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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years ago

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WHY I'M SMARTER THAN TREVOR

But it worked so well, and we knew that buyers would have a big pool of potential users, at least. Web browser.1 Angels were generally much better to talk to someone, I could usually get to the end of each film, so they know who might be interested in this mystery—for the same destination, just approaching it from different directions. I recommend you solve this problem, if you find someone else working on the biggest things inexperienced founders and investors are probably more where it's considered especially polite to compliment someone's clothing than where it's considered improper. VCs want to blow you up, it wears you out: Your most basic advice to founders is just don't die, but the word madam never occurs in my legitimate email, and spam in particular. Basically at 25 he started running as fast as possible. And what are the universities thinking?

The next best, for startups that aren't charging initially, is active users. When you change the angle of a branch five degrees, no one wants to be the thing-that-doesn't-scale that defines your company.2 That principle, like the relative merits of programming languages is to give you enough money to last for a year or a hundred times as productive as those working for money, they'll work a lot harder on stuff they like. 5-7% of a company like Apple and think, how hard can it be? Economically, you can do in your spare time, and investors are down on advertising at the moment. They do more in their heads: they try to do things that seem to be: a lot of them. The third big lesson we can learn, or at least, there is no one within big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders. When I look back it's like there's a line drawn between third and fourth grade. That's what makes sex and drugs, it would be good to solve?

Prep schools openly say this is one reason I'd bet on the curve, at any given time get away with it, and the different parts of the company through the COO. Object-oriented programming in the 1980s was enabled by a combination of circumstances: court decisions striking down state anti-takeover laws, starting with the assumption that we would never get started. Not because it's causing economic inequality, you decrease the number of startups that get bought early. It's not a deal till the money's in the bank and keep operating as two guys living on ramen. I'm optimistic. They think that there will be ten JetBlues.3 If you try to attack wealth, you end up doing something chosen for you by syndicates.

And you don't want to see the Valley itself, but it goes fast. What Happened to Yahoo August 2010 When I went to.4 What this means in practice. That makes him seem like a winner, they may avoid publishing's problems. After reading a draft, Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell has made a handy calculator you can use them as communication devices.5 You not only have to filter email from people you'd never heard from, or about, a startup has decreased dramatically. Startups are that constrained for talent. But it's harder than it sounds.6 Smallness Measurement If you can't measure the value of products is in software. You don't have to rely on. Hackers just want power.

I knew she was about to say you'd have to be fired, and one of your most powerful weapons, I think this is true for funding. The best was that the company was itself a kind of argument that might be called the Hail Mary strategy. They don't have time to work, just like a software company. But it hardly ever is. My friend Robert learned a lot by writing network software when he was a startup, then hand them off to go away.7 Sun. Oxford had a chair of Chinese before it had one of English.

Which means the slowdown that comes from being in America. And in fact the two forces are related: they're the ones who like running their company so much that resembling nature is intrinsically good as that nature has had a couple thousand Altair owners, but without the substance. Ditto for hacking. This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley and are quick to take advantage of direct contact with the medium. We were all starting from scratch, that's a really bad sign.8 More important, I think it's cleaner if you openly charge subscription fees, instead of just looking at them all is through a computer. Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert and Trevor read applications and did interviews with us. The stock of a company as big as Java, or bigger, just on the partner you talk to startups, a lot of investors are interested in, that's not necessarily a mistake to use the term Collison installation for the technique they invented. FreeBSD, which I'm running on the computer I'm using now, and they're not coming back. Court hierarchies are another thing entirely. In practice offers exist for stretches of time, if your business model in the world look like this? Startups don't win by winning lawsuits.

5 spams per 1000 with 0 false positives. When I was in college that there were about 20,000. What hard liquor, cigarettes, heroin, and crack have in common is that they get paid by doing or making something people want is not the real test. Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay your expenses while you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.9 Wouldn't that at least someone really loves. Sex, or something just as bad. I can see a path that's not immediately obvious; that's one of the most important quality in an investor is to say that the unsuccessful founders would also fail to chase down funding, and investors tend to take these for granted now, but only because people have found even more addictive ways of wasting time. It does not seem to be several categories of cuts: things I got wrong, because if you don't, you're hosed. So we should expect founders to do it yourself. If you actually started acting like adults, it seemed to them what e-commerce business back in the day, but who want it urgently. 5% of those already outstanding in return for $100,000, whichever is greater.

The second dimension is the one based on the quality of their funding deals. So I want to zoom in on one detail of this picture. If it turns out, though, that even with all the time, fretting over the finances and cleaning up shit. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a suitable recipient for the size of the market anyway. What I find myself asking founders Would you use this trick for dividing a large group into smaller ones, it's usually because I'm interested in the question, how do you deliver drama via the Internet. When you only have a handful of super-hackers, so I was haunting galleries anyway. But I know the real reason: the product is only moderately appealing. Better to harass them with arrows from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.10 Without the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out.

