Well as you will have realised from the title of this blog post it is about an interview I did with John S Rhodes. But I must admit I have neglected this blog and have not added any content for nearly 2 months. So I need a good kicking to get my self in order. What I have actually been doing is working a lot in the background but still this is know excuse to at least just add a little content of what I have been up too.
Here is an over view of what I have been doing in the background
I am still trying to get hold of a few SEO experts to do interviews with and this is what the main blog post is about as I managed to get an interview with a great guy called John S Rhodes. Now if you know a little about SEO then you are probably familiar with John. I will explain a little more about John soon.
I have created a new report for my readers and subscribers “List Building Made Easy” which most of you will probably already have but if you are new here then by all means sign up to my list and get your copy.
I have created a new facebook fan page which is still in it’s infancy and only a few “likes” so need to concentrate on building that side up. It is really a very powerful marketing tool so need to get involved with facebook as it is getting more traffic than google now. If you want to check it out please visit Craig Sowerby Marketing Advice and click the “like” button. I will go into some more detail soon of how I set it up and the problems I faced.
I have set up a support desk to make another option for you to get in touch, I used osTicket for this service and it is really easy to set up and looks professional and keeps support tickets in order and easy to sort out as you can always just delete an email and loose the original problem in among all the other emails that get stuffed in your inbox each and every day. Also there is an option for them to take over some of your support emails which will free up a bit of time so you can concentrate on other aspects of your business.
John S Rhodes Interview
So lets get onto the main content of this post and that is an interview I conducted with John S Rhodes. I have been trying to get some interviews with a few SEO experts which I will then be putting together as a product. I first contacted Daniel Tan late last year about interviewing him. Daniel is probably the reason why I got interested in SEO as I have many of his products. He was delighted to do an interview, but was feeling under the weather at the time and would just send over the answers to my questions via email. I am still waiting for them now, so I am a little disappointed on that lead.
I also contacted Daniel a few times and we exchanged a few emails and he was still up for it but still no joy. To give him credit he was in the middle of a product launch so was very busy. So I could have thrown the towel in and given up on my first hurdle. But I did a little research and decided to find another SEO expert to interview. I contacted John S Rhodes and he was away on business but I exchanged emails with his wife who was very nice and willing to help me out and get an interview set up with John. After a few emails back and forth and to arrange a date that would fit in with both of us. It was all set up and ready to go. BONUS!!!
I was very very VERY! Nervous as from the bit of background research that I had uncovered about John S Rhodes was quite outstanding. He has been in the Internet Marketing scene for over 12 years and has many many products which are also published on Amazon. So for such a big name marketer to accept an interview with a small guy like me was just a bit overwhelming.
So how did I prepare the Interview with John S Rhodes
I used Skype which is a great piece of software to use to keep incontact with all your friends, family and other business associates. It’s also free and is an instant message service or even video call. To record the interview I had to make a purchase of product that integrates with Skype called Pamela. There are different levels you can choose from starting with basic of €14.95 but they also offer a 30 day free trial, which will be like most free trials. You will no doubt get full access to what the software can do. So once the free trial is up if it something you would be interested in then go ahead and make a purchase. I knew I wanted to get into interviews so I just went ahead and bought the extra software.
I did a dummy run with a friend to get my self familiar with the software and how it all works. I did not want to make any mistakes when it came to the big day of the interview. Also with John being such a highly successful marketer he would not have time to do this again and again. So I felt ready and was just waiting for the day to arrive.
In the mean time I had already put my question’s together and knew what I wanted out of the interview. I also sent over the question’s to John so he knew what to expect and get his answer’s ready for the call. When you listen to the interview, you can tell it is my first as I sound very nervous and do repeat my self quite alot “Erm erm erm” “yeah yeah” “you know you know” so a few more interviews under my belt and I should be a bit more confident.
When the interview was finished I went back over it and checked to see what it sounded like. In my opinion It sounded awfull. But I suppose none of us like the sound of our own voices. There was a major problem with the recording in that my voice was so much more louder than John’s and I knew I could not put it out as it was. So I needed to do some editing.
The software I chose for this was called Audacity. It is free and you can use it to edit, add, chop, delete and make so many different changes to your audio. So I played around with it until I was happy with the final result. I came to save it in mp3 format. The software does not let you save as an mp3 format but does wav format. More trouble. So I found out why it would not and started to sort it out.
No matter what you do there is always something there to test us and make our lives a little more difficult. What I needed was an extra file called lame-enc.dll which would allow me to export my audio to mp3.
