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What if gay was straight and straight was gay? My friend showed me this video today and, at first, I was just going to share it on my Facebook, but then I stopped.

This needs to be shared, but I needed to add my own words to it. I should caution: watching this at work is fine unless you mind people seeing you cry. Even a burly man like myself cried.

Bullying is a problem in America. It is a problem around the world. Kids are afraid of being who they are. Constantly, they’re bullied. Daily. Hourly. Minute by minute. As Shane Koyczan said, “the school halls were a battleground.” You never know when the enemy is going to show up; when you’re going to be attacked; when you’re going to be … Destroyed.

I should know. Minute by minute, hourly, daily, weekly, and yearly, I was bullied. For years it went on. For years I was the brunt of the joke. Fat jokes. Jewish jokes. Being in the plays made me gay. “I’d rather die than go on a date with Jacob,” said one girl to a friend of mine. I’d rather die…

I would come home and I’d cry. Every day. If there was an ROI on crying, I’d never work a day in my life. Those years. They were numbing.

You learn how not to feel. You learn that it’s better to be cold than feel that pain. And so I would walk into the fire. I would accept what was said and I stopped crying. I stopped feeling.

Finally, one day, I snapped. What would provoke a short, scrawny little guy to jump onto a 6’2, 250 pound man baffles me so many years later. But he did. His arms wrapped around my throat. I could feel him trying to choke me. And so I took all 250 pounds and I slammed back hard into a locker. I turned and watched as his body crumpled to the floor. I crouched down, made sure he could see my eyes, and I said, “Don’t ever touch me again. Don’t ever talk to me again.”

From that day on, the battleground became a peace zone. No one harassed me. No one teased me. My tear ducts got a break. I got a break. But the lessons I had learned stuck with me. I was cold. Calculated. Calloused.

Bullies want you to hate yourself because they view happiness as relative. They’re afraid of what’s different and because of that fear, they’d rather make you feel bad than try to elevate themselves. They’d rather tear you down than build themselves up.

I remember about a month ago I was presented with a situation that made me tremendously uncomfortable. I reacted poorly. The person talking to me could sense the ignorance I had. While it didn’t cause a problem–to my knowledge–I recognized that had I taken it farther, I would have been in the same regiment as a bully.

Because bullies are cowards. And fear comes from lack of knowledge. Instead of continuing to react about that situation, I educated myself. Was I more comfortable it? I don’t think so. Was I accepting of it? In part. But I understood. And therefore, what fear I had could go away. When fear isn’t in your life, neither is hate.

I recently went through an emotional change in my life. The first response for anyone when that happens is to be afraid. And when you’re afraid, that’s when fights happen. That’s when you start to say things you don’t mean. That’s when you call someone “a bitch” or “ugly” or “fucking useless.” But really, if you meant those things, you would have said them when you weren’t fearful. Fear very easily contributes to anger which very easily contributes to hate. We don’t like to be afraid, so we’re angry at what makes us afraid.

But what if, instead of being afraid of that change, we didn’t allow that first response? What if we didn’t allow ourselves to react so poorly? What if, instead, we simply thought and tried to understand. Wouldn’t that be better?

I walked away from that emotional change in my life fine. Sad, but fine. Isn’t that better than angry?

If those were behaviors that we were taught at a young age–to ask questions, to try to understand, and to gain insight into what the other person is thinking–wouldn’t bullying go away?

Bullies do what they do because they don’t know anything else. They don’t know. So when that gay teenager is being bullied for it, it’s because the bully doesn’t know. Does that make it right? Absolutely not. But it’s their ignorance that is fueling their hate. I pity them. I pity their lack of constitution and self-respect.

It’s okay to have fear. But it’s the cowardice bullies that allow that fear to turn to anger and then hate. I pity them. I pity the most cowardice people I’ve ever met: bullies.

The post Bullies: The Greatest Cowards I’ve Ever Known appeared first on Jay CoDon.

Those were the words that Associate Justice Elena Kagan said on Wednesday when discussing the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. She went on to explain that, “Congress decided to reflect and honor a collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality.”

I can very easily preach about why anyone who disagrees with marriage equality–and I’m not going to call it gay marriage because marriage is marriage–is a fucking moron. And I’d happily blast you for lacking brain cells and I’d say you belong in a far different time. I’d even say that your marriage is probably a crock of shit and that you’re projecting because you recognize your own weaknesses. But considering I don’t believe in ad hominem attacks (and that I’m trying to be a less angry person), I thought I’d just pose questions.