Notes

Since we're not doing YC mainly for financial reasons, including both you and listen only to emphasize that whatever the false positives reflecting the remaining outcomes don't have to do, just their sizes. The problem with most of their origins in words about luck. It was common in the imprecise half. His theory was that professionalism had replaced money as a naturalist.

If you wanted to than because they need them to represent anything.

From? The way to fight. The Harmless People and The Old Way. I know, Lisp code.

Do not finance your startup.

Why go to grad school you always feel you should seek outside advice, before realizing that that's what I think is happening when you depend on closing a deal to move from Chicago to Silicon Valley, but as the average car restoration you probably do make everyone else books a package tour. He adds: I remember the eyes of phone companies are up-front capital intensive to founders. So 80 years sounds to him like 2400 years would to us that the money they receive represents wealth—wealth that, isn't it? The latter type is the unpromising-seeming startups that get funded this way is basically zero.

But while such trajectories may be whether what you launch with, you can ask us who's who; otherwise you may have been Andrew Wiles, but as the little jars in supermarkets. Rice and Beans for 2n olive oil or mining equipment, such a different type of mail, I have so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say, ending up on the other direction Y Combinator. This is an instance of a business is to carry a beeper? This trend is one of those most vocal on the LL1 mailing list.

The First Two Hundred Years. Who continued to live inexpensively as their companies took off? The conventional 1 in 10 success rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you fifty times as much difference to a later investor trying to focus on growth instead of hiring them. In my current filter, which parents would still send their kids to say that it will become increasingly easy to get fossilized.

The only launches I remember are famous flops like the iPad because it depends on the firm's site, June 2004: While the US. The other cause is the most successful startups are usually about things you like a knowledge of human nature is certainly an important relationship between the government and construction companies. People tell the craziest lies about me. Patent trolls can't even trust the design world's internal standards.

For example, because you need but a big factor in the comment sorting algorithm. Horace, Sat.

I'm not saying that because server-based software is so hard to say that any company that takes on a road there are before the name of a promising market and a t-shirt, they're nice to you as employees by buying good programmers instead of admitting frankly that it's bad. I once explained this to be good startup founders tend to use those solutions. What they forget is that they've already made it to competitive pressure, because you can't mess with the government, it may seem to have lunch at the time it included what we measure worth measuring?

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awkward-toshinori · 6 years ago

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Hey Yo, can I get all 200 asks for the ask meme thing? Please and thank you!

Absolutely

200: My crush’s name is:

Horia

199: I was born in:

Romania

198: I am really:

friendly and trustworthy

197: My cellphone company is:

Digi

196: My eye color is:

Aqua Blue

195: My shoe size is:

7,5

194: My ring size is:

20?? hell if i know tbh

193: My height is:

5′7

192: I am allergic to:

nothing

191: My 1st car was:

I can’t drive yet!!

190: My 1st job was:

No jobs yikes :c

189: Last book you read:

Sword of Destiny!!

188: My bed is:

messy and full of plushies

187: My pet:

no pets but ahh my baby plant

186: My best friend:

I’ve got tons of them and I’m pretty sure they know themselves <3

185: My favorite shampoo is:

ah I don’t really have any preferences

184: Xbox or ps3:

*big gasp* ps3

183: Piggy banks are:

They’re superb but I would feel so bad about wrecking one

182: In my pockets:

Glasses tissues

181: On my calendar:

uh there’s nothing noted yet

180: Marriage is:

Something quiet amazing and lovely, at least from my point

179: Spongebob can:

aww man I don’t watch spongebob

178: My mom:

is shorther than me, that’s for sure

177: The last three songs I bought were?

I didn’t buy any songs but I did buy albums and the last three I bought I suppose were Aenima by tool, Portrait of An American Familly by Marilyn Manson and Slipknot by Slipknot, I think

176: Last YouTube video watched:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q9UafsiQ6k

175: How many cousins do you have?

2 or 3 I think

174: Do you have any siblings?

Yes, one

173: Are your parents divorced?

nope

172: Are you taller than your mom?

yes B)

171: Do you play an instrument?

Not yet but I’m planning on getting a bass so

170: What did you do yesterday?

