The following is a guest post by a well known industry SEO thought leader that you’ve obviously heard of, but doesn’t want to be mentioned by name.
Humankind and it’s many cultures and achievements have always been shaped by thought leaders of the time. From Hammurabi and his code to Steve Jobs and his, well, code, thought leaders are instrumental to our progression as a society, culture, and species. Sounds pretty cool right? So how do you become an SEO thought leader? It’s easier than you think.
The good news is that this is a made up title with imaginary weight behind it. I mean, just look at the previous paragraph. I’m not actually saying anything noteworthy, it boils down to: Movers and shakers make things move and shake – aka – duh! And all you have to do is pretend.
So with this in mind, here are my top 5 tips to becoming an SEO thought leader
1) Just Say That You Are:
Like Dorothy and her ruby shoes, all you have to do is click your heels and wish it so. Since being a thought leader is such an ethereal and ill-defined concept, no one will dare call you out on it. Now don’t you feel like a jerk for walking around the land of mOz all this time and not knowing you just have to click your heels?
2) Actively Advertise That You Are
Add “SEO Thought Leader” to your byline, add it to your social media accounts, add it to your signature, casually mention it to the bus driver. Take a cue from the terrifyingly stupid movie, The Secret, if you want it to be your reality bad enough and long enough, it will magically become your reality. People are largely stupid and repeating things, regardless of their truthiness makes them more truthier.
3) Have the Bone Fides to Match
Been chased out of your job at several brands/agencies? No need to fret! Have you been disconnected from actual work for the past 5 years and have been bloviating meaningless platitudes at conferences? No worries! Include a list of major brands you’ve “worked” with and “gotten results for” in the past. Pick a nice mix of well recognized brands in different industries. The key here is to lie believably.
4) Use Marketing 101 With Updated Vocabulary
Don’t use consumer research, it’s so 1990’s, instead use data driven persona analytics. Don’t talk on buying habits, talk about consumer decision journeys. Find your Marketing for Dummies book, go to the index, pick a handful of marketing terms, and start dressing up that pig! People are impressed with big words, or, put another way: societal tendencies indicate that the perceived scope of your lexicon will ameliorate the quandary of un-elevated confabulation.
5) Know the Right People
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a picture of you with Matt Cutts, Duane Forrester, Lisa Barone, or Rand Fishkin is worth, like, double that. Yes, it can be hard to break into the SEO power clique, but those people meet so many folks and take so many pictures, they’ll never remember whether or not they actually met you. Whether by photoshop or in reality, put a picture of you up with an SEO luminary. Other people won’t know that you don’t actually know that person. (editors note: be careful if photoshopping Rand Fishkin and the many iterations of his facial hair).
If you liked this article, come back next time for my “How to become a Social Media thought leader in 5 easy steps” post, which will be this post after I’ve run a search and replace to get rid of “SEO” and throw in “Social Media”, along with a picture of Dingy, who showed that this system works.
Step one. Do Good Work.
Step Two. Do Greater Work.
Step Three – Do Greatest Work for years.
Step Four – Get pictures taken with puppies and kittens and post them on Twitter and Facebook.
Step Five – Retire to island because you are now rich and famous but not before naming a drink after you taken the night you were drunk off your ass and caught dancing on the bar at a conference with a rockstar.