Proof of concept!

Has this idea worked previously and if so, in what way?

Whether it’s shares via Instagram, likes via Facebook, number of links, estimated monthly visits…

Blah blah blah, the same metrics, every time.

Marketers want proof that that an idea within their niche has been successful in the past.

But they’re also…

Driven by the fear that a new, original idea will not gain any traction.

Driven by the potential consequences of a failed project.

Driven by the arse covering that these previous pieces of content and their metrics allow you.

Driven by laziness and a wish for doing something as easily as possible.

And in a way that they already know and can do in auto-pilot.

And they do it again, and again, and again, and again.

This creates a content rut.

Low risk, low reward, low quality.

Nothing to define them from their competitors.

Nothing that excites their readership and makes them think —> “These guys get it!”

Nothing that deserves to rank any higher than the original idea.

I am sure that there are people out there that only do projects that have a proof of concept.

Is this wrong, no.

Are you likely to ‘win’, probably not.

I am sure that there are people out there that come up with incredibly *unique* ideas, go with their gut.

Not backed with data and see mixed results.

Uniqueness is not a guarantee for success.

However by floating in between.

Shards of potential shine through.

I know that what I’m about to write isn’t groundbreaking…

What a surprise for the industry and this ‘blog’.

But the way you can clutch on to your precious metrics

and create something new enough to actually cause a stir within your industry

Is by stealing the general idea that ‘works’ and combining it with:

• Something topical (potential limited shelf life this but it works).
• Something related but not previously seen or mentioned (this joining of dots can be priceless).
• Something very strange (people are used to a certain type of content, this juxtaposition is risky but fun).
• Your brand spankingly new, originally unique, never before thought of idea.

This way you get your metric crutch and your ego lead addition.

Where you can credit your genius if it succeeds!

And point at previous metrics if it fails!

I know reading that back it sounds really obvious.

1 + 0.1 = v1.1

Indulge me. I’m a simple man compiling his thoughts, writing on vapour.

However the way you can potentially take this a step further and gauge the risk

is the degree in which you stray from the original idea!

Think of it along a grid

1st project with a new client? Perhaps it’s best to make something that is likely to work and get adequate results.

1 + 0.1 = v1.1

2nd project? 1st project did ok, nothing impressive but you have room to grow and express your ideas a bit more

1+0.25 = v1.25

3rd project? You have been backed by success, you’re able to take the reigns off a bit and do something more *high* risk.

1+0.4 = v1.4

And this is that format within it’s most basic form.

Be careful out there. You can also gauge the risk of a content project by reviewing the following:

The mentality of the client, the investment involved, the length of time worked with the client, the number of previous content projects, your previous successes, your knowledge of the industry, your contacts within the industry.

There are probably loads more.

I’ve got a bit lost in this article, I just wanted to write again and I felt like I had some points I wanted to share.

If you wish to discuss in more depth leave a comment, send an email or tweet.

Peace.

Does this nightmare ever end?

Short post discussing an idea I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone mention.

One of the biggest problems that people often have when trying to ‘build relationships’ with influencers within a niche is that they have nothing to offer.

You know deep in your soul that your boring, rehashed, poorly designed infographic/blog post/video/whatever isn’t going to impress anyone important and is unlikely to gain links without paying for them.

Soooo, what’s a girl to do?

Well. And I know this may be seen in some agencies as controversial but…

If you’re not currently creating content that is worth sharing.

How about sharing something that is brilliant/amazing but wasn’t made by yourself or anyone you know?

You know like how normal people recommend things to one another.

Send over something legitimately interesting/awe inspiring and the ‘influencer’ will thank you before thinking

“Wow that was extremely cool, I wonder what other gems they’re hiding away!”

That’s when you can come back and bombard them with your ’17 quirky facts about Venezuela’ infographic.

Or something.

Class dismissed.

So how many of you have blamed a competitor for bad link building when resubmitting a site on your clients behalf?

“Look at all these dreadful links! We didn’t know that they would do such awful things when we signed up to our natural, white hat, organic online marketing campaign. Oh by the way our supplier is competitor x, we thought you’d like to know.”

What? You haven’t? Oh.

As you probably recall this ‘training’ doesn’t last for long, soon you realise that to become really knowledgeable about SEO you’re going to require more information, more input!