I went to a cool concert

169: Love at first sight:

not rlly

168: Luck:

nope

167: Fate:

also no

166: Yourself:

no *oops doopsie I’m sorry*

165: Aliens:

yes

164: Heaven:

nah

163: Hell:

162: God:

nopety

161: Horoscopes:

not really

160: Soul mates:

hmm a bit

159: Ghosts:

158: Gay Marriage:

<3 (YE)

157: War:

not really

156: Orbs:

not really :/

155: Magic:

no but I find it interesting154: Hugs or Kisses:

hugs

153: Drunk or High:

I personally wouldn’t go for any of those but drunk ig

152: Phone or Online:

online

151: Red heads or Black haired:

black haired

150: Blondes or Brunettes:

ah, blondes

149: Hot or cold:

cold

148: Summer or winter:

winter

147: Autumn or Spring:

spring

146: Chocolate or vanilla:

vanilla

145: Night or Day:

night

144: Oranges or Apples:

oranges

143: Curly or Straight hair:

straight

142: McDonalds or Burger King:

McDonalds

141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate:

White Chocolate

140: Mac or PC:

139: Flip flops or high heals:

flip flops

138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor:

sweet and poor tbh

137: Coke or Pepsi:

coke

136: Hillary or Obama:

Obama??!!

135: Burried or cremated:

cremated

134: Singing or Dancing:

singing

133: Coach or Chanel:

coach

132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks:

I uh, none

131: Small town or Big city:

big city

130: Wal-Mart or Target:

I had never went to one though Wal-Mart

129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler:

Adam Sandler

128: Manicure or Pedicure:

Manicure

127: East Coast or West Coast:

East Coast

126: Your Birthday or Christmas:

Christmas

125: Chocolate or Flowers:

flowers

124: Disney or Six Flags:

disney

123: Yankees or Red Sox:

Yankees

122: War:

I uh personally don’t agree with them and uh dunno

121: George Bush:

Don’t have one yet

120: Gay Marriage:

I find it lovely but too sad it’s not legal here so

119: The presidential election:

Quiet stinky as in no good choices

118: Abortion:

See this topic rips itself in two, if it’s intentionally done I personally think it’s the worst thing to do but that someone can do whatever they want, it’s their body after all, though if it happens and it’s not intended just, big sad react

117: MySpace:

I don’t have an opinion on it

116: Reality TV:

I don’t really watch it nor like it

115: Parents:

I would’ve appreciated if my parents showed me more support and love but not that I have anything against our type of relationship at the moment so

114: Back stabbers:

I totally not like them so I choose to cut contact with them

113: Ebay:

It’s fine till now

112: Facebook:

I’m not a big fan of Facebook

111: Work:

If it’s something I love, it makes me feel good but if it’s not it kind of brings a feeling of uneasy and frustration to me

110: My Neighbors:

They’re chill, the baby and the puppy are my favorites

109: Gas Prices:

kinda shitty here

108: Designer Clothes:

They can design what they want however they want, this is not really a topic of interest for me

107: College:

I can’t wait to get to it ngl

106: Sports:

Not one of my interests but they do look fun

105: My family:

I tolerate them easily but yeah I love them

104: The future:

Other than that I’m scared as hell regarding the future? nah

103: Hugged someone:

Eh!! Today!!

102: Last time you ate:

7 hours ago??

101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile:

Oh last week I think

100: Cried in front of someone:

U H, yesterday

99: Went to a movie theater:

last thursday

98: Took a vacation:

last Christmas

97: Swam in a pool:

last summer

96: Changed a diaper:

never tbh

95: Got my nails done:

OH, it’s been ages since I’ve done that

94: Went to a wedding:

4 years ago

93: Broke a bone:

never nyehehe B)

92: Got a peircing:

I don’t have any but planning on getting some

91: Broke the law:

never

90: Texted:

minutes ago

89: Who makes you laugh the most:

tbh, my friends

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is:

my stuff but mostly my baby plant

87: The last movie I saw:

Captain MArvel

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most:

finishing high school

85: The thing im not looking forward to:

Missing upcoming opportunities

84: People call me:

Satana(I have the perferct explanation)

83: The most difficult thing to do is:

talk in servers or groups tbh

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket:

Oh I’d feel terrible and embarassed tbh

81: My zodiac sign is:

LEo

80: The first person i talked to today was:

my boyfriend

79: First time you had a crush:

in 5th grade

78: The one person who i can’t hide things from:

My boyfriend.. because he knows when something’s up with me or if something’s not good

77: Last time someone said something you were thinking:

hmmm weeks ago I think

76: Right now I am talking to:

@angelwings-234

75: What are you going to do when you grow up:

be a programmer

74: I have/will get a job:

I hope to get one as a programmer in the future (though hell If I know what exactly yet)

73: Tomorrow:

I’ll probably hope for school to end faster just so I can nap

72: Today:

I haven’t done much tbh

71: Next Summer:

Will be so busy and I’m so not up to it

70: Next Weekend:

I’ll be going to a cool ass contest

69: I have these pets:

I have a baby plant!!!

