SEO is Not a Strategy

There’s no such thing as an SEO strategy. There are marketing strategies that include SEO, and there are many ways to do SEO, but “SEO Strategy” is not a thing. SEO’s part of your marketing. It’s a set of tactical options at your disposal that serve one purpose (to increase your qualified traffic from organic search). The advantage of not forcing strategy on SEO, is that you can do:

  1. What works for you;
  2. What works for you right presently.

Because things change, and when they do – they change fast.

SEO is not magic dust that you sprinkle on top of your website and go. It is for you to rapidly test ideas out, and use what works for you. Deciding on a “strategy” for SEO is a decision to limit your options, stick with one structure, and commit to marrying it, whether it works later on or not.

Committing to one set of tactics no matter what with full confidence (because it’s the chosen strategy), robs you from being able to stop, rethink, plan ahead and execute a better way when you need one. Handcuffing yourself to your brilliant strategy is how you run aground. So if you’re thinking about “SEO strategy,” stop. Just start doing SEO and see what works for you.

Kathy Kellerman & Tim Cole’s Compliance-Gaining Messages Explained with examples

I’ve added sandwich-related examples to Kellerman & Cole’s seminal Compliance Gaining Strategies paper from 1994.
Because sandwiches make everything much easier to understand.

3rd Party Authority: Your boss asked that you make me a sandwich
Activate 3rd Party: I need you to go ahead and ask Johnny to make me a sandwich.
Altercast (negative): Only a crappy person would say no to making me a sandwich.
Altercast (positive): An awesome person would make me a sandwich.
Appeal to Altruism: Can you please do me a huge favor and make me a sandwich? I really need it.
Assertion: Make me a sandwich, now.
Audience-use: You know, everyone has been saying you should make me a sandwich.
Authority Appeal: Make me a sandwich, because I am your boss
Aversive Simulation: I’m going to annoy the shit out of you until you make me a sandwich
Bad Reputation: If you don’t make me a sandwich, others will think you’re a jerk
Bargaining: I’ll make you a coffee if you make me a sandwich.
Benefit of Others: If you make me a sandwich, everyone benefits because I’ll stop asking everyone to make me a sandwich
Benefit to Them: Make me a sandwich. It’ll make you feel great!
Challenge: I bet you can’t make me a sandwich
Compliment: I was going to make myself a sandwich, but you’re so much better at it. Please make me a sandwich
Compromise: Please make me a sandwich. You don’t even have to bring it on a plate
Concern for Others: When I’m hangry, people get hurt. If you care about the wellbeing of your colleagues, you better make me a sandwich
Cooperation: Let’s make me a sandwich, together.
Criticize: You know, you really stink at making sandwiches. How about you practice it by making me one?
Debase them: Listen, moron, stop doing stupid worthless things and make me a sandwich.
Debt: Remember that time I made you a coffee? You owe me a favor. So make me a sandwich.
Deceit: Make me a sandwich. I’ll make it worth it for you (not).
Direct Request: Please make me a sandwich.
Disclaimer (norms/rules): Yeah, making a sandwich is tough. But you can do it, I believe in you.
Disclaimer (other): No one can make me a sandwich as good as you can. Please make me a sandwich
Disclaimer (self): Listen, I wouldn’t normally ask you to do this, but right now I have no other choice.
Disclaimer (target): I know you’re busy and don’t feel like making me a sandwich. Honestly I wouldn’t want to either. But I need you to make me a sandwich.
Disclaimer (task): Making me a sandwich shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. And it’s going to be fun.
Disclaimer (time): Make me a sandwich, and then you can send out the emails you want.
Duty: Part of your job is to make me a sandwich when I ask you.
Equity: It’s only fair that you make me a sandwich. Everyone has boring responsibilities, and this is just part of the job.
Esteem by Actor (negative): If you don’t make me a sandwich, I’m not going to be angry. I’ll just be very disappointed.
Get an ETA: When do you expect that sandwich will be ready for me?
Good Consequences: Make me a sandwich, and wonderful things will happen to you.
Good Reputation: If you make me a sandwich, everyone will think you’re so cool
Hinting: I’m starving. If only I could eat something right now, like a yummy yummy sandwich
Hit Close to Home: I’m your best friend. Make me a sandwich.
I want: I want you to make me a sandwich. Make me a sandwich.
Invoke Norm: Make me a sandwich. Everyone has made one for me at one point or another.
It’s Up to You: You can either make me a sandwich, or let me starve to death. It’s up to you.
It’s about Them: How about you make me a sandwich? I just want you to be happy, and I know cooking is something you love doing
Logical-Empirical: I need you to go ahead and make me a sandwich. It’s the right thing to do, because
Moral Appeal: Make me a sandwich. Remember, do unto others what you want others to do unto you
My Benefit: Make me a sandwich because I’m very hungry
My Esteem (positive): If you make me a sandwich I’ll definitely have a lot of respect for you.
Nature of Situation: The sandwich isn’t going to prepare itself. You’ll need to go ahead and make it
Nature of Situation: We’re all busy and a sandwich has to be made for me. So go make it.
Persistence: Make me a sandwich. Make me a sandwich. Make me a sandwich. Make me a sandwich.
Personal Expertise: As a sandwich-making expert, I think you are at a level where it’s time that you start making sandwiches
Positive Affect: You’re the best person around at making sandwiches. Please make me one of your outstanding sandwiches
Pre-Giving: Hey, I made you a coffee. Please make me a sandwich
Promise: Hey, if you make me a sandwich I’ll make you a coffee!
Promote Task: Please make me a sandwich. I’m so much more productive & efficient after I have a sandwich, and I also get so much nicer.
Self-Debasement: I’m so miserable and pitiful. Look at me, i’m starving. Please make me a sandwich.
Self-Feeling (negative): If you refuse to make me a sandwich you’re going to feel like a crappy person for the rest of the day.
Self-Feeling (positive): Think how great you’ll feel about yourself after you make me a sandwich.
Suggest: You know, a sandwich would be perfect right now.
Surveillance: I’m going to follow-up on you about that sandwich every 10 minutes
Take Responsibility: Make me a sandwich. Here, I’ll even take out the lettuce for you.
The way things Are: You need to make me a sandwich. I’m sorry, but this is just how things are. That’s simply the policy around here.
Thought Manipulation: Hey, so remember how you mentioned you want to make me a sandwich?
Value Appeal: Because you’re such a truly caring person, I think you should make me a sandwich,
Warn/Threaten with Consequences: Make me a sandwich, or you’re fired
Why Not: There’s really no excuse for you to not make me a sandwich.
Your Concern for Me: If you really care about my happiness, you should make me a sandwich

