The big question that remains unanswered even after ages has found a challenger today. Yes, following the enduring mystery behind egg and chicken’s birth, it is impossible to answer whether Web 2.0 has led to the evolution of search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine optimizers have discovered Web 2.0. But let’s not discuss the impracticality now as we have Neil Patel, a deserving elite blogger with us today. Neil is fortunate to have experienced diverse traits of business (SEO and Web 2.0) during his graduation days and today is found engaged amidst Pronet Advertising, ACS Social Media Optimization Agency, QuickSprout, CrazyEgg and holds a strong view point about social media.

Roll over to know more about Neil, a perfect example of a young and successful entrepreneur.

Neil, kindly introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your usual day at work?

I am the CTO at ACS . My usual workday consists of talking with clients, managing employees, and talking with potential clients. When I have spare time I try and write a blog post or two.

Other than that, there isn’t much more to Neil Patel. I finally graduated from college, which means work is my life. When I am not working, I am usually watching TV, eating, sleeping, or traveling.

What led to the inception of ACS? Why you named it as ACS?

I started ACS with my brother-in-law in 2003. The main reason for starting it was that people I knew needed help with SEO, so I thought I would create a company that would provide the service.

As for the name, I have no clue on why it was picked. The easy answer was that my business partner and I were typing random stuff into Godaddy.com and it recommended Advantage Consulting Services. We decided to pick it because we couldn’t come up with anything better and it started with ACS, which means it would be at the top of most business directories. Sooner or later we realized the name was too long, so we changed our name to ACS.

What strategies do you follow to promote a particular website as a part of providing Internet marketing services?

There are a lot of strategies I would follow, but here are a few:

1. Have a good product or service first. A good marketer can’t market crap.

2. Write great content. As we all know, content is king. The more you have, the more links and traffic you will get.

3. On page SEO. It is amazing on the traffic increases you can get from modifying your website code/structure.

4. Link building. You can never have enough quality links.

When did you venture into blogging and why? Is growing traffic or link building the indicator of a blog’s success?

I ventured into blogging around 2 years ago. I did it because I wanted to share my knowledge with others. I measure a blog success by traffic, links, and RSS subscribers. Once you figure out your blogs stats, you then want to compare them to your competition and see how you stack up.

Is it important to have an individual identity of a blog or run it as a form of a community/network?

Ideally you want both. A blog should have an individual identity, but you also want a community around your blog. If you are able to do both then you will succeed in the blogging world.

Having carved a success story for yourself by establishing ACS and holding the flag of CTO for the company, do you still feel the need to continue with your bachelor’s degree?

I don’t think it is important, but I just graduated. I only had 1 class left for over a year, so I decided to finish it so I could get my degree.

How active are you on social networking sites/engines viz. Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon or Reddit? Which one of them is the great traffic-puller?

I used to be very active on all of them, but do to my traveling schedule I am not active on them anymore. The best traffic puller for me is either Digg or Yahoo Buzz.

Do you think RSS feeds will have a great future?

I think RSS feeds will have a future because they make life easier. Instead of going to thousands of sites to read their content, you can now do all of this through RSS.

What are your daily-reads or favorite blogs?

Everyday I visit TechCrunch, Gigaom, and Venturebeat. There are tons of other blogs I read, but these are the three I read most frequently.

Pen down five favorite posts written by you till date

This is a tough one because I am not sure if I really wrote any great posts. Either way here are my 5 favorite posts I have ever written:

Little is the new big: Why you shouldn’t brush off the little guy

What Does Your Business Card Say About You?

Whose Shadow Are You Standing In?

It’s on me!

How to be as famous as a porn star. (Without taking off your clothes)

Blogging has moved from experimental to mainstream. What social or technical features would you like to see enter the world of blogging?

Tough question because I am not 100% sure on the exact features I am looking for. None-the-less, I know that I want blogs to become more social. Ideally as a blog owner I would like to put a face on every visitor that visits my blog. I know MyBlogLog does something similar, but it doesn’t do it for every visitor and it doesn’t provide as many stats as I would like.

