It’s that time again boys and girls! Another round of 10 questions for some poor victim a well known and respected SEO/SEM. Today’s specimen participant is Matt McGee, owner of the Small Business SEM Blog and SEO Manager for Marchex. Also Jennifer Laycock thinks that he is a “big squeezable teddy bear”. I report, you decide.

10 - What hard lessons have you learned about getting a small business on the search radar?

That there’s no substitute for commitment. I think that goes for companies of any size, frankly. No matter how much or how little money you have, how much time you have, and so forth, if you’re not committed to the process, you have no chance to succeed. Search engine success doesn’t happen by accident; it’s not something anyone stumbles onto. Maybe years ago that was possible, but there’s too much competition at all levels and in all industries now.

And another hard lesson is that there are no shortcuts. A successful search marketing campaign is like a puzzle; there are a lot of different pieces, and if you try to put it together without some of the pieces in place, it just doesn’t work. Couple examples to explain the point: You can’t focus on design without taking care of usability. You can’t create great content and not market it. You can’t nail the on-page optimization and forget the off-page stuff. It all works together, or it doesn’t work at all.

9 – Now most web developers and SEO/SEM consultants are small business owners themselves. You’ve had 12 years in the industry, what advice can you pass onto new and future colleagues?

It’s funny you should mention that. There’s a bit of a stigma in our industry about the phrase “small business.” When I started Small Business SEM back in April, 2006, and started talking with fellow search marketers, asking them if I could interview them about their work with small businesses, a common reaction was along the lines of “We don’t usually admit to working with small clients because we want to land bigger clients.” And I’m thinking to myself, you ARE a small business, what are you talking about? If you look at the popular SEO/SEM firms, most are small businesses! And yet only a few of them ever talk specifically about SEO for small businesses. Strange…..

That doesn’t really answer your question, and I’m actually changing the subject a bit because I don’t have any general advice that might apply to all new and future colleagues. Actually, I do, and here it is: Always be on the lookout for opportunities to help up-and-coming search marketers. Todd Malicoat, Danny Sullivan, Jennifer Laycock, and David Wallace are a few of the many people who’ve been a huge help to me over the past year or two. And so I try to pay it forward, as the saying goes, and help others when I can. And the best part is that I’ve made some great friends this way.

8 – What business industries have you found to be the hardest to get rank for?

I’ve been working recently with a company that’s in a unique situation: They have a service that no one searches for, because no one knows it exists. It’s related to a very competitive industry, so we’ve had to go after high-volume keywords to acquire natural search traffic. And then once we get the person on the site, we have one shot to educate him/her about this service. That’s been a fun and challenging project, made successful in large part because the company is committed to the process (as I mentioned above).

But every industry has its own set of challenges. I think the key for any search marketing company is to know your capabilities and be smart about the clients you take on.

7 – How do you help small business owners overcome their concern of spending extra money for expanding their marketing onto the internet?

The same way you would with any company: Show them the potential return on their investment. In my previous job, I worked with a retired couple selling handmade products out of their garage. They had an outdated and poorly optimized Web site that was in desperate need of an upgrade. We told them what it would cost, and estimated how soon they could expect to recoup that investment and start making a profit. I was thrilled to get an e-mail from the client about 3-4 months after we finished, telling us that they’d received orders from 15 countries since our work went live and were already in the black.

6 – Since you started speaking at conferences and conventions, which event has been your favorite so far?

My favorite event was when I was talking to Matt Cutts and then Lisa Barone came up to me to say “Hello, how ya doin?”, and then 3 seconds later she noticed who I was talking to, and went completely bananas over him. It was like I suddenly didn’t exist. But I’ve recovered now, and Lisa lists me on her “Top Friends” at Facebook so it’s all good. That was at SMX Advanced, by the way.

5 – Seeing how Jennifer Laycock considers you to be a big squeezable teddy bear, we should add which of the following accessories to bring back some of your masculinity?

1.a motorcycle jacket with flaming skulls on it
2.a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey
3.a soft tail Harley Davidson motorcycle

How about someone does: 4. Restart my subscription to NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV? Haven’t had that for a couple years now. What’s more masculine than sitting on the couch every Sunday with your favorite beverage, the remote, and 13 NFL games at your fingertips? Answer: Nothing.

4 – Do you think the Wikia search engine is something every SEO should be preparing for?

No.

3 – Outside of Google, what search engine do you think people underestimate the most as far as relevancy and tools?

Yahoo kicks Google’s arse on a lot of fronts: Local, Maps, Flickr, del.icio.us, News search, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo Groups, and so forth. But until they improve the SERPs, does it matter? (Sorry, I’ll stick to answering questions. My bad.)

2– What website(s) have you been obsessing over lately and we all should all check out?

I’ve been obsessing for 16 months over this super-cool blog called Small Business SEM, which I think everyone should not only check out, but also link to. Often. With great anchor text. From high-quality content pages on their sites. The URL is www.smallbusinesssem.com, by the way, in case that hasn’t been mentioned yet.

Seriously, I’m addicted to Sphinn. I find Facebook somewhat fascinating. Yahoo Answers and Flickr are like old friends. And Consumerist.com is my favorite non-SEO blog du jour.

1 – Who do you tap for me to interview next ?

Todd Malicoat (aka stuntdubl), because we all get smarter when he opens his mouth.

Well there ya have it. Matt just wants to watch football and drink beer while people fill up his blog. I think that’s pretty reasonable. In the meantime I’m off to go hunt down Todd and see if I can pester him next. Happy blogging!