a true indication of the future, but domain names 'are the Internet'. You need a domain for email, in fact the only constant since the dawn of the commercial internet in 1993 (Netscape 1) has been the domain name. If you feel comfortable investing in anything related to the Internet it should be a generic domain name.

What makes Riesling so good?

I was picking up dinner at www.pappagallo.ky they have this new house wine from Germany.. very light refreshing.. good lunch wine. Darn, can't remember the name - Maybe if it ended in .com! :)

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Thanks Frank. Check out Frank's blog to read his latest insights on the domain market.

Rae recently posted a 5 person interview about link building that is well worth a read. 5 experts are interviewed. Each answers a set of questions without seeing the other answers until after the interview.

I have been a long time fan of Brian Clark. His blog, Copyblogger, is crisp, clear, and entertaining. He recently announced that he is a 2007 Bloggies award finalist.

Brian recently revised my salesletter, and I asked if he would be willing to do an interview. He said yes, and so it goes...

Is it possible to write great sales copy for something you are not interested in?

Certainly. Most copywriters do this, and they compensate by doing tons of research and putting themselves in the shoes of the prospective buyer. But I think it’s always much easier to sell something you believe in and have a personal affinity for.

Is it more important to understand the audience, author, or product when writing sales copy?

Audience always comes first. While having a strong understanding of everything else is important too, missing the mark with the audience is the number one reason why copy fails or underperforms.

I have been told that traditionally red is a great headline color for headlines. Why did you opt for blue on my sales letter? What about the Georgia font?

Red headlines have been used quite a bit for several years, and the reason why is because they tested better. There’s a growing backlash against a lot of copy elements that have been effective in the past, basically due to overuse and misuse. Plus, color and font selection are important to the overall impression you want to convey with your product and brand.

With SEO Book, I thought it was important that the sales letter have a more sophisticated presentation that matched the overall look of your site, as well as the stature your book has attained. You can’t mix in testimonials from the likes of Wharton School and MBA-level professors and Seth Godin on a cheesy page that screams hype. SEO is moving away from an Internet marketing tactic and becoming a business essential, and the presentation of your sales page should mirror that respectability.

You broke my sales letter down into a letter and FAQs and also had a mini sales letter which people see if they click an early buy now link. What is the purpose of doing that, and what effect does it typically have on conversion?

The purpose of the “offer landing page” is simply to quickly communicate the full offer to those who clicked through early in the copy, and to reinforce the offer to those that went deeper in. Typically you’ll have less people abandon the sale than if you sent them straight to a PayPal landing page.

How important are getting testimonials seen for making sales? What are the keys to getting them read?

Testimonials are crucial. They communicate crucial social proof of the value of your product and offer. However, just as with everything else, they have been abused and sometimes fabricated. I tried to tone down the presentation of the testimonials a bit, and chose people that had high credibility. We could probably test different approaches here, because it’s a tricky area that is nonetheless vitally important to conversion.

Your blog is one of my favorite to read. Many longstanding copywriters have started blogging, but come off as boring. How did you grow your reach so quickly?

Well, by applying copywriting techniques to blogging, I accomplished two things. One, I created my own little unique niche by bringing a new approach to both copywriting and blogging, and two, I got a bunch of generous bloggers as readers who helped spread the word. I owe it all to them.

When blogging, how important is it to give the perception of being open? How important is it to be easy to identify with?

Blogging is a lot like real life, which I guess is why we call this social media. If you’re not perceived as honest or worth associating with, people simply won’t bother with you.

What is the difference between writing traditional copy, writing a blog, and writing for social media like Digg?

Well, they all have one thing in common—the content has to provide beneficial value to the reader or it will fail. Traditional copy is designed to sell, writing for Digg is for traffic and links, and blogging for business is a combination of both. Beneficial value comes first, but all three types of writing will be more effective the more you connect with the reader on a personal level. Conversational copywriting has been around for longer than people think—some of the old school copywriters of the early 20th Century were masters at it.

With so many people writing sensationalistic headlines for social media, do you think social media has much of a life left to it? Do you see many bloggers invariably undermining their credibility by trying to get noticed too much?

A good headline makes a promise to the reader that the content delivers. Blow that, and you’ll damage your credibility. I mean, what’s the point of writing an attention-grabbing headline if you can’t follow through? Again, the competition for attention is increasing the quality of content overall, because quality content is what works. People who try to take shortcuts will fail.