If asked to give three tips to a novice blogger, what would those be?

Write great content, write great content, and write great content. I truly feel that content is the most important thing for a novice blogger to concentrate on. But if you want three different tips I would recommend: write great content, create a conversation with your readers, and create baity content.

How would you like to be known as?

Technophile

Writer

Blogger

Young Entrepreneur

SEO expert

I would love to be known as all and hopefully I will one day.

Quick bites:

Hours you invest digging net: Used to be 2 hours a day, now 5 minutes a day.

Biggest blogging mistake you did: Writing content for the sole purpose of increasing my traffic instead of writing content to provide value to others.

One hidden truth: One way my blogs became popular is that I had other popular bloggers blog about my blog and tell their readers to subscribe to my RSS feed.

If asked to post only on one blog (not PRONetAdvertising), which one would that be? Quicksprout.com, my latest blog.

Advice you would have given yourself five years ago? Write more detailed blog posts.

If not a blogger or SEO expert then venture capitalist.

Life without Internet: I would do something related to television or film.

First SEO project you took: Elpac.com

What are your interest areas besides networking, software, technology and the Internet?

I love anything related to television and films. One of my first jobs was working at Hollywood video and to this day it was my favorite job. Other than that I love basketball.

Your clientele includes TechCrunch, AOL and many others. What chief services you have delivered to them and how was experience in working with the major players in the internet industry?

Most of the services delivered to them were related to SEO and helping them increase their search traffic. It was fun working with them, not only because they are great companies, but they also taught me a lot about their space.

Give us your views on EliteChoice.

EliteChoice seems like a cool blog and concept. I think it will do well as long as you can figure out how to create more buzz about it.

Whom would you recommend as my next EliteBlogger and Why?

If you already have not interviewed him, I would recommend Stephen Spencer. He is a great Internet marketer, entrepreneur, and father.

You can ask me one question.

What is your goal by interviewing all the top bloggers?

Two reasons! To bring all elite bloggers under a single umbrella wherein they can share and learn from each-others’ experiences. And secondly, I am hoping that the community of elite bloggers would offer lot of meat to evolving bloggers, hence making the blogging medium as strong as any other form of media.

We thank Neil for sparing time for our readers and wish him luck in his journey to explore more hidden geographies.

And today we have another familiar face mentioned in 2007 Round-Up of Elite Blogs with us. Al Carlton, the inventor of CoolestGadgets (CG) plus the caretaker of 25 other blogs to name some CoolestReviews, GameAddicts, CoolestToys, SelfMadeMinds, SayNoToCrack that would soon take a shape of a community under a brand called CoolestMedia has witnessed a geometrical rate of growth in his streamlined business of blogging. Having experienced the pleasure of being in an eight-hour job was fired from 2 jobs and confesses to have been fired from 3; Al holds a substantial stay of 14-years in the internet industry.

Kindly lend all your ears to Al, especially evolving bloggers if you wish to shake hands with success.

Introduce yourself to my readers and take us through your flow of day.
Hi, my name is Al Carlton and I’m the founder of Coolest Gadgets and CEO of Coolest Media. I’ve been using the Internet for 14 years and make my living from my portfolio of sites for the past year or so. My general day involves managing my sites and writers, researching new markets and making the odd blog post.

What led to the launch of CoolestGadgets?
I’ve always had an affinity for gadgets and when I was looking for a new niche to blog in it just seemed a natural choice.

What all factors you keep in mind while hunting for prospective news to be posted on CoolestGadgets?
My main criterion is it must be cool and not plastered all over the Internet already, other than that anything is fair game.

Are you handling it single-handedly or there is a team behind it?
CG started with just myself but we now have a team of very talented writers and an overall editor. I found in the first month that extra hands were needed as I also had a day job back then.

What should be the ratio of style specks to tech features that manufacturers should consider while developing any gadget?
I think that depends on the gadget and either end of the scale can work. For example the iPhone isn’t that technically advanced but the style makes up for it whilst the older Archos weren’t exactly stylish but made up for it in functionality. Both are highly successful products.