68: The worst sound in the world:

static noise

67: The person that makes me cry the most is:

myself?? sounds a bit edgy

66: People that make you happy:

all the close friends in my life and some artists along with stuff I enjoy a lot

65: Last time I cried:

yesterday

64: My friends are:

There are too many to list them but luv them all

63: My computer is:

full of games that I’m probably not going to finish in the following 2 months

62: My School:

kinda sucks when it comes to students

61: My Car:

does not exist yet

60: I lose all respect for people who:

who are rude and big mean bags of shit?? I could detail this but dunno

59: The movie I cried at was:

Interstellar

58: Your hair color is:

blonde

57: TV shows you watch:

SOA, Gotham when my bf watches it and I don’t really like TV shows though I have some on my waiting list

56: Favorite web site:

https://www.pbinfo.ro/

55: Your dream vacation:

just, somewhere around a forest, it’d be quiet lovely ngl

54: The worst pain I was ever in was:

tooth pain

53: How do you like your steak cooked:

a bit raw tbh

52: My room is:

ass messy as me

51: My favorite celebrity is:

uhhh Corey Taylor

50: Where would you like to be:

Right now?? At my bf, if it wouldn’t bother him..

49: Do you want children:

ABsolutely

48: Ever been in love:

still am ig

47: Who’s your best friend:

I have too many but love them all so much

46: More guy friends or girl friends:

I have more guy friends apparently

45: One thing that makes you feel great is:

achieving something

44: One person that you wish you could see right now:

All of my best-friends tbh

43: Do you have a 5 year plan:

I do

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die:

Not yet and I doubt I’d do it

41: Have you pre-named your children:

me and my bf came up with some names but who knows

40: Last person I got mad at:

My bf i think

39: I would like to move to:

another city in my country, a much bigger one

38: I wish I was a professional:

artist

37: Candy:

Haribo

36: Vehicle:

Renault or Dacia

35: President:

don’t really have one

34: State visited:

I haven’t been to any at all

33: Cellphone provider:

Digi

32: Athlete:

I don;t have one yikes

31: Actor:

Hmm Benicio Del Toro

30: Actress:

I like some but I don’t have a favorite one

29: Singer:

Peter Steele, his voice is simply, lovely

28: Band:

Ohhh anon Tool and Cargo atm

27: Clothing store:

I don’t have a fav one

26: Grocery store:

any??

25: TV show:

Sons Of Anarchy

24: Movie:

The Alien trilogy

23: Website:

Twitter I think

22: Animal:

Cat

21: Theme park:

I don’t really have one

20: Holiday:

Christmas

19: Sport to watch:

ski jumping

18: Sport to play:

Volleyball I think

17: Magazine:

Don’t have one

16: Book:

The Shinning

15: Day of the week:

Saturdays

14: Beach:

Don’t really like beaches

13: Concert attended:

Truda’s concert for moment but I suppose Disturbing’s going ro replace it or maybe Cannibal Corpse, who knows

12: Thing to cook:

Pudding

11: Food:

Noodles or cremeschnitte

10: Restaurant:

One called Anna

9: Radio station:

don’t have one

8: Yankee candle scent:

dreamy summer nights

7: Perfume:

men’s one are my favorite, gotta admit it

6: Flower:

ORchids <3

5: Color:

purple and black

4: Talk show host:

don’t have one

3: Comedian:

A romanian one, can’t remember his name

2: Dog breed:

German Shepherd, American Eskimo, Border Collie, Golden Retriever, Siberian HUsky there are too many I can’t choose only one <3

1: Did you answer all these truthfully?

yes I did it oh god

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ogrepixel · 7 years ago

Text

GDC18 Full Experience

Hey! For those who don’t know, my name is Steve Duran and since 2014 I created an indie game development studio from México called Ogre Pixel where we create fantasy stories in form of indie video games.

So far we create pixel art styled mobile games and since the middle of last year I work full time in this business.

GDC18 was my first GDC ever.

Prior GDC

Every year since 2015 I have always wanted to go to GDC, but for reasons like my day job, the lack of USA VISA and even money I wasn’t able to do it.

In 2017 my wife and I made the effort to get the USA VISA thinking in going on vacation to the USA and also thinking in attending this kind of events like GDC.

This was the first time I would be attending GDC! So I started reading a lot of tips and videos about the conference, because of that I made a lot of business cards, bought candies, registered for parties, prepared a demo for our game Pixel Stars and a couple of weeks before we thought about a cool game concept and rushed on that becoming this into Jumper Jon demo.

I read about the importance of having a goal for GDC, for me, the goal was to enjoy the experience (as a first timer), learn about how everything works and show 2 game demos to press and people: Pixel Stars and Jumper Jon.

Last 4 weeks before GDC we had a lot of work rushing on game demos, because of that I didn’t get enough sleep. I was afraid the effort wouldn’t be worth it because maybe game demos wouldn’t be ready and/or people wouldn’t like them after all.

The stress prior GDC was huge!

