Scoreboard Media Group, Internet Audience Development

Wow.  I never expected that last post to create such a shitstorm (I swear it wasn’t linkbait!).  I’m crunched for time so I’ll impart a few thoughts/responses in random list form.

1.  Rand Fishkin.  I commented to Rand over at SEOmoz as I didn’t want him to take any personal affront that he may have inferred.  My previous thoughts on SEOmoz are here and I certainly wouldn’t lump them into the crowd whose time is less valuable as consultants.  Beyond that, after watching Rand for a few sessions and bouncing around the halls at SES Chicago, I think Rand is probably the most likely to assume the role currently played by Danny Sullivan (did everyone pay homage to Danny today?).  SEOmoz also gets bonus points from me as Rebecca usually leaves funny comments over here and that, folks, is the most important thing.

2.  Comment approval.  I have to approve all comments and I don’t have the time to sift through Akismet.  I’m all for open discussion, but it’s really hard to approve comments from 36,000ft.  Also, if you step away from salient discussion to take a run at some jokes…and those jokes are the suck…you do not get published.  I can’t have my readers subjected to bad jokes.  Again, funny is the most important thing.  Lastly, if you suck at SEO, pass yourself off as a thought leader, your comment is utterly ridiculous, and 10/10 good SEO’s would ask themselves, “WTF?!!”, after reading your comment…I probably won’t post it as a public service to those who don’t know any better. 

3.  I think it was Jane from SEOmoz who asked why an SEO would choose to rank a site for [portland hair salon] for themselves rather than a client.  That wasn’t the point and that’s not the right way to look at it.  First of all, I don’t know any self-feeding SEO that would take that consulting project nor is that what would be in the project queue as the only alternative to not taking that consulting project.  [Portland mortgage], [Portland hotel], freaking [Portland]….and even [hair care], yes, but there’s no money in local hair salon SERPs.  By all means, if you need the jack, take that on as a consulting project because it shouldn’t be too hard to rank for that. 

4.  I took a lot of comment heat of the “there’s more to life than money” flavor.  Trust me, I get that.  It was the genesis of that last post.  Most SEO consultants work really hard for their clients and make between $50,000 and $100,000.  That’s honorable, but wouldn’t you rather deploy your skillset, pick some interesting projects in liquid markets, and make at least that kind of money from your couch?  Or have passive income streams that let you make money while you are sitting in the bleachers watching your kid’s soccer game?  That’s where I was going with that.  The Lazy & Lucrative SEO Lifestyle.

5.  Most of the people I know making $250,000+ “in SEO” aren’t really SEO’s at all anymore.  Most of the self-feeders have moved on to become “CEO SEO’s” or they’ve taken the competitive SEO playbook to tackle bigger interesting problems.  I have done the latter in my Bay Area venture-backed sojourn.  Unless that thing IPO’s or gets acquired for more than $500M, I will have lost a lot of money on this sojourn, but the problem I was asked to solve has nearly become a religious one for me and it proves the power of an SEO at a global business level.

6.  I don’t know what so many SEO’s are afraid of trying to monetize their own projects.  If you pick valuable, liquid markets, there are so many easy monetization strategies out there it’s sick.  Beyond that, the asset value you have just created will be an acquisition target for a larger entity as virtual real estate transactions are ramping up significantly.  I’ll post more about this later, but either directly or in an advisory capacity, I have personally watched over $10M of deal flow to independent webmasters in the last year.  The little guy…the one who builds for himself…is cashing in in a big way these days!

7.  Prior to selling out to the venture backed world, I was the busiest SEO consultant I know.  I learned a lot about maximizing earnings with the right resource mix.  In the beginning, 99% of my time was all billable hours and 1% of my time was seeding personal projects.  Towards the end, before what would have been the inevitable heart attack, consulting was only 50% of the mix, personal projects were 25%, and the other 25% of my resources were direct investment into other smart people who had the energy and talent to go solve a big problem.

8.  Do not lob the bleeding heart “teaching is so rewarding” argument at me.  Trust me, it’s not as rewarding as cashing checks from your couch.  That said, the real irony here is that very few of the “teaching based SEO consultants” truly empower their clients…and that’s something I always did.  The last thing you want as an SEO consultant of any talent is to be billing people for “Maintenance Fees”.  That’s a lot less lucrative and rewarding than going and doing one or two day training sessions with your clients.  You can do more interesting work, make more money, and truly empower more people if you teach client how to fish without you.  Also…and this is just me throwing this out there as a data point…Ryan Leaf is currently “teaching” quarterbacking to high schoolers.

9.  As SEO consultants, we all have client horror stories.  As I look back on my own client history, I took a lot of projects I shouldn’t have…mostly because of that stupid hourly rate I could charge.  Learn to Client Bait and choose the homers from the singles.  Throw in some of your personal projects or just go create the virtual real estate to sell of later.  But this is way too valuable of a skillset to be stuck doing anything boring.  In looking back, I always made the most money when I chose the road most lazy.  I know it’s a bit scary when you have a family and a mortgage.  I respect that and I don’t think anybody to be any less of an SEO for putting their family’s security ahead of potential profit explosion.  But, on the other hand, those of us who do take SEO and go chase the money aren’t always the Anti-Christ either.

10.  I really wish I could have rounded this out with a true 10th point, but I will just ask anyone who hasn’t added me to their Bloglines to please do so at this juncture.  M’kay?  Thanks.