But first … I want to look at what’s probably going to happen in regard to marriage equality before I pose those questions.

First and foremost, DOMA will be repealed. It is an unconstitutional law that puts into place many unfortunate rules that are simply unnecessary. There really is no way around that and it would take a cataclysmic failure for the Supreme Court–especially with Justice Kennedy leaning toward repeal–to not rule in favor of getting rid of DOMA.

But that was always the easy bill to get rid of. It was simply that no one really wanted to argue for it because the nation wasn’t ready and the Supreme Court could have found some sort of a loophole to say it was okay which would have set a tremendously dangerous precedence.

The tricky part is actually the Tuesday proceedings. In their question, Justices Antonin Scalia (am I the only one who can’t stand hearing this man talk?) and Samuel Alito indicated a more cautious approach to the “gay marriage” debate. They wanted to allow the states to decide, state by state, whether it was allowed.

Naturally, we can expect these two to do anything they can to slow down marriage equality because they are the two most right wing justices on the bench. But some say that it’s actually the more right wing justices that argued for this case to come to the Supreme Court.

For a case to be decided, 5 votes are needed. It’s a simple majority. But for a case to be added to the calendar, only four votes are needed. Therefore, it has been suggsted that the four “Conservative” Justices, Scalia, Alito, Chief Justice Roberts, and Clarence Thomas voted to bring the case over because they knew about the need for Mr. Swing Vote: Justice Anthony Kennedy.

So when on Tuesday, he asked, ”You might address why you think we should take and decide this case,” you have to wonder that the Conservative side of the bench was pleased.

Should the Supreme Court decide this case, it would be the closest thing to sweeping approval of marriage equality across the land. But by bringing this case forward, Justice Kennedy, who is a big State’s Rights activist, is suggesting what the other four also believe: perhaps we should let the states handle this.

Therefore, what I predict is that DOMA will be repealed. But that whether to allow marriage equality will have to be done state by state. While it’s not a full fledged victory, I actually prefer this technique. Consider Roe v. Wade and Brown v. The Board of Education. Both of these were sweeping court cases and the aftermath was disastrous. States are testing just how MUCH they can get away with in regard to limiting abortion. And after finding that “separate, but equal” was unconstitutional, there has been tremendous segregation around the nation through natural demographics.

Because of this, I find the path to marriage equality actually rests in patience and the Democratic process. Young people are, for the most part, accepting of allowing people to love whomever they want. It’s the old people who can’t get past the wiring in their brains. So as they die–and it’s gruesome to write it that way, but how else can I?–we’ll see the percentages of people agreeing with marriage equality increase. And because we’re allowing each state to handle it when they’re ready, we don’t have to worry about backlash.

My Question

Now that I’ve finished with my political discussion, I really do have to ask you a series of questions.

1. How does who someone loves impact your life?
2. Are you nervous that by allowing two men or two women to marry, your marriage becomes worth less?
3. If that is your fear, why would you allow anyone else to determine what the worth of your marriage is?
4. What will you tell your kids when they ask what side of this battle you were on? Will you lie and say you supported it or will you try to fill their minds with vile hatred to perpetuate a deplorable behavior?

My friends … Your marriage is your marriage. No one can tell you what should or should not be done in your marriage. But there is no place for you to try and pass judgement on someone else. Is marriage a religious thing? I’m sorry, but it’s not. You are LEGALLY protected because of your marriage. Therefore, when it became a LEGAL discussion, that supersedes your religion. We must look at what is ethically fair to the nation, not morally fair to one group.

Marriage equality is going to happen. It’s not a question of if, but when. Your hate. Your fear. Your abhorrent behavior. That’s what you’ll be remembered for. When our kids and their kids look at this case in their history books, they’ll see pictures of bigots standing tall with their “God Created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” posters. And they’ll go, “Wow…These people were dumb.”

Because it’s true. You are on the wrong side of history.

So please allow me to call your animus and raise you to love. Because isn’t THAT what marriage is supposed to be about? Two loving people? Isn’t that really all that matters?

Love.

The post Our Nation is Plagued by Animus appeared first on Jay CoDon.

Despite this, I have spent a considerable amount of time listening to the debates, researching each candidate and trying to determine where I wanted to place my vote when it comes to the President.