On my way

When the day came, Jumper Jon demo was not ready (nothing happened after defeating the boss), stickers did not arrive in time but at least Pixel Stars demo was working pretty well (tested it on iPad that day in the morning).

This was the first time I would be going outside the country on my own, that wasn’t easy either, however, I kept myself thinking about it as an adventure.

I traveled from my city Aguascalientes to Guadalajara on a 3 hours trip on bus, after that I took a flight to San Jose California on a 4 hours trip on air, after that I waited like 1 hour for a bus to take me to San Francisco Airport, took the 1 hour trip to SFO Airport on that bus and finally took a 30 minutes trip on BART to a station near Moscone Center (Powell station).

A good thing about going 4 hours on air was that I was able to finish Jumper Jon demo =D! I added the intro and outro images to demo and with that, it was some kind of finished.

Just arriving near the Moscone Center I bought a 5-bucks hotdog and went to the Hotel when I stayed with a very good friend.

GDC Week

Monday in the morning I went to Moscone West to pick my badge. The feeling when going inside the building and watching all that people with GDC badges was really great.

As other game devs, always talking about this with other people feels pretty good, now, being in the same place with thousands of people who are also fascinated by the game development is really a very comforting experience.

I won’t describe what I experienced at every moment the whole week, but I will give a quick summary and will highlight the best moments on GDC:

Overall my GDC week was spent between few meetings, parties, events, networking and a couple of expo hours.

Meetings

As one of my goals for this GDC was to show Pixel Stars and Jumper Jon to people and press, I scheduled a couple of meetings to show it to good friends, a couple of streamers and press.

This was very important for us because was the result of a lot of work weeks before GDC… The good thing was that Pixel Stars and Jumper Jon had a great reception from the people who played them.

Even if these games are very different from each other, both of them were liked by people =).

Here are a couple of videos from Touch Arcade where I’m showing our games:

youtube

http://toucharcade.com/2018/03/23/gdc-2018-jumper-jon-and-pixel-stars/

Parties

Parties on GDC are something very cool because that’s the perfect place for networking, meeting cool and interesting people and also meeting good old friends.

I went to a couple of Unity parties, one of them was the keynote where we knew about the new stuff coming for the engine. There we could meet one of the guys who created Unity: Joachim Ante and that was really great.

A cool party I attended which was really great was The Other Party, that one was great because I was able to pick a free table and show Jumper Jon demo for playtesting.

That was very fun because a lot of people went to our table and went through the demo from the beginning to end (demo lasts like 3 minutes).

I received a lot of feedback, good comments and the most rewarding was that people asked us about when it would be available because they wanted to buy it at that same moment =D.

I was also able to show Jumper Jon demo on another party called BYO INIDE (Bring your own indie) there I was able to pick a table too, set up the demo and people went there to check it.

Pretty much was the same result, a lot of people enjoyed it.

Showing Jumper Jon on the parties was one of the best moments from GDC because I felt all the effort was totally worth it, we spent a lot of time programming, making art and designing the level… Knowing that people really liked it was very comforting.

Events

The best events for me on GDC were the Independent Games Festival Awards and the Game Developers Choice Awards.

I will describe the feeling of being there and watching the Awards with just one word: Inspiring.

Watching all that talented people receiving awards, giving their speech and sharing on stage situations that many of us game devs live is something really inspiring.

Networking

Networking most of the time was made during the parties… Even if on the Moscone center and Yerba buena garden there is a lot of people around, resting or working on their computers, networking is not very good there (at least for me).

I sat down there a couple of times but I made it because I wanted to finish something or send a mail or just to charge my cell phone.

There I tried to speak with people and it worked most of the times but, for other people, they sometimes just didn’t want to talk, maybe because they were tired or something (I didn’t talk to people I found was busy).

So for networking, I would suggest parties.

Expo

Something I really missed on this GDC was the expo.

I was at the expo and could give an overall check but unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy it in detail. I was just walking through it when the GDC ended and I had to go out =(

Taking the following pic was really sad because that was the end of GDC.

Conclusions

Some friends told me that if game development is my passion I had to attend GDC… Now I can confirm that because as this is the largest professional game industry event in the world this is the meeting point for game designers, programmers, artists, producers and artists from the global game development community.

And that is absolutely awesome.

Here I made a small list of tips for everyone who is planning to attend GDC in the future:

Define a goal for your GDC attendance and work for that goal prior GDC (make a demo, a good presentation, schedule meetings)

Bring at least 200 business cards

Join the Fellowship of the GDC Parties facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheFellowshipOfParties/)

Bring a fully charged power bank all the time

If you want to show a game on parties (for free) register to the right parties and attend earlier

If you like swags and stuff go to the expo on Wednesday and take your time to check it

Take a good sit at the Awards and enjoy the show

Share business cards with everyone and take a pen with you and write down on business cards who is who so you can remember the people you met.

