My Scribe SEO review
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There’s some real meat to this review of Scribe SEO (and even a cool video) further down, but let me give you a bit of background as to why I’m writing this first. Why? Well, before you know what something can do, I think it’s important to answer the question of “Why bother?”
So:
What you have to understand about this review of Scribe SEO — a software service that helps users SEO optimize their copy (and which works with Wordpress through a plugin) — is that I’m the same guy who wrote a post called “Screw SEO,” after which Michael Martine stalked me with nunchucks for dispairaging his craft.
And yet, when Brian Clark asked me to demo Scribe (a Copyblogger project), I thought it might be cool to give it a try. But it gets more ridiculous: Today, you can find me on the Scribe site, giving a shining testimonial. So given the aforementioned “Screw SEO” mentality, you’re probably wondering what gives.
Allow me to explain: I guess I don’t really think SEO sucks per se. It’s more that I feel it sucks conditionally.
For me, most of the time, SEO feels pointless because I blog about nothing that anyone would ever search for. When I wrote “Christmas is Gay,” for instance, I wrote it because the idea seemed funny to me, not because I expected people to Google “gay Christmas” and find that post.
(Note to self: Google “gay Christmas” and see what comes up. I’ll bet it’s interesting.)
But I’ll admit it……
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I’m relaxing my kung-fu grip
So the point of my “Your Goals Suck” post was supposed to be that you’ve gotta be clear about what you really want when you define success and accomplishment in life, because the default is to define those things in terms of dollars when in fact the dollars may not be necessary.
But instead, I realize I kind of came off wrong, and that it almost looks like I’m advocating creating actual value in life over materialistic things, or some other hippie bullshit.
Okay, so it’s not bullshit. But I don’t want anyone thinking I don’t like me some good materialism now and again. Just because money has been everywhere from some fat tourist’s sweaty pocket to a stripper’s butt crack, that doesn’t mean that I don’t still want to fill a bathtub with it and roll around in ecstasy.
(And furthermore, since that post ended in the suggestion that I’m going to be launching a new product soon, I don’t want some Robin Hood asshole suggesting later on that I’m a hypocrite when I charge for it. YES, I will want your money when I launch that thing. NOM NOM NOM NOM tasty sexy dirty money.)
Look, I think everyone today has money issues. And I don’t mean issues like you can’t make the car payment and that mutant freak circus from Operation Repo is going to come and take your car away, but more like we kind of all have issues around money, like shrink issues, like lay down on the couch with a wad of bills while some guy with a goatee and…
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I am Johnny’s bloody fist
The following is a guest post by Nathan Hangen, who I’ve gotten to know on Twitter. He writes some good shit for some of the same sites I write for, and he offered to write some good shit for me, and so I said, “Hell yeah, dude.”
I’m trying out the guest post thing on this site recently – one from Tim Brownson a while back, this one, and two more in the hopper. It’s strange for me to have folks writing on a blog that is about me more than it’s about any topic, but this is a very cool post and fits the tone here, and it’s also kind of about me, and pulls a reference from Fight Club, which I wrote about two posts ago.
He also wrote this a few weeks ago and because I’m incredibly organized, I’m not getting to it until now, so the time references that are off are my fault. Please FedEx tomatoes and I will throw them at myself.
Dig on it.
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Johnny B. Truant is a man on a mission. He’s on fire and literally kicking the shit out of life right now.
I just logged in to the Third Tribe today and there he is…front and center…taunting me with his excellence.
He’s over at Ittybiz, Copyblogger, Problogger, and a thousand other places it seems. There’s really not a spot I can turn to where he isn’t glaring at me…laughing his ass off.
Just when I was Comfortable
It’s not that I have a problem with Johnny being awesome; it’s that now that he’s stepped up his…
Your goals suck
I’ll bet almost anything that you define success incorrectly.
Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. Today, here and now, in our world of internet and TV and McDonald’s and the Jonas Brothers and that Cling Wrap shit, it’s hard to figure out when you have it right because everyone is always shouting at you about how you have it wrong. This isn’t a conspiracy; it’s human nature. And it’s marketing. I mean, look at me: I’m telling you that you have it wrong too. You big fuck-up.
But here’s the thing: I can almost guarantee you that what you think would make you successful or happy or complete or rich or whatever isn’t what you really want. I’ll bet you’re shooting for the wrong goal.
Let me step back a bit.
I was talking to Lee Stranahan the other day (I did an interview with Lee for a series that includes Seth Godin – check it out!), and Lee has this thing about UN. Not the United Nation, but UN as in the prefix, as in “not” or “different.” As in UN-marketing and UN-schooling. And also as in UN-assisted birth, which he and his wife are into but which he’s not going to convince my wife about, ever.
And Lee and I, we share a lot of the same beliefs about freedom and about what you could, I guess, call UN-jobbing, or getting people out of the 9-5 pressure cooker and into something they love. Lee wanted to partner up on something where we’d create a program to get people out of their jobs and…
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