Matthew Inman
Matthew Inman is a web designer, developer, and online marketer who specializes in linkbait and viral marketing. Matthew got his start in search marketing when he joined SEOmoz in 2003, where he worked until 2007 as CTO. He designed the website, coded all the SEO cools, and crafted linkbait for the SEOmoz site as well as client sites.
In 2007 Matthew decided he wanted to branch out and try something new, so he started building an online dating website on his nights and weekends. He built a fully functional and feature rich online dating site, from concept to launch, in 66.5 hours. Immediately he began linkbaiting and spreading the site through social media, and within 6 months the site had received nearly 2 million visitors. A competitor took notice, and the site was acquired in August 2007. Since then, Mingle2 ha become one of the most popular free online dating sites on the internet, surpassing 40 million pageviews a month and closing in on 1 million members. All of which was achieved through linkbait, viral marketing, and social media.
Currently, Matthew spends most of his time crafting and promoting linkbait. Quizzes and widgets are considered Matthew’s specialty, having used them for very aggressive link building in the past. During 2007 Matthew was able to build tens of thousands of anchor text rich links every single month using his widgetbait strategy and rank for very competitive keywords. He also creates online comics, such as “The 8 Phases of Dating” and “How to tell your cat is plotting to kill you” which draw in millions of page views as well as tens of thousands of links (his latest comic built 14,000 links in 3 days). His works have been featured on the digg homepage dozens of times and his linkbait has even been featured on MSNBC, Wired, BoingBoing, Entertainment Weekly Magazine, and kRock radio Los Angeles.
Matthew lives in Seattle, WA and enjoys snowboarding, sushi, distance running, and vector illustration.