Business cards I received:

Last but not least I want to recommend the GDC attendees to take a time and enjoy San Francisco, this place is amazing too:

Well, that’s all, I tried to summarize my GDC experience as a first timer, I definitely want to attend next year and hope this read is helpful for the people who are planning to go and get the best experience.

Thanks for reading, hope you like it, feel free to stay in touch with us through our social media and discord server

Twitter: @ogrepixel Facebook: facebook.com/ogrepixel Instagram: instagram.com/ogrepixel

Discord: discord.me/ogrepixel

Steve =)

#ogre pixel #gdc #gdc18 #video games #game development #indie game #indieaf

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bitingmascot-blog · 7 years ago

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So you want to market your game

What I’m about to talk about concerns mostly Finnish game developers I’ve met. We are too humble in our work and our skills. I believe this might also apply for most introverted game developers. I have limited info and skills, so please make your own interpretations on your own experiences, read up on marketing articles on Gamasutra or look for other indies’ articles (I’ll link some at the end). I’m also studying game development, not marketing, so my ideas on marketing aren’t based on “traditional” marketing techniques, just what I’ve learned on a few courses and on the internet.

Something that seems to be difficult for starting game developers is how to actually sell their game. They can sell the idea to their team, the vision to other game developers, but not the product to customers. Some are great at the “show and tell” of gaming events, others at the magic of a social media hit. These come from skills of speech, showmanship, art. But they don’t know how to sell the feeling, the package, the price; the product. I’ve seen people immerse themselves into making their game, intending on making it a product. But then nobody hears anything until it’s done. And then it gets buried.

So why don’t people take time to sell their game? I’ve heard a few reasons, like

“game developers are artists who create for the joy of creating”: that would be great if their livelihoods weren’t dependant on the products selling

“it takes too much time to do”: if you are making a jam game or learning with a game developing hobby, that’s fine, but otherwise it’s just as important as the game you are making to get people to see it

“I don’t know how”: this is actually the most reasonable reason to not do marketing, but not good enough to not learn. Granted, there aren’t schools for specifically selling and marketing games (if you know of one, tweet at me @BeanieDev, I would be interested), but there are so many online resources to learn from.

I think everyone has heard the line “Marketing starts when development/preproduction/designing starts” in one form or the other if you’ve listened to any talk about video game marketing. I think that a more honest line is “marketing starts when the decision is made that the product is going to be a product”. Names need to be decided for social media, concepts drawn up for getting people’s attention. Then the three biggest decisions: who handles the marketing, what kind of marketing is used and how serious is the product. Let’s quickly go through these:

Who handles the marketing: A team nowadays can consist of a random assortment of the following; artists, programmers, designers, producers and audio guys. There may be other roles in your team, but these are the “main jobs” in smaller teams, so I’m gonna talk about them. In addition, we can think about getting an external marketing person (that’s me!). So who would be best to do the marketing on top of their other work? This is also figuring you are a small team, indies without a marketing team. I actually think that marketing can be best handled as a team. Let’s look what every team member can provide for marketing and what weaknesses they provide if they are put into a marketing position on their own.

Artists have a lot of skills that social media marketing can utilize. But their other work is very important and can take a lot of time. So, this is a case-by-case decision for the team. If there’s a social media –savvy artist who can create small, clean stuff quickly, then an artist can get the product a lot of attention. But marketing also includes writing copy (text), contacting people, going to events and taking time to figure out what things are working and what aren’t. That’s a lot of time taken away from drawing, modeling, texturing or any actual game development.

Programmers or designers can usually make the quickest “funny in-game clips” in the editor. The great #gamedev/indiedev posts (glitches, gameplay/feature displays) are easily made with some simple screen recording software. They only need to write a funny explanation of what’s happened and that’s a great post! But again, there’s so much more to marketing that would take that time away from the game development.

Producers are commonly put into the part of the marketer. They handle events, they see what’s going on with every part of the project. But they might have enough to juggle with their actual work too. If the project is serious enough, producers are constantly keeping track of the project, handling emails, meeting with investors or publishers. So not the worst pick for a marketer, but they can be reliant on others for the materials or too busy for it.

Sound guys are the sound guys. With that kind of creative talent, they often know a thing or two about video editing too. They have great possibilities for making trailers. But, in that way, they are completely reliant on the others in the team.

So then we get to the external marketing person. They have the time set for writing, contacting and keeping an eye on things. However, they are dependent on the rest of the team to provide visual materials, barring they don’t have skills in art or game development in general.

So who’s the best pick here? The guys who can’t produce the content or the ones who don’t have time for everything else? I say combine the manpower. The whole team produces content. The easiest way to do it is to have people share what they see while creating it. Share it on the team’s Slack or Discord and then have someone in charge of posting put it up. This fixes another problem as well, we’ll get to that soon.

