One of our Era of Conversation speakers (October 4, 2007 in Washington) is Brian Williams, CEO of Viget Labs. Brian’s a bit of a local prodigy, catering to the stars in Hollywood. His team designed Britney’s site when she was cool in the earlier part of the decade. And he caters to the stars of the new media realm, too, building Squidoo for Seth Godin. A master of search engine optimization (SEO) and creating blogs, sites and networks that compel people to act, Brian shared some of his great insights on Internet marketing and social media.

BB: What was it like working with Seth Godin?

BW: Working with Seth to build Squidoo has been great. He’s passionate about his ideas and he presents them with unusual clarity and focus. He’s impatient (in a good way) and demanding (again, in a good way,) but he also has a tremendous amount of respect for talented people and is generous with his compliments and rewards when they perform up to their potential. He knows that when you’ve assembled a great team, the way you maximize their value is by letting them do what they’re great at doing — so he knows when to drive things and when to get out of the way.

BB: You are a master at SEO. Can you explain to Buzz Bin readers why SEO is so important?

BW: Simple: the vast majority of Internet users start with search engines. That means that the majority of your site traffic should be coming from search results. If not, you’re missing out on a lot of the most high-value potential visitors — those who are actively looking for your product, service, or content. Why work so hard on a site or blog if no one can find it? And since the basics of SEO are straightforward, why not do it?

Search engine optimization isn’t magic and it’s not about tricks or short-term gains. SEO is about applying best practices that will allow the search engines to do what they’re supposed to do: index your content in a relevant way. Every site that is interested in gaining more visitors (and who isn’t?) should apply at least the basics of SEO.

We talk with clients about three key elements of SEO: code, content, and connections. “Code” means building your site or blog the right way, from the CSS to the page layout to the design. “Content” means not just writing great copy that people will like to read, but writing key parts of it (e.g., page titles, title tags) that take your SEO strategy (and target keyphrases) into account and use them accordingly. “Connections” is about inbound links — the voting system of search engines. You have to earn them, but there are techniques you can apply to help your link building strategy.

SEO isn’t a silver bullet. It won’t build your site, write your content, or link to your pages. You still have to write great copy that people care enough about to link to. Ignoring SEO, though, not only means you’ll miss out on visitors, but that those potential visitors will be going to your competitor’s site instead.

BB: How can SEO impact a blog?

BW: SEO can have a huge impact. You can think about your search traffic in two buckets: primary terms (a half dozen or so) and niche terms (potentially hundreds). Over time, both buckets should drive significant traffic to your blog.

Say you are launching a blog about goat herding. You want to rank highly for primary terms like … wait for it … “goat herding,” and you know you need a lot of inbound links (”connections”) to make that happen. You’ve built your blog the right way (”code”), so all of your content is being indexed — including your about page and meta content.

The first bucket to focus on is your niche terms by doing what you’ve set out to do anyway: write great content about goat herding. Every blog post is a chance to earn niche traffic on a topic related to your primary subject. Over time, you’ll have a “long tail” effect of a small number of searches for each niche topic driving small amounts of traffic which add up to a significant audience. This is particularly effective if you can convince your niche searchers of the value of your blog and have them agree to come back regularly.

In addition to the aggregate traffic generated, each new post is an opportunity to earn inbound links. As the number of inbound links increase, the more relevant your blog will be in the eyes of Google, and the more highly ranked your blog will be for your “primary” search terms.

BB: How can SEO impact a brand?

BW: One interesting way SEO impacts a brand is in terms of search credibility. Search engine users are increasingly savvy about paid versus organic search results, and the brands that appear at the top of the organic listings for relevant terms earn a higher degree of credibility in their eyes. Furthermore, the higher your brand appears on the results, the lower your competitor’s brand will be, so the impact of being higher on the list is that much more valuable.

BB: Let’s discuss RSS subscriptions. Why is RSS so important in today’s online environment?

BW: First, let’s define RSS (Really Simple Syndication). RSS is just a way of formatting content into feeds (based on XML standards) that can be published somewhere else. The most common example is feeds publishing to RSS readers that can monitor, parse, and display the content.

RSS readers monitor these feeds regularly so that when a user looks at her RSS reader, which aggregates content from a number of sources, she immediately sees which sources have new content available. So, to a user, RSS allows them to monitor the blogs and web sites they care about in one easy place and be alerted when new content is up without clogging their email box. They can consume the content they care about on their own terms. To a blogger or site owner, it?s an easy way to publish content beyond their own site and pull readers back regularly.

When it comes to blogs, the nice thing about RSS is that most bloggers don’t need to know or care about the technology. They just need to make the subscription option clear to readers so they are inclined to grab it. We recommend a service like FeedBurner, which lets you better monitor your subscribers.

While the technology behind RSS is only really interesting to the geeks out there, understanding how RSS is used is important. Most notably, it should influence how you write your blog post titles. I use iGoogle, for example, to monitor dozens of blogs. Throughout the day I scan the feeds for new posts that jump out at me, and click through to posts that have intriguing titles. Boring titles get no such clicks — so craft wisely.

BB: What’s your favorite example of web 2.0 success?

BW: Even though “web 2.0″ means a lot of things, to me it boils down to participation. Anyone can contribute to the conversation by starting a blog, contributing to a wiki, broadcasting a video, or commenting on the content someone else just put up. There is a small but growing number of professional bloggers who are able to make a living by sharing their expertise on a blog and leveraging platforms like squidoo to both promote and augment their web presence — that’s exciting.

To give a specific recent example, Apple’s response to the angry buzz of bloggers voicing their displeasure about the iPhone price reduction was interesting to witness. It was still the mainstream media coverage of the buzz that forced Apple’s reaction, but it all started with regular people speaking out about why they were angry. That never would have happened even five years ago.

BB: What’s next for Viget Labs?

BW: We have big plans. We just moved into brand new office space in Falls Church, VA and recently opened our first remote office in Durham, NC. In both places, we?re hiring great web people (designers, user experience folks, ruby/rails developers, etc.).

On the client front, we’re working with a number of exciting start-ups as well as traditional companies looking to do more online with a firm that really “gets” the big picture and can execute. I’m just really excited about the people I get to work with, both clients and co-workers. We’re having a lot of fun and we know our best work is still ahead of us.