I think Lee Odden did an excellent job with his piece on The Fallacy of SEO Celebrity. In the post, he explains why pursuing a goal of recognition without an idea of what you want to do with it can be so dangerous:
An amazing number of people seem to think becoming well known in the search marketing business is an end in and of itself. Not seeing the forest for the trees, these folks put vast amounts of time into link bait ridden blogs, networking up and getting addicted to the rush of ego that comes from being recognized. Is it because they misunderstand reputation marketing or are they really thinking being a “SEO celebrity” is a bankable goal?…
…Establishing a well known brand and reputation in an industry is only worthwhile if there’s something to back it up. Otherwise, all that is achieved is a hollow online existence requiring the constant feeding of “notoriety crack”.
I’d advise a full read (and don’t miss the comments either). I also wanted to add my $0.02 on this subject, since I found it relatively captivating:
- There is an intoxication and an inexplicable desire that many have to be recognized or even famous. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t experience it myself, particularly when I attended my first few conferences in 2004 and 2005 and gaped at the “big names.” I think youth plays a big part in that.
- You CAN win beneficial fame in the SEO world IF you stick to a singular subject and make yourself a noted expert in that field. It’s precisely what Dan Thies did with keyword research, what Eric Ward did with link building, and what Neil Patel did with linkbait.
- Fame is a double-edged sword – it takes up an enormous amount of time being “famous” (even in a tiny niche like SEO) and the minute you stop answering all your emails, the negative comments and posts start flowing. Fame also takes a massive emotional toll, because you will have people take potshots at you. Don’t think they won’t get under your skin – just look at Danny Sullivan or Matt Cutts – believe me when I say that they have a tough time getting to sleep sometimes because of something an anonymous troll wrote about them on a blog they’ve never heard of.
- Getting a post popular on Sphinn will not make you famous. Getting 50 posts popular on Sphinn won’t even make you famous. It takes time, effort, charisma, dedication, and talent… That is, unless you want to be famous for being an asshole, in which case, just a couple negative posts will do the trick. I’m not sure what the business model is for this, though.
- Getting known for SEO outside the SEO sphere is far more important and far more valuable than getting popular inside the niche. That’s where the ROI on fame comes in, and usually not much before.
- The two best paths to fame that I know of are make great content – content so good everyone’s still talking about it 3 months later (homework – what content from November of last year do you still remember?). Second – be a genuinely great human being – someone who cares about your fellow marketers, bloggers, and conference attendees. There are so many people I’ve met in this industry who’ve become great friends, and I find that if you’re a friend of a few dozen powerful SEOs, they will bend over backward to help you out.
- Once you’re “famous” it’s hard to retreat. Just ask Shawn Hogan, who’s tried to play it under the radar, but still gets mobbed by fanboys (including yours truly) when he shows up at conferences.
- Lastly, as far as I know, there is no secret club for famous SEOs that you’ll be inducted into upon achieving a certain number of results for your name in Google blog search. When I started to become better known in search marketing circles, I though for sure there’d be at least a secret temple where we all took private retreats and talked directly to search engineers, but sorry – no such luck. I guess Homer and the StoneCutters are in some other industry…
I’m guessing that the discussion on this topic is going to be even more worthwhile than the post itself, so please do contribute.
p.s. I’m writing a big piece on algorithms for tomorrow, so I don’t feel too guilty indulging in a little industry-centric banter tonight 🙂