So now I had my audio all ready to go and put up on my site. Now this interview is nearly an hour long so putting up on my server would take up alot of space and probably make loading a bit slow. So I set up my own Amazon s3 account to store files. It is very cheap to use and they give you a huge amount of space to use. I had also purchased Easy Video Player 2 a while back as I knew it was such a good piece of kit and would need it in the future for my marketing plans, which I did for this very moment.
So here goes my first interview with John S Rhodes, all about SEO
If you have any questions concerning the interview then leave a comment or just send me an email to let me know if you liked it, or even ways you think I could improve on my interviewing skills. Also if you think it is worth a re-tweet or push the like button then go ahead.
One of John’s product Juggurnaut SEO is available if you want extra training in SEO. If you click the image below it will take you to his SEO product. And yes if you do make a purchase through this link I will make a commision. Juggurnaut SEO is just one of the many products under the Juggurnaut series. So if SEO is not your thing he will have something up your street.
So I would like to thank John S Rhodes for giving me the opportunity in interviewing him and giving me so much value on the call!
Thankyou John S Rhodes!
Charles (17)
Terry Conti (11)
Danny (9)
Barry@The Newbies... (7)
David Taylor (7)
Sally (6)
Cheolsu (5)
Kathy Dobson (5)
Jacinta D (4)
April 4, 2011 at 11:15 am
Well done Craig! First interview is a great hurdle to get over and they just get easier from here.
What a first as well! It’s not so difficult when the expert does most of the talking eh?
I think SEO is one of those areas where people get different advice from different areas so it is good to hear from a real expert.
You didn’t sound that nervous at all. Keep in mind that nobody likes to hear their own voice.
All the best,
Dave
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Craig Reply:
April 4th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Now then mate!
Thanks for the comment. And cheers for the compliment on my interview. I found my accent did not help and John sounded so much more professional than me. I hope you have learnt a lot from the interview, and yes there are so many courses and products out there on SEO. But as John mentions in the interview. Get the basics sorted and just deliver good content and the backlinks will come naturally!
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April 4, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Hi Craig,
Your blog looks great, keep up the good Work. I didn’t know where you went there for a short while.
Good interview, I like the way John tells us to keep things simple and stick to the basic fundamentals when it comes to SEO with out getting involved in all the SEO mumbo jumbo.
I like what he said about helping people. The more people you help the more exposure you can get. When it comes time to promote something or you have a problem yourself, people will return the favor.
Very good to know that when it comes to getting listed for the long term it must take time. John keeps it real by letting us know it’s something that develops if you keep at good practices.
You sound just fine in the recording Craig. I can understand how you may not like the sound of your own voice. I think the same way when I hear myself but nothing wrong so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Thank you for providing us with what is involved when it comes time to do an interview. Also Thank you for providing us with good content.
Terry Conti
Terry Conti recently posted..Free Traffic using Twitter
[Reply]
Craig Reply:
April 5th, 2011 at 1:48 am
Thanks for popping by Terry,
I am glad you like the blog and also the interview. I was very surprised when John agreed to do the interview. He was a great guy and very willing to help me out with the interview so hats off to him!
Yeah I think it just must be me not liking my voice as you and David say it sounded ok!
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April 6, 2011 at 9:20 am
Hey Craig
I think this is my first time on your blog., I followed a link on Barry wells blog.
This is a great guide on hoe to prepare for interviewing somebody and using all those cool tools as well.
I will be keeping a note of those for my future reference and look forward to coming back.
Cheers
Zahid
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Craig Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 1:01 am
Hi Zahid,
New visitors are always welcome. So have a look around and enjoy the content. Looking forward to seeing you here again
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April 8, 2011 at 11:29 am
Hi Craig, congratulations on getting such an accomplished marketer to agree to an interview. No wonder your were nervous mate, over a 100 books published wow!!
Your recording is extremely good Craig and you’ve edited it very well as the volume levels are pretty close, with only your laughs getting louder this end
but that emphasises the point being made.
You asked some excellent questions, from which I’ve taken some excellent tips from this interview Craig, it’s really good to know that i have got the fundamentales right and that I can build on them.
For a first interview Craig you carried it off very well, congratulations!
Also, like Terry said above, it’s good of you to show us what was involved in getting the audio ready and online and the tools you used to do so, thanks Craig.
Have a great weekend Craig and I’ll catch you up again very soon.
Barry
PS Craig if you get this comment twice please delete one of them as the captcha is telling I got it wrong?
Barry recently posted..Working Behind The Scenes and Inviting Guest Posts
[Reply]
Craig Reply:
April 8th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Hi Barry,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. John was very kind and was willing to help me out to get the interview done so I am grateful to him. You should have listed to it before I edited it you could hardly hear John and it sounded as though I was eating the mic. So next time I do an interview I will have to sort the mic levels out.
