Why I stopped Meet your SEO

Hey guys,

it’s been a while. I mean, you missed me right? I know. I miss you too.

I received some emails over the past days asking me a big question: “why did you stop publishing the weekly, awesome, amazing, incredible, super wow “Meet your SEO” series?” (I might just add some adjectives here, but I cannot tell you why).

Yeah, it’s true. I stopped. And here is why.

Girl in the rain

source: http://itsnobiggie.tumblr.com/

I had this idea (nothing new) about interviewing some cool SEOs out there. But I decided to do it by only asking to SEOs who I really admire, especially for being not only SEOs but even great marketer and great people.

The series was a success for me for two reasons: I learnt a lot of things from those interviews. And I had the chance to get to know more some people, not only SEO-wise.

So, why stop?

First : the series is not dead, I just decided to stop it for a while, to refresh my mind about it.

Secondly, after the first ones, I had the impression that SEOs were doing the interview just for the fuck of it, just to have their names among the others, because for a while many people were tweeting about it, commenting about it…so , why miss this opportunity? They spent exactly 5 minutes to do the interview, and you can totally feel it, and even the readers were seeing the same stuff, writing me bad comments in private.

Now, you can say to me: “hey, you know how busy am I ?” . Well, yeah. BUT just for your information, I’m busy too. You are not the only one working all day. And, you can always say no, it’s not that I was forcing you to do it. It was something fun and useful (for once), but if you were saying YES to me , I’m expecting you to act consequently.

I asked some people, and they were kind enough to get back to me saying “Hey Alessio, thanks a lot, but I don’t have time right now”. Simple eh?

boxing

source: http://well-fed.tumblr.com/

Then people were starting writing few words as answer, but enough words to put an awesome link. Now, my question is: A LINK FROM MY BLOG? are you kidding? are you so desperate? I’m not a linkbuilding lover I have to say, but come on…some things are just stupid to do.

At certain point, people started to ASK me if they could participate to the series. Problem is: who are you? have we ever talk? NO! but that’s fine, but PLEASE introduce yourself, tweet at me at least once, say I’m a jerk, that’s fine, but SAY SOMETHING. Because then if you are the same person doing link building for a company, I can understand why you are not successful.

I’m not the smartest guy on earth, but I decided to do a “thank you” video for all the people. Now, it was not a Hollywood thing, I get it, but was it really difficult to send a tweet saying: “I received your video, go fuck yourself” ? Better than nothing.

Another thing I noticed: many people, after I published the interview, just disappeared, they stopped following me on twitter, engaging with me. I’m not the most interesting SEO to follow for sure (that would be sad), but really? You can be the most interesting SEO in the world, but as person , you suck.

A girl and the light

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tangyauhoong/5839425337/in/set-72157627022827828/

I realize that there a lot of asskissers among SEOs (especially on twitter), but this kind of things hurt me , sort of. I mean, I know it’s not an ideal world, but it’s so simple to act like human beings rather than jerks.

This post was written listening to “The Optimist” by New Young Pony Club