The Seven Surefire Ways to Become an SEO Rockstar

Posted by on Jun 13, 2012 in SEO | 17 Comments

If you do SEO and you’re wondering how to get to the top, then you’ve come to the right place. SEO is amongst the most glamorous industries in the world – throughout Hollywood actors are turning down scripts to learn the dark art of link building and how to auto-generate a sitemap. Oscar winning stardom? Screw that! Head straight to the top with the seven surefire ways to become an SEO rockstar!

SEO Fuck Yeah

#1 Be Really Really Young

If you’re older than 30 and have been doing this game since ‘before Google started’, then no one would like to hear from you. Instead, it’s a much better strategy to start link building at 18 months and writing your own .PHP framework by your 2nd birthday. Everyone loves a prodigy.

Old Man SEO

#2 Intern at an Agency

Don’t make the mistake of interning at a big money making agency that doesn’t appear frequently on the conference circuit. Instead, make sure you get in somewhere where every worker has got a few thousand followers on Twitter and will give you endless praise for your two weeks of making coffee.

Holy Fuckamole

#3 Set up a Blog

At this stage, you probably won’t have too much real world experience. That’s fine – do you think any Internet news reporters actually have experience in their field? Instead of blogging about real life experiences it’s best to curate other people’s opinion – they’ll be more than happy to tweet about their work.

blog

#4 Repeat What Everyone Else Says

A lot of bloggers bore you to death with practical advice. Don’t be a me too blogger. Instead, say something new by using buzzwords – anything with the word “bait” in it will do. Best of all, say something is dead (SEO, if preferable, but the following are also good: link building, content, Facebook, the Internet, social media, Steve Jobs).

Steve Jobs is Dead

#5 Guest Blog

Not happy with just your own blog getting traffic? Sell your soul by appearing on third party blogs with the ambition of building links and kudos. Jump on the latest hype trend from Mashable and explain how it’s vaguely related to SEO because it can help you build links – that’s expert talk!

sell soul

#6 Network Hard

Too young to drink beer? Never mind, you’ll still be allowed in the after party. SEO people love to ‘party’, so it’s important that you can drink your own body weight in beer. Better still, behave like an animal and live in infamy: jump on a table and strip bollock naked, swinging your pants in the air and shout, ‘Would you like to see my Page Wank?’

PARTY!

#7 Speak at a Conference

The final step, and the one where you’ll get the ultimate respect. If you speak, then by the time you’re ready for work you’ll have put three zeros onto your pay packet. The best topic to speak about is link building, because very few people have done it before. Tell people that link building is all about relationships and give 99 tips on outreach – preferably making them as unactionable irrelevant to your audience as possible. This is made of win. #win.

Here’s me, speaking at a conference. I’ve made it yo:


  • http://twitter.com/SimonHeseltine Simon Heseltine

    Hmm, I spoke on a linking panel with you recently… does that mean I’ve made it? Oh wait, I #fail on the other 6… so maybe not ;)

    • Anonymous

      Did you ever know about the alta vista??

      • http://twitter.com/dergal Gerry White

        I was an intern at compaq when they were using it as a “showcase application”

  • http://twitter.com/shellshockuk shelli walsh

    “jump on a table and strip bollock naked, swinging your pants in the air and shout, ‘Would you like to see my Page Wank?’”
    Is this something you do often Mr Carson?

    I can see now where I am going wrong. And the fact that I am over 30 – I’ll get my coat.

    Great post James

    • Anonymous

      It’s not something I’ve ever done – may do it later in the year.

  • http://twitter.com/leebeirne1 Lee Beirne

    Man, now I can see where I’ve been going wrong all these years.

  • Anonymous

    “What would Rand do”

    Is it ok to call Matt C – Cutsy because i’m cool?

  • http://www.sebastiancowie.com/ Sebastian

    “Have you seen my page wank” – You’ll need to get that printed on a shirt.

  • http://twitter.com/lyndoman Lyndon Antcliff

    Doing this stuff since 1998 it’s always interesting to watch kiddies join an agency and with the experience of a fetus and pronounce themselves experts in the industry. Usually jumping on to a jargon based bandwagon such as Inbound Marketing, as most people haven’t a clue what it really is it’s easy to come over as all wise.

    However, fresh young brains that are whiter than white do not have the ragged edges of a mind that is dragged down with bad habits, clinging on to old techniques that no longer work.

    I’ve seen many a crusted old seo sitting in the corner muttering, “but I invented the term link building”, whilst some new young turk swanks around the conferences with well endowed booth babes hanging on his every word. (hang on I may have got my conferences mixed up)

    So I see both sides of this. It is an odd industry though that doesn’t function in the same way as any other I have known.

  • http://www.facebook.com/steve.ollington Steve Ollington

    Now the party bit could backfire… I accept it would make you er “memorable” to other SEO’s out there but if you’re anything like me you attempt to dance when you’re really drunk, and when you dance as badly as I do then you will only be remembered as somebody to avoid at all costs :p

    • Anonymous

      Forget dancing, stripping naked is the future

  • Robert Duckers

    The word “fuckamole” has now entered my vocabulary. For this; I thank you.

  • Neil Walker

    Just got round to reading this, wonder where the inspiration came from :) funny funny funny, you next post is good ying and yang to this. For me it’s opportunity, some get it early and like Lyndon said I do think it funny the know it all young SEO who hasn’t had a site with a penalty and recovered or actually built proper links or diagnosed sites in major detail. I’m like you pal took me 10 years to try and gain a name which I’m still working on (I’m after pubcon that was my goal in 2006) but I will say amidst the hype there are a lot of talented young minds out there, what’s missing is: application, business acumen and experience.

  • http://twitter.com/GusQuad Gus Ferguson

    Amazing!

  • Sheldon Campbell

    I’d have commented sooner, but it took me a while to clean all the coffee from my monitor! Hilarious (and frighteningly close to reality)!

  • Warrick Hunter

    By commenting here I’m making look like I’m a cool, hip SEO guru! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, G+, your Segway, and your Mothers Honda now!

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