When blogging, how do you balance writing for teaching vs writing for links vs writing for sales? Do you need to have much reach with a blog before you can have much an affect or significant profit?

Writing to teach can be writing for links and sales, if done correctly. As for reach vs. profit, it depends on what you’re selling. A realtor with a killer blog only needs to attract two or three clients per month to make a nice six figure income in most markets. Selling low-priced widgets requires more volume, as do advertising business models.

How often should I consider writing or rewriting my sales letter? How do I test the effectiveness of a rewrite?

I would never suggest rewriting something just for the sake of it, if it’s working. I was a bit perplexed by the recent copy overhaul to the 37signals home page. But it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse of your market, so you can anticipate necessary changes before your sales slump. I think that’s where we were with your old page.

Testing is crucial. You should test the new sales page against the old, and then also consider testing certain elements within the winning page to see if it can be further optimized for conversion.

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Thanks Brian. I just started split testing the new sales letter using Google AdWords, and we should have results by the end of February. If you want to learn more about copywriting check out Copyblogger today.

Scott Smith, also known as Caveman, is one of my favorite personalities in the SEO business. I recently have done work with him on numerous projects (look for an official announcement of some sort soon), and Scott always seems to have a slightly different (and far more brilliant) angle than I on many SEO and marketing related issues.

I wanted to interview him for probably at least a year, and I finally got him to say yes :)

What is your background prior to getting into the SEM space?

Oh, you're start off by making me feel like a caveman huh? Lemme see, I spent 20 years in marketing at several large ad agencies in New York, working on a variety of very well known brands. As I got to thinking about my career, I was faced with the prospect of becoming a lifer in the ad world, because once you get into profit sharing you never leave. I couldn't see spending another 20 years doing the same work I'd already done for 20 years, so I off I went "in search of..."

In search of what?

Hehe, I didn't know really. Just something new and interesting. I was working on a book. I also like outdoor photography and won a big photo contest put on by Canon cameras [Aaron, can you insert my affiliate code there please?] ;), but photographers don't make much money so that dream didn't last long.

Anyway, I was researching a book project, and in the process, became completely mesmerized by the Web (that was back in 1998). Next thing you know, I was trying to figure out how to code a Web site. I'm still not very good at that. I don't think a single one of my sites actually validates. Shhh, don't tell anyone. Actually, a few of them do. You gotta watch out for footprints you know.

Now I run a bunch of Web sites and it's all great fun.

How do offline brand, marketing, and public relations experience relate to search marketing?

They are hugely related in my opinion. Classic marketing training and analysis teaches you to see things...connections and opportunities that are easily overlooked by others.

Web marketing is really no different from other kinds of marketing, conceptually - only the tactics and implementations are different. The engines are all about trying to show SERP's that best address the interests of the searcher. They use on-site and off-site data to sort out best pages to show, just like we do in the real world. For example, to choose a restaurant. I look for reviews (both professional and amateur, both of which are external to the restaurant), I consider how long the restaurant has been around and if it's busy most of the time. I ask personal friends. I look for signals of quality and reference, and context matters. It's very like how the algo's function.

So when I build a Web site, it's like building a good restaurant. You want a nice façade and lighting. Good recipes. Good ingredients. Good presentation. And you do what you can to get good reviews - like PR, talking to people, inviting VIP's, getting mentions in local gossip columns, whatever.

Gee, are we talking about search marketing or restaurants?

Not sure, but I'm getting hungry.

In my old advertising and marketing days, I'd always start by collecting deep knowledge of the product or service, and of the category. That included always trying the product for myself, or getting some I know and trust to try it.

Then I'd work with the brand marketing people to ensure that the product or service was up to snuff and functioning properly according to its goals, and that brand or line extensions were in place to address various users' needs or tastes.

We'd learn as much as possible about what the users think, and what they want. Car manufacturers can put all the technology they want into a car, but if a consumer wants a RED car and the manufacturer doesn't offer RED in that model, the sale is lost. You gotta know stuff like that. Knowing the category is essential to maximizing potential revenues and profits.

When, for example, you've got a real estate Web site, here's the question: Are you selling homes? Or are you selling status, comfort, the quality of local schools, a finished basement, proximity to the train station, or what?

Or, if you're selling VoIP, are you selling phone service or are you selling better ways to connect to friends.

If you understand the importance of knowing all this stuff, and make it your business to know the answers in your categories, it makes selling and positioning a brand within a Web site whole lot easier. Just like it makes creating great advertising easier. It informs everything you work on, from the name of the sited to the color of the site to the way the site is organized. All of which contribute to achieving the ultimate goals of search marketing.

