If you are not going to eat that Digg fame, may I have a bite?
I was feeling a bit down about Twitter yesterday after remembering those days when Twitter was the next big Digg.com-like traffic-generating left-coast geek craze. If you were there, you would know it as the days when everybody who Kevin Rose (of Digg.com) had worked so hard to encourage to get their moment of Digg fame had become Twitter-stunned. It was back when anybody who had been kicked off Digg.com professed that tweets were the new diggs, and it was time to adapt to the new rules.
What The Heck is Digg?
For my readers unfamiliar with Digg, I will explain it in simple terms. Digg.com is a massively important … no, wait … monumental piece of Internet marketing history. It is a largely bullshitopotomus platform for zit-faced Star Wars fans to gain importance by stroking each other’s ego. The primary demographic are 17 year olds pretending to be 30, and 45 year olds still wearing Scooby Doo pajamas. Digg users can be largely summed up as semi-adult with $200 per hour talent getting paid $13 per hour to submit “diggable” stuff without looking like a “business digger”. They will carefully digg a squillion things per day while they sit in their mother’s basement passing time until she kicks them out on the street to get a real job and stop playing on that damn computer.
Typical Digg Users Need Jobs
A typical Digg user would be more inclined to plagiarize somebody’s good resume and hack their way into a real job, but there is a catch. They are hard-pressed to find time in between potentially popular photos of Lego sculptures and celebrity gossip to throw their Digg authority upon and earn another $0.43 per click for that advertisement which is cleverly placed between that badass Lego sculpture of The Empire State Building and Jennifer Aniston photoshopped making out with their buddy. When they have time to eat their bologna sandwich and chips (thanks mom), they sit there thinking “Damn those Lego statues and funny photos of the dude crashing his skateboard. I could have been somebody! … and Damn You Jennifer Aniston!
The Big Point About Digg
So the point of this article was actually this: I wrote something yesterday to tease Twitter users. I titled it “How To Become Popular on Twitter Without Actually Being Useful” and it was pretty well-received. Fame? No, not fame really, because I used to see many times as much attention to an article on Twitter … any article on Twitter. Heck, I could tweet about blowing my nose and see 100 retweets back when Digg was supposedly dead.
Damn it … those zit-faced kids went back to Digg, but I still found some people amused by my Twitter humor and snarky insight. What I have done here is to point out yet another typically popular thing to do. If you have something popular come out of your blog, it is often a good idea to follow it up with something of a similar nature that people can relate to. It really is an important practice, because your audience will tell you what they want, and you should be willing to deliver it.
I was going to blog about something totally different today. Blame the 40-something year old in the Scooby Doo pajamas and those knucklehead Twitter people who surprised me with their signs of a heartbeat yesterday.
By the way, I should add that those zit-faced fellas on Digg really don’t have a sense of humor. They just act like it for $0.43 per click. Sorry … this is one blog post the Digg fellas probably will not like very much, but you are welcome to Facebook it!
I just got off the phone with a guy who purportedly spent over a million dollars developing his quasi-e*trade competitor service that will supposedly bring the whole world of finance back into check and fix the struggles of anybody afraid to lose their money in a mutual fund or other stock market failure. Before I get too far, I want to make it very clear that I do not earn my living writing this blog. People find me here, but it is absolutely not how I earn money. I earn money when somebody comes to me to make their business successful and can push their marketing go button. When they come to me to feed me more crap, I feed it right back to them. Sometimes I feel compelled to tell my readers about it. I often do that with a scorching opinion of mediocrity.
The Wizard guy called me a couple days ago after finding me online. Yes, he found me in a search and I was not seeking him. I don’t seek people, and I don’t do fluffy sales pitches and free market research. I am the SEO (search engine optimizer) after all, and my job is for people to find me, but mostly to help people find my clients. I answer questions and I help people to understand what I do, but I would rather choke them than explain the importance of being visible in search engines with a magnificent marketing message … or that I know how to do it. Seriously, if you find me, don’t ask me if I can help people find you. That is clearly grounds for choking. People discover me many times per hour, and some of them think they understand the whole idea of what I provide, but most of them have it all wrong. I mean, sometimes they get it extremely wrong!
