I have been doing a bit of investigation of basic SEO for my wife’s e-commerce site: Every Little Girl. In the process I have discovered that SEO Sites Suck. As far as I can tell, they all have the same basic advice rehashed in slightly different ways. Most sites seem so ‘dense’ with content that it is hard to figure out where to start. ‘Quality content’ is one of the golden rules repeated over and over again… yet the content on most SEO sites is of questionable quality. Oh sure – there are lots of words there, and if you read them they do make some sense…. but there are so many of them (words that is) compared the the concepts that they are trying to communicate.

Now given that people who run SEO sites are presumably pretty good at SEO, and given that most of the sites I find are through Google it is fairly safe to assume that the sites I have seen represent the ‘state of the art’ when it comes to web sites built for SEO. Undoubtedly SEO is a very complex topic – but it seems as though SEO tactics is actually increasing the complexity of the topic. Rather than focus on the concise expositions of key concepts, SEO seems to demand voluminous rehashing of SEO nuances. For example, the top result when searching Google for ‘search engine optimization beginner’ gives me one ‘Beginners Guide’ that is 10 chapters long. Even Google’s own guide – that appears on page of the the results – is a 32 page pdf – and yet many sites do not even have the basics covered.

It seems that the number one rule of SEO is ‘quality content’. But really what is meant is ‘quantity of perceived quality content’ – more copies of what looks like quality content all linking to each other is what seems to score well. This struck me in particular when looking at a couple of the leading ‘SEO’ sites. There structures are all very similar. In particular an ‘SEO Tools’ page seems mandatory for a good ranking SEO site. And on that page there is between 10 and 40 different ‘tools’. It is hard to escape the impression that these pages are written for the benefit of the Googlebot – and not for the benefit of the user.

Of course, it appears that many others have made the same realisation way before me, including Michael Arrington, Peter Yared and Peter again.

One of my goals for 2012 has been to ‘move the needle’ a bit between my own consumption of internet content, and creation of it. I have been ‘sucked into’ an excessive consumerism of internet content over the last few years. In order to try and increase the amount of content creation that I do. This goal is not very SMART… in fact I can’t even remember what most of the letter stand for…. I know that goals are ‘supposed’ to be SMART…. Why?… because someone said so….. maybe there is a study that says that ‘SMART’ goals are achieved more than non-SMART goals…. maybe I should Google this…. find some references, quotes, links for this article…. And so seems to end most of my efforts at content creation. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is some code, or a blog post, or even a twitter update, the path has become all too predictable.

In 2011 I challenged myself to pick the next project I thought of – and see it through to implementation. Ths resulted in Skorebug. There is a lot still missing – but it is in fact a live functioning web app – so I should be proud of that much. During this I was constantly tempted to drop it in favour of the ‘next good idea’ I had, or not to progress it because I was reviewing the ‘best web framework’ to use or so on. However after finishing up this project many months ago, I have not yet taken up a new one… and ‘creation vs consumption’ index has slid drastically again. Is one project a year as much as I can muster?

So for 2012 I am trying something different. I am disconnecting the internet for an hour a day. I toyed with this idea for many months but could never bring myself to do it. I felt like some sort of addict terrified of the prosepct of being without my beloved internet for an hour of ‘work time’ a day. (This doesn’t include ‘leisure time’…. turning off the internet for an hour while I watch TV doesn’t count 😉 So come 2012 I have switched on Stayfocussed’s ‘Nuclear’ option to disconnect my Chrome browser for an hour a day every day. Yes – my computer still works… skype still works… heck – even Firefox and IE still work. (Since I predominantly use Gmail for e-mail – email is also turned off.)

So far (about one week in) the implications of this have been disturbingly awkward. The mental fidgeting that happens 5 minutes after the internet disconnects…  what to do?? mmmm…. Coffee maybe?? That takes another 5 minutes…. how am I going to fill the next 50? 

At the very least it has resulted in this blog post. It has also resulted in some more time talking with people and more time spent with pen and paper, or my text editor or my mind mapping software. It definitely feels like the ‘creation vs consumption index’ has improved a bit. But perhaps the most significant realisation was that ‘the world hasn’t ended’. I was worried that I would find ‘really urgent’ things that would force me to start a browser, or respond to an email or something within that hour and that I would end up hijacking myself as quickly as I began. But one week on – and that hasn’t happened. And despite my concerns of withdrawal I find myself welcoming the hour of disconnection. I haven’t yet ‘created’ that much… a couple of blog posts and paper scribbles… but I feel the beginnings of some control over my excessive consumerism returning. So if you are thinking of ‘disconnecting’ for a fixed period each day – go ahead, take the plunge… who knows what we might end up creating!

I came across a bit of a storm recently epitomised by Design is Horseshit and The Designer Fund. I have been thinking a bit about the ‘value’ of design in a start-up context lately. For a long time, the ‘Standard Model’ of a web startup has been to have a technical co-founder and a business co-founder. You needed someone who could implement your idea, and someone who could ‘sell’ your idea. But more recently, the web startup space has become more crowded and good design has become a feature of many. I tend to agree with @yongfook:

Design is merely the barrier to entry to your product not getting lost in the primordial soup of startups. It is simply your ticket to a seat at the table of possible contenders.

There is no doubt in my mind that this ‘design barrier to entry’ has increased over the last few years as the number of web startups has exploded. So the real question is as what point does design become such a strategic and core aspect of the start-up that you need someone to live and breath is as much as a technical co-founder lives and breathes the ‘functionality’, and the ‘business co-founder’ lives and breathes the promotion of the site.