Andy’s hilarious post at SEJournal made me sit back and think. The SEO community, in my mind, centers around a few areas of mass congregation.
In the offline world:
In the online world:
If you’re active in these areas, your username/handle will get recgonized. If your comments or posts are particularly valuable, you’ll find that folks often click through on your signature or search for your site/profile. If you then run a blog or site with particularly great stuff, you may find yourself growing bigger and bigger in the community.
Good examples include Bill Slawski’s recent trek into the blogosphere with SEO By The Sea, Aaron Pratt’s SEOBuzzBox and Scott Fish’s FishSEO blog. Technically, Bill was well known prior to serving up a blog, primarily for his exceptional contributions at Cre8asite forums (which is an outlier – it has some great SEO minds posting regularly, but is not a place to “meet the crowd,” so to speak).
SEOmoz’s popularity originated with the tools, which we initially built for internal use and ended up deciding to share. Then, through coverage of the SES NYC show last year and speaking engagements in Toronto & San Jose, SEOmoz became a more popular destination. However, it was only in the last 3-4 months that this site has become widly trafficked, although I still wouldn’t consider myself part of the A-List. I’ve made my own categories of bloggers and personalities below.
A-Listers (everybody knows their name):
- Danny Sullivan
- Mike Grehan
- Barry Schwartz
- Aaron Wall
- Matt Cutts
Original Gangsters of SEO (several of the above fit here as well, but I’m segmenting, so no dupes):
- Greg Boser
- Todd Friesen
- Dave Naylor
- Eric Ward
- Bruce Clay
- Joseph Morin
- Brett Tabke
- Dan Thies
- Andy Beal
- Shari Thurow
- Detlev Johnson
- Ammon Johns
- Chris Sherman
- Mikkel Demib Svensen
- Jill Whalen
- Darrin Ward
- There’s dozens more, too…
And folks that many people know, who often contribute to the progress, discussions, fights and humor of the SEO world:
- Michael Gray
- Michael Martinez
- Andy Hagans
- EGOL (only I know his real name!)
- Donna Fontenot
- Jim Boykin
- Dr. Edel Garcia
- Chris Boggs
- Loren Baker
- Alan Webb (Webby – also an old-schooler)
- Shawn Hogan
- Todd Malicoat
- Lee Odden
- Patrick Gavin
- Ian McAnerin (also OG)
- Bill Slawski (the aforementioned)
- Ben Pfeiffer
- John Scott
- Phillip Lenssen (OG blogger)
- Way too many more to count, nevermind list…
Remarkably, though, SEO is a small community – very tightly interwoven with discussions spreading back and forth from blog to forum to forum to blog. Junkies have more than enough reading material to be busy for 40 hours out of the week without doing an ounce of “work.” It’s a strange, sordid world we live in, but we love it and we’ll be here for the foreseeable future (except Nick W; he bailed).
If you’re someone who wants to get noticed in the SEO sphere… Andy’s recommendations are good ones, but I’d also advise that you think about how you present yourself and the attitude you adopt. Testy and vulgar definitely don’t fit in.
Best traits to have in the SEO sphere:
- Brilliant sense of humor (you can succeed on this alone)
- Self-deprecating (never take yourself too seriously)
- Professional, never too casual or disrespectful when you don’t know the crowd (more true in person than online)
- Even-tempered (anger and coming unhinged doesn’t fly – take your licks like everyone else, trust me – we all have)
- Cordial and friendly (it’s easy to like the people in SEO – go ahead and do so, don’t just pretend)
- Logical & Thoughtful (SEOs are a very smart group – keep your wits when you post or speak, memories last in this field)
I’d guess that SEO has room for at least another dozen big personalities over the next 5 years – I’m fascinated to see who it’s gonna be.