I am not here to sell you stuff or to take your money. Do not ask me for a price tag for a subjective interpretation of success, because I will only tell you that if you want “success”, you better bring your lunch money and expect me to hang you up by your ankles to shake the coins from your pockets. You are not going to get success for free. I already have a wife, and she is the only person who can rip my shirt off and get my talent for free. Success does not come with a set price, and it is not defined the same for you as it is for that other person over there. That is why, if you want success, my standard price begins at 438 squillion dollars. Now just how much success do you want to buy?
I am here to improve my clients’ profits by improving their marketing message and its reach. That is what I am paid to do. I do not care who you are or how much you can pay me … or try to impress me with, because you cannot buy my reputation or integrity. Not at all, and I have foregone millions of dollars in the past to prove that money cannot buy my integrity. Don’t even make a bid, because it is not going to happen.
The Wizard Impressed Me … At First
The Wizard guy gave me a great demonstration of his service and I was impressed. In fact, I was impressed enough to ring “The Wizard” on the phone tonight as a follow-up call to our previous conversation. He was beaming with delight at the prospect of my interest in marketing his service, and we shared some great ideas about what his marketing plan should entail.
The Wizard guy has the brilliance to suggest that his service may be best served as a pyramid scheme. Sure, it could go that way (in a bad movie), but I told him that if he made that decision without the foresight of market research that it could kill a lot of other possibilities he had also hoped for, including potential for selling the company. He had mixed ideas on how to market his service, and I told him that what would benefit him the most before his product launch is some solid market research. He liked that, but thought that should be free. He had the impression that properly extensive market research was something we would just provide free of charge and then send him a proposal for the implementation. It is too common for people to think that marketing is just about the implementation and that the research is just pulled out of our undershorts. It is not that way, and good research with solid projections does not come free … for me, you, The Wizard, or anybody else.
In my opinion, this guy expressed no better clue about marketing the product than an arrogant idea of who should buy “The Wizard” and why the whole stock market and mutual fund industry should believe in him and his flashy but convincing Wizard service. He only explained who he was and who he thought he should sell it to. He seemed to know or care little about who it would actually benefit the most, how to reach them, or the proper message they would respond to. Market research to him seemed to mean I would go and gather all of the magic bullets and put them into a canned proposal, and that to pay me meant I would send him a loaded gun to shoot at his target.
There is a whole lot more potential for The Wizard than he seemed to grasp, but it was only after I gave him a big enough dose of my marketing experience in a “reality pill” that he finally said “this is sounding kind of expensive.” What completely failed to sink in was that in order to bring a product to a position of massive market success in an industry already clouded with distrust and crooks is that you cannot do it with a tin cup full of pencils and a pair of dark glasses begging for nickels on a street corner. When you create a self-proclaimed brilliant product and have the audacity to call it “The Wizard” and brand it as some sort of financial savior, you better be ready to market it and prove that you have more than a mythical profit-solving stock market idea. Marketing takes research, and that means more than a kid next door saying “we can put it on Craig’s List.”
The Wizard Mutual Fund Management Tool Wants Contingency SEO
If you ever happen to Google the term “contingency SEO” I am what you get. Yes, numero uno … I am the guy. I love working for pay based on my performance. That is where I make money, and that is all great. I just hate it when people think that it means they have no cost involved and that I trust them just because … well, just because they called me on the telephone to pitch me their line like a squillion other cheapskates. For my candid take on this, take some time and see the video of Wimpy from Popeye here (if you are reading by RSS, see video on the original blog post).
If you want to know how contingency SEO works, read about it. It does not mean free marketing. It means partnering up with your marketing people and working together for more profit. I know that may get confusing for some people, but the reality is that you cannot shit on your best asset and expect the best results. No … that is not how this works. That kind of illusion only happens in fairy tales and movies … like The Wizard of OZ.
Peeking Inside The Wizard’s Mind (My Speculation)
OK, I get it … if I create a market for this unknown service called “The Wizard” and give my gracious SEO talent and market research on contingency, the wizard will gladly pay me on Tuesday, like that jackass Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons who always owed people for last Tuesday’s burger. Sorry, but no dice. When I market something, I bring more than my good looks and a pocket of arcade tokens. I use my industry reputation, and I use a long list of marketing resources and talents which are not free. I put a lot of money and work into the launch of a product which can cost dearly if I start launching marketing plans like “The Wizard” only to piss off all of my business relations when some Wizard guy does not pay the bill and I am on the hook to pay the people I brought in to help market it with me.
