turbin3
BuSo Pro
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- Oct 9, 2014
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Time Is Money
This is a subject I don't often see talked about in the full context I'm currently thinking of it. So what am I talking about? Basically, as SEO, and digital marketing in general, continues to progress and build into much more of an exact science, at what point do you say, "Enough is enough."? Take any one single, seemingly miniscule aspect of SEO, for example, and there are likely detailed whitepapers, dissertations, peer-reviewed and comprehensive industry studies, and other complex and comprehensive data to tell you the what, where, why, and how behind a particular aspect of SEO. Sometimes all of that complexity can ultimately lead to paralysis by analysis, and nothing gets done, or it takes far too long to get done.
Take on-page SEO, for example. Lets just talk about something "small", like title tags. If you really wanted to, we could probably spend dozens of thread pages and countless thousands of words discussing various strategies, performance metrics, etc. on this one aspect alone. Do you front brand or rear brand? Okay, keyword placement towards the front might be of increasing value, but where do you decide it's close enough versus too far towards the front and now the tag is unreadable and sounds too artificial? The list goes on.
The other thing to consider is, analyzing and strategizing through all of these limitless techniques takes TIME. As we know, time IS money. So I guess the point I'm getting at is, where is YOUR point of diminishing returns, where you decide good is good enough with a particular aspect of SEO; be it on or off page? I'd be interested to hear everyone's take, their reasoning and logic behind when they decide to make this transition and why, and I think it would be valuable for others to hear that reasoning as well.
Be Your Own Expert
For me personally, I really like taking the route of the SME (subject matter expert). Basically, I understand enough of the various aspects of on and off page SEO, and try to build them into my subconscious to some degree, so that I find myself thinking about them less and less, and simply performing those techniques as a matter of habit. As far as the "SME" route goes, here's what I mean by that. If I'm building a site or content about a particular subject, I like to have a solid and above average level of knowledge about that subject. So to start off with, there is probably a degree of research involved. For some subjects, there may even be a significant amount of research involved. There's a point of diminishing returns there too, as it takes time to acquire that knowledge, plus I know often it won't even matter since in some niches it just might not take that much effort to get something up that starts converting. Regardless, I tend to like to have an intuitive understanding of the subject I'm writing about, so that I don't have to think about it or develop the content for it on a technical SEO level. When I'm able to achieve that, I simply WRITE. I'm thinking about the point of that content, the questions people are asking and that this content is supposed to help answer, the insight people might be hoping to get out of it, as well as the manner and terminology in which people are used to hearing that subject discussed.
When you know those things intuitively, it's like carrying on a conversation with a friend, on a fun recreational subject you both know well. For me, it would be like carrying on a conversation with friends on building a certain motor for a sports car project, building a high powered computer for gaming, or discussing various aspects of performance shooting with a pistol (all hobbies I enjoy). If you already have the knowledge of important SEO aspects practically incorporated into your subconscious, and if you intuitively understand the subject which you are speaking on, I find, for me at least, it's far easier to just let myself go on the keyboard, and subconsciously I will be building many of those SEO-optimized aspects into the content I'm creating. Things such as good use of LSI, use of supporting media like images and embedded video. At that point, I'm not always actively or consciously thinking about incorporating those aspects of SEO, I'm simply thinking about what I would want to see if I was reading this, and not only that but what would I want to see and possibly even hear if I was one of several different types of people reading this.
Adult Learning Methods
As far as "several different types of people" go, here's what I mean by that. Another thing I don't often see discussed in the SEO world is basic principles of adult learning methods. Typically, keeping it simplified, there are 3 main adult learning styles; Kinesthetic (touch), Auditory, and Visual. There are actually several other methods that are a combination of some of these, but those are the main 3. It's important to note that, and far more important to actually incorporate that into the content and sites that you build. Some people love a well-organized wall of text, and prefer to learn by reading. Others like to hear things being described to them. Many people are also visual learners, and might benefit from having images to better depict and explain a subject, and sometimes also video to show realistic demonstrations or examples of that subject. Not everyone is going to read your content. Not everyone is going to watch your embedded YouTube video. Not everyone is going to care about those flashy images. What you're really trying to accomplish, is improving UX by appealing to as wide of a variety of adult learning styles as possible, to make the content as easy to digest for as many different people as possible.
I feel like I'm probably losing some direction with this post, as I've jumped around quite a bit on various subjects. Last point I'd like to make is what will hopefully tie all of this together. For me, my point of diminishing returns is thinking and focusing too heavily on any one aspect of SEO. I tend to be able to hyper-focus on things, often seeing a greater degree of detail and complexity than most people, but it is often very detrimental to making progress, and tends to simply make me take a long-ass time to get things done.
