Bloggasm

Yesterday I got the chance to interview Aaron Pratt from SEO BuzzBox. This man is, in my view, the king of interviews. He is one of those rare people who know exactly which questions to ask, and he has been able to pull off some amazing interviews within the SEO community. It’s been great fun reading his blog over the last few months.

While preparing for Aaron’s interview I went back through all the archives of the interviews he’s done and also managed to stumble upon some of his personal sites, including one where he sells recycled rain barrels made out of plastic. Pretty interesting stuff, but don’t let that fool you – with Aaron there’s always a suspicion that there’s more than meets the eye.

On to the interview:

Hello Aaron; thanks for the interview. It’s ok if I call you Aaron, right?

Yep that’s me!

In our email exchange you called yourself a “social networker” – what is that like? How does it tie in with SEO BuzzBox?

Well to be honest I am just a regular guy with a few environmental sites who is tired of being misunderstood by Google. My sites are in “blog” format so they were heavily scraped, duplicated and thrown in the trash during the Jagger updates, but my frustration goes back much farther. Here I am in 2003 bitching and moaning about something that Matt Cutts now calls “Canonical Issues”, it was my first website and I might have sounded a bit clueless but do you notice something? I had a legitimate question and it has taken 3 years for Google to finally do something about the issue. You know who helped me better understand how to get my website marketed in these broken search engines? SEO experts! My blog is about and for them.

The “social networker” thing is a little personal joke I have but in reality it is who I am; my skill is in understanding others which is how I do my interviews and learn new things.

You’ve interviewed some big names in the SEO industry (Mike Grehan and Lee Odden to name just two). How does one go about getting these guys to agree to such a request (they must be awfully busy)? Do you offer something in return?

Ah yes, your reference to what I call “oral marketing” was exposed perfectly by our friend Jeremy Zawodny there. Since I am a weenie blogger and am not Jeremy, Scoble or Cutts when they hit the nail on the head I celebrate them. Oral marketing is exactly what you do not want to do and if you approach one of these guys from that angle be prepared to get your ass handed to you.

Back to your question, how do you approach people you would like to interview? Simple, only interview those who you honestly respect and admire. If you noticed, many are getting into “interviews” as a form of content spam as Aaron Wall calls it while at the same time pointing to John Scott’s interview of Bob Massa. Jill Whalen then said the following:

“There was something about John’s that seemed odd, and I think it was just because his questions were so short and serious like, and then Bob went a little wild and crazy with his answers. So there was this disconnect.”

And I couldn’t agree more, though John has done some good interviews he has had a few with major disconnects. If you watch David Letterman from time to time you see that sometimes he doesn’t connect with his guests and for me that is painful to watch. To do a good interview you have to care about the one you are chatting with enough to develop a relationship with them beforehand. Here are some things I do.

• Visit a person’s blog and join in the conversation.
• If you find the conversation is something that does not interest you find someone else that interests you more.
• Ask the person you would like to interview a question? Don’t have a question? No? Well then you need to leave that person alone and find someone else to interview.

I also do not offer a thing other than letting people know more about these people.

Has anyone ever rejected your requests for an interview? Can you tell us who and why?

The only person who has rejected an interview with me is Nick Wilson from Performancing.com and I understand why. Nick used to be known in SEO circles and was the owner of Threadwatch until he had new ideas. He migrated into “social networking” and blogging and does not want to associate with SEO types now, which is actually a smart move. I just hope he didn’t leave his friends behind with no forwarding address because that would be downright rude. No hard feelings and I wish him the best of luck with Blog Nation.

Using interviews as link-bait seems to be a one-dimensional strategy – it’s obvious that if you want those people to stay/come back, you’ll have to produce a lot of original content (something that we’re working on at Bloggasm as well). How do you plan to do that (apart from commenting on search/seo news like everyone else)? What will be your contribution to the SEO industry apart from the interviews? What goals do you have for SEO BuzzBox?

First off let me just say that I dislike the word “link bait” but I absolutely HATE the word “content”. Just because Matt Cutts says that link baiting is a good strategy for getting links does not make it so. You know what is more powerful than link baiting? Having something that truly interests people on your blog, something really cool that people just link to for that reason alone. Ever find a person with a blog that has MASSIVE PR and thousands of backlinks but the guy knows nothing about SEO? Look further into it and you might find that the guy programmed some cool widget that people liked so they linked to him. You see “link baiting” implies that there was intention to manipulate, making cool stuff because you enjoy it gets you noticed naturally but yeah, if you got nothing you got to do something I guess.