The Wizard Stock Market Service Has No Stock
Before I jump into bed with a client for a contingency SEO contract, they had better be ready to put some skin in the game. I mean, if this guy has a million dollars wrapped up in development of a service, how can he seemingly care so little to recoup the cost and bring it to market the right way. How much can you trust the wizard who did not seem to understand that creating a solution is only a tiny part of a business? What kind of financial wizard is that?
Do you want to do business, or do you want to feed bullshit to somebody choking on a mouth full of bullshit?
Success and earning trust from consumers should require that you can do what you say you can do. You have to be a business person and that means more than having a great idea. You must have money … yes … m-o-n-e-y, because although it may look easy, what I do requires people … full-time people with kids to feed and bills to pay. Without money, it is hard to promote some scheme that deals with people’s finances and retirement futures. I am not about to become another Bernie Madoff jerk by promoting some plan to solve the world’s mutual fund and stock market troubles. No … not for free, and not if I view you as a bad businessman or somebody summing me up as a sucker.
I may be an asshole, but I am not an asshole that you can scam, or pay enough to scam others.
Do Not Act Like The Wizard
If you have a product to bring to market, do not act like The Wizard. Are you seriously so delusional that you think product development is where an idea will make money? No … the money comes after you bring it to market, and sometimes not even then.
If you come to find a need for serious marketing and you reach out to a serious marketing person … I mean one with some marketing talent, don’t come to us with an attitude that we are here to sell you something. If the marketer is good, and if it is any search engine optimizer with a little experience, he or she hears from people like you all day, every day. We get sick of it, and it forces our gag reflex into overdrive. Then we end up waving a bullshit flag all over you and may turn you into the next Suture Express. Go Google to see what happens with companies like Suture Express when they irritate the SEO by not paying. Don’t take my word for it … go and ask Google!
If you want the best marketing, it is better to treat it as if you are going to the bank seeking a loan. You want what we have to offer (money), that means you need to give us a reason to approve you. This is especially true if you are seeking contingency / performance-based SEO. I am not your momma, and I have no obligation to feed you. Let’s get that straight right now. I have three words for cheapskates wanting a free lunch and those are “rub a lamp”.
If you think I make my money here … writing this blog, you really got it all wrong. I make money when non-bullshitters reach up under their sack and bring something to the table that I can market for them. Hitting me up for a bunch of free ideas and then insulting me is a good way to get said sack on an Internet chopping block.
So there is my rant. Do you want to do business, or do you want to feed bullshit to somebody choking on a mouth full of bullshit?
That is my opinion. Take it or leave it, but don’t act like you didn’t see it.
I am not going to tell you to ignore search engines totally, but it is important that you strike a balance in favor of people over search engines. It is really easy to get caught in a trap of writing and optimizing everything just to be listed the most prominently in search engines.
I have written about a lot of SEO topics, provided a lot of useful blogging tools, and shared some really good reasons to blog. One thing that I am not so sure I have really said enough about is the notion of writing as if the search engines never existed.
I try to have this thought in my mind with every article I write, but even I am often caught in a trap. It is really easy to get a little too keyword choosy and worry yourself with keyword density and all the other SEO magic, to the point where it is no longer useful or interesting to the people who are ultimately your audience. Without them, you are kind of like a dog chasing a railroad train. What would you do with those search engine results without the people? I mean interested people who receive benefit from what you have to share with them.
Ask yourself this question: “How much differently would I do this if search engines did not exist.”
SEO Blogging Tip Summary
In summary, my SEO Blogging Tip today is this: Don’t get caught in a trap of doing things just for search engines. Remember your audience, and that they are people … not machines. You can still sneak in some awesome SEO keyword value, but the people are what matter the most. Since you are one of those people, and I care about you, I offer you a video to help you remember what I have shared with you on this topic.
I recently returned home after an all-day meeting with a company in need of my SEO and social media marketing services. I wrote about them in my recent article titled “99 Percent of Marketing Fails, But Eleanor Can Fly!“. The company asked me to come to Chicago and meet with them at length about their needs, and get to know them. They don’t just want a consultant, they want me to share in their vision and help them to achieve some really big goals. They want my commitment to their long-term success.