In one corner, I’ve got President Obama who hasn’t done enough stimulus to get the economy where it should be; who focused so much on the idea of debt that he led us down a path of austerity; and finally, didn’t act like the bulldog he should have been when it came to dealing with the House of Representatives.

He disappointed me.

And then in the other corner, I’ve got Willard “Mitt” Romney who, well, I can’t really tell you much about him; and that’s not for lack of want. He’s for and against universal health care. First he wants to bomb Iran and then says he doesn’t want war. And finally, he believes that debt is tremendously dangerous.

Yet, when you research the buy outs Bain Capital did, the majority of them were done with debt and then the companies took further debt to pay consulting fees which then bankrupted said companies and, well…We should just let Detroit burn anyway.

He’s truly scared me.

You see, I know who I will be getting when I pull the lever tomorrow morning (or push the button or flip the switch or punch the hole or, well, whatever). I know what type of President Barack Obama will be because I’ve spent four years with him. We all have. And I want everyone to pause for a second and think about where we were four years ago.

The economy was in a tailspin. A true tailspin. It was caused by policies put forth by both Democrat and Republican elected officials. It was easily recognizable and individuals made a killing betting against the things the big banks were causing. But, we were losing tens of thousands of jobs at an alarming rate and soon were in the millions.

Yes, President Obama promised that we’d never go above 8%, but that was during a campaign before he even knew how bad the economy truly was. No one–and that’s leading economists too–knew just how bad the economy was. Suddenly, we’re pushing double digit unemployment and even higher underemployment.

Despite how bad the economy is, though, we’re climbing out. We continue to have great job numbers–I don’t follow percentages–and as long as that continues to happen, we’ll see growth. On top of that, the housing economy is starting to improve. People who were otherwise underwater on their mortgages are seeing the value begin to tick up. It will take time, but we’re heading there.

Ask yourself: are you better off today than you were four years ago?

If the answer is no, ask yourself this: did you lose your job because of a policy that President Obama rolled out or because of actions taken by those we elected in the past?

If the answer is because of President Obama’s policies, then this blog post will mean nothing to you. But, I seriously doubt it’s because of his policies. Sure, you can say that he creates regulations that inhibit businesses or that he passes high taxes which limits hiring. But, let’s think about that argument.

We had record economic growth in the 1990s. This was during a time when taxes were up. President Clinton, a Democrat, helped us realize a surplus. So, obviously taxes weren’t really all that much of an inhibition. Hell, just ask small business owners. Ask them, “Do taxes determine whether you’re going to hire someone?” The answer is “no” more often than not.

And the reason is because only one thing determines whether a business will hire more people and that’s whether that person will turn a profit. So, if an employee costs me $100K a year, if I make more than that, obviously having the employee helps. (This is basic math, obviously).

But, do you know what dictates profit?

Revenue. And we’re approaching a fiscal cliff that, if we jump off, will show American businesses what life is like without the trillion plus investments that the government suddenly isn’t pumping into the economy.

That’s uncertainty. And that is what is causing the economy to grow at a much slower pace. It’s the uncertainty of whether the economy will even be alive in three months. Want to blame someone for that? Go call up Paul Ryan…He helped a lot. Oh, wait…You mean that guy running with Mitt Romney? Ahh…Yes…

Now, I’m not sitting here saying that President Obama is perfect. I’ve got a lot of problems with him.

He took three years to say that he supported gay marriage. Really? Why did it take that long? It’s a basic liberty to love whomever you want and marry whoever you want. OR!!! It’s not a basic liberty, in which case, the government should get the hell out of the marriage business. But, since that’s not going to happen, I’d very much like the government sanctioned segregation to end. Yes, President Obama supports gay marriage now, but I wish he’d been firmer about it sooner. My Mom would too.

He allowed the Justice Department to prosecute marijuana dispensaries where it was otherwise legalized at the state level. This was a waste of money and an infringement on the State’s rights. Whether you believe with the legalization of marijuana or not–I’ve never met an angry pot head, ya know–if a state decides to support it, the Federal government should respect that.

Absolutely, he has a bunch of cronies in Hollywood and that allows for SOPA and bills like that to gain traction in the House and Senate. That totally goes against my belief on the freedom of the Internet and I’ll never support that.

I totally agree that the situation in Syria is getting quite atrocious and we really should be doing more to help. I’m not a foreign policy expert, so I won’t try and pass judgement and say that we should be deploying special forces to liaise with the rebels to see what’s what…Or maybe we are.