And about content, if you visit places like Performancing.com you will find posts done by people who talk about launching 100’s of blogs and hiring college students to write articles for them to own large chunks of internet real estate. There are dollar signs glowing in their eyes and clouding their vision in most cases. These people also often use the word “content” like it is crack that you serve up to search engines for dollars. Yes content can get you good placement in the search engines but is the content good or is it horse shit? Who are you writing this content for? If the answer is search engines you are feeding a hungry beast that will eat you for breakfast and if you do not have more content it will spit your bones in the trash. Ever seen a website that just magically stays #1 for its keywords year after year with little/no change to its content? A smart marketer wants to reach that pinnacle of success.

Back to the question again, SEOBUZZBOX has no goals and no financial needs, this is why it works. I made the blog as a kind of joke to take shots at Google and as a place to vent my frustration but it kind of turned into a place for learning more about those who I think are cool.

I’d like to move to your ‘other sites’, if you don’t mind.

You’ve claimed (it’s the Internet, who knows what you really do) that you make rain barrels to fund your pet projects. What other projects do you have going on (apart from SEO BuzzBox)?

Nothing really special, made a site for a neighbor who sells gift baskets and it is currently #5 in Google for that phrase. That is the only thing I have marketed for someone else. I also have a couple environmental blogs, my idea is to make “off the grid” living a reality and buy a large farm and use it as an example. I am also working on a strategy to market these blogs then pass them over to real people who care about this type of stuff and at that point I will step out of the picture. I am also interested in training robots and other things but that is a top secret project.

How does one move from making rain barrels to interviewing seo experts?

I am very interested in what fuels the mothership. SEO experts have the tools I need to advance my army and build my empire.

Speaking of rain barrels…I mean, seriously, rain barrels? Couldn’t you find a less boring way to make money? I mean this is the age of the Internet.

Careful now, I know what you might have read in “Interviews 101” but insulting the guest is not a good way to go and can be risky.

How many people do you know who do not even have to leave their yard to go to work? Also the last time I checked I sell 100% of my product directly from my website and am my own boss. Ever work for someone who you do not respect? I am unemployable really, I want to be the boss and tend to take over everything I touch and this doesn’t go over well in corporate America.

Jill Whalen also lives only a few miles away from me, I really like her style so maybe I will hook up with her at some point and offer to take care of some of her marketing services that she doesn’t have time for. How about it Jill? I promise not to hijack your network!

After that last question, do I get a rain barrel for shining the bloggasm spotlight on seo buzzbox for a day? (I think I know where this one’s going…)

Spotlight? Isn’t this why you are interviewing me, to find out the secrets of how to get the spotlight shined on you via interview content spamming? Yeah, I will shower your bloggasm with some Buzzbox juice!

Any tips for interviewing famous bloggers? If you feel it necessary, give us some examples of good and bad interviews (let’s exclude this one, shall we?).

I think I hit upon that in a previous question, do not think of interviewing “famous” people, think of interviewing people who interest you and remember the disconnect thing. People will not return to read your interviews if they do not think you are real. Also remember that most famous people hate being seen and treated like they are famous, hint hint. If you are the type of person who feels famous but has never played a guitar or acted you also connect with these people better. How confident are you, do you got a set or are you a weenie?

Which 5 blogs (apart from your own) would you recommend?

Michael Gray is a smart guy, if you want to learn some new things about marketing he knows his stuff and will share with you from time to time.

Matt Cutts is a good guy who takes a lot of jabs from angry mobs from time to time. He also knows what powers the *mothership* and will answer webmaster questions if you bug him enough.

Jeremy Zawodny is really cool and not afraid to tell people what he thinks.

Robert Scoble promised me an interview, I am currently reading his book and studying up, you do not want to ruin a good interview with a guy like that and please refrain from hitting him up for one until I complete mine, thank you.

Mister Paint because I want him to win the SEO contest for his kids. You better not put a “no follow” on this link or I will come over there and set fire to your weenie blog!

Now, go forth and prosper and keep it real home slice.

Thanks a lot for the interview Aaron. I think I went a bit overboard there with the rain barrels, but I also learned a lot. Hope you complete that Scoble interview soon, looking forward to it.