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Interview with Greg Hartnett

Greg Hartnett is one of the few individuals who has been in the online marketing space for quite some time. He is well known in the industry as a blogger, speaker and entrepreneur. Due to the experience he has gained from running many successful companies I decided to do an interview with him.

1. You have been on the web for quite a while now and you also own a few online companies, how did you first get started?
   
   My business partner, Brian Prince, and I first got our feet wet online in the hyper-competitive travel market. We started our first company, Hotel Hotline, with approximately $40,000 of friends-and-family money and very quickly learned the benefits of SEO. After ripping through 75% of our cash on equipment and Goto.com (now Overture) we came to the realization that if we couldn't figure out how to get our sites listed organically, we'd soon be back in corporate America. We learned promptly, and have never looked back (adios "real jobs").
   
   Our first year in business, we did approximately $500,000 in sales. The year following, close to $3 million. Over the last few years, we seem to have leveled off a bit, hovering between sales of $11-$15 million annually.
   
   The key for us was never being complacent with our listings. If we were going after a listing, we didn't stop until we were number one. And then we went after additional spots. So, we'd launch another site, and get that one in the top five as well. I can recall times when we'd have seven or eight of the top 10 listings for keyword phrases we were targeting. When you have that type of saturation, you can begin to focus on other elements of growing your enterprise.
   
   Granted, it's a different marketplace now, and the days of dominating the top 10 are gone. But without those early days, we never would have been able to grow to the size we are today.


2. Best of the Web (BOTW) is one of the oldest directories on the web and there is a lot of history behind it. How was the idea born to start this directory?
   
   BOTW got its start in 1994 at the University of Buffalo when a group of professors decided to classify worthwhile destinations on the fledgling World Wide Web. They opened up the project to let users vote on which sites were the best, and they sorted them by winners in relevant categories - and so the directory was born. It continued as such until 1998, at which point the project stalled.
   
   Brian and I stepped in a couple of years later, and immediately saw the opportunities. At the time, there were very few general web directories focusing on listing quality resources. And those that did were either cost-prohibitive or took forever and a day to get a review. As an online business owner I knew that I saw value in having my sites listed in a directory that focused on quality, and figured that others would too. So, all we had to do was transform the previous architecture into a general taxonomy and spend a few years building out an authoritative resource. Piece of cake...


3. There are a lot of directories out there such as DMOZ and the Yahoo Directory, how is BOTW different from any of the other directories?
   
   Well, we are honored to be mentioned in the same sentence as those two directories. To be compared to directories as comprehensive and highly regarded as Yahoo and DMOZ is truly a testament to our commitment to providing the user with relevant resources for their topic - and that's always been our core value.
   
   We tried to combine the best elements of both Yahoo and DMOZ when we transformed BOTW into a general directory. There is some structure that we preferred from Yahoo, and many elements that we liked about DMOZ, so we put together our own directory with what we feel are the best attributes from both.
   
   Now most other directories out there, with a few notable exceptions (GoGuides, JoeAnt, Business.com) aren't what I would call comprehensive or quality. Most of them sprung up within the last couple of years, trying to capitalize on the popularity of link building. The vast majority of these are run only for the directory owner to take money from webmasters looking for an additional link ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú with little or no thought paid to the average user. We differentiate ourselves from them by focusing on the user, adding thousands of relevant sites daily, and adhering to a pretty strict set of editorial guidelines. While my opinion may be a bit biased, the proof really is in the pudding.


4. Yahoo originally started as a web directory probably around the time BOTW did. Was there ever an opportunity for you to expand on BOTW like Yahoo did? What did Yahoo do differently at the time than you did?
   
   Yahoo exploded as the web took off, and they rode that wave - big time. They really saw the big picture, and realized the opportunity of getting started early. The guys involved with BOTW weren't doing it for commercial purposes, and so they were focused on different undertakings.
   
   By the time Brian and I took over, Yahoo was already established as the top web destination. Not only one of the web's top directories, they had used their muscle to branch out into new offerings and focus on the user experience. They did a truly remarkable job, and with their acquisitions this year, I think they are poised to regain that control.
   
   Now we are in the process of rolling out new offerings under the BOTW brand. About a year ago we introduced the BOTW Blog Directory ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú a collection of tens of thousands of quality weblogs, which is open to volunteer editors, should you have the inclination. Once you have an established brand, it makes it easier to introduce similar offerings to an already present user-base.


5. You have made BOTW a popular directory, what was the marketing strategy you used to make your company successful?
   
   We took the long view when deciding on a marketing plan for BOTW. We realized early on that the offering wasn't really of value until we had worked on it a bunch. So we didn't do any marketing for a couple of years ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú during the build out. After we felt that the directory was ready, we slowly began letting the word out.
   
   We have always been proponents of guerilla marketing tactics, so that is where we spent the majority of our efforts. By focusing on the user and staying true to our mission of quality, we were able to nurture an environment fertile for the growth of customer evangelists. Our primary source of new business comes from word of mouth, and the majority of webmasters submit multiple sites to the directory.
   
   So we stick to our daily routine of building a comprehensive directory of relevant resources, treat our users and customers with the attention and respect they deserve, and let our actions speak for themselves. So far, so good.


6. The web is constantly evolving, what do you see as some major changes and how will BOTW adapt? What is in store for the future of BOTW?
   
   Well, the directory will most likely remain little changed. We incorporate new technology into the directory as it becomes available, and makes sense for us to do so. For instance, we now use AJAX in a handful of places to help with the user experience. In terms of the business model though, we'll undoubtedly forge ahead as we have been doing for the better part of the last 10 years.
   
   As the medium continues to evolve, we will continue to introduce new offerings under the BOTW brand. Our most recent undertaking, the BOTW Enterprise Software Vertical, is a perfect example of that. We identified an underserved marketplace, and decided to roll out an offering to fill a need. While still in beta, we have some great people in place to move the project forward, and we expect to make some big strides in the first quarter of 2007.
   
   Additionally, we recently purchased BestoftheWeb.com from a domain speculator and we have some big plans for rolling that out. We haven't nailed down a specific plan yet, but I'd expect some major development next year on that domain as well.


7. What do you see for the future of SEO?
   
   SEO has changed so much since I first got involved. The search marketplace has grown from a byproduct into one of the largest industries online. As the online population continues to swell, these multi-billion dollar search companies will continue to work on their search algorithms. In an attempt to combat irrelevant search results, the engines will continue to introduce new elements into their algos, and in a classic game of cat and mouse, the webmasters will continue scrambling trying to figure out the secret sauce.
   
   One major shift I see is the introduction of alternative avenues of legitimate traffic. There have always been unconventional ways of driving trickles of traffic to your site, but never before has the opportunity existed outside of search engines to drive significant numbers of people. Now with sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, de.licio.us, MySpace, and to a lesser extent sites like Flickr and YouTube, a webmaster has the opportunity of getting in front of millions of users daily without paying any attention to the engines. That's never been an option before, and marks a substantial change in online marketing.
   
   I think the years ahead will present additional opportunities for the savvy webmaster to exploit the social networks, and I would anticipate more attention (and marketing dollars) flowing into that arena.

Cristian Mezei, November 3, 2006

$15M per year ? OMG Greg, you rock my world.