But, you know something?

When Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama was taken hostage by Somali pirates, he did not hesitate to deploy Navy Seals to take out the pirates. He gave the word.

When there was a very good, but not definitive, chance that Osama bin Laden was located, he gave the order to go in and take him out.

With Iran trying to build a nuclear bomb, he has pushed forward very severe economic sanctions that are working. Sure, I’d rather support the middle class in Iran because I believe that an active middle class enables for freedom. But, his sanctions are working.

He has been our Commander in Chief for four years now and while he has not been perfect, he has done his job to protect our country. He has stepped up, removed us from two wars and helped us to do some “nation building back home.”

The economy is returning. My Mom is only a few steps away from being able to legally marry whomever she chooses. My brother won’t have to be put into situations like Iraq or Afghanistan–he wants to, I’m secretly happy he won’t have to.

So, when you ask me if I’d rather have this imperfect Commander in Chief who has truly responded to situations with as much gusto as he possibly can or a Commander in Chief who doesn’t even know where he stands on any issue…I have to choose the imperfect, hard working, seasoned Commander in Chief.

Because when push comes to shove, I know what to expect these next four years. I know that I will be more prosperous in four years than I am now under President Obama.

So, tomorrow morning, as I rub the tired out of my eyes and down a cup–or two–of coffee, I will be voting for President Obama. Because, at the end of the day, he knows how to defend our country and will continue to push for a healthier economy. Presidents don’t create jobs; but, they sure as hell can try to create an environment where they can grow. And I believe President Obama can do that these next four years.

The post Why I’ll be Voting for President Obama Tomorrow appeared first on Jay CoDon.

There is a big misconception about social media. People think that it can’t hurt them which is why individuals post pictures of them drinking on Facebook even though employers can check that out. It’s why people act like complete tools on Twitter, wishing basketball players would die because they didn’t sign to the “right” team…Jeremy Lin.

The reality is, social media is a new voice for you and, specifically, your business. And in one move, you can go from having a solid, well respected brand to being perceived as classless.

I don’t think that Celeb Boutique is a bad company–though I’ll admit I don’t shop there very often–but what this tweet demonstrates is the need for responsibility on your social media accounts.

Naturally, CB had an excuse for this mistake (and took the tweet down).

They went on to release a statement on Twitter saying, “We are incredibly sorry for our tweet about Aurora – Our PR is NOT US based and had not checked the reason for the trend, at that time our social media was totally UNAWARE of the situation and simply thought it was another trending topic…”

I don’t think they’re being very upfront–Aurora, Colorado is on all the news stations–but hell, it’s quite possible.

If that’s the case, though, as a company, CB needs to evaluate who they are using for their social media. I have no issue with outsourcing your marketing (I make money off of it, so why would I be against it), but if you’re going to hire a social media manager, make sure that they know the basic rule of researching before tweeting.

In the end, I spent a good twenty or so minutes watching as followers dropped off their list at a pace of ten or twenty every second. From when the tweet first went out to after, they lost over 1,000 followers (there could have been more) and they severely hurt their brand.

The point I’m trying to make is: be responsible on your social media accounts. They are an avenue for you to talk with your followers, but they are also an avenue for you to destroy your brand if you’re not careful. Tread carefully and do your research. When you’re dealing with trending topics, it doesn’t hurt to make one click to see what is trending about it. That is what these outsourced social media managers are paid for, right?

The post How a Tweet Can Really Destroy your Brand appeared first on Jay CoDon.

No? Go away.

But, if you are, then this is directed at you.

If you are a start up founder who raises his chin to content–marketing–and think it is not necessary for you to grow fast, then you are failing already.

Yes, I said it. You’ve failed already.

Sure, you might succeed…You might prove me wrong. You might find success. But, unless you are making such a cataclysmic change to the way things are done–Steve Jobs or Henry Ford or Mark Zuckerberg like changes–then you’ve already failed. They didn’t need content.

But you do.

How did Mint become such a success so quickly? The founder launched a personal blog nine months before he launched Mint. And in those nine months, the team wrote so much content that they were able to get 20,000 subscribers to an email newsletter.

Can you imagine launching your business with 20,000 people who trust you? What if you converted 10% to actual sign ups? 2,000 customers at the launch. What about 25%?

(By the way…He sold Mint three years later for $170 million…Not bad, huh?)