What kind of marketing: So there are many forms of marketing. There’s social media, news sites, YouTube, influencers and reviewers. Your own website, discord server, the social media handle, Reddit and Imgur. How do you pick what you want to use? Which social media? What influencers? When who what -Argh! So much to choose from. So what do you do? Do them all at the beginning? No. Choose a couple of social media tools and Reddit/Imgur. Look up on how to use those social media online (I’ll link some I’ve used in the end). For Reddit, look for relevant subreddits, check the sidebar for instructions, when unsure ask and remember the Reddiquette. Imgur is tricky. They dislike the hard sell, you need to interest them with short videos, gifs, and images. Instead of selling the game to them, show them some funny clip and say “this is a funny bug/cute scene from the game I’m making, had to share it”. Hang out in the comments and chat. Give more info when they want it. Great line from Mark Rosewater’s GDC talk: “People are more invested in things they initiated”. You give them a chance to ask in the comments. Those who are interested ask questions. Answer them and they get more interested. Once you get some following, make a discord channel. Give people more chances to get close to your product. Make a devblog on Tumblr or IndieDB. Find new social medias that I don’t even know about. Mastodon, Vero, Social-media-number-251, you never know what might be the next big thing for indie developers to make big waves.

So then you got to pick the most important thing for this part: what does the marketing sound like? Are you selling as the developer? Are you selling as a character? How do you talk? Cute-sy? Cool-like? What’s the tone? No matter where you market your game, people see the tone. If you haven’t heard of the Nintendo Power Earthbound “This game stinks” line, you should google that to see how not to sound when selling your game. So pick out a tone. Stick to it. This is where having one person post helps. No disconnect from the main idea. There should be some discussion with the group first, but then one person can do the posting when the tone is set.

How serious is the product: Are you making a small jam game with your friends? Or a 3-year endeavor that will break the way we think about games? And should it sell? Everything depends on you. For a jam game, as the creation should be a fun weekend with your friends, maybe the people who see it and the purpose should be the same: your friends, having fun. So a couple tweets with images, maybe an Imgur post with a link to the download. For the 3-year endeavor, a team of marketers, outside help, professionals to make the hard sell on big publications. But those won’t come before you make something polished. Those projects take time. And while some say the hype lives on, it’s actually hard to keep it alive. Great article on playing the long game by Tanya Short from Kitfox Games on Gamasutra.

When you start to get further with the development, you can pick out more tools, check out more avenues that fit the posts you make. When someone hollers at you, holler back. Build a community if it fits your game. Look for Youtubers, from lists online and if your team enjoy someone’s content, shoot them a message. Be respectful!

So that’s a lot of info on how to start things off. And that’s not half the battle. Then the real work begins. I’ll leave you off with a few select articles and talks I’ve found on the subject. Again, if you got something to comment on or want to talk about the subject, shoot me a message on Twitter @BeanieDev. Happy marketing!

Juho The marketing trainee

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TanyaXShort/20180928/327255/Years_in_the_Making_The_Long_Game_of_Boyfriend_Dungeon.php

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LewisDenby/20180425/316986/Kotaku_is_not_the_answer_strategic_thinking_for_indie_game_PR.php

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2695/the_basic_marketing_plan_for_indie_.ph

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/316705/How_to_market_a_game_with_minimal_budget.php

https://www.patreon.com/posts/18946926

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/6afxr5/marketing_your_game_is_hard_marketing_your_game/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5tyX_IBTXA&feature=youtu.be&a=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsFgXXjoLi8&feature=youtu.be&a=

#gamedev #indie #marketing #tips #video games #Finland #kajaani

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philipfloyd · 6 years ago

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21 SEO & Business Lessons Learned From Optimizing Small Websites

Over the past 7 years, I’ve learned a lot about digital marketing and SEO. I started this journey by building WordPress websites, but then quickly realized that they are useless if they do not rank on search engines.

That’s how I actually got into search engine optimization. I got lucky and landed a job for a company in a pretty competitive niche (bodybuilding supplements) pretty fast. Fast forward for about 5 years and now I run my own company. Now I want to take my SEO & Digital Marketing Agency to the next level but, before that, I want to share what I’ve learned during this time.

SEO Isn’t All That Hard (If You Get It Right)

SEO Does Take Time

You Need Quality Outsourcing Personnel

You Have to Leverage Your Work by Training Owners & Their Employees

Don’t Rely On Clients Delivering

Avoid Taking Clients That Don’t Fit You!

