Interview with Nick Usborne (Fall 2006)

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For 25 years, Nick has been working to optimize web content for over 100 major corporations, including such names as Citibank, Apple, Chrysler, Looksmart, MSN, Yahoo!, the US Navy and America Online. Nick has been honored with fifteen major awards for his marketing work, and is internationally recognized as a leading expert on the subject of writing for the Web. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed book, “Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy.”

Andrey: Thank you for taking the time to answer a few of our questions, Nick. Please tell us a little about your background and how you got involved with search engine marketing.

Nick: My own background is in direct marketing as a copywriter. That’s what I was doing from 1980 to 1997. From the first day of January, 1997 I made the decision to work exclusively in the online marketing space.

From the beginning it was clear that being a copywriter for the web would come with a whole new set of demands. Some of the skills I already had were transferable – others were not. In addition, there was a whole new learning curve to climb, as the Web was, and is, so fundamentally different from other media. One thing I had to start learning early on was the impact of search engine marketing. It wasn’t called that back then, but the challenge of getting listed high up in search results was present from the beginning.

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