And what are those in your opinion?

Increasing revenue and improving ROI.

So for you it's all about the understanding the customer, and profit?

No actually, hehe. I haven't even started talking about competition. That's a huge area. When you really learn a category, and learn what the consumers really want, and what sorts of decision trees they employ, it's tremendously helpful. What if, knowing all of that, you then see that some sites are completely missing certain important areas of appeal? Bam! New site idea.

And the Web is so great because site ideas and page ideas can get so granular that you can go after targets within targets within targets, and you have the option of doing that with one site or many.

Here's an easier one: What if you see a bunch of competition, and all of 'em are doing some things right, but not a one is doing it all right? That happens ALL THE TIME.

Do I need to be technical to be a good SEO? Do I need to be a good marketer to be a good SEO?

I dunno. You got any bagels? I'm still hungry.

C'mon now, answer the question.

I think that there are lots of ways to skin a cat. There are successful engineer/programmer types out there who've made a fortune with little or no knowledge of marketing.

Up until recently it was tougher for non-techies. But now, I'd say it's becoming easier for those who are savvy about marketing or promotion, as long as they have someone who can build an SEO-friendly site ... or at least avoid building an SEO-unfriendly site. Lots of those out there.

It also depends on if you're talking about smaller affiliate sites or bigger company/branded sites.

If you want to be really successful with the bigger stuff, I don't see how you do that in the future without strength in both tech and marketing.

You've almost got to understand Web site code, and at least the basics of search engine algo's. That doesn't mean you have to be an engineer but it sure requires a head for tech, or math, and algorithmic concepts. At the same time, it is a HUGE advantage to understand consumer marketing. You know, stuff like user behavior and motivation, decision trees, analytics, purchase cycles, buying patterns, brand development, price/value relationships. Just one major insight in any of those areas can dramatically grow revenues, especially on the Web, where opportunities are so plentiful.

And as far as Web sites go, rapid-fire communication strategies (in the way TV and print and billboard ads must grab you in seconds or lose you), ease of use and navigation, hierarchies of importance within a category, abandonment issues, conversion issues, etc.

Obviously, you can put sites up and make money without knowing much about any of that stuff. But those who know both tech and marketing have what I perceive to be an obvious advantage.

And as the Web grows up and the big money rolls in, man, you better have some kind of edge.

Speaking of which: As more of the offline brands aggressively move online how will that change the SEM space? Will individuals still be able to compete against major corporations with affiliate sites, personal blogs, etc.? Or will launching such sites be nothing more than a blissful excursion?

One thing it's been doing for a while now is pushing up PPC prices. The natural result of that is that companies who were scared or uncertain of organic search are getting more into it all the time. I can't attend a business event any more without hearing people talk about SEO or SEM.

As for smaller players competing, certainly there will always be some clever individuals getting rich. But, it's going to keep getting harder if you're a one-man-band. Small businesses on the other hand will always have an advantage or large companies, in some respects: Speed and nimbleness, local knowledge, face-to-face contact, high levels of expertise in niche markets (most of the world is niche markets you know). These will always be advantages for the little guy.

In the offline world, small business has always accounted for far more of GNP than big business. I think the number is something like 70% or 80% in favor of small business.

And getting back to the tech and marketing theme, little guys on the Web who know tech AND marketing will have the edge over those who don't. Same at all levels of competition. It's like a matrix, with size or lack of it on one axis and knowledge on the other. You can be large or small, but you the more knowledge you have, the better off you are.

Do you use any personal sites as practice for the game, or are all of your sites earners?

If there are ways to gain advantages then I use them. That applies to sites too.

Why would a successful affiliate marketing SEO consider working for SEO clients?

I give up. Why?

Umm, I mean, you.

Oh. Hehe. Well I don't think of myself as an affiliate marketer. Just a marketer whose focus for now is the Web.

The funny thing is, now that I've had a break from my old marketing career, I miss working with clients. And I rarely see a site that doesn't need both marketing and SEO help. Since I'm in a position to offer both in a highly integrated way, it seems like a good idea for me to do that. Plus, I'm a big believer in diversity, as long as you stay within your area of expertise.

You have often mentioned trying to position your site and brand near at least one authority in your vertical. What are some litmus tests for how easily you can align your site with existing sites? Which authoritative sites should you consider trying to align your site with?

