I've been reading The Idea Factory, the history of the innovation that came out of Bell Labs around WWII. Innovation, invention and ideas are things that we don't get to talk much about in SEO. It's all about keywords, links, and content, but I want you to take some time today to think about ideas, inventions and innovations. Why? Because we all want to be millionaires (oh hush, yes you do), and while that might not happen to all of us, idea generation is central to our jobs in search marketing.
Bell Labs was born out of a technology being invented (the telephone) and the problems AT&T faced building a communications infrastructure in the United States (and how to connect overseas). We are talking serious problems like wood decay, birds and wires, distance and signal strength. Things we take for granted today.
The men and women at Bell Labs strove to find the best materials, to make products and services better. We can learn from the team at Bell Labs. Use the ideals of hard work, research and development, invention, and innovation to drive us to make our websites, products, and services better.
That's how you win on the internet. Be better than everyone else.
Innovation is a Lengthy Process
The term "innovation" dated back to sixteenth-century England. Originally it described the introduction into society of a novelty or new idea, usually relating to philosophy or religion ... an innovation defined the lengthy and wholesale transformation of an idea into a technological product or process meant for widespread practical use.
This portion of the book really hit home with me. Innovation is a lengthy process of taking an idea to a product or process for widespread practical use. There are no overnight successes, just people that worked really hard behind the scenes pouring their blood, sweat and tears into an idea.
The same should be true with your business and website. Innovation in your space is not just putting up a website and knowing the right keywords to target. It's about waking up at 5:30 in the morning to be at a networking breakfast at 8am a few times a month for a few years. Success is about determination, dedication and hard work.
The time you take to discuss your idea, how you plan to be different with members of your target market, will pay back not only in the refining of that idea, but also in friends and allies when your business or website launch. Choosing the connected people is a strategic process; if they are there at 8am, they are dedicated too and have met others that are of the same breed. Now does that mean that everyone needs to go to 8am networking breakfasts? No. I hate them. But you get the idea.
Want your website to be a success? Then spend the time in the following areas:
- Business Idea - don't copy someone else's idea unless you can be better than them and everyone else in the space doing the same
- Website Copy - Develop the copy for your site, and if you have products what you'll let others use. Write into affiliate contracts that your product descriptions are not to be used elsewhere. Treat website content like a white paper, protect it, don't allow others to copy it.
- Promotion - I am not talking online promotion, I'm talking the whole marketing umbrella. This is not something you buy/outsource and leave alone. It's your baby, own it!
Make Goals, Not Hard Timelines
Inventions are a valuable part, but invention is not to be scheduled or coerced. Harold Arnold, Bell Labs
Need $10k by next year? Don't build a website, add products, pay someone in another country to write copy and do SEO and think you can do that. Good ideas don't fit in timelines. You cannot rely on keyword research tools to tell you what product area has low competition and can make you millions.
What you can do is find an area, a business idea that you really love: something that you can get lost talking about for hours and not mind. Your first goal should be to find that idea. Once you have that (and most of you do as you have clients or work in-house for someone that has that idea already), then you need to set goals for what you want to accomplish.
The goals should be:
- Lofty but attainable (one viral infographic a month is not an attainable goal, an increase in sales from organic search by 20% is attainable)
- Developed around making the customer happy (the happier they are, the more you sell, simple)
- Tied to your boss's goals (even if your boss is your wife)
Once you know what you want to do, the end result, that drives how to get there. Now you have a purpose, but you can't rush it. You will fail, content will flop sometimes, there will be a keyword that you just have a hard time ranking for. Things will go wrong but things will also go amazingly right if you focus on a good goal.
Do Something
When you don't know what to do, do something!" Jim Fisk, Bell Labs
This is my new favorite motto. Do something. As Will Critchlow says all the time, fail faster. Come up with as many ideas as you can to meet your goal, no matter how far out of the park they are. Execute. Try things, be risky, and fail (sometimes). I can almost guarantee you that even if you fail; you'll learn something you can apply to your next attempt.
Studying Sharks
Jim Fisk proposed a $50,000 study of sharks to help naval warfare. It made it to the top and the lead of Bell Labs finally killed it. How cool a story would that have made? I would have linked to it, what about you?
Dare You
Don't know what to do? Here are some ideas for every SEO out there. I dare you to try one.
- Data Mining. Take a half-day, look into the data you have in your company about clients, about the industry. If you were to clean it all up, could you show trends about your industry? Get creative and find a way to share that information in a resource, a white paper, blog post or infographic. And then do a marketing campaign around it. If it works well, make it an annual update about the industry.
