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Should've made the second "squawk" into a "squawkity squawk." Just sayin'
Good shout Benji! I will remember that for next time ;)
Do not blame Rand. It's Matt Cutts, Google, Bill Gates and other who tycoons have spread the "content is king" and "you need great content" mantra. Why? They need it to put ads around it. Their business model is to have third party content. Thus they do not want us to build links, they want us to create content they can monetize. SEOs have only adapted as more and more link building techniques have been made obsolete by Google anti-hypertext updates. Google prefers its own Web connected by +1's anyway.
It's not a person, it's the whole ecosystem. And Google is a parasite since they don't produce any real content. They monetize on other people's work by channelling traffic to what they want. And they solve the quality problem by brand bias rather than creating algorithms that would analyze quality patterns. Of course, they monetize heavily with AdWords. We are left to create "fantastic content". So they could monetize it all over again by inserting themselves into the value chain.
Rand does usually counteract his "magic button" statement by showing a graph that shows how his blog gained influence and views over time. He never says that writing good stuff will make you an overnight success. He says to keep trying and trying, and that's the secret. It's frustrating when people slag off high profile SEO's by saying "Yes, but you are very influential, it's easy for you". Anyone can be influential if they keep writing good content and starting debates. It's just a lazy excuse not to do it by saying that it's easy for high profile people. Great content that gets shares takes a long long time, but that's not an excuse not to do it, or write off a legitimately good piece of advice.
Right, it's not saying "create great content" that's the issue. It's saying that and then not showing it and not showing how to get there. I also tell my clients that the first piece probably won't do very well, the second will do better, the third even better, etc. It's the flywheel effect, and it really happens. This is also why it's called a content STRATEGY, not a content PIECE. One-offs don't tend to work (very few get lucky enough to pull off a Dollar Shave Club video). Also, Rand admits that he was a terrible blogger for years, and now considers himself a mid-skill blogger. Were you reading Moz back in 06? I wasn't. It wasn't compelling content for me. Now it is. Creating valuable stuff is hard and learning how to do it takes time. Do the work.
To be clear, it takes years to get to this point. It is a slow long climb where you're honing your craft and figuring things out along the way. Guess what? That's life. That's how shit is supposed to work. You don't just fire up a blog and write something and expect the Internet to give you a big warm fuzzy hug. Getting a reaction is certainly good but I think that's an end result, it's sort of like saying 'write great content'. (Write content that gets a reaction!) To me, the goal is to be authentic and to have an opinion. It's not about the short game but the long one where you need to pay attention to content recall.
Between your two arguments, I think there's a solution. Content that polarizes opinion is remarkable, but by adding awesome relevant graphics, video, discussion threads and other "high quality" attributes it gets even better. Case in point would be OkCupid's blog. "iPhone Users Have More Sex" is compelling content, but together with the rich array of graphs and data OkCupid display, it appears so much more valid, press-worthy and remarkable. I hear what you're saying though. Well-written articles with pretty, relevant graphics that don't force a reaction is not a successful tactic.
Cheers Ed - I think you got it; content that polarizes opinion is the first stepping stone in an online conversation and audience engagement. *I just used OK Cupid as an example recently too, in fact, it was in my post with Content Muse discussing how good content is good communication :)
Excellent bit of advice Ed! Thanks for the feedback.
I'm not sure if you are being serious or if it is just sarcasm. Anyway, good article.
Thanks :)