Don’t want to talk about a smaller start up? Okay…Then what about a massive credit card company?

I’m talking about American Express.

If you go to OpenForum.com, you’re going to see a blog that is so seamlessly integrated into the rest of their website. I can also read hundreds of well written, in depth articles that are important to me as a business owner.

How did a credit card company get into the business of content?

I can’t help but look at that and just marvel at the amount of growth that OPEN Forum has had. But, let’s think about it.

They went from 425,000 monthly page views in 2008 to over 10 million monthly page views. According to Jason Rudman, the content strategist for OPEN, 85% of the traffic has come from free sources (social media, SEO, basic sharing, etc).

Now…You might ask yourself why you’d want to do this. Two reasons:

1. Amex became an authority in small business concerns
2. Developed long term relationships with small business owners

At no point was the purpose to force feed their credit card to people. Instead, it was to create so much value that, down the line, the customer would remember that they got help from American Express. And when that customer is trying to decide which business card to open, they know that they should go with American Express.

As a species, humans tend to go with the person who helps the most. I go back to my programmer time and time again without thought because he has helped me. I go to Copyblogger because he has helped me. I’ve also purchased all but one of the software he sells.

And that is the reason that all of these companies–Mint, Copyblogger, American Express, SEOMoz and so many others–work so diligently on their content. They know that if they are considered the authority in their niche that the customer will come back to buy from them.

Yet, so many businesses make the foolish mistake of believing that they don’t need content marketing. They believe that they don’t need to have a blog, create infographics, write whitepapers, distribute ebooks and essentially create content in every shape or form possible.

According to USA Today, companies are leaving blogs. Specifically, 37% of Inc’s 500-fastest growing companies had a blog in 2011 in comparison to 50% in 2010.

Where are they all going?

Facebook or Twitter or the social networks.

How foolish.

And yet, they continue to do it because they are doing content marketing all wrong. They are creating content all wrong. They are trying to advertise their product 24/7.

Effective content marketing requires you NOT to pitch. 

You’re not supposed to talk about yourself when you’re doing content marketing. No one cares about you. All you are doing is creating high quality content that people want to read. It demonstrates that you are the leader.

Being the leader is where you want to be because when you’re there, the rest falls into place.

You can start to create documents specific for lead generation–such as a white paper in exchange for a person’s email. And once you’ve got that the email, trying to sell becomes a whole lot easier. But, email marketing is a discussion for another time.

Before you think about trying to waste money on paid advertising, consider what ways you can create content for free. I can guarantee that the growth you’ll gain from creating high quality content will far outweigh the growth you’ll get from paid advertising if costs are kept constant.

So, when you’re planning how to market, make sure that you’ve got content in mind. And if you don’t…You’re walking straight into failure.

The post If You are Not Creating Content, You’re Failing Already appeared first on Jay CoDon.

So, I’ve been doing content for a while. And every time I wrote that content, I was writing it for one person…Well, hopefully hundreds and thousands of people are reading it. But, I’m writing for the reader.

And the reason that I’m doing that is, as the writer, they are my customer. I am providing something for them.

Unfortunately, there are those out there that think that’s not the case. A blog that recently launched that has the backing of investors recently posted a video talking about comments on the blog. And in it, one of the members of the team commented by saying that they didn’t believe comments were necessary and that the reader wasn’t their customer.

It got me to thinking…How foolish of him to think that.

Every department in a company has a customer. I’m an SEO. So, my customer is the client who is paying for services. But, I’m also a writer. My customer is the person reading.

The problem with the argument that the reader isn’t the customer suggests that they’re not important. They’re the most important part of your business if you’re a content producer. Without them, you don’t exist.

Now, this blog went on to argue that if they have any customer, it’s the advertisers. And I agree with that, but if you’re going to make that argument, you need to split up the two departments. The business department has the advertiser as their client. The editorial department has the reader.

That being said, you shouldn’t alter your editorial policy too much just because of the reader. They are your customer, but they are also fickle. The reader bitches and moans and says that they’re never going to come back, but that’s a lie. They always come back.

For the life of me, I can’t remember the publisher’s name…But, he believed that you should piss off at least 25% of your reader each time you published your magazine. It created controversy. It made them want to come back just because of how frustrated they were.

But, there should never be this entitled feeling that your reader is irrelevant and not a customer because they are. They are the ones that keep you in business. No advertiser will give you money if you’ve got no readers.