Easily convert all your images to WebP

10.5 years ago Google released revolutionary image format WebP, dubbed by many “a game changer for #SEO“. It offers up to 80% reduction of image size with minimal impact on image quality.

Since 2020, WebP is supported by all modern web browsers. The only problem is, is it’s a pain to convert mass amounts of images into this new format. Fear not: this little Python script I wrote helps take care of that. It scans your images directory and all of its sub-directories for any images and converts them to WebP blazingly fast, so that you don’t have to kill your server with slow, resource-heavy expensive plugins — or waste time on lame online tools that charge outrageous fees.

Here it is:

First, be sure to pip install pillow:
From the Command Line or Terminal, type: pip install pillow

Then, execute the following:

import os, PIL
from PIL import Image

MY_DIR = “.” // place your path to your image directory

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(MY_DIR):
for _this_file in files:
if _this_file.endswith(‘.webp’):
continue
_source = root + os.sep + _this_file
try:
im = Image.open(_source).convert(“RGB”)
im.save(_source.rsplit(‘.’, 1)[0] + “.webp”, “webp”)
except PIL.UnidentifiedImageError:
pass

And done!

Reclaim the long term

A few years back I gave away my then new TV just 2 weeks after purchasing it. That device was making me ill. The media’s #1 commodity has always been fear (and it’s biologically addictive byproduct, cortisol). That’s why the daily news has a stock market section: in a long term perspective, it’s insane to follow the market on a day-to-day basis (and the number of actual day traders is tiny). The media caters unreasonable fear (it’s so addictive). They cater to the primitive short-term thinking part of our brain, that anticipates its daily doses of stress. Give away your TV, reclaim the long term.

Teach me.

Too often I hear the phrase “educate the customer”, or “educate your clients”. This is terrible terminology — and a better word is needed. We don’t want to be educated, preached to or lectured. In the words of Oleanna by the legendary David Mamet: Teach me. I want you to teach me.

Educating the client is just another way to say preaching.

