Sphinn - A Letter to the SEO Community: Nobody Owes You Anything

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A Letter to the SEO Community: Nobody Owes You Anything

Went Hot: October 23, 2007 - 4:45 pm
Posted By: Khook20 621 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.bruceclay.com)
Category: SEO

Spend less time complaining and more time writing if you don't like the status of SEO in the blog-o-sphere. And off-topic does not necessarily mean not worth exploring.

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from WayneSmallman 621 days ago #

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"Personally, I enjoy off-topic posts, most of the time (Scoble drives me crazy). It gives you that glimpse into the author’s life that you can’t get while they’re talking about the search engine optimization basics. But that’s me."

But is it just Bruce? I've been asked about going off-topic once in a while — which wasn't uncommon for me a year ago — but less so these days.

So in reality, when people go off-topic, they're reaching out and doing the personable stuff with their audience that keeps them reading the on-topic stuff...

from planetc1 621 days ago #

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Danny had a post today that could be considered off-topic ( http://sphinn.com/story/10670 ) but it was on-topic for at least one of his readers.

I like reading the personal stuff once in a while, reminds me of our similarities.

from DelBoy 621 days ago #

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I am a regular reader of SEOmoz (not a premium member) and I have to say I enjoy off topic posts (once it’s not over the top).

I actually think off topic post helps create a personality for the website/brand. I feel that a user will relate off topic articles to the websites brand, if there was no off topic articles the user would probably see the sites brand as plain and simply a knowledge based brand where as off topic articles help create a personality!

Look at a product like McDonalds they have a weird looking clown attempting to sell hamburgers, it doesn't make much sense but it helps McDonalds build a brand and have a personality attached to the brand (This paragraph makes sense in my head I hope other people understand what I am trying to say).

On another note off topic: I really didn't understand how small these SEO communities were the same names pop up all the time!!

from ChrisOD 620 days ago #

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Also, just to point out that I don't actually believe that Rand's post was particularly off topic. As far as I could tell, it was about the day in the life of one of the industry leaders. Quite SEO related if you ask me.

And again, it's something expected of the SEOMoz approach, so why the complaints now?

There definitely seems to be somewhat of an attitude shift in the SEO community of late.