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Interviews


Lee Odden

Enterprise SEO Interview with Scott Skurnick of Edmunds.com

Lee Odden on May 25th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, SEO, Spotlight on Search


Spotlight on Search Interview with Scott Skurnick of Edmunds.com

Scott SkurnickFor every SEO guru speaking at a conference, there are 10 or 20 more SEO experts you might not have heard of, making things happen in amazing ways. Scott Skurnick has worked in the Search Marketing industry as long as anyone I know on the conference speaking circuit and has a tremendous amount of experience and expertise to share.

In this interview, Scott shares his journey to become Executive Director of Search Engine Optimization and User Insights at Edmunds.com, his take on social media and SEO, scalability of SEO, tips on audits, best practices, tools and more.

You’re a long time consumer products search marketer, having worked at companies like Circuit City, OfficeMax and currently with Edmunds.com. What made you decide to work in the search marketing industry and what do you like best about it?

Lee Odden

SEO at Turner Broadcasting: Dan Perry Interview

Lee Odden on May 19th, 2010     Enterprise SEO, Interviews, Online Marketing, SEO, Spotlight on Search


Spotlight on Search Interview with Dan Perry, SEO Director at Turner Broadcasting

SEO expertWorking with Enterprise SEO projects is compared to smaller company sites is as different as marketing to BtoC vs. BtoB customers. This interview with Dan Perry, the SEO Director for Turner Broadcasting covers his SEO dream job, in-house SEO career advice and skills, enterprise SEO, the future of outsourcing to agencies, being persuasive inside organizations and of course, Golf!

We met while you were with Cars.com and now you’re with Turner Broadcasting. (Congrats) How did you get into the SEO world and what is it that keeps you there?

Lee Odden

SEO at Wall Street Journal: Interview with Alex Bennert

Lee Odden on May 13th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, SEO, Spotlight on Search


Spotlight on Search Interview with Alex Bennert, Chief Search Strategist at The Wall Street Journal

Spotlight on Search is an interview series that shines a light on search marketing professionals to learn more about the nature of their work, differences in SEO amongst categories of web sites and of course, SEO tips, tactics and useful tools.

AlexThis interview with Alex Bennert, a longtime SEO professional with experience working on very large web sites such as Zillow and now with the Wall Street Journal, offers SEO career advice, explores the difference between in-house, agency and solo SEO practitioner, her experiences providing SEO services for a large publisher and the inevitable obsolescence of technical SEO. Oh yeah, we hit the obligatory social media topic too. Enjoy:

Lee Odden

SEO Google Style: Interview with Maile Ohye

Lee Odden on May 10th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, SEO, Spotlight on Search


Spotlight on Search Interview with Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead at Google

Spotlight on Search is an interview series that shines a light on search marketing professionals to learn more about the nature of their work, differences in SEO amongst categories of web sites and of course, SEO tips, tactics and useful tools.

MaileMaile Ohye has become a well known public figure from Google that works with webmasters and web marketers coordinating Google Webmaster Central outreach efforts, including the Webmaster Central Blog. She has been speaking at search conferences for several years and has done many interviews like the one at the bottom of this post with Greg Jarboe on real-time search. Her involvement with Google’s Webmaster Central has been instrumental in helping many web site owners find solutions to their Google problems.

Lee Odden

SEO with Feeds & XML

Lee Odden on Apr 15th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, SEO, SEO Tips

SEOMuch of the search engine optimization advice found online and at conferences centers around keywords and links. A lot of the spotlight on internet marketing has focused on content and social media. There’s no question that we’ve been a strong proponent of these tactics, sharing many, many posts on them.

Content and link based SEO relies on the search engine crawlers to find web pages and digital assets on their own. Search engines are far from perfect at this, so the opportunity to provide search engines with structured lists of content via feed, can provide some companies with a competitive advantage.

Lee Odden

Max Kalehoff on Social Media Advertising, Blogging & the Future of Paid Search

Lee Odden on Apr 14th, 2010     Blogging, Interviews, Online Marketing, Search Marketing, Spotlight on Search

One of the most insightful voices in the online marketing industry when it comes to advertising is Max Kalehoff of Clickable. I was introduced to Max at a Search Insider Summit conference several years ago with very high regard by David Berkowitz, another intelligent voice in the industry, so I knew immediately he was someone to pay attention to.

Max’s company recently announced the addition of Facebook Advertising to their PPC management platform and he was very kind to take the time to answer several detailed questions about social media advertising on the Clickable platform, the future of the online advertising industry, slimy SEO middlemen, how he stays current and blogging about his Weber grill. :)

Lee Odden

DoubleDutch: Foursquare for the Enterprise

Lee Odden on Apr 12th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, Social Media

SXSWi

The buzz on geolocation marketing is hot. Recently Lawrence Coburn from RateItAll released the beta version of a new project: DoubleDutch, a platform for creating your own geolocation check-in app, ala Foursquare. I connected with Lawrence to ask more questions about DoubleDutch and to get tips for marketers that want to incorporate geolocation and review services into their online marketing.