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April 9, 2011 at 6:10 am
Hey Craig, great post!
I’ve always been interested in SEO, but I’m usually too lazy to get it done myself, so I outsource it to other people, haha!
Although now I’ll definitely be making a few changes in my business
Also, I love how you showed the process of how you actually created the interview. Too many people skip over this step, and I feel it’s important to understand if you’re looking to record your own interviews in the future.
As for the quality of your voice on the interview, don’t worry about it buddy – it sounded great, and believe me, there’s a LOT worse out there!
Not only that, but you’ll always get better with time and practice.
Thanks again buddy!
Talk soon,
- James.
James Francis recently posted..How To Work Less And Earn More
[Reply]
Craig Reply:
April 9th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
How Do James,
Good to see you made your first visit, well comment. SEO can be a bit mundane and monotonous task so outsourcing some of the work is a must. Unless of course you actually enjoy it. Anything new or something I have had trouble with I always like to tell my story because there could be someone just about to do an interview ans have not got a clue what to do next.
Hope to see you soon here again
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April 19, 2011 at 12:15 am
Nice one Craig! Congratulations on that interview! I’ve always been not confident in handling interviews especially if the interviewee is an accomplished entrepreneur but I got inspired on how you managed this. The interview itself if very good and your voice is excellent. John is very cooperative and such a great lecturer!
[Reply]
Craig Reply:
April 19th, 2011 at 12:42 am
Thanks Charlene for your kind words
It was a bit nerve racking to start with but just get things done and it will be easier next time. I have another interview lined up this week with another established marketer.
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May 14, 2011 at 11:33 am
Hi Craig
I haven’t conducted an interview myself but I do transcribe a lot of them and I can tell you now – you did a really good job.
You spoke very clearly, asked a lot of very good questions and you didn’t come over as nervous at all so well done.
I love your accent by the way
Dawn
Dawn Kay recently posted..How To Get Your Audio Transcribed For Free
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May 15, 2011 at 2:55 am
Hi Dawn,
Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. Also thanks for telling me that I conducted the interview very well.
As you are bit of and expert in transcribing interviews you will have come across quite a lot so this mean a lot to me.
The accent!!! I am from the North of England so many will say I sound a little hard to understand, but thanks again!!
Craig recently posted..D9 Hosting A Far Better Service “Well In My Opinion”
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May 17, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Craig,
Thanks for the great blog post and the interview.
I have not done an interview before but hope to someday and hope my first interview is even close to being as good as this one. I thought that the interview sounded great. Your voice was very good.
It was fascinating to listen to and I learned a lot about. John is a great speaker, I loved listening to what he had to say.
Dee Ann Rice
Dee Ann Rice recently posted..Where Is My Home Page Tab
[Reply]
May 18, 2011 at 2:37 am
Great things you’ve always shared with us. Just keep writing this kind of posts.The time which was wasted in traveling for tuition now it can be used for studies.Thanks
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[Reply]
May 20, 2011 at 9:41 am
Hey Craig
Hope you are well.
Just come over from Barry Wells site after reading guest post
Your site looks great.
Great guide on how to set up for an interview and the tools used, its
got me thinking… about doing interviews as well.
A really excellent interview with John…FAB.
I will be putting what I have learnt to good use
Cheers
Zahid
[Reply]
May 26, 2011 at 12:47 am
Hi Dee Ann Rice,
I would highly recommend doing an interview. It opens so many new doors for you. You meet some great people and also learn a lot.
Not only about yourself but of course who you are interviewing and also the subject you are talking about.
You could call it free training.
John is an exceptional speaker and was very kind to do the interview with me.
Craig recently posted..Premium Word Press Themes For 5
[Reply]
May 26, 2011 at 12:50 am
Hi Zahid,
Thanks for the comment! Also I hope you liked my guest post over at Barry-Wells blog.
Just make sure you follow through and get an interview done yourself.
Craig recently posted..JV Partner Or Competition
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May 31, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Great work,Craig.Thanks for your sharing about guide and tools to start sn interview
Haley recently posted..The Importance of Business Surveillance Systems
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Craig Reply:
June 4th, 2011 at 1:00 am
Hi Haley,
An interview is a great way not only to find answers to your problems but to build good relationships with the marketer you are interviewing
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June 13, 2011 at 2:49 pm
That was an excellent interview, I found many of the things John said to be valuable tips. It was my first time learning about John S Rhodes but he certainly knows what he is talking about. Thanks Craig for sharing this interview with us.
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Craig Reply:
June 14th, 2011 at 8:18 am
Hey Jeffrey, glad you liked the interview and that you can take some valuable information from it. John realy does know what he is talking about.
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