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We are kicking off a series about how small businesses can better leverage their strengths. We will be interviewing a series ofseth godin industry leaders to share their valuable ideas with us. To kick of the series we have none other than marketing guru, successful blogger and bestselling author, Seth Godin.

First we would like to thank Seth for agreeing to do this quick interview on short notice, and congratulate him on Linchpin for being a huge success.

Romy Misra (Pear Analytics): Seth, a lot of small businesses we talk to are struggling to generate leads and prospects without using some form of interruption marketing. For a small business seeking to be extraordinary, what are some tactics you would recommend to an SMB that could enhance Internet searchability beyond traditional SEO tactics?

Seth Godin: The open secret of SEO is that the single best way to get traffic is to deserve traffic. In other words, the search engines are pretty good, and if you create something remarkable, something people want to talk about, you’ll get found. Sure, the tactics of SEO can help, but if you start with a product or service that is amazing (not just you mom says that, but users do), then everything gets easier.

So, don’t search for gimmicks. Search for value and art and doing work that matters. Ask your designers to go to the edge. Price your stuff to the edge. Create digital artifacts that will spread.

All of this is hard. That’s why it works.

Romy Misra (Pear Analytics): Linchpin talks about creating art and being artists at work. You say “Art is about intent and communication, not substance”. As the SMB begins to leverage their web assets to generate contact and communicate with their customers, what are some suggestions you would give a small business to engage prospects over time?

Seth Godin: Why should I interact with you? If you’re boring and you don’t care and I buy a commodity from you, why should we also have a relationship? I don’t need a relationship with my jujubee supplier, or with the guy who drops off the mail in my office. No time, no upside, hard to make it work.

So the challenge is to create a reason for people to miss you, a reason they would benefit from calling you. I’m sorry that I can’t say do this and do that and then do this, but it’s more important to decide that this is important than it is to have a Dummies manual!

The bonus: We are going to pick 10 users to randomly gift a copy of Seth’s latest bestselling book ‘Linchpin’ if you sign up for SiteJuice in the next week.