First, can you share a bit about yourself and your company RateItAll? We spoke on a panel several years ago at Pubcon and I remember that you have a great story about how your company started and really exploded with media attention.

Lee Odden

Landing Page Optimization Deep Dive: Interview with Tim Ash

Lee Odden on Apr 6th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, Spotlight on Search

Tim Ash is a marketing machine. He writes a blog, contributes to Search Engine Watch, hosts a weekly show on WebmasterRadio.fm, is author of the book “Landing Page Optimization”, speaks at numerous conferences and is the chair of the upcoming Conversion Conference in May.

Oh, and he also runs SiteTuners, a successful landing page optimization consulting business and has launched a new tool called AttentionWizard that offers eye tracking “without the eyes”.

Tim has worked with American Express, Sony Music, American Honda, Coach, COMP USA and many other major brands.

“Landing page testing is the best accelerator of your business that you have available.”

Tim is a very smart and very nice guy who took a few rare moments of time to answer a few questions about measuring social media ROI, budgets for testing, common mistakes, tips, tools and how he stays current in such a fast paced and changing field.

Lee Odden

SESNY Keynote Interview: David Meerman Scott

Lee Odden on Mar 22nd, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, Social Media

David Meerman Scott is a best-selling author and popular keynote speaker on the topics of viral and online marketing as well as the convergence of web marketing, digital media and online PR. One of his most popular books, The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, viral marketing and online media to reach buyers directly, was a real eye opener for a lot of companies trying to make sense of where blogs, press releases and search marketing fit together.

The second edition of The New Rules has recently been published and David will be keynoting the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference in New York. I caught up with him just before SES and did a phone interview to get more insight into the new book, his insights into the emerging social media world including Twitter, Foursquare, Blogging and Content Marketing. I also asked him to share some practical advice for time management and how he stays current.

Lee Odden

Ford’s Focus on Social Media: Scott Monty Interview

Lee Odden on Mar 9th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, Social Media

Scott Monty When you think of successful consumer brands in the social media space, names like Dell, Zappos and Pepsi come to mind. Another is Ford. Last year the Ford Fiesta movement generated a tremendous amount of awareness (and pre-orders) for a vehicle that wasn’t available to the public yet. (Great summary on Jeff Bullas’s blog) At the same time, it inspired a community to engage, create content and continue discussions about the Fiesta with over 7 million video views.

While in Dearborn, I visited The Henry Ford Museum, The Rouge Truck Factory and had an invitation to visit Ford’s Head of Social Media, Scott Monty at Ford’s World Headquarters where we did a short interview. We’ve talked to Scott and live blogged about Ford social media efforts in the past, but in this interview he talked about the place for social media with Ford’s new product lines, local social media work with Chapter 2 of the Fiesta movement and advice for companies on empowering communities.

Lee Odden

Marketing in the Age of Google: Vanessa Fox Interview

Lee Odden on Jan 18th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Spotlight on Search

(CC) Randy Stewart, blog.stewtopia.com

Vanessa Fox works as Entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners but is especially well known in the Search Marketing world because of her past work as Google’s search engine strategy spokesperson and creator of Google Webmaster Central. I’ve interviewed Vanessa several times on video in the past here, here, here and podcast here but nothing as substantial as what you’re about to read.

Vanessa has a new book coming out called “Marketing in the Age of Google“, which I’ve had the opportunity to preview and it reminds me of how important it is to draw attention to her exceptional insight. My kudos for the book:

Lee Odden

MiNterview: Greg Swan, Digital Account Group Manager

Lee Odden on Dec 16th, 2009     Interviews, Online Marketing, Public Relations

greg swanThe next in our series of interviews with Minnesota based, social media savvy marketing and public relations professionals is Greg Swan, Digital Account Group Manager at Weber Shandwick Digital.

Greg manages and executes interactive public relations programs for Weber Shandwick clients across consumer, technology and public affairs industries. As the social media team lead, Greg oversees the U.S. Army’s social media efforts, including pioneering instant messaging and mobile programs and the launch of the Army’s first-ever Soldier blog. Greg has helped clients, such as The Coca-Cola Company, Snickers, Verizon and Chevrolet, take the big leap into the social mediasphere to influence consumer behavior online and create authentic engagement.

You’re in an elevator going to the 45th floor (NYC) and you’re asked what you do. What’s your reply? If that happened in any other city, would your answer be different?

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