Search Featured: Seth Godin

Seth I want to thank you for the opportunity to get to know a little bit more about you. In a word you are a genius – what keeps you going, have you not done enough already?

Seth: I’m hardly a genius. I’m just good at making a ruckus, at pointing out the obvious, at giving people a chance to do the things they already knew were right. I’m lucky to be working in a world that fits my personality… I’d be a failure in the 1800s, that’s for sure.

Seth, you were VP of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, American Magazine called you “America’s Greatest Marketer”, and you are responsible for 10 bestselling books AND Squidoo. Is there anything else we can expect to see soon? Any Grammys coming up?

Seth: The number of people who have heard me sing is small indeed. I’m even asked to sit quietly during “happy birthday.”

I have read a lot of your work and am always impressed with what you constantly deliver. You recently released “The Dip” what’s it about, who will it help the most and where can I get my copy?

Seth: The Dip takes on a topic that has been off-limits for years: Quitting. I think quitting is a good thing, and the ability to quit is a great thing. In a google-centric world, where every choice is only a click away, people always choose the ‘best’ one, or at least the one they think is the best. That makes sense, of course. Why would anyone choose the second or third best?

But if we live in a world where winner takes all, what should you do if you’re in second or fifth place? What should you do if you don’t have enough delegates or a big enough fan base or a good enough business model? My point in the book (which is less than 100 pages long) is that being prepared to quit when you can’t see a path to becoming the best is in fact empowering. It gives you the push you need to not settle. Be the best or do something else.

A little over a month ago I created a Squidoo page, threw some links at it and managed to rank it for decent keywords. Squidoo is a young and very powerful site. What can we expect from Squidoo over the next couple of years? Any new features?

Seth: Squidoo works best when you put a lot into it. A few links and some keywords work okay, but a few hours of thoughtful research and some insightful writing turn it into something truly useful. In the next eight weeks we are rolling out some improvements that are really going to make those pages sing.

Many people wonder how companies like Facebook and MySpace are going to make the money they need to live up to their expectations. Where do you see them making most of their money over the next 5-10 years? Is it going to be enough?

Seth: not everyone agrees, but my feeling is that you can make money interrupting CONTENT with ads, but not COMMUNITY. People don’t want commerce mixed in with their friends and their social graph. So I think that monetizing the astounding page views of these sites is going to be extremely difficult.

When I think of Seth Godin I think of a Guerilla Marketing Guru and bestselling author, but there is more to you than that, right? You are an old-timer in the SEO field – what is the one thing that has always ranked websites well; the one thing that every optimizer should consistently focus on?

Seth: I’m an old timer on the Net… first email in 1976, first Internet startup in 1990. But I underestimated the web and have never claimed any SEO skills at all. My take is pretty simple: The best SEO is great content and a tribe that wants to follow you and talk about you and interact with what you build.

In the time it takes to game the system, I think you can do better by actually working with the system to create content people WANT to find. Once you’ve done that, then yes, hire the best SEO you can find, because it’ll pay.

It seems like Google is making it harder for new websites to grow and survive online. Some claim that in years to come entrance barriers will be so high in some industries that startups will never make it. Are you seeing the same thing or is all of this just one more thing that people will learn from and use to discover new ways to make any good website rank well?

Seth: Every industry matures, and as it matures, it’s harder to find an entry point (want to start a steel mill? I didn’t think so). BUT, I think Google is actually making it easier than it has ever been in the history of mankind to start a business with no money and make a profit.

One more question about SEO concerning links, buying links is nearly out, directories and blogs may be fading, and social media may too dwindle away. What do you think most optimizers will be focusing on to get good rankings in the next few years?

Seth: Content. Probably Content. And definitely, Content

The search engines keep getting smarter. The way to win is to be remarkable, useful, unique and updated.

You have a fundraiser on April 30^th in NYC . From what I understand, it is going to be a little different from the typical long presentation and Q & A. What is this I hear about you giving your $800 four DVD set away free and what is going to be different about the fundraiser? Are there still seats available and is there anything our interested readers should know?

Seth: Thanks for asking. All the money goes to Acumen (in fact, you pay them directly). I have six seats left and I figure they’ll go soon. The details are on my blog. I hope you can come. If you can’t, I hope you’ll buy the DVD set. It’s long, but if what you want is me prattling on, that’s what you get

Thanks Seth -

Buy Seth’s latest bestseller Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out of Sync? on Barnes & Noble.com.