I think it's critical. And it's one advantage that the smaller players are losing, which is a major failing of Google these days. But in a way the social Web is offsetting this I think. Anyway, yes, the SE's and especially Google are a lot about proximity to core sites. Read the papers on TrustRank and seed sites. You've got to get in with other sites that matter in your niche. And this gets back to an earlier question. Getting integrated into your category is a WHOLE LOT EASIER if you pay attention to two things: Site quality, and marketing of all kinds...social, viral, niche, PR, and basic branding even.

Do search engines try to match site profiles with sites in a category? How would that work, and what might they look for?

I don't know. Do you know?

Well, I have my thoughts, but this is your time.

Tell me your thoughts.

No?

Well, I think Google does what you're asking about, sorta. Actually let me say that we behave as though it's true, which is not at all the same thing. But sometimes it helps to draw conclusions, and then behave in accordance with an assumption, for simplicity's sake, if the assumptions lead a team to the place you want to go.

Let's take both technical and comparative approaches to it.

Technically the search engines have a number of tools at their disposal. I hate always saying this, but the caveat here is that I have no way of knowing what the SE's are really doing. I'm just offering educated guesses.

So, I'm of the opinion that Google use semantic analysis of a kind related to their CIRCA technology.

Ever noticed how sometimes, especially for newer sites, you can't rank for a main keyword but you can for secondary terms? Using semantic analysis, a phrase that is used in all documents of a Web site could be filtered out from a sites pages for ranking purposes (or at least I assume so, having read the papers). So immediately that raises lots of possibilities. Let's say that you run a simple site about "hiking boots." If the site is rather "me too," and or doesn't have much link juice, Google may filter our "hiking boots" as a rankable phrase for that site, so you're only left with "small hiking boots" if you're lucky, or maybe only "small brown hiking boots."

But here is an second possibility. You have lots of link juice, and from other hiking boot sites, no less. Whoa. Now all the sudden, G starts ranking you on page three for "hiking boots." If you see that happen, you know you're in the game.

And just to stay on track, how does that relate to matching site profiles with a category?

Well, it doesn't exactly. But it does sorta. It relates to LocalRank. What if you don't have links from related sites, and as a result, maybe you don't get past the semantic filters.

But, that's not all. G knows that of the sites that rocket to the moon in terms of link pop right after launch, many are spam but some are not. So, how hard would it be to take a "cluster" of sites (read about LSI again if you don't know what that means) and associate that cluster with growth patterns, LocalRank patterns or any other number of patterns?

Answer? I have no idea. But it seems eminently logical to me.

Listen, part of search marketing is analyzing existing data and observations, and part of it is understanding the mindsets of the search engines and sussing out what they are likely thinking about. And this is also where my marketing side kicks in. Why wouldn't a site that really wants to rank just assume that everything just mentioned is true? What's the worst case? That you are wrong and kick the competitions' butts anyway? Hehe.

And here's a related question for you: What if the SE's are simply mimicking all that is there? What if it becomes a self-reinforcing circle, with the top sites holding all the power. Where does that lead you, in terms of finding an edge? Almost to the same place, that's where.

This line of thinking relates to Google's new customizable search product too, I think. They are very clever about getting people and sites to provide information on perceptions of quality. If you have top sites in a given vertical using Google's new customizable search engine on their own sites, and defining the search universe, now you've got trusted sites providing Google with mountains of new information about "best sites" out there. It scares me frankly.

What makes a page look overly optimized? What tools can you use to improve on page optimization without hurting the credibility or conversion potential of the site?

Hey man, I rely on you for what tools are best to use. But as far as sites or pages being overly optimized, I've been yelling about this issue in my role as a mod over at Webmaster World, pretty much since before Google's Florida update several years back. Actually I guess that means was yelling about it before being a mod. Whatever. If, for a given page, you line up your backlinks, title, description, H1, high level text and internal links against a single two word phrase, unless you've got major link juice, you're likely going to run into some trouble there.

The tricky thing is that, and the papers tend to confirm this, the way the algo's work is sorta like a point system. You can get positive points and negative points, and also yellow and red cards like in soccer. Very few things are absolute. So the SE's try to assign levels of probability to things they encounter and an easy way to do that is to assign positive and negative points and get a sort of overall score.

So, if your site or your page does some things that yield negative scores, your rankings can suffer to a large or small extent in the rankings, and you have no idea if you're just not ranking as well as you'd like, or if you're actually ranking less well than you should because of crossing one or more important lines ... infractions that creative negative points so to speak.