At EliteChoice, we have captured a list of 80 world’s most expensive things including gadgets. At personal front, how open are you for inking pricey deals for outlandish gears?
I’m a sucker for gadgets regardless of price. I’ve spent/wasted $200 on a WiFi Rabbit, $300 on a robotic dinosaur (which is now the family pet) and $500 on a universal remote for the living room. I do have the excuse that they are for review purposes on coolest reviews but the girl fiend is often far from impressed

What other areas interest you?
I enjoy travelling which works well with blogging as you can blog from anywhere; I’m a firm believer in entrepreneurism and enjoy creating new site, services and businesses.

Is CoolestGadgets your only medium to earn money or you have a running alternative?
No I run around 25 sites and am in the process of setting up a blog network (Coolest Media). CG is my most profitable site at this time.

What is the business model of CoolestGadgets? From where do you tag monetary innings?
The current business model of CG is advertising and affiliate sales; we do pretty well with Google Adsense and are exploring other options.

What is the concept behind your gadget forum?
It’s nearly 2 years old now so not exactly new, the main purpose is for our readers to discuss anything they want about gadgets and technology in general. It does need a push and refocus at the moment.

What are you doing at SEO front to invite more readers?
We do very well from the engines and don’t do anything special SEO wise anymore. We try to report on cool a new product which attracts links organically which results in better SEO.

Pen down those three gadgets that you can’t afford to miss while stepping out.
My phone, Inka Pen and Tom-tom if in the car I can get lost in car park), My phone also has a built in GPS which is very useful when navigating around London

Your views on Traditional Journalism V/S Blogging.
I find blogging is much more personal and spontaneous, there are many things bloggers do that journalists wouldn’t be able to get away with. I also think there are a fair few bloggers and spam blogs which give the rest of us a bad name.

What all turning points have you come across since the launch of CoolestGadgets? By the way, when was it launched?

We launched August 2005 and have grown steadily ever since, our first Digg front page (April 2006), which a great experience and when I first took on paid writers it made it much easier to update regularly. For me personally the biggest turning point was being able to quit my day job.

Pen down your daily online-reads.
When time allows I read a fair few gadget and tech blogs, I also enjoy reading marketing, self improvement and entrepreneurial blogs.

Provide my readers with two of your favorite posts from

a) CoolestGadgets
It would be our first Digg front page post about the cool GPS tracker
Also, Current crop of water slides are just cool.

b) Others
Do it F****** Now

What is the USP of CoolestGadgets? Amongst gamut of gadget related blogs, why should one digg in here?
We only report on cool gadgets, we are always looking for gadgets to report on that hasn’t been seen all over the web before and all of our writers have a passion for the latest tech

What tips would you like to give it to bloggers with running gadget blogs so that they can also make big.
Be persistent and unique; don’t write about the same as everybody else

One Hidden Truth
I’ve been fired from 2 jobs but really should of been fired from 3

What were your first geeky toys when you were kid?
Star Wars figures, wasn’t that every bodies?

Where do you see your blog after five years from now?
Bigger and better and just a small cog in a much bigger network.

What piece of advice you would have given yourself five-years ago?
Start now

Share one of your unfulfilled desires with us related to gadget world.
I want a tiny laptop with a usable keyboard and screen

What’s next for Coolest Gadgets?
We have a major addition planned and in progress for CG and more of the same really. Most of my time is now spent on marketing and expanding the network.
Small thing, I would like to share. The other day I went through his article about 2008 goals and action plans for CoolestMedia and thought to share it with you.

Give us your honest views on EliteChoice.
Cool site, your interviews are though which is cool for the reading but a tad time consuming when answering

You can ask me one question.

How do you plan to expand Elite Choice and what are your ambitions for it?
We are working on increasing our readership as I truly believe that the core thing that can help a blog grow is savvy readership. I wish to see EliteChoice a renowned member of blogging community, which is happening gradually.