But, yeah also thanks to the high-speed internet options available these days, surfing through the enormous amount of data available online isn’t tough either. You just need to have an appetite to learn. With that, even if you are based in a rural suburb, nothing can stop you from becoming the friend of your SEO rockstar. This is because the internet options for rural areas tend to be as good as the ones available for cities.

Having said that, when you are beginning, you’ll start by checking out a few SEO news sites like Search Engine Land, and Search Engine Watch and probably read the SEOmoz beginners guide (if you have only been doing SEO for 1-2 years and not been told to “read this” by your manager then I’d be surprised) The sites mentioned above are great resources and you could definitely learn how to do a half decent job through just reading them alone. However sooner or later you will either be told about or stumble upon a special thing, an SEO rockstar blog.

It’s love on first site (lol) even on the first view you can’t help but be impressed. The number of posts, comments, tweets and likes is something to behold! Before long you are reading their posts from 2005, searching for guest posts, looking for more input, this person is a genius, how could I get them to talk to me, listen to me, even just once, is this too many comma’s, THIS ISN’T A CRUSH!

Worry not dear reader, here is a step by step guide to catching your favourite SEO’s eye! In fact I pretty much guarantee that if you follow the steps below you will be best pals in no time!

Plan, stalk and covet

Step 1 – Follow them on all possible social media channels

You know the usual suspects – Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Linkedin. If you are struggling for additional ideas maybe look into Knowem? Nothing says ‘committed potential ally‘ more than reaching out to you FSEOR via a niche social media account. Hello Stardoll!

#Pro tip – Review their name via the Knowem social search to see where they currently don’t have an account. Create personal accounts on as many sites as possible and play the waiting game. Once they get in contact, you can either hold the account to ransom (a risky strategy) or hand it over. “Oh you do SEO? Wow what a coincidence so do I!” Great idea eh?!

Step 2 – Befriend their friends

So you now know each and every one of your FSEOR’s favourite haunts. Now it’s time to stealthily gain trust within their clique of friends! Start by following their closest allies online. If they are popular (I’m sure they are) you will be able to find plenty of their friends to converse with via social media. If you work for a company, understand that TikTok is an underutilized platform by many businesses. You can click here to learn how influencer marketing campaigns can give power to business brands on social media. Proper use of social media platforms can help your SEO!

Once you know where they hangout and who they talk to the next step is getting yourself out there. Some SEO’s like to gain attention by debating ideas, algorithm updates and theories whereas I prefer the classic approach of brown nosing. Retweet, like, comment and compliment as if your life depends on it! Don’t worry if they don’t get back to you initially, some people play hard to get.

By remaining tenacious, calculating and motivated you will reach your goal. One day you’ll wake up, instantly check your phone and see that beautiful interaction, they are now following you. Hahaha, You now have them where you want them.

#Pro tip – Give the friends of your FSEOR all of your secret SEO tips and ideas, offer to work for free, do their washing, take their kids to school, remove their links manually. Whatever it takes to join the inner circle.

Step 3 – Hate their enemies

Are you sat down? This may come as a shock. It is highly likely that there are people that dislike your favourite SEO rockstar. This hatred will either be due to immense jealousy or because they’re an opinionated arsehole. In your case I wouldn’t worry, I’m 99% sure it’s the former!

So how do we find the haters and what do we do to them? Haters will be found making negative comments on blogs and via social media and will usually hold a different viewpoint to your FSEOR (the numbskulls). Now, this is where the professionals-a Reputation Management Firm, usually-tend to step as the voices of reason and help the haters understand that everyone is allowed to have different opinions; that it’s okay, but online hate is not; and other tasks that you may not know about, but maybe you can come close and do something else to help.

The next vital step requires patience and good timing. Use your feed (discussed later) to track what your FSEOR is doing online and make sure you’re ready to jump in if and when an argument begins, don’t worry, your gut will tell you when the time is right. Take a deep breath, this is where you earn your stripes. When attacking the enemy the more vicious, vocal and personal the attack the better. Don’t worry whether your FSEOR is in the right or not, protect them with your online persona life.

