Web Content Recipe: Carving Up Mark Nunney by Rachelle Money, 7 August 2008

Regular readers will know that in the past few newsletters we have published three different articles on our SEO expert Mark Nunney. Believe it or not, all of these articles came from one interview. In this chapter of our Web Content Recipe book, I want to show you how you can get as much content for your site from one interview.

Having an expert talking openly to you in an article on your site creates great kudos for your business. If you are lucky enough to secure an interview with someone you believe is respected in your industry, or even an expert in your field, you have to go about wringing as much content out of that interview as possible.

Top five

When I interviewed SEO expert Mark Nunney I asked him to come up with the top five mistakes he believes people make in SEO. It was a great bonus to find he had actually thought of no less than twelve! My thinking behind asking for a top five was that this would make it easier to carve up the interview into different chapters and ideas to write content on.

I have found that people like articles that are in the form of a list, or those dotted with bullet points which they can access easily - because they don’t have to read an entire article to get the bits that are important.

The top five common mistakes that Nunney believes companies make are as follows:

1. Not having a keyword or SEO strategy.
2. Putting too much trust in SEO agencies.
3. Not having a company structure or systems that are unable to accommodate change.
4. Not coordinating SEO with editorial, sales and marketing.
5. Not monitoring results.

Fleshing it out

When I asked Nunney to discuss these five tips further I specifically wanted him to flesh out the details of why these things were important and to apply practical examples to illustrate how he had arrived at these statements. He had a lot more to say in some cases than in others. If you find that your interviewee is talking a lot about one particular topic, don’t panic about how you are going to get it all down - make a note that the issue is something which clearly needs more space. Consider it in terms of an individual feature.

This is exactly what happened when Nunney got on to the subject of what people should do when approaching an SEO company. He wanted to share his knowledge of what people should expect from SEO consultants, and he should know - he is one.

It was clear that a lot could be teased out of this topic, and this is why I decided to write a more in-depth article on how to approach and handle an SEO company.

In the course of our discussion I thought of a number of articles I could write. In the end, Wordtracker published three (or four if you include the one you’re reading right now.)

1. Mark Nunney Q&A
2. Mark Nunney's 12 most common SEO mistakes
3. Using an SEO agency and what to expect.

When Mark Nunney gave me twelve tips it gave me an even greater opportunity to think about new chapters of content.

He talked about techies being given free reign on the content of a website, and it gave me an idea about an opinion piece, which can be written in a variety of ways. Maybe there’s a techie out there who would take offence at some of Nunney‘s comments. He told me: “Letting techies take control of online content is like letting the mechanic drive an F1 racing car.” You could write a ‘for and against’ piece, with one side arguing for techies having control over content, and the other side saying they shouldn’t.

Recording the expert

The trick I use, as do a lot of journalists, is to record the interview on a Dictaphone. A good digital one will cost you around $50, but it's like a security blanket – you don't miss a thing. The only downside is listening back and transcribing it all, but it's the best way of ensuring accuracy. Listen back to your interview and each time you hear something interesting, write down the keyword.

Circle topics of importance

When I read my notes back I circled a few keywords I thought were interesting, for example 'homepage.' Nunney made some interesting points on the importance of the homepage. There’s an opportunity here to discuss the success or failure you or your business has had trying to get inbound links to pages in your website, other than to your homepage. How did you go about it?

Nunney also spoke at length about how websites should concentrate on creating ‘channels’ to maximize content. Do you think he has a point, or do you have a better method of site navigation and structure which you think works very well?

Q&A

I also asked Nunney a little about his own background, which was very interesting. He had a lot of opinions about the SEO industry as a whole, and this content would not have sat well in a bullet point, top tips kind of article. It is for this reason that I thought of using the information I had on his professional background to form a simple Q&A article.

I also think Q&As are good for asking those random questions you have always wanted to get an answer to - like why when I google ‘Mark Nunney’ nothing of importance comes up? A cheeky question some may say, but one I wanted to ask. Q&A style articles are also good if you are struggling with coming up with an angle for your story - this way it’s just a question followed by an answer - there’s less emphasis on flow of narrative.

Link

A point to remember when you are carving up an interview is to link to other related articles. You could call it an interview series and create a special page for the content, like the kind of channel Nunney describes.

These are the previous Mark Nunney articles, referred to above:

• SEO Expert Series: Mark Nunney
• Mark Nunney's 12 Most Common SEO Mistakes: SEO Expert Series
• SEO Expert Series: Using An SEO Agency And What To Expect