A summer interview with… Paul Madden (@seoidiot): “People are trusting, they do what you ask them to do”
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A summer interview with… Paul Madden (@seoidiot): “People are trusting, they do what you ask them to do”

4th August 2010

There are many great search-experts out there. We decided we wanted to give some extra attention to some of them. Therefore we will be interviewing some of these experts. During the entire summer you will be served with short interviews with influential people in the industry. You will be seeing interviews with the likes of Joost de Valk, Marcus Tandler, Chris Sherman, Mike Grehan and Danny Sullivan, and off course our bloggers! Be aware that some interviews will be published in the newsletter!

Today: sitting by the pool in California: Paul Madden, aka Seoidiot

1- Can you introduce yourself in one paragraph?

I am a generalist, having been around for over 12 years online I have a decent understanding of most things but specialise in SEO and nowadays social media. I have a reputation for understanding the darker arts of blackhat SEO and would still consider myself one of the more responsible spammers around.

2- What are you doing this summer?

Currently I am sitting by the pool in southern California and in a few days I am off back to Vegas for some fun and some sun. Most of what I do day to day nowadays is outsourced to teams I have built up around the world so as long as I have wifi I have control. We have a number of side projects in progress and of course the normal client work. One good side project we are building at the moment is a larger network of sites we control centrally which we can then use for any number of other projects.

3- What is the most hottest subject in search at the moment, what should every SEO be looking into

Changing signals. Google has enforced the link based economy on us for many years now and we have adapted well to counter and abuse it. Social signals are now starting to play a real role in how we can get eyeballs onto whatever we want to promote and it cant be too long until we also see that have an effect as a signal in the ranking algo.

4- What do you think is the “state of search” at the moment, is the industry doing good?

Many people talk about search as being an industry in decline, it isnt. Its an industry in constant flux and for those who like to experiment thats a great thing. If I am honest I try to keep out of the majority of search industry debates as there really isnt any point in debating with people when you could be doing, testing and learning.

5- What is your favorite website, apart from your own?

This isnt an SEO website I am afraid but as some may know I enjoy a bot of a doodle too (Yoast.com’s cartoon is my work) and I am currently addicted to this http://theartofchase.com/category/blog/.
I have seen a few pieces of his work and he is a very talented guy, I wish I could still do that and I wish I could do it as well as he does.

6- Can “social marketing / media” and search survive apart from each other?

Social and search will eventually be part of the same discipline when the engines start using social signals as a stronger part of their algo. Social at the moment is a real fun area where there is ample opportunity for anyone with a penchant for manipulating the user to really control conversations and therefore build traffic.

7- What’s your search tip for the summer?

People are trusting, they do what you ask them to do.
Sounds a little creepy that so my alternative is. Break what you do down into small chunks, create a procedure and outsource the chunks. Services like oDesk are great for nearly every task you can isolate. If you can… try and do only the bits that require skill yourself and take Mondays off, the worlds a big place and search is just how you pay for getting out and seeing it.

Paul was a guest on the State of Search radioshow several weeks ago. You can find that episode here.

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Bas van den Beld is an award winning Digital Marketing consultant, trainer and speaker. He is the founder of State of Digital and helps companies develop solid marketing strategies.
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