Learning SEO by Doing it Hardcore - For the Really Hardcore
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If you thought Martinez’s tips up to this point have been pretty challenging, his last two tips may make you wonder if he’s gone a little crazy. That’s especially true of his nineteenth tip. “Find a friend or relative who has no clue about Web sites and persuade him or her to create a Web site. You must restrain yourself and ONLY give advice on how to build and promote the site.” Just what kind of torture is he trying to put his readers through? And why is he even suggesting it? Again, I don’t do this sort of thing for a living, and the thought of talking a certain friend of mine into doing this gives me the willies. To give you some clue of what I’m talking about, he’s not on the Internet, and hasn’t upgraded his computer in more than 10 years because he would lose the ability to play some of his favorite computer games.
When you first glance at his reason, you figure Martinez is simply a sadist. “I’ve had to suffer through the frustration of not being able to take the computer away from someone who wants to do it their own way,” he explains. “Misery loves company.” To get at the real reason, though, you have to look at it like the man who beat his head against the wall because it felt so good when he stopped. “Besides,” Martinez says, “it teaches us to be humble and appreciate the people who at least listen half the time.” Think about that the next time you take on a challenging client, and you’ll realize that this exercise prepares you perfectly.
As I mentioned, the twentieth tip makes one wonder about Martinez’s sanity as well – but only until you get to his explanation. “Define a metric that uses from three to five factors OTHER THAN Google PageRank, Alexa Rankings, Compete Rankings, Quantcast Rankings, and backlink counts. Use this metric to track five to ten sites you don’t control for six months.” When I first read this tip, I understood why he said you should use it to track five to ten sites you don’t own for six months; it will give you an idea of the validity of the metric you created. But why should you create the new metric in the first place?
Martinez’s answer is eye-opening. He explains that creating your own metric that you check gives you a competitive advantage that you can’t get from using somebody else’s backlink checking tool. Indeed, there is more to the web than links – and you will never understand that if you’re relying on links as the only metric to track web sites. SEO is a race, greater knowledge and understanding is power, and if you want to stay one step ahead of the other guy, “who may very well have his own metrics in place before you even get started,” according to Martinez, you should consider taking your SEO self-education to a hardcore level. Good luck!
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