John, thank you for your time to give us this interview. What have you been doing lately?

First, thank you for taking the time to interview me.

Since the latter part of 2005, I’ve gotten back into the Internet marketing thing full time. Most of my time is spent developing v7n.com into the website it should have been years ago. We are adding new value to the site - more features, more activities - on a weekly basis now.

I look forward to v7n keeping and maintaining its previous traffic levels and usefulness.

You have been absent more or less for about a year. What has motivated you to come back full force?

The Sea of Japan.

In 2003 and 2004 we grew by leaps and bounds. But with growth comes headaches, and I succumbed to burn-out somewhere in the beginning of 2005. I essentially walked away from v7n and left it in the hands of employees.

In late 2005 however, I spent some quality time on the Sea of Japan. I had time to reflect on my life, and it occurred to me that I had wasted a lot of what God had given me.

It was a rebirth of sorts for me, and I became determined to see this community - the v7n community - reach its full potential. We’d gotten to where we were by being genuinely concerned with the well being of our members, and it’s something I’m now committed to.

My opinion may be biased, but I believe that v7n adds something special to the Internet landscape. Our members are top notch people, and they care for one another.

What do you consider your biggest accomplishment so far and what do you want to accomplish in the future?

My biggest accomplishment – my children. They’re absolutely beautiful.

Professionally, I believe that V7N would have to be the one thing I’m the most proud of. I’ve put a lot of work into it. I’ve put a lot of my life into it, and when members say “Thanks, I’ve learned so much” it really means a lot to me.

Looking into 2006 and 2007, I believe that V7N is in a great position to start offering webmasters more tools to build their businesses. I believe we can offer many services for free that other sites charge fees for. I believe the key to success here is in offering more webmasters more of what they need, and not charging for it.

Who has inspired you when it comes to running your business and creating a company like yours?

My father. He was a successful businessman, but he didn’t chase the money. His advice was, “Whatever you do, do it best, and success will follow.”

What do you say to those who are critical of you? How do you feel when you’re publicizing a contest and there are some who are right away jumping on you and making a name for themselves by using yours?

There will always be folks like that. But it’s a short term strategy which doesn’t really build a positive brand.

When we look at how Greg Boser has promoted himself, it’s always by being obnoxious. But it’s the easiest thing on the Internet to do - and Internet critics are a dime a dozen - and most folks see right through it. The simple fact is that most folks in this industry don’t give a rat’s tail about the politics.

The SEO industry is full of politics, and there are different ways of dealing with it. I called Doug Heil up a year or so ago, and we talked a bit, and I’m genuinely convinced that we could never see eye to eye. But I don’t run around ragging on Doug Heil personally. It wouldn’t be professional, and although I may not respect his professional opinions, I respect him as a person.

And let me take this opportunity to say that I don’t take any of what Greg Boser has done personally. When people contact me and express concern over this “war of the SEO’s”, I’m somewhat amused. I’ve attacked several clowns who I believe are nothing more than scam artists and borderline criminals, but you don’t see me doing background checks and asset searches on Greg. If Greg Boser wants to offend me, he’ll have to try harder.

Where do you see search engine optimization headed in the future?

I’ve long been critical of most search engine optimization. Any sort of on-page optimization which places search engine rankings over the marketing integrity / brand integrity of a website is a mistake. You don’t see strong brands using cheap SEO tactics, and that’s because cheap SEO tactics are not compatible with strong branding.

What would you think if you went to the Google home page and saw “Search Engine” on the index page in heading tags, italics, and bolded font? Your perception of the Google brand would be drastically altered, and not for the better.

In my experience, strong brands opt for pay per click advertising before they opt to trash their pages with bloated keyword density and the like. One thing many amateur SEO’s can’t seem to understand fully is that brand, not search engine rankings, is the ace in the hole. Build a brand and consumers will search less for “generic” and more for “your brand”. If you doubt me, look up and compare the search count for “soda” and compare that to the search count for “Pepsi” or “Coke”.

Traffic has never equaled sales. Branding is much closer to profitability than traffic, and having said that I’ll venture a guess that more money will go to PPC and less to organic search engine optimization.

You’re currently living in Japan. When are you coming back on American soil and will you be going to conferences again?

I currently go back to the States about once a month. I look forward to attending more Search Engine Strategies Conferences and meeting the friends I’ve made online.

After the contest … any plans?

Building V7N and doing some other things I would rather not mention just yet. Look out for lots of improvements!

Who would you like to see win?

A friend. I have so many friends competing in this that I can’t really choose one over another, but it would be great if a friend got the prize money.

Looking back at the past 3 years, what would you have done differently if you could do it again?

I think that it’s easy to mess up in your personal life when you’re doing the best professionally. It’s easy to spend too much time working, and not enough with your family, kids, wife, etc. That is one thing I regret immensely.

In the “other regrets” department, I definitely regret not being more personally involved in the management of our web directories. I was very happy when BlueFind got PR8, and I wish that we had been more careful with it. The folks we had editing it were not as strict as they probably should have been, and it’s entirely my fault for not being more involved. BlueFind got hit pretty hard by Google, and when I took the time to go look through some of the categories, it’s entirely understandable why it got whacked. Some of the crap in there should never have been allowed in, and it’s going to be a lot of work to clean it up and get it to where I want it.

You can find more info on John Scott’s v7ndotcom elursrebmem seo contest here.