How important are unique page titles and Meta description tags? What type of sites should hand craft each? What types of sites can automate creating them via formulas? Where and when is duplication acceptable?

Ah, another pet peeve of mine. Everyone's running around these days saying that titles are still hugely important and that Meta descriptions don't matter much. Blech. Of course descriptions matter. Is it logical that author created titles are hugely important, and author created descriptions not at all? Not to me. Plus we see evidence that descriptions matter. Slight evidence, but evidence. And, we see a lot of evidence that getting them wrong can hurt you. The duplication and "over optimization" issues again.

But all that aside, people don't seem to get that these descriptions are used by the engines in the SERP's. Good descriptions affect click through's in positive ways. What else does a person need to know? It's so fundamental yet so many people dismiss them. It's beyond me.

No worries. Scott, you mentioned in a recent interview on WebmasterRadio.FM with GoodROI that you build links to achieve objectives. What are the important objects every Webmaster should consider when building links? What links should they wait to build? Which ones should they build right away?

Personally I think it depends on the site and the category. We build links to achieve a variety of objectives and it varies with the needs of the site. In most cases, getting more traffic is an important goal. So is developing a presence in key pockets of a category, sometimes. If you're building a brand, you lean one way, if you're really just going for traffic, you go another way. And if you simply want to build link juice for a site, that implies yet another approach. This is such a huge topic it's hard for me to know how to summarize it very well.

One thing I do think is worth noting is the process and chronology of building links with respect to Google's so called "sandbox." Getting back to that question about does your site have to "look like" other sites in category, think about this. Google knows that different kinds of sites have different kinds of patterns. This applies to both site structure (an e-commerce site looks different from a directory site structurally), and link patterns (blogs launched by well known personalities have very different link accumulation patterns than new hobby sites launched by amateur hobbyists). It's also not hard to imagine that Google can cross-reference this sort of data. So, if a site displays a certain kind of link development pattern, which encompasses both speed and rate of accumulation, and nature of the linking sites and pages, it tells them a lot about what kind of site it might be, and how important or "trusted" the site might be.

So rather than spewing out lots of tactics, I encourage people to consider all of that and let that thinking lead them to developing strategies that make sense for the kind of site they want to have.

Do you ever see engines moving away from using linkage data as a core relevancy criteria? What other signals might they promote, and how are you preparing for future shifts?

Well again, that new customizable search functionality that Google just made available to sites might be viewed as a step away from links, although it's still a site voting mechanism. Then there has been all of the talk about toolbar data. I'm just not even close to convinced that it's very usable. There are so many ways click data can be interpreted. As just one overly simplistic example, if a user lands on a site and stays only a 12 seconds, and then moves on to another site, is that a bad site? Well, not if it was a brilliantly designed directory that solved the users needs that fast. Or, what if a very good site somehow lands in a stream of users that are all on drugs. Does the fact that they stay on each page for a long time mean the pages are great, or that the users can't see straight. I know, these are wacky examples, but to make a point. Hopefully anyway. Errr, maybe not.

As a self-professed algo junkie, how do you prevent yourself from excessively worrying about the effects of making small changes? How do you prevent over thinking yourself?

That's a great question. In my mind anyway. It's a personality defect of mine to get too into all of this sometimes. Hmmm, I think you knew that already didn't you?

What I try to do is get clear on the value and context of a given SEO/SEM element by scanning the marketplace and then doing some testing. But my rule of thumb is, I try to be 80% confident or more, and open to new information. I don't need to be right all the time. Just more often than not. It's like my basic approach to the algo's. I love looking at it all. Partly I enjoy the challenge of figuring it out, but it's mainly about business results. So, we develop our working assumptions, and treat them like gospel until we see evidence that causes us to challenge our assumptions. And the truth is, I don't even care if I'm right. Only that my assumptions lead the sites to good places, and don't get me in trouble. That keeps me sane, more or less.

But it can get me in trouble. Before I was a mod at WebmasterWorld, I felt more free to throw out ideas and opinions without qualifying them as such. Partly I like to share my thinking and experience to help younger Webmasters, but also, tossing out points of view that are wrong is a great way to find out when you're way off base. Only now if I do that, I get a lot more snarky comments, so I'm a bit more careful about expressing opinions. But people would do well to remember that in search almost all of it is opinion, at best based on experience, observation and hopefully a little intelligence. The best thing for everyone is to get in there and get some experience of their own.

Thanks Scott, err, do you prefer "caveman"?

Either is fine. Hehe. Thanks Aaron.