I find that, if I start thinking too heavily on on-page optimization, I start getting things done a lot more slowly. If I start thinking too heavily on how to develop content for something particular, I take forever to create any content. So what's the solution? Next paragraph.
The Keys To Success In Life
Based on one of my previous careers, I've learned a whole lot about how the mind and the human body works, and what it takes to achieve the ideal mental state for maximum performance; subconscious competence. Ultimately, a person has several main mental states:
Okay, great. So we want to be subconsciously competent. Now how do we do it? The great news is, fundamentally, it's actually VERY simple. There's a book I highly recommend on the subject. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. In short, "muscle memory" is a bit of a misnomer, and more appropriately described as neural memory. If you're trying to perform a task well, such as shooting freethrows with a basketball, ultimately you must perform a significant number of repetitions with this task. What neural memory is, is when you perform a task repeatedly, the neurons in your brain associated with that task are wrapped in additional layers of a substance called Myelin. What this does is create a better conductor for those neurons, ultimately helping your brain fire that electrical impulse faster. Over time, build up enough of these Myelin layers with a set of neurons, and you will achieve a subconsciously competent ability with a given task. The best part is, we ALL already have experience with this in some manner or another. Think about something in your life that you've done so much that you "can do it without even thinking about it". One of the best examples I like to use, which most people have experienced, is occasionally you'll find yourself driving home, and you might have a period of a minute or few minutes where you drove through your neighborhood and arrived at home, and you don't even remember driving through the neighborhood! It's either subconscious competence, because you've driven that same route every single day for the last however many years....or it's alcoholism. jk In all seriousness, though, it's that simple. Something you've repeatedly done a little bit, every day, for a long period of time.
The Nuts and Bolts
So what are the nuts and bolts of how this works, and how is it relevant to SEO? Here's my recipe:
So, ultimately, getting back to the subject of the thread title, my personal point of diminishing returns is when I find myself at a level of conscious competence, or worse, subconscious incompetence. If I find that I am having to actively think too much on a particular task I'm engaged in, that's a warning signal that tells me that I need to be putting in more reps with that type of task, focusing on perfection, so I can attain a level of subconscious competence with it. With subconscious incompetence, if I find myself performing a task successfully without having to actively think about it, but I feel that the quality of work is below my standards, then I realize I need some serious work. At that point I need to go back to the drawing board, break things down to their fundamentals, and start from square 1 with "The Recipe". For me at least, I find that I'm fairly inefficient working at those levels of consciousness or subconsciousness, so I try to avoid it as much as I can. This might mean outsourcing certain tasks to those I know that can do them better and more efficiently than me, or it might mean taking some remedial steps towards jumpstarting my progress towards a more ideal level of subconsciousness.
Where's your point of diminishing returns, and where do you draw the line on working hard versus working smart?
This is a subject I don't often see talked about in the full context I'm currently thinking of it. So what am I talking about? Basically, as SEO, and digital marketing in general, continues to progress and build into much more of an exact science, at what point do you say, "Enough is enough."? Take any one single, seemingly miniscule aspect of SEO, for example, and there are likely detailed whitepapers, dissertations, peer-reviewed and comprehensive industry studies, and other complex and comprehensive data to tell you the what, where, why, and how behind a particular aspect of SEO. Sometimes all of that complexity can ultimately lead to paralysis by analysis, and nothing gets done, or it takes far too long to get done.
Take on-page SEO, for example. Lets just talk about something "small", like title tags. If you really wanted to, we could probably spend dozens of thread pages and countless thousands of words discussing various strategies, performance metrics, etc. on this one aspect alone. Do you front brand or rear brand? Okay, keyword placement towards the front might be of increasing value, but where do you decide it's close enough versus too far towards the front and now the tag is unreadable and sounds too artificial? The list goes on.
The other thing to consider is, analyzing and strategizing through all of these limitless techniques takes TIME. As we know, time IS money. So I guess the point I'm getting at is, where is YOUR point of diminishing returns, where you decide good is good enough with a particular aspect of SEO; be it on or off page? I'd be interested to hear everyone's take, their reasoning and logic behind when they decide to make this transition and why, and I think it would be valuable for others to hear that reasoning as well.
Be Your Own Expert
For me personally, I really like taking the route of the SME (subject matter expert). Basically, I understand enough of the various aspects of on and off page SEO, and try to build them into my subconscious to some degree, so that I find myself thinking about them less and less, and simply performing those techniques as a matter of habit. As far as the "SME" route goes, here's what I mean by that. If I'm building a site or content about a particular subject, I like to have a solid and above average level of knowledge about that subject. So to start off with, there is probably a degree of research involved. For some subjects, there may even be a significant amount of research involved. There's a point of diminishing returns there too, as it takes time to acquire that knowledge, plus I know often it won't even matter since in some niches it just might not take that much effort to get something up that starts converting. Regardless, I tend to like to have an intuitive understanding of the subject I'm writing about, so that I don't have to think about it or develop the content for it on a technical SEO level. When I'm able to achieve that, I simply WRITE. I'm thinking about the point of that content, the questions people are asking and that this content is supposed to help answer, the insight people might be hoping to get out of it, as well as the manner and terminology in which people are used to hearing that subject discussed.