What customers (and clients) expect

What do customers, clients and people in general expect?
Well, more than just high quality, low prices and excellent service:
– They expect satisfaction, not frustration.
– Benefits, not features
– Confidence, not confusion.
– Control, not compliance.
– Aesthetics, not art.
– A job done, not a piece of gear that takes up lots of space.
– Products to work quickly, with few delays.
– Simplicity, not complexity.
– Brevity, not verbiage.
– A relationship with the brands they pay, not “thanks-for-the-money-bye”.
– Accountability, not distrust.
– Attention, not disregard.
– Authenticity, not falseness.
– Choices, not off-the-shelf offerings.
– Convenience, not restriction.
– Availability (of the product, salespeople and support).
– Good prices, not promises and promotions
– Information on how products will serve them, how to use them, and whether products can harm them in any way.
– Value, not hype.
– Predictability & uniformity, not dissimilarity.
– Above all else, they expect respectful treatment, not disregard.


What have I left out?

The Overhype of Artificial Intelligence, and its Impending Hazards in the Hands of Incapable Policy Makers

We worship & trust AI a̶l̶m̶o̶s̶t to the degree of idolatry. Those who defend and promote the ever wide-spreading use of it in every aspect of human life are myopic to its future & present perils and threats. The leading forces of global commerce have woven AI into the fabric of our lives in order to “improve our lives and reduce costs”. Thanks to the AI revolution, our personalities and psyches have become commodities available to anyone, at low low prices (see 60 Minute’s excellent examination of this horrid world, or the short version on YouTube).

There are 2 sides (often, much more than just 2) to every coin.

Let’s take the AI-powered self-driving cars and trucks as an example for what AI can and already does to us, unbeknown to many people. Yup, it could potentially save the lives of millions (reduce up to 90% of traffic accidents according to the US DMV) – but the invention of the humble seat-belt did just that… no programming or firmware updates required. Plus, a seat-belt cannot be remotely hacked and drive you into a wall at 100 mph. Our over-reliance and addiction to technology is killing us today. Every year in the US alone, thousands of people die from using a very specific AI-driven technology (smartphones) while driving. In a 2017 research conducted for AT&T, Kantar Added Value revealed that out of 7,500 online respondedns surveyed, 90% of drivers admit to using their smartphones while driving. The top activities people admit they perform while driving are reading & writing text, playing music, viewing & taking pictures, emailing and participating on social media. Yup, 9/10 people do this stuff on their phone while they’re driving, while they know they’re undeniably much more likely to hit someone or something (a child, a car, a tree), or worse, potentially cause a pile up that kills people and injures dozens. They do all this while knowing the very same device they’re messing with while driving will contain absolute evidence that will send them to jail for a long time. This thought sure makes you feel a bit safer now on the road, doesn’t it?

The impending automated transportation revolution will probably reduce these car accidents dramatically, but the thought of humanity becoming entirely depended on a technology it that it now also technically worships constantly, night & day can be quite depressing, if you want to pick that scab for a moment.

Perhaps reclaiming our lives and detoxing ourselves from our over-reliance and addiction to tech & AI is what we need if we want to “save lives on the road”.

The danger, which Stephen Hawking mentioned in his dreary open letter warning stating AI could “spell the end of the human race”, can be anticipated in many ways – one of which is that AI could outgrow & outsmart the sum of human intelligence… then attempt to remove or re-invent humanity in order to optimize whatever it thinks it should. This idea has been repeatedly expressed not only by science-fiction greats like Mary Shelly, Karel Čapek and Philip K. Dick, but also in the 16th-century tale of the Golem of by the rabbi of Prague. I’m pretty much positive that ancient sacred writings of many religions Alan Turing, father of the modern computer, already said this very clearly back in 1951: “It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.” Today, this very same notion is also expressed very vocally by folks like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and Louis Del Monte, author of The Artificial Intelligence Revolution. As AI researcher Eliezer Yudowski put it, “AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.”