We had a great time, and I learned a lot about things which make the company really great. The culture of the company is to do things with purpose. They do meaningful things and they do them for the right reasons. Their purpose is not all about the money, but the money is all because of the purpose. I suppose it is easier for them to come by their purpose, because they are a family-owned company in their fourth generation. The culture was passed down, and there is a strong sense of responsibility that comes along with that. I am still optimistic that a greater purpose can be developed in newer companies, too. They must first understand that greater rewards come from a bigger vision than themselves, and not just a clever business plan.
Tangent Thinking Creates Great SEO and Social Media
While I was meeting with these fine folks, we often spoke in tangents. We let our minds wander with our ideas. Thinking and sharing your tangent is often the best way to discover your greatest creativity. I told the guys that if I was there in the office each day, much of my best work would not be sitting at a desk and doing geeky stuff like reprogramming their websites, but rather pacing the sidewalk smoking cigarettes, and chugging coffee. I forgot to add the telephone. I need cigarettes, coffee, and a telephone so I can call for more inspiration and ideas from that perfect person in my giant network of creative and resourceful friends who can help me think through my latest flash of genius.
I explained that good SEO takes a lot of hard work, data analysis, and understanding of technologies, but that great SEO requires something a whole lot different. It requires creativity, passion, and doing something truly exceptional and showing people what makes your company amazing. Yes, SEO is a whole lot more than just picking some keywords and putting them on a perfectly crafted website. Really great SEO (search engine optimizers) know that asking for a link from other webmasters is a huge waste of time. They know that if you do something really out of the box that people love, more people will link to you because they are compelled to share the value you provided them. Yes, there I said it. I just gave you the single best tip in my SEO bag of goodies.
When the SEO Light Bulb Comes On
While I was on a tour of the company’s facility with the VP of Marketing, his right-hand man, a brilliant note-taking scribe who goes by the title of “Director of Innovation” came to re-join us on the tour. The three of us stood in the “bird cage” high atop a huge facility where employees were working hard to do their jobs. As we talked about them, it really began to feel like they were not just there to get the job done, but that the culture of this company allowed them to all be a part of a bigger picture. They worked side-by-side with family members, and I don’t just mean the strong family which is the company. They worked with people they had known since birth … you know, actual family members. Many of them had been there for a very long time. Sure, jobs are harder to find these days, but I don’t think these people came to work each day just because this was the only job out there for them. They understood the vision, and if any of them question their corporation’s intentions, they shouldn’t. I don’t. Hearing it from a guy with the founder’s same name, I can say that the higher-ups really have a whole lot of heart wrapped up in that staff. They really do care about the employees, and they feel a huge sense of responsibility to the thousands of people it can affect if they make bad decisions. It gave me goosebumps more than once.
While we stood there talking about these hard workers and sharing our visions for the company, the Director of Innovation had a moment which really came to seem like a light bulb turning on. He knew that what I do is more than just things he had read about SEO and Internet marketing, but had not put his finger on it just yet. In this light bulb moment, he really started seeing how the initial perceptions of SEO as a technical trade went a lot deeper. He noticed that it also has a lot greater than expected roots in people, talent, creativity, networking, and so many other branches of a marketing tree. It was in this conversation when he realized that there really is a lot more to the job description of search engine optimizer than he thought. It is not just about getting a bunch of website traffic. It also has a lot to do with being able to express the value of something, and doing it in a way that people can relate to. It has to do with building a brand and sharing that great culture of the company with other people who will appreciate it and benefit from it. It has to do with building consumer confidence, which often takes a lot more than just being the first search result when people search for what you offer.
Social Media Seeds SEO, But Here is How!
In our discussions, I mentioned that social media is like seeds of SEO. Actually, SEO is social media, and I will explain that briefly. If you consider that Google’s most important SEO ranking factor is quality links pointing to your website, you can see that it is all about the people’s opinion. People who have confidence in your brand, and see value in your message, will link to your work. Google is just a bigger tree in the social media forest. It reflects what the people like, and what the people want. It is largely based on the same principle of great things being popular.
