Comments on: SEO Is The High School Cheerleader

By: Infected By Bugs

Infected By Bugs — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:34:04 +0000

That was a great example!

Thanks for the advice!

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:09:41 +0000

Thanks Buck. You’re right that the cheerleader being there brings in people just because she’s there. I assume she also knows more people than the computer geek, though that doesn’t have to be true. And I assume she brings more fun people to the party than the English teacher.

Glad you like the analogy.

By: Buck

Buck — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:29:40 +0000

I would invite the cheerleader too. She has hot cheerleader friends.

Just playing but, not really. The hot cheerleader saying I’m going to a your party is like Micheal Jordan and Cuba Gooding Jr telling wearing your t-shirts and telling everyone they are great. It totally works. That hot cheerleader is coming to your party like having a link on the homepage a of bunch of really great websites.

That’s a good analogy for me.

Great insight Steve.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:31:52 +0000

Can I get an amen from the congregation?

By: David LaFerney

David LaFerney — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:47:19 +0000

no one should feel ashamed just because they promote.

I’m the choir. 100% agreement here.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:42:18 +0000

True. There will always be sleazy marketers and sleazy SEOs. I just hope the point is made that marketing and SEO are not sleazy by default. There are unethical people across all industries, but that doesn’t make any of those industries unethical, just some of the people.

There are some who have a hard time promoting themselves because they think there’s something wrong with promotion. Self-promotion is a necessary part of business. The promotion can be taken too far at times, which I think we’d all agree, but self-promotion is an appropriate part of running a successful business and no one should feel ashamed just because they promote.

By: David LaFerney

David LaFerney — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:06:36 +0000

Some marketing is sleazy of course. If the subliminal message is along the lines of buy this product and all of your twisted little dreams will come true – that’s sleazy.

SEO can be about helping people to find what they’re looking for. Nothing sleazy about that.

By: Forrest

Forrest — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:51:07 +0000

I might invite the computer geek, and tell her to invite the cheerleader. It would probably make more sense to invite the cheerleader directly, and maybe a few others informally.

When I read the opening line in this post, I immediately thought of The Tipping Point. How did Hush Puppies become popular…?

I spend time trying to understand how search engines work and what they want to display in their results. I spend time trying to understand how people work and what they’ll respond to as well. I want to understand so I can make better and more informed choices about building websites and creating content for those sites.

Given finite resources, understanding people in general is probably more important. Google is a set of assumptions a bunch of very intelligent people made about people in general. I don’t want to try it, but a person could conceivably run a healthy site with no search referrals.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:37:34 +0000

My scenario is very much contrived, but the rules were you couldn’t ask anyone to specifically invite someone else. It was up to them. And you could only invite one person.

I wasn’t specifically thinking of the Tipping Point when writing this, but the idea is definitely in there. I guess the ideas in the book are in me too.

I know I have SEO in the title, but the point of the post wasn’t meant to imply SEO is more important than real people. I hope that came across The point is really not to see marketing as something sleazy. It’s just understanding what works and what doesn’t and taking advantage of the opportunities for what works. Everything here applies equally to understanding people as it does to algorithms.

I agree you can run a successful site without search engines, though I still enjoy learning how they work and using that knowledge to my benefit.

By: SEO Is The High School Cheerleader | Links Makers

SEO Is The High School Cheerleader | Links Makers — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:56:56 +0000

[...] Original post by TheVanBlog Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]