Absurd failures in AI, such as Microsoft’s racist twitter chatbot Tay or Amazon’s once-secret AI Recruiter (who’s a total sexist, apparently), are not the product of an all-knowing machine that continuously builds itself at an exponential rate – it’s the product of poor or mediocre planning, design and thinking by human programmers. Perhaps AI programmers are naturally maligned by a demigod complex – which can explain why even tech giants like GoogleAmazonApple and Facebook produce alarming failures with AI. Governments and government-size organizations (both types of organizations always share a bed) are those who are buying & making these AI technologies, we run the risk of becoming our own freak creations’ house pets. The technological industry is concerned too much about “progress” and profit, and too little with machine morals and ethics. Perhaps furthmore, now should be the time for humanity to start designing the conditions of its complete and total slavery to the machine (whether the machine is controlled by a handful of individuals, the masses, or its constantly-evolving and omnipresent digital brain). Our over-reliance on computers & AI to handle the challenging aspects is rapidly turning our lives into a comfy, lazy existence devoid of independent thinking – a joyless life in which we are constantly marinated in the somatic pleasures of bits, bytes, blips and bloops.

We cannot rely on misinformed, unintelligent, lazy and apathetic policy makers to attempt to control the unstoppable growth of AI – it’s up to us to control our addiction to technological slavery. Perhaps it’s time to turn off, tune in and drop out.

The future challenges of today’s supermarkets

𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 (𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞?) 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 $𝟔𝟒𝟎 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 (𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫)𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝟔 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬:

a. 𝚂𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢: trade products of humane & responsible agriculture, and sell nutritional food that kids will love without the hidden payment cost of getting diabetes at age 12. Also, sustainability includes sustaining your customers – your Customer Lifetime Value depends on consumers remaining well and alive for many more decades, rather than dead from heart attack at age 50 due to bad nutrition choices.

b. 𝙾𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚎𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜: crucial for rapid growth. Walmart is #1 because it beautifully engineered its supply chain to unheard-of efficiency. Now it’s doing this same thing with cashierless. Walmart is a great example of an innovator that has found new ways to cut costs & expenses. Compare Walmart’s genius at supply-chain efficiency vs. the food industry’s traditional approach to drive down costs: the greedy selling of obscene abominations that consumers are programmed to call “food”. Selling toxic, highly addictive and cruelly-produced processed low-grade food laden with shelf-life-enhancing chemicals, and programming the masses to call that “food”, is greedy and immoral. This form of greed is perhaps the prime reason for the western world being so ill (the US military spends more than $1.5 billion each year treating obesity-related health conditions and filling positions vacated by unfit troops).

c. 𝚃𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚗𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝙰𝚍𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢. Supermarkets that want to remain in the competition will be forced to accept the future formats of payments, offering a wide array of digital payment options (e.g. Apple Pay) – and then pass on the savings to the consumer.

d. 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚎𝚛 𝚎𝚍𝚞𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 in two areas:

  1. Payment & Adoption: incentivize & encourage consumers to adopt the future of grocery shopping. Sahir Anand from EnsembleIQ brings up the importance of prodding customers: “cashiers and employees in traditional retail stores make such adoption easier for consumers by prompting usage”.
  2. Choices: 1/3 of the entire world is overweight. 1/6 is technically obese. Super markets’ profit doesn’t have to come from overfeeding the world with addictive high-sugar / high-salt “food”, it can come from nurturing people. Encourage people to eat healthy, consume less (without necessarily spending less), grow a network of ethic suppliers and don’t push products you wouldn’t want your children or spouse to eat.

e. 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚎𝚛 𝚎𝚍𝚞𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. Change management is super hard in such a traditional economy as grocery. European countries will be the slowest to adopt due to the continent’s fanatic labor laws & regulations, so European grocery chains will have to invest in their human potential by educating employees and creating new jobs for them.

f. 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚞𝚊𝚕 𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚕-𝚘𝚞𝚝. Not all populations will automatically fall in love with the new concept, so don’t go full-blast-cashierless immediately. It’s likely we will see baby boomers to falling in love with the cashierless revolution and becoming among the first to adopt it. Supermarkets will have to invest in Consumer Education

g. 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝙵𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚎. Most likely, early attempts at revolutionary grocery-shopping concepts will suffer problems and bugs. So follow British retail grocer Sainsbury’s approach. Back in 2008, when their new e-commerce website crashed, they phoned 30,000 customers to apologize, and gave every one of them a $20 compensation voucher for their mess-up.

Supermarkets offer tremendous potential. They’re dynamic, demanding and competitive, and they impact the lives of nearly everyone. They are also about to change and mutate in a wild revolution. Some players will not remain, but those who will boldly adapt to new consumer expectations (while spending wisely) will thrive.