How to build a “Top SEO experts” list

It’s that time of year when the ego-bait posts come out in full force.  All of your competition is putting out their “Top 247 SEOs” or “Best 100 Social Media Experts“, etc posts, but you don’t know how to do it, so you sit there twiddling your thumbs trying to come up with a true list of the best and the brightest out there.  Well, have no fear, gentle reader, we’ve boiled it all down into one easy process for you to follow, and in no time at all you’ll have a “me too” list out there, just like everyone else.

Step 1

Obviously you need to have a strong lead, this means that whoever you have as #1 on your list has to be someone that everyone’s heard of.  Whether or not they actually do any SEO these days is immaterial, your readers will be looking for affirmation up front that they know at least someone on the list.

Step 2

Go see what conference is trending today, go look at their speaker page.  Copy all of the names, and scrape their bio pages.

Step 3

Do a search for other “top xx SEO” lists, borrow judiciously

Step 4

Go and look at everyone you’ve added in Steps 2 & 3.  Are they socially active? Do they have a large number of followers?  Are they likely to share your ego-bait?  If the answer is no, then take them off the list, there’s no need wasting a spot on this prestigious list for those who won’t be helping your page views.

Step 5

Go back through the list and sprinkle in co-workers & friends that have no right to be on any of these lists, but if it gets you a free drink the next time you see them… it’ll be worth it.

Step 6

Reach out and see if anyone wants to pay to be included.  If so, ka-ching, it’s a new revenue source.  Now you can turn this into a cottage industry, without needing to change the content much, because who cares if they actually do what it says in the title?  –  “Top 50 Social Media Experts”, “Top 50 Content Marketers”, “Top 50 Conference Speakers”, “Top 50 Industry Veterans”, “Top 50 People who aren’t Ryan Jones”, etc (ed: Hey, that’s enough, we get the gag, no need for the last one). 

Step 7

Wait 3 months and push the same list(s) out again, just changing the order slightly.  (ed: hey, do we really want to be giving out the only piece of listicle advice that works for us?  What if another parody site like SearchEngineWatch were to see this?)