The the newest thing I learnt this week is an Arabic proverb.
For my Arabic readers:
For everyone else: The carpenter’s door is loose.
It implies that people with certain skills, seldom use those skills in their own lives.
Or rather, they prioritise it everywhere else except at home or for themselves.
It’s not hypocrisy though. And yes, there will always be exceptions to these rules (there always is).
But I bring this up at a time when most of the world is winding down for the year.
And I look back, 1 year ago, when I first started sending these SEO emails.
Someone tried to call me out for having a slow loading site one time.
Claiming that as an SEO, I couldn’t possibly preach about the importance of page speed & promise results, if my own site was so slow.
The operative word here is ‘tried’.
See, I don’t care what some nobody has to say about me (you should try it sometime; it’s liberating).
And this wasn’t some sort of revelation to me. I knew that the Genesis theme my site runs on, was not the fastest.
But I was actively working to fix it and I’ve talked about this issue a few times, quite openly on my blog and to my email list.
So it’s not like I was in denial. I just hadn’t worked on my own site as fast as I should have.
For context: my old site sucked hard. I looked like some anon with a blog and some random client logos tacked on. It looked
CHEAP.
So in haste, I went with a theme that looked great, with the plan to tweak it to suit my needs. I just took my own sweet time to do this, unfortunately.
Now to come back to the proverb, I sought out the personal websites of prominent SEO folks and ran speed tests. Most were pretty ordinary. None stood out as lightning fast.
So if page speed was so important and these people were industry thought leaders, why the slow sites?
So what?Doesn’t make them any less capable as SEO professionals.
Doesn’t mean they’re hypocrites.
Doesn’t mean anything.There’s a lot of reasons why someone will use their expertise and skills everywhere else, for everyone else but not be in a rush to apply it to themselves.
Like SEO, there’s so much more going on behind the scenes that no one else will ever know about.
But think about this:
How often do you think award-winning chefs come home and cook world class meals for themselves?
Sometime its hard to bring your A game all day every day.
Sometimes the burden of knowledge is too much.
And sometimes, just sometimes, we can’t be bothered.
But sometimes what we need is a good hard dose of reality. And possibly a kick up the pants.
My good friend Nabeel Azeez helped me get out of a rut just over a year ago.
And by helped, I mean, he dragged me kicking and screaming into the real world.
He’s a baller copywriter and knows a thing or three about email marketing.
And he looked at me, gave me that ‘disappointed Dad’ look and told me to get my act together.
1. I had a sappy blog that didn’t make me look like the baller SEO that I claim to be.
2. I wasn’t ranking for the words that mattered.
3. And I didn’t have an email list.
I didn’t care for email. In fact, it seemed like the last thing I should be focusing on.
MAN WAS I WRONG.
With Nabeel’s help, I setup my email list.
I didn’t have one to begin with because I didn’t think anyone cared about what I had to say.
I also didn’t think I could send cool, interesting emails every single week.
I believe in email but SEO IS BAE.
Surely as an SEO guy, people would care about where I ranked and what I said on my website instead of emails, right?
WRONG AGAIN.
If I wanted to be taken seriously, I had to show it.
I had to share my knowledge with the world, show people that I had a clue and that when I speak, they should listen.
Also, emailing every single week takes dedication and forces me to draw on my broader digital marketing expertise.
Let me tell you, it has been an absolute trip and I love it.
Email marketing is some next level ish.
And I wish I started sooner.
On top of giving my site a new coat of paint and sending out emails to the masses every week, I invested time into my own site.
As in, optimising my content for discovery and conversions.
I mean, if you’ve been reading my emails for the past year, you know I’m all about OCDC.
Optimising Content for Discovery and Conversions.
So the days of being neglectful had to come to an end. And the days of being proactive had to begin.
Now I know my current site looks better than the previous version but is still plagued by page speed issues. But this will be soon laid to rest.
Nabeel and I have something dope coming soon and if you blink, you’ll miss it. It will be THAT fast.
Along with revised website copy, it’s going to be a whole new experience.
This whole ‘new year, new me’ thing is about to get real.
And then, this carpenter’s door will no longer be loose.
It’s going to be the best damn door in all the land.
And everybody’s gonna come knockin’.
Get you a wingman like Nabeel who backs you 100, gives it to you straight and also recognises game.
With our powers combined, 2020 will be your best year yet.
You know it makes sense.
PS. Hire an SEO professional for SEO. Hire a copywriter for copywriting. Never the other way around!