When you know those things intuitively, it's like carrying on a conversation with a friend, on a fun recreational subject you both know well. For me, it would be like carrying on a conversation with friends on building a certain motor for a sports car project, building a high powered computer for gaming, or discussing various aspects of performance shooting with a pistol (all hobbies I enjoy). If you already have the knowledge of important SEO aspects practically incorporated into your subconscious, and if you intuitively understand the subject which you are speaking on, I find, for me at least, it's far easier to just let myself go on the keyboard, and subconsciously I will be building many of those SEO-optimized aspects into the content I'm creating. Things such as good use of LSI, use of supporting media like images and embedded video. At that point, I'm not always actively or consciously thinking about incorporating those aspects of SEO, I'm simply thinking about what I would want to see if I was reading this, and not only that but what would I want to see and possibly even hear if I was one of several different types of people reading this.
Adult Learning Methods
As far as "several different types of people" go, here's what I mean by that. Another thing I don't often see discussed in the SEO world is basic principles of adult learning methods. Typically, keeping it simplified, there are 3 main adult learning styles; Kinesthetic (touch), Auditory, and Visual. There are actually several other methods that are a combination of some of these, but those are the main 3. It's important to note that, and far more important to actually incorporate that into the content and sites that you build. Some people love a well-organized wall of text, and prefer to learn by reading. Others like to hear things being described to them. Many people are also visual learners, and might benefit from having images to better depict and explain a subject, and sometimes also video to show realistic demonstrations or examples of that subject. Not everyone is going to read your content. Not everyone is going to watch your embedded YouTube video. Not everyone is going to care about those flashy images. What you're really trying to accomplish, is improving UX by appealing to as wide of a variety of adult learning styles as possible, to make the content as easy to digest for as many different people as possible.
I feel like I'm probably losing some direction with this post, as I've jumped around quite a bit on various subjects. Last point I'd like to make is what will hopefully tie all of this together. For me, my point of diminishing returns is thinking and focusing too heavily on any one aspect of SEO. I tend to be able to hyper-focus on things, often seeing a greater degree of detail and complexity than most people, but it is often very detrimental to making progress, and tends to simply make me take a long-ass time to get things done.
I find that, if I start thinking too heavily on on-page optimization, I start getting things done a lot more slowly. If I start thinking too heavily on how to develop content for something particular, I take forever to create any content. So what's the solution? Next paragraph.The Keys To Success In Life
Based on one of my previous careers, I've learned a whole lot about how the mind and the human body works, and what it takes to achieve the ideal mental state for maximum performance; subconscious competence. Ultimately, a person has several main mental states:
- Total Incompetence - You know absolutely nothing on a subject
- Subconscious Incompetence - You have a bit of experience on a subject and have built some "neural memory", but you still don't know what you're doing.
- Conscious Competence - You now have a bit of skill, possibly even good skill with a subject, but it largely requires conscious thought and potentially a significant degree of conscious thought to perform that skill. You might be able to do some great work, but ultimately you are limited by the capacity/bandwidth of your conscious mind.
- Subconscious Competence - Michael Jordan mode. You've achieved an excellent level of skill and experience with a particular skill, to the point of developing significant neural memory to the point of that skill being incorporated into your subconscious. To perform that skill at an expert level does not require conscious thought, leaving your consciousness available to focus on other tasks. Performing at this level is only possible through the subconscious, and offers an exponentially greater level of performance.
Okay, great. So we want to be subconsciously competent. Now how do we do it? The great news is, fundamentally, it's actually VERY simple. There's a book I highly recommend on the subject. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. In short, "muscle memory" is a bit of a misnomer, and more appropriately described as neural memory. If you're trying to perform a task well, such as shooting freethrows with a basketball, ultimately you must perform a significant number of repetitions with this task. What neural memory is, is when you perform a task repeatedly, the neurons in your brain associated with that task are wrapped in additional layers of a substance called Myelin. What this does is create a better conductor for those neurons, ultimately helping your brain fire that electrical impulse faster. Over time, build up enough of these Myelin layers with a set of neurons, and you will achieve a subconsciously competent ability with a given task. The best part is, we ALL already have experience with this in some manner or another. Think about something in your life that you've done so much that you "can do it without even thinking about it". One of the best examples I like to use, which most people have experienced, is occasionally you'll find yourself driving home, and you might have a period of a minute or few minutes where you drove through your neighborhood and arrived at home, and you don't even remember driving through the neighborhood! It's either subconscious competence, because you've driven that same route every single day for the last however many years....or it's alcoholism.