Always remember that when you’re in the content business, the consumer is the customer. Don’t sacrifice the type of content you’re going to create, but understand that if you’re not creating what they want over a long period of time, they might leave.

In other words, find the balance. Don’t change what the purpose of your site is about, but make sure that you’re not polarizing your readers by not giving them some type of content they want.

So yes, your reader is your customer.

The post Is a Reader a Customer? appeared first on Jay CoDon.

And, instead of creating the content and shipping it off to the cable companies, we’d instead get to stream it right to our televisions from their servers, completely bypassing the annoying, overpriced middlemen.

Naturally, this is the last thing that the cable companies are going to want to see happen, but think about it…

We are forced to purchase a blanket cable package and sometimes pay an exorbitant amount of money so that we can watch a few channels. I watch MSG, CNN, TNT, TBS, ABC Family, Food, AMC, ESPN and what else? More importantly, I don’t have HBO and Showtime like I would love to.

And yet, how much is being charged for me to watch these few stations?

Wouldn’t it be better if I could get HBO and Showtime without going through the cable company? What if I sent James Dolan a check for $36 a year to have MSG (it costs around $3.00 a month now for the cable company) and just cut out the cable company? HBO costs around $15 a month for users and they split that with the cable company 50/50. What if I send HBO a check for $10 a month? I’d save $60 a year, but HBO would make an extra $30 a year than if they went through the cable company.

The point I’m trying to make is, we have these atrocious fees for cable when, in reality, how much do we actually watch?

And what if we could pick and choose what TV channels we pay for?

Unfortunately, most of these companies are not going to realize that getting rid of the cable company is in their best interest, so other companies are going to pop up.

What’s to stop another company from appearing, getting the rights to NBA highlights and offer NBA news via video? Or, what’s to stop a company from creating unique content…Oh, wait…

Netflix is already looking to do that. So is ThisWeekIn.com.

Now, the distribution of these “TV Channels” is very important. YouTube has grown tremendously large because of so much user generated content, but if it wants to get even bigger, it’s going to need to get unique content in front of people. And if the only way to do that is if they’re by their computer, they’ll hit a wall.

But, then again, Google has just shy of one million users. Apple TV has around 5 or 6 million users. Roku has probably sold over 2 to 3 million units in the past couple of years. In other words, that’s over 10 million devices that are connected to the Internet. And that isn’t even counting the fact that there are more and more models of TV that connect to the Internet as well as Blu-ray players.

That’s over ten million families who are able to stream YouTube and Netflix straight to their televisions. And that’s where the business gets interesting. If these video companies can stream their unique content–be it fiction or nonfiction–right to their televisions, why even go with the cable company? If they can pay a company $20 a year to have their favorite content available, then why have a cable contract?

This is a letter to the content providers that currently exist. Don’t fall prey to a hungry consumer. It is your content, but we want it. And if we can’t get it from you, there will be other companies that come along creating equally as amazing content, but selling it to us a la carte.

Then what will you do?

And, if there are any of these video companies looking for a partner, please contact me. I’m definitely a believer in what you have to offer.

The post Expect to See More Video Companies appeared first on Jay CoDon.

I joined the department right after Panda v.1 was released and the entire Internet was freaking out about traffic. Because we are so reliant on passing traffic to our clients, it was imperative that we figure out why we had lost as much traffic as we had.

With Panda 1.1, 2.0, etc, etc, I’ve noticed that there is an increasing need for more than just SEO. SEO needs help.

This post isn’t going to be about whether I think SEO is dead—because it’s not—nor will it be about why I’ve given up on SEO. I’ve not.

Yesterday I wrote about how I love how new media can laugh at itself. I should continue that by saying that new media are also a bunch of pretentious, snobby elitists who think they are above SEO.

“I don’t need SEO because I have social!” they’ll declare gallantly. And yet, they always come, sulking, trying to figure out why their traffic numbers are not nearly as high as they’d like.

Facebook even tried that route. They thought that they’d just grow naturally, keep everything locked tight, have nothing get indexed and screw the system. It didn’t work. They found consultants and opened up to the search engines. And they saw huge growth.

I totally understand that SEO has a weird name. I understand that it leaves a sour taste in one’s mouth. Trust me, I’ve been stuck doing the spammy techniques of 2006; I know exactly how annoying and distasteful it is.