- Content Revisit. Find your top 10 products or services pages. Revisit the content, when was it last written? Update it! Add resources; make it the page to go to for that product or service. Think from the perspective of a potential customer, what would make that page better than all of your competitor's pages? Consider new images, a video, new resources, reviews.
- Page 2 Revamp. Take 5 pages that rank on page 2. Revisit the title tag and meta description of those pages. Is the title tag over optimized? Does the meta description really pull you to the page? Rewrite them to be real, accurate and descriptive!
- $5000 Challenge. Ask for a budget that is normal for a project in your company or for a client and do something that is way out in left field. You in finance? Pay off someone's car loan. Don't give away a iPad, donate 100 to a school that teaches computer science to under-privileged kids.
So would you do with $5000 to help your site? What is your shark bait?
Shark Stock Photo from Shutterstock
Agree massively with the points on this post, really positive and encouraging, thank you! Since becoming self employed I've found it so refreshing to not be afraid of failure and to see it as a form of growth, it's really helped me to try new things - I love in particular your comments "fail faster" and "do something".
I have to give credit to Will for the fail faster, but glad I could inspire you today. Good week to do something awesome!
"There are no overnight successes, just people that worked really hard behind the scenes pouring their blood, sweat and tears into an idea."
Never has a truer word been said. Even with the best product, marketing strategy and business model, you cannot become a millionaire overnight. It takes an awful lot of research & design and anybody that claims there is a get rich quick scheme is lying, otherwise EVERYBODY would be doing it!
Great business advice: Be better than everyone else. This is true to both online only companies and 'real-world' businesses.
Great article!
Thank you!
I'm slapping "good ideas don't fit in timelines" all over my office. Terrific post.
Dave, you made me smile so hard this morning. Thank you.
Agreed. This is going up in my office as a reminder!
Great post, I'm going to go and revise my product descriptions on my top 10 products. I love the advice on Page 2 serps too, sound and useful advice.
Yeah, we all know we should update our content but we never get around to do it. A reminder like this is exactly what I need every now and then.
So great to hear that, let me know how it works out for you!
Great post Kate. It's a nice change of pace from the usual SEOMoz blog post. I'm going to take your dare and revisit a few of the top posts on one of my blogs. Thanks for giving me a little push. :)
Just what I was hoping for. Sometimes we all just need a little push to do those things we know we need to do. Have a great week!
"Shark bait... hoo ha ha!"
...Great post.
And just for the record, as a pest control guy, SEO is the cutting edge of innovation.
Great to know about this innovative post and I am agree that one should always be innovatine and always try to do research and developments of new thing to implement older one.
I know it's been mentioned above, but I definitely underscore and support the "Fail Faster" concept! I've known too many people who have held themselves back simply because they're afraid to fail.... in turn they cut off their option to succeed.
When Thomas Edison was asked about creating the light bulb and his numerous failures to create it, he turned it all around. He explained that he had succeeded in finding 10,000 ways how NOT to make a light bulb. It's all in how you look at it.
Great post Kate!
Thank you, have a great Monday!!
I agree. Great ideas doesnt come for the Keywords Tools.. but from the product itself.
Interesting post, but yeah if you want to strike it lucky you can make some inventions and sit back and watch the funds come in.
My Dad use to work with a guy who was making $50,000 a month simply from the royalties on his inventions which he had made some 20 years ago, mainly becuase big companies had picked them up. But also worthwhile advice, from many in the business world is you learn from your mistakes, it only makes you a better business person.
Absolutely, I know it's not quite the same thing but I know a guy that makes around £25,000 a month from the licencing of the brands of the products, even though the products themselves are several generations from the original ones he dealt with.
Love that point about the $5,000 challenge! That's definitely got me thinking.
Glad you enjoyed it. If you come up with something for the $5000 challenge, let me know what you do!
Awesome post! Absolutely love the line "Good ideas don't fit in timelines."
Absolutely Brilliant Post.. :) I dont think anyone disagreeing on anything mentioned in this post at all.. .
just superb post ! Superlike from me and i think you are problogger and definitely succed one in life time so i wish for your bright future :)
Great article Kate - sometimes people are afraid of being made to look stupid or of failing, but the only way to really win is to dare. If you dont go for it you will never move forward and lots of great ideas have had thousands of bad ones come before them. Oh and by the way - yes I do want to be a millionaire you are right - how did you guess? - lets hope being brave will get me there one day!
Ha. We all do. I care less about the money part but the less I care the more things seem to happen to me. Funny how it works like that.
Amazing post Kate and I am agree with your view here. Research is only thing that can make you upto date in any field. I always try to do research about my queries and fixed it soon. Thanks.