jk In all seriousness, though, it's that simple. Something you've repeatedly done a little bit, every day, for a long period of time. The Nuts and Bolts
So what are the nuts and bolts of how this works, and how is it relevant to SEO? Here's my recipe:
- Pay Attention To Detail
- When you start off learning a subject that you want to excel at, pay attention to detail and take your education on the subject seriously. Do not gloss over things that are seemingly unimportant. Do your due diligence and try to learn the subject in great detail. Most people don't pay attention to detail, so right off the bat this is where you can start separating yourself from your peers and standing out above the crowd.
- With SEO, this is where you can start learning and noticing things that the typical bottom feeders don't pay attention to.
- Perfect Practice Makes Perfect
- You can't always be perfect, but as you're doing something, continue to try to do your best as often as possible. When you have mistakes, take note of them, learn from them, then move PAST them and don't dwell on them.
- Don't practice failure. Michael Jordan never became a winner by practicing failed freethrows. Michael Schumacher never came to dominate F1 by practicing poor technique.
- As far as SEO goes, this is where you start to put bus lengths between you and your peers. Even with people that may learn subjects in great detail, often people do not have the self control and persistence to continue practicing with various tasks to do with that knowledge. An example would be on-page SEO. If you want to ROCK at it, then the solution would be to start off "paying attention to detail", and then do your best to do it as close to "perfect" as you can. The process will continue with the next step.
- Repetition Builds Neural Memory
- The jury is still out on this one, as far as what it truly takes to build neural memory. The old rule of thumb is that roughly 300-500 repetitions will begin building short term neural memory, and 3,000-5,000 repetitions will build long term neural memory. There is a lot of conflicting studies on this subject, so I will just generalize and say that, to begin building that neural memory you will likely need to perform a task hundreds if not thousands of times.
- Continuing with the on-page SEO example. So you've paid attention to detail with your on-page SEO, and you've strived to achieve "perfection" with it. Next step is to put in some serious repetitions. Optimize a dozen pages. Optimize another dozen. Maybe even find friends that have sites, and offer to optimize some of their pages. Maybe take on some new projects of your own.
- The most important thing here is, this is going to take time. The best thing you can do is a little bit EACH DAY! I can't overstate the importance of that enough. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the idea of hundreds or thousands of pages to achieve a level of skill you want, instead think of simply creating a daily habit. Start developing a habit of optimizing 1 page per day, then 2 pages, then eventually it's no big deal for you to bust out a dozen pages a day, or maybe several dozen over a weekend day. Over weeks, months, a year or more, those reps add up and will begin developing some serious neural memory.
- Neural Memory Builds Subconscious Competence
- If you've stuck with the above, achieving a level of subconscious competence is, scientifically speaking, a literal inevitability. Eventually you will put in enough time and reps, and you will achieve this. That's the great thing about it. It's not magic. People simply don't understand the very simple science behind it. You think Michael Jordan became the greatest basketball player of all time because of some God given skill that he was gifted with upon birth? NO! Instead, while other people were getting lazy, letting life get in the way, becoming distracted with other things, he was on the court, throwing thousands of freethrows and layups for hours on end. Every. Single. Day. He stuck with the recipe, and his greatness was inevitably realized.
- The old rule of thumb here has been "10 years or 10,000 hours". While these may not be hard numbers, they are probably in the ball park. If you've been following through with the recipe, if you stick with it for a significant number of years, the repetitions are inevitably going to add up. Eventually, you will achieve that level of subconscious competence. It's inevitable. This will mean that you will be able to perform those tasks, you've worked so hard on, without even consciously thinking about them.
So, ultimately, getting back to the subject of the thread title, my personal point of diminishing returns is when I find myself at a level of conscious competence, or worse, subconscious incompetence. If I find that I am having to actively think too much on a particular task I'm engaged in, that's a warning signal that tells me that I need to be putting in more reps with that type of task, focusing on perfection, so I can attain a level of subconscious competence with it. With subconscious incompetence, if I find myself performing a task successfully without having to actively think about it, but I feel that the quality of work is below my standards, then I realize I need some serious work. At that point I need to go back to the drawing board, break things down to their fundamentals, and start from square 1 with "The Recipe". For me at least, I find that I'm fairly inefficient working at those levels of consciousness or subconsciousness, so I try to avoid it as much as I can. This might mean outsourcing certain tasks to those I know that can do them better and more efficiently than me, or it might mean taking some remedial steps towards jumpstarting my progress towards a more ideal level of subconsciousness.
Where's your point of diminishing returns, and where do you draw the line on working hard versus working smart?
