Interview with Adam from RivMedia

I recently had the chance to sit down with Adam from RivMedia, He’s an SEO Consultant, who is also a web coder, and forum owner. It was an interesting discussion we had where we discussed making money online, forum ownership, being a webmaster, and how to do SEO. I hope you enjoy it.

Hello Adam, First I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Can you tell me a little bit about what you do online and a bit about you?

Hey Caleb, no problem at all I’ve never been asked to do one of these before so bare with me and excuse any grammar or spelling mistakes I’m slightly dyslexic when it comes to them both. I’m I suppose what you call a Developer / SEO, I’m at the stage now where my company (rivmedia) has a small number of coders and designers on its books for Development projects however the SEO side of things is totally managed by myself and will remain that way until I’m in a position to trust someone else with our clients sites. We are only a small Company but it’s been a great success.

How did you start doing SEO for people? Has this had an impact on your sites?

Hmm Tough one, This all started years ago when I found out how to promote a hobby site of mine through reading forums and some of the respected SEO blogs, the more I read the more I learnt and then I developed my own style of doing things, a year later I realized that I was actually very good at what I was doing and had some great results as a result of my hard work.
Since then SEO is something that I suppose you could say I’m obsessed with lol, SEO is the first thing I look at when taking on a new project of my own. After that it just evolved into a business after taking on some businesses in my local area.

I’ve looked through your various forums and I was wondering, how come your forums have been so successful?

Hmm there is no secret behind forums and I wouldn’t call any of them a success “YET” I set my self very high standards and until I reach my goals I’ve set myself I won’t be happy. Hard work and creating a forum on a topic you know about and have a passion for is a must. I’ve sold a number of my forums now to focus on a couple of main sites, as a result the new owners have totally destroyed them and left them to root, terrible shame. My Main focus (when I get time) is My Webmaster forum Triphp but currently I’m even finding that hard to maintain because of the commitments I have with my clients.

It seems like you are making money online rapidly. Do you have any tips for those trying to make money online?

ha-ha , A lot of what’s made is injected back into the company pretty much straight away so I’m not living the life I want to quite yet, but Projected earnings for 2011 I’m hoping will allow me to take more of a back seat at Rivmedia and then just work on my personal sites as a hobby again. Again there isn’t a secret , Hard work and the motivation to succeed should be enough, even when things seem to be going very slowly or seem as though they are not working out ( believe me this happens more than once ) you just have to man up and carry on. If you’re someone that gives up pretty easily then you might as well consider a career change IMO.

What would you suggest new webmasters do to become better?

Read a lot and learn from your mistakes, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the along the way especially when I first started out but that all a part of it, show respect to your industry seniors and remember the stuff you see people saying in forums and blogs isn’t always true, There is a lot of advise out there and a lot of it is wrong but that’s what you have to learn to spot.

What is your favorite site that you have made?

Hmm It’s got to be my first ever site , I’m a massive Tottenham Hotspur fan so my Tottenham forums are by far the site I’m most proud of but Triphp is coming in a close second the more I work on it.