Post argument your FSEOR will now be wondering “Who is this person? They seem cool, friendly and smart. I’ll be looking out for them in the future.” This is unlikely to lead to a follow or linkedin request but worry not we’ve got more tips for you below!

#Pro tip – The haters are unlikely to understand your subtle, sophisticated humour so I would recommend to go obvious and malicious. Remember this is war, how will you decapitate your opponent? I have found that a combination of online and offline threats usually do the trick (if your threats aren’t getting the desired effect don’t be afraid to consider kidnapping their close relatives, this will of course require some time consuming research but remember the goal and you’ll be fine).

Catch the Eye

Step 4 – Get involved with every one of their discussions (even if they are chatting privately)

In fact particularly if they are chatting privately. Now you don’t want to show that you are too keen so ignore the other people they are talking to, the topic of conversation and casually mention how much you love their brand/website/haircut. If you’re feeling brave mention that you’ve read every one of their posts. Make sure that this is only a brief exchange, quickly in, express thoughts, logout. Always keep them wanting more.

#Pro tip – Create a feed that follows their every move online, this can be easily created. I recommend that you check this every 3 minutes or so, it’s unlikely you’re doing any work anyway. If you are smart enough perhaps develop an app that can follow their every move offline? If not I’ve found foursquare does a fairly decent job. Remember data, data and more data.

Step 5 – Write an article about your favourite SEO

Write a sycophantically cheesy article based around how great your FSEOR is and why they are one of the finest SEO’s ever. Make sure that the post is 100% serious and try and only mention positives. Ideally you would do something similar to the recent and highly successful Rand Fishkin infographic.

I recommend you find online quotes from other SEO’s to give the post that real ‘resource’ effect. If these quotes don’t exist make them up, everyone skim reads these days.

#Pro tip – Photoshop an image so that it looks like you are regular pals try and do it so that you are at a pub or a conference or wherever real SEO’s chat and do that friend stuff.

Sure fire winners (or enter friendzone!)

Step 6 – Apply to work for their company

It’s highly likely that your favourite SEO either owns an SEO company or works for a pretty good one. Imagine how much time you could spend together chatting about link building outreach, inbound marketing and other exciting stuff, if you worked together!

But remember that people of such high stature only like talking to knowledgeable people and would not simply waste their time away. So, meanwhile, make sure to gain all the information you can about the hot topics and the latest trends in SEO. If required, consider taking one or few of the free online courses with certificate, so that you can also show it off on your CV.

And then comes the final step. Rewrite your CV, overexaggerate everything that you have ever done, lie about working with massive brands, create fake case studies and send it over. You’ll at least get an interview…

#Pro tip – Eager for the job? Apply in person, at their home address, at night, wearing only a balaclava and wielding a freshly filed crowbar. State, in a clear and friendly manner, your name, the time of your appointment and the name of the person you expect to meet.

And for gods sake give them a firm handshake, first impressions are important!

Step 7 – Arrange for them to speak at a conference (that doesn’t exist)

Now hear me out, this one is a little elaborate. You’ve gone through the first 6 steps and haven’t got anywhere. If the following doesn’t work, maybe it’s not meant to be?

1. First off create a website for a conference www.shipping4SEOlove.com (free link for someone there, don’t mention it) sounds pretty hip. Pay someone on fivver to create a slick website and you’re away!
2. Pay for someone to create 50-100 social media accounts & find 5 people to look after 10-20 accounts each. (we’ll get back to this later)
3. Write fake testimonials from other favourite SEO’s who describe your excellent conference. Maybe throw in a few lower level SEOs to make it look legit. *Important note* Make sure that the conference speakers list features SEO’s that your favourite SEO respects but isn’t friends with. Be careful to do your homework, choosing an SEO enemy could also see your plans blow up and you don’t want all your hard work going to waste now do you?
4. To minimise risk get in contact with their PA (lol if your favourite SEO doesn’t have one) but do it with a month to spare, giving them enough time to move things around to accommodate your kind offer and you with as little amount of time for them to find out the sick, psychopathic truth.
5. Think about a generous sum for any speaker to talk at a top conference. Then offer double. Don’t worry you are never going to actually pay!
6. ‘Operation Shipping Buzz’ – On the day of your offer get your social team to hammer Twitter, Google+ et all. #Shipping4SEOLove seems like the one to go for. Your favourite SEO will not be able to miss it! This is legitimate quality buzz!
7. Book them a room in the most expensive local hotel. Wait for them to arrive, give them an hour, get changed into a waiter’s uniform, knock on their door claiming to be room service. Once inside approach them with a cloth and ask “Does this smell like rohypnol to you?”
8. Tie them up.
9. This now depends on your personal goals. Who am I to say what you can and can’t do with your favourite SEO? Have you seen the film Inception? I like to create an idea in peoples minds that I am a competent and useful SEO. It appears to have deceived a large number of people!
10. Leave nothing behind, remove all evidence and delete anything online to do with the conference/website. Your FSEOR is now under your thumb and will converse with you at the drop of a hat. Turns out they’re boring as shit, oh well on to the next one.