Google is just a bigger tree in the social media forest. It reflects what the people like, and what the people want. It is largely based on the same principle of great things being popular.
There is a lot more to it, but it is the whole forest that I want you to see. Sure, you can swap a bunch of links and ask people to link to your website. If you think that works so great, consider how long it would take to get thousands of incoming links to your site by asking for them. Then consider how much more effective it would be for your business to do great things and provide great value, then present it in a way that people will love to share. Getting this wrong is why I say that most SEO fail at link building.
How Does a Good Business Become Great?
A wise man who knew about making a good business great described it as feeding the gorillas. You must give them what they want, and they want bananas. Give them bananas and they will be happy gorillas who will be loyal to you. I think there was a lot more wisdom in this than just the picture you have in your head right now of a silly man throwing bananas to a gorilla (you saw that guy in your mind, too … I know you did). It means giving people what they want in life and realizing that is the most effective path to getting what you want. This holds true, whether it is a link to your website, a purchase from a customer, love of another person, or becoming a massively successful brand. Feeding bananas to gorillas is what made the company I met with yesterday a great one. They have been giving people what they want for a long time, and the success is evident.
I really enjoyed my trip to Chicago and the day I spent getting to know these guys. I hope they see just how much similarity we share in our methods and motivations. I suspect as they read through the copies of my book, “Living in the Storm” that I left with them, they will see that I strongly believe in feeding the gorillas, too.
Mark’s Side-Note
This may seem a bit outside of the topic, but it does relate. I want to add that while I visited with my wife on my way back home, she sensed an emotional attraction that I have to this company. She said that from all I told her, I could not have dreamed up a more suitable and exciting opportunity to do the things I love than what this company has in mind for me. I was not looking for this, and I have been a CEO for two decades. The company found me, and has expressed an interest in making me an employee of their corporation. This is certainly not something I would normally even consider. At the same time, it really proves that if you do great things, with great purpose, and you present it in a way that people love, nearly any goal can become reality.
Marketing Makes Eleanor Fly!
I have heard percentages of marketing efforts that do not work. I have witnessed those statistics enough to reach the top of my throat, and to declare that most marketing is little more than miserable failure, like the last squeak of a mouse in a trap. In fact, if you held my job for a day or two, you could even taste it like bad acid reflux. It is really true though, that most marketing falls on deaf ears, and the masses are immune to it. This is largely because these days, anybody with a computer and an Internet connection can bill themselves as an expert marketer. The barrier of entry no longer requires aptitude, experience, or even desire for anything other than somebody else’s money.
The odds of a marketer to recognize the root of our field as helping others with respect, dignity, and a desire to serve them has diminished to a point that skepticism is allowed to take over as a prevalent factor. This means that trust … hard-earned and well-deserved trust is due for a resurgence. A recall to the very root of the word “sell” is what it takes to be really great in a marketplace. If you have not learned this from your marketing pedigree just yet, the word “sell”, in this context, owes its origin to the Norwegian word “selje”. The literal translation is “to serve”, and that still means a lot to some of us.
The job of a professional marketer is to figure out that tiny fraction which does work. What we do is to serve our clients in a way which reflects our desire to benefit more than only ourselves, and to serve others at our highest capabilities. It means that a great marketer must look beyond the benefit of a few bucks today and understand the greater benefit of tomorrow.
A Happy Marketing Success Story
As the economy spooks many companies into bankruptcy and executive fears of failed marketing reach the brim of my digestive system and invoke my gag reflex, I want to tell you a success story. Yes, amongst all of the corporate scaremongering and enterprise torment, there really is success in the mix. This story is a real one, and if it is what I believe it is, it exemplifies success in the hardest market ever, which is to find personal and professional satisfaction.
Join with me and jump on board with my excitement for a moment. Raise your hands and start cheering while I share an exciting story of enterprise SEO success.
There is a company, a tried and true success in their marketplace, who picked up the mouse and found me. They searched for what I do, they took time to read a small share of my facts, figures, and persona, and we met by voice over the telephone. The story has more detail, which I will share as it unfolds, but for the moment, I offer you a piece of my expectedly upfront social media transparency.