At this point in my life—and I’m still young—I’ve come to the conclusion that SEO as we know it, the SEO of link building for rankings and trying to manipulate the SERPs, is over. We’ll fight. We’ll fight our asses off to prevent it. But, let’s be honest here…SEO has evolved. Google is getting smart. We can’t “game” them anymore.

We should be happy about that, though. We should embrace this reality because it is going to open the door to so much more.

I tell my coworkers that I am happy Panda happened. I have one guy, in particular, who thinks I’m a complete moron for saying this (and yet trusts me to do an audit of his department’s website). But, I explain to them that Panda happening forced us to get creative and more importantly, to start thinking about Internet marketing as more than just SEO.

Because that’s what it is…SEO is not the end all. Because it was so easy to game Google for so long, we all got so complacent. We’d do keyword research, throw up an article and then do all sorts of link building techniques and damn it, we’d rank high!

Now, that just doesn’t work.

Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz, as far as I know, is one of the first people who created the phrase “inbound marketer.” And if you look at the diagram I’ve posted, which belongs to Rand, you’ll see that SEO is only one of the numerous ways in which traffic comes to a site.

It used to be, webmasters focused all of their energy on Google to send them their traffic. If their Google traffic was down, they were going to be hurting.

And yet, looking at this diagram, there are so many other ways in which you can get people to your site. To name just a few:

• Infographics: These get shared like wild fire if they’re good. That sends people talking
• Social Networks: Obviously…
• Blogging: People love to read blogs, link to blogs, comment on blogs.
• White Papers: It shows you’re the authority.

That’s four out of probably twenty different ways in which you can get free traffic. Were people writing white papers when they were so focused on getting more links to their content? Were they blogging or were they doing article marketing with spun content to get more links?

SEO was great. It enabled businesses to grow. But, it made us grow lazy.

I love SEO. But, I also love the other two dozen ways in which a business can get people to their product. In my business, any reader is a good reader. Any visitor can be a potential customer. Therefore, I can’t be prejudice to only search traffic.

During the wild west days of Internet marketing, there was a belief that “organic traffic” was the best traffic. Now, if you’ve got a good conversion funnel, any traffic can be good traffic.

The real question is: are you willing to do what it takes to maximize the traffic to your site or are you going to continue trying to relieve the first decade of the millennium with the free traffic from Google?

I know what I’ll be doing.

The post Wild West SEO is Gone – Bring on the Inbound Marketing appeared first on Jay CoDon.

One of the things that I love, and it is a true example of a new media entity, is the response between two writers on the same site.

I was reading PandoDaily yesterday where MG Siegler, probably one of the reasons I have a hard time liking Apple, wrote a post “Help! I’m Being Forced to Pirate Game of Thrones Against my Will!”

In it, he argued that HBO was forcing him to pirate this series because they only offer HBO through the cable company. In other words, MG was unable to watch the show when he wanted to because he refused to pay $100 a month to a cable company.

Now, while I disagree with his entitled mentality, I can’t help but agree with what he says in a rebuttal on his personal blog.

I would love to sign up for HBO Go and watch some of their amazing shows on my tablet. Unfortunately, I cannot because I don’t have HBO. I would give money to HBO to watch the shows.

That’s not the point of this article, though.

Back to what I love about new media having responses, PandoDaily had their youngest member of the team write a rebuttal to MG called “Help! I’m Being Forced to Steal an iPhone Against my Will!”

If you read Trevor’s article, you’ll see that it is an attempt at parody against MG’s original article. While the execution isn’t exactly there–considering you can buy a phone from Apple without signing up through a network–the premise behind the article is amazing.

Trevor called MG out for being entitled in an article on the blog. So many media companies would be petrified to make any of their writers look “wrong.”

“But he’s an authority!” they would argue, “we can’t make them look incorrect!”

Why?

We are all human. We make mistakes. So, a great parody response is an awesome way to get another opinion out there. In essence, what Trevor was attempting to say is that consumer entitlement is not right.

The point that I am trying to make is that you shouldn’t be afraid to laugh at yourself. You shouldn’t be afraid to laugh at someone else in your media company. And do it publicly.

But, do it tactfully. Remember that you do work with these people, so while you disagree, don’t get into the business of publicly arguing. Instead, have a true, separate opinion that you can back up. If, in the end, you laugh at the other person, that’s okay. Because you backed it up.

Great media can laugh at itself. Try it…The people will love you for it.

The post Great Media Laughs at Itself appeared first on Jay CoDon.