I’ll be honest if none of these steps have worked you’re probably not trying hard enough or are socially retarded. Either way I have a few more ideas below.

1. Buy shares in their company – This one is quite simple. Sell thousands of ebooks to buy into your FSEOR’s company. Become a director and get to work with them every day!
2. Link to them with interesting anchor text – Once in a while your FSEOR will review links pointing to their sites/blogs. Catch their eye with either humourous or bizarre anchor text.
3. PPC Advertising – Your sycophantic post (step 5) about your FSEOR will be on it’s way to #1 for their name so how can you make sure that you are maximising the SERPs to it’s potential? That’s right paid adverts!

Well there you have it, truly quality content on how to become best friends with your favourite SEO rockstar. Now as you probably know I’m all about sharing and community so if you have any cool ideas that can be added to this amazing resource please don’t be shy and I will endeavour to add them below.

If you liked this post (unlikely) check out ‘The Classics!‘ section, jam packed with irrelevant content.

The Community Speaketh:

Michael stuns us with yet another vicious rant!

What’s your take on that ? Let us know in the comments!

*This may be a waste of time.

Sleep well my pretties.

• Reasoning/idea of post (usually stupid)
• Mock someone (inferiority complex)
• Obvious remark (is obvious)
• Average insight (stolen from elsewhere)
• Attempt at humour (stolen from Bill Hicks)
• Statement (terrifyingly cutting)
• Moral/point/purpose (usually lacking)

Hey! Hows it going 01100111011001010110010101101011zers? Bit of a mixed up post today, covering a couple of things have made me laugh over the last few days.

This week you may have seen a post about some bloke leaving the internet? There has been an amusing, dry post via Curious Rat where Harry looks to give up reading for a whole year. Good luck dude, I’m sure you’ll succeed! I found both of these posts via Hacker News. I know what you’re thinking, value add.

Now I know you think this blog gets no visitors but recently Sergey Brin has dropped by to leave a couple of comments. They made me laugh so much that I thought I’d add them to a post*. Enjoy

Sergey Brin on SEO’s

First off let me say we at Google are sick to death of the fact that all you SEO arseholes make a fortune off what is in effect our search results. We feel in the interest of our own greed that if anyone is paying to rank higher in google that , that money should be paid directly to us and we will then increase your rank. It is for this purpose we have started to play mind games with the SEO community as a whole, we figured that if we got you all of you interested in ranking higher to use rel canonical then we had an easy foot print on which to identify which of you arseholes needed punishing.

We ran another one of our “updates” and we are very happy to say we completely battered many businesses into using our current pay to rank (Ad words) we knew you would and for this reason we set up a tracking metrics, If you have been dropped in organic and then decided to spend on ad words , I am pleased to announce, you will never ever get your rankings back. Instead we have given them to a low quality site that is full of junk because they never paid an evil seo company to rank, so in our eyes that makes them more relevant. I am very happy to announce that ad words income has increased 200% in the last 2 weeks.

First quarter profits were only $1.9 billion we are hoping with the last update that we can increase this quarters profits to double that, and when Matt fucks finally releases ” The SEO penalty” ( 3rd quarter , just in time for Christmas) this update will automatically remove any sites that are currently on the front page and place them at page 4 or lower.

