Interview 140 Brief: During our research and while looking into different profiles on Twitter, we stumbled upon a certain trend being carried out by a few great Twitter lovers who have the ability to use Twitter in a way that makes the world a better place! Thus, the idea of Interview in 140 characters came into play! We decided to pick one Twitter user every once in a while and interview him/her about different topics of interest to the whole Twitter community and us as well.

A line about the interviewee:

Matt Sawyer is a search engine optimization and a social media expert. He works at Datadial, a London based web design and marketing agency. He is in charge of the company’s blog where he constantly delivers insightful information regarding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media (SM).

With a staggering 26,771 followers on Twitter and more than 2,900 quality tweets, one can figure out that @MattUK is an excellent source for SEO and SM advice.

He participated in the Search Marketing Expo that took place last month and summarized the outcome in a – must read – blog post. Search Marketing Expo is an event where SEO experts gather in one place to discuss the latest trends and issues regarding internet search and current Web marketing trends.

Interview140 Analysis and Lessons:

The internet is a very competitive medium; we all know that there is no use of a web site if no one visits it. We all aspire to get our web pages to the top of Google results. We work hard trying to master every possible technique to make our pages easier to be found and accessed.

Social media has revolutionized the way we perceive web today. Google is no longer solely monopolizing your web site visitors. Social bookmarking and networking sites can be a very big source of traffic today. We have experienced this first hand here on Thoughtpick Blog through our stats, with websites like Stumble Upon, Mixx, Reddit, Digg and Twitter forming a significant portion of our blog visitors.

Does social media effect the way we work to optimize our pages on this blog? Not really, but it does emphasize, more than ever, that great content and appropriate headlines are the way to go. Content has again been crowned the king of the web.

We learnt some valuable lessons from @MattUK that we would like to share:

Great headlines translate into better attention and more links to your website. Take your time; it is a shame to miss out on traffic on an excellent article for a lousy title .

. It is essential to know what your customers are looking for in order to deliver and promote the right content for your audience.

in order to deliver and promote the right content for your audience. Social Media is a great medium for delivering influencers and trend setters .

. Twitter definitely needs a RT button! Don’t we all agree on that?

What is more important today: social media or search engine optimization? Check out our interview with @MattUK and let us know what you think in the comments section below.





The interview140 (on twitter):

@fadipick: 1. Your last post listed tips learnt from the Search Marketing Expo conference. What’s your favourite tip?” #140

@mattuk: My favourite tip was the huge importance of a good headline – great headlines = attention and links #140

@fadipick: 2. “Websites Don’t Link to Websites- People link to other people’s work“. How do you encourage people to link to your pages? #140

@mattuk: Good content, know what your customers are looking for, create it and promote it. #140

@fadipick: 3. Which do you recommend: paid or natural search? Why? #140

@mattuk: Well being an SEO I’m biased, but it’s a fact that generally 75% of people click on the natural rather than paid results #140

@fadipick: 4. The credit-crunch has altered search behaviour. Consumers are searching more, buying less. Do you have any advice? #140

@mattuk: target transactional phrases, such as buy+keyword and cheap+keyword, conv rates are higher and people looking for bargains #140

@fadipick: 5. From your experience, what defines a link’s quality? #140

@mattuk: Link quality is down to age, topic, incoming links, editorial position and anchor text are all important #140

@fadipick: 6. How important is social media today, in terms of the amount of traffic it can drive to a website? #140

@mattuk: For me social media is less about delivering visitors, more about delivering influencers – media, bloggers, linkerati #140

@fadipick: 7. How do you use Twitter to gain better SEO ranking, now that it started indexing links in tweets? #140

@mattuk: Personally I don’t use Twitter for SEO at all, more of a news stream and a networking tool #140

@fadipick: 8. What do you think about Microsoft’s new search engine: Bing? (from an SEO perspective) #140

@mattuk: It’s okay, does the job, results aren’t bad, but it’s never going to knock Google off of top spot

@fadipick: 9. Do you think HTML5 would affect the way we optimize web pages for better ranking? #140

@mattuk: No, Pages optimisation has changed little – always been about knowing keywords and having them in key places on the page #140

@fadipick: 10. You blogged that Twitter is a search engine and it’s better than Google? Can you summarize why in 140 character? #140

@mattuk: Twitter search is better than Google in terms of realtime search. Want to find out what’s happening now? Use Twitter. #140

@fadipick: 11. Who are your favourite SEO consultants who are active on Twitter? #140

@mattuk: There are far too many that I talk to to mention everyone! #140

@fadipick: 12. What is the most annoying feature for you on Twitter? #140

@mattuk: Lack of a RT button on the web interface #140

@fadipick: 13. How would you change Twitter for the better? #140

@mattuk: Add a RT button, custom filters, trending within your followers/following #140

We hope that you enjoyed this interview, and left with at least one piece of useful advice. Please retweet :)