The caller on the other end of the phone was a bright and cheery executive who revamped much of the delight that I have held so dearly as my ideal marketplace. This was not an intern at the local veterinary clinic asking how they could get a few more sick dogs to treat. It was not even an auto dealer seeking answers to social media marketing. It was a fellow gearhead executive calling on behalf of a gearhead company. He spoke my language, and we held discussions of real marketing beyond just the couple clicks up the roller coaster track that most companies will attempt before they take the chicken exit and get off the ride while the cars roll back into the loading area.
This guy was speaking my kind of language. You know, the language of waking up and smelling gear oil, coffee, and yesterday’s sweat. The kind of stuff that would intimidate Clint Eastwood and force Chuck Norris to turn in his “Man Card” and scream “Uncle” like a crybaby-sissy-bed-wetter. Yes, it was as if the Chairman of Manhood and the CEO of Testosterone were in stereo driving an epic bass line directly into my entrepreneurial earphones.
When I tell you this guy is right up my alley, I only claim that because I actually pictured him taking down six Chicago street thugs with nothing but a toothpick and a rubber band … yep, in an alley … my alley. Indeed, this dude instilled just enough of a masculine man-crush that when I told the story to my wife, she actually recounted it, in jest, with a boy-meets-girl kind of scenario and somebody was about to lean in for the first kiss. She didn’t get to the part where they sweat on each other, but probably just because that made her a bit weak in the knees. The fog of testosterone floating around would be enough to stop most hearts dead in their tracks.
In our encounter, it was as if I was driving Eleanor from the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” and … well, like we were both driving Eleanor (e.g. Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction LOT: 1287). All but one detail, he actually has yet come to liberate my Eleanor-plus sized budget from the company’s board of directors. He will be working on them this week, and I will assist him in that jailbreak all I can. It will be important that my new gearhead friends understand that there is a vast difference between Lot 1287 and the dozens of other nice 1967 Mustangs in the list, and the difference is not all about the price … it is value which matters.
While we visited, I discovered the most awkward scenario. The company has me pictured as an in-house corporate SEO guy. At first, I felt a little tear on my cheek, because I know there are only a relatively few companies who understand the value that a C-level position in my industry can provide for them, or how much a long-standing CEO requires just to keep feeding his family. Then I started remembering how much I hate selling SEO. I mean, after all, you can Google something as simple as “sell SEO” or “how to sell SEO” and find that I know a lot about this business. My best scenario of how to sell SEO is just to be able to do it, prove it, and earn a squillion dollars from it. I already did that. My selling is over, and what I mostly want is to do the work I love, and to never have to slink my way out of a boardroom because some kid with less talent but a better line of garbage talked them into some cheap SEO. Realistically, any boardroom worth the table where they sit should be able to distinguish real marketing talent from a marketing representative waiting for his next diaper change. If they cannot recognize that difference, maybe a quick Google for “marketing talent” will flip the butter and the bread in the right direction and show them where the real deal lives and thrives. Where that butter meets the bread is with the guy holding uncanny skills (marketing and gearhead alike), a history of success, and a knack for telling what people need to hear even if it is not what they want to hear. That is a guy with the company in mind, whether he is working as their independent SEO consultant or as their boardroom fun department ready to whip out his clown nose and reveal his magic bag filled with market share, acquisition targets, increased leverage, stronger investors, retail fanaticism, and other boardroom delights.
In either scenario which my gear-hugging pals over there prefer, my Eleanor+ (performance bonus, equity, and etcetera) price point is a cheap jailbreak to fire up the passion of a real gearhead marketer who can come to the office and bang out high-compression gasoline flavored treats the way I would passionately provide for these guys.
I doubt they can afford me, but I am just as sure as motor oil and gasoline going to give them every opportunity to try. It really comes down to how their board of directors view the value of the Internet and my impact upon it.
To my new gearhead pals, I have a tip for your use in our synergistic battle in the boardroom. If they want to know how to justify SEO cost, just Google it! They will find the same guy as when you were seeking how to find SEO talent. 😉
NOTE: To my many longstanding and devoted clients, many of which have been with my services for a decade, please be aware that nothing will shake my devotion to you. You will continue to receive the highest attention from my highly capable support representatives, and you can expect the same level of service which you have trusted me with for so long. As you are surely aware, there is no dollar amount which can purchase my integrity.