I would personally like to thank all of you for installing Google analytic s without you doing this we would have had no idea as to how much your websites were earning (and therefore how much you should be paying us)

Just for my pal Larry

Well I think that went well lets hope the fools never work out that anti seo is so easy right now and start to smash all our serps on all keywords therefore turning our serps in to a right useless pile of shit or we are screwed. Also what if every site owner on Ad sense starts to replace our code with say Ad choices , we have lost over 70% of our advertising real estate and potentially 40% of our ad revenue. Cant we say to these fools if they use Google + we will increase there rank , that way we can advertise more

Sergey Brin on Paid Links

Ok Let me be totally frank with you bunch of SEO devils

Paid links are morally wrong , right up there with stealing from children or old people or rigging an election.

Despite what some of you may think, Ad words are NOT paid links , they are paid adverts, You stop paying the link disappears. Which means we are pure white and good, ( Think http://images.wikia.com/lotr/images/c/c4/Gandalf_the_white_in_Fangorn.jpg) we are god anyone who gets involved with paid links are the devils spawn and therefore needs to burned alive.

We are watching YOU always , infact we are not only watching you we know what you will do before you do it. YOU THINK I AM Joking right ?? Check out ONE of joint projects we funded with our friends at the C I A ( Cocaine In America) https://www.recordedfuture.com/so before you pay for another link consider Ad words instead and with our new Google updates if you pay enough on ad words we MIGHT just decide to add your site in the organic section, even if your site is built entirely from iframes.

*Whoever was responsible congratulations you are frickin hilarious

Oh and read about the weird title >>> here

I can’t sleep.

I’m wired and I’ve just watched Fight club for the millionth time.

Tyler Durden eh, yeah we all know Tyler. Lets remind the class of who and what he is:

All the ways you wish you could be, that’s me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.

Oh look a post about a popular film/character, how original Sean, aren’t you witty/humourous/incredibly handsome… Anyway, as he mentions above Tyler’s a smart guy and whilst *watching* the film I thought “What would Tyler Durden think of the current goings on within the incredibly small & insignificant bubble that is SEO?”

Whilst *watching* the film (and definitely not checking my phone) I saw Nick Eubanks tweet “This guy gets it, I mean really gets it. H/T to you sir” As you’ll see the link takes you to a black hat world thread where recent updates have not just hurt some of the black hat community but worn them down and totally demoralised them. Instead of sucking it up and finding a new way to manipulate Google some SEO’s are spending their time crying, feeling sorry for themselves and waiting to be told what to do. If you can’t be bothered to read it the author of the post has told them to sort themselves out and find an answer. I particularly liked the ending of the post…

This post may piss some people off, but it had to be said. Nothing ever goes as planned in business as business is a cut throat, sink or swim battle. Are you going to sink or swim?

Cool Sean this is very interesting but what does this have to do with Tyler Durden or Fight Club?

Well.

Let’s get behind our black hat brethren for a sec, perhaps consider a bit of positive spiel for the poor mites? They have had quite a hefty kick to the nuts after all. If Tyler Durden woke up tomorrow to find his network of websites had been de-indexed from Google what would he think? After destroying a room I’d like to think he’d consider the following:

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.

There it is ladies and gentlemen. Once you have been fucked by Google you are free to do whatever you wish. Test those new link building ideas, build new sites in that market you were researching. Learn, adapt, build, do it better and go again (how inspirational!)

Yes it’s incredibly easy for me to sit here and tell people who have lost their business and/or income and hundreds or thousands of lost work hours to build new sites. Yes, I feel sorry for you, Google are a bunch of shitbags etc, but you knew these days were going to come eventually, right?!

The thing is these updates have [happened|are happening|will continue to happen]. Whether it’s right or wrong is debateable but that won’t change anything any time soon. If you have been fucked by Google and don’t start again what else are you going to do?

And then, something happened. I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.

[Jack|Narrator|Edward Norton|Tyler] knew where it was at. He’d be off building new websites, writing quality content and hammering out guest post emails within the hour. If you’re an SEO who keeps checking Google to see whether their site has been re-indexed you should probably follow suit. You’ll forget that old make money online URL in no time!

Now I’ve just re-read the title. It’s 2:48am and no quotes in the world are saving shit. However maybe the moral of the story is quit whining about stuff you cannot control and get back to work? That’s pretty simplistic but I think you get the gist.

I am Matt’s smirking revenge.