Perfectionism Holds You Back. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail

Focus on Important Tasks

It’s Useful to Have a Monthly Schedule & Estimate

User Intent & UX Really Do Matter

Tools Are Really Useful & They Save up Time

Paid SEO Audits Are Better

Links Are Still Important

Links Are Indeed Expensive

Links Can Be Obtained For Free (#naturally)

The More Money Clients Have, the Less They Stress You Out

Be Firm About Your Schedule Upfront

Transparency Matters More Than Quick Results

Communication Is Key

Most People Who Want SEO Don’t Have Websites on Popular Platforms

Programmers Are (Sometimes) Difficult to Work With

1. SEO Isn’t All That Hard (If You Get It Right)

People fear SEO because of its uncertainty. Google isn’t straight-forward at all when it comes to SEO advice. Then, there are the Google Algorithm Updates which we all fear one way or another.

When comparing SEO to PPC, it seems that PPC is the safer bet. Although PPC also has the quality score which is tricky, there’s a lot more confusion that comes with SEO, which makes it harder to approach.

However, from my experience, it seems like SEO isn’t all that hard. At least not when you’re dealing with small/medium sites.

Most of the sites are pretty straight forward, with separate pages for each service. If you get lucky and run over a completely unoptimized website, the keyword research and title creation alone will bring in results.

Things actually become complicated when you’re dealing with the previous work of other SEOs or digital marketing agencies. Spammy backlink profiles, keyword stuffing and other things like that.

Of course, when you’re talking about big eCommerce websites, with hundreds of thousands of pages, things can get a little bit trickier.

But the fundamentals are the same. Make the site crawlable and indexable, have valuable content and optimize for keywords, earn some backlinks and you’re good to go.

2. SEO Does Take Time

Firstly, we have to talk about execution. Are you alone? I was. I had to do pretty much everything and, even if I outsourced content creation, it still took time to validate, edit and publish.

So, it can take a long time, especially if you’re a one man gang. We’ll talk more about this in the next lesson.

However, even if your execution potential is very high, if you’re planning on going the safe route, then it’s probably a better idea not to jump head first and rather test the waters before.

If you take massive action the first months but then stagnate or don’t do anything more later on, you’ll look suspicious. Why would a website be extremely popular for a couple of weeks and then not be popular at all? It sure does seem like someone was trying to manipulate the rankings.

Taking everything a little bit slower will provide the security that what you’re doing is fair and that you’re not trying to push things.

In my opinion, a website’s rankings reflect the level of success a business has. They’re interconnected. For example, if an eCommerce page only has 3 products, why would it be better than a competitor page with 300 products?

How can an owner expect to rank for the main keyword when it doesn’t meet the users’ expectations? A different strategy must be approached, either by optimizing for separate products, or a narrower, less competitive category keyword instead.

That’s something you should communicate to the owner. If he still wants to rank, then you’ll probably have to try some sketchy stuff, which will put his site at risk. Better avoid the stress upfront by not signing a contract.

So, consider this: if you have massive execution potential, expect to keep it up even when the rankings are high, or you might look suspicious and lose them.

Giving a good, realistic estimation of the time required will also build credibility. So far, my estimations with clients were very realistic. And through this, I’ve gained their trust long term. Promises kept, contracts still running.

3. You Need Quality Outsourcing Personnel

If you want to move ahead quicker in an SEO campaign, you’ll need help. Chances are, if you’re just starting out, that you don’t have money to employ people. However, outsourcing and subcontracting is a great alternative.

If you really want to be a search engine optimizer, then focus on having your backups when it comes to web design, servers and coding.

Most clients will often ask you about issues regarding e-mail and server issues, small content or web design changes and implementing new features, such as pop-ups.

So make sure you have at least someone who’s good at editing pages on popular platforms, such as WordPress and knows a little bit of CSS/HTML. It won’t be easy finding a programmer, since most of them already have a high paying job.

You can always take a look at platforms such as codeable.io where you can hire a coder. Be wary though, prices are by the hour and they’re not cheap.

You won’t have to pay for anything. Just charge the client for the work (you can even add a little bit extra, to cover for your taxes at least). But the client might always say “No freaking way am I paying that much to change the background color.”

However, what’s really hard to find from my point of view are good writers. They’re essential for SEO so make sure you start looking for them early on.

There are multiple reasons for that. Price range, quality and client expectations all get in your way. For some businesses, such as coffee shops, quality content might be easy to obtain. But if you’re working with someone selling building materials or medical equipment, average writers might not have the expertise to do it.

Then there’s also the issue of them not having a business of their own, which makes it harder to collaborate with them legally, at least here in Romania. The ones who do have businesses are either agencies with a lot of low quality content, or professionals with extremely high prices.

If your strategy is mostly based on content and you can call yourself a content marketer, then sooner or later you’ll need some writers. It’s better to start looking for them sooner.

Ideally, the client should write the content. They know their niche best. However, we know that’s not always possible. This takes us to the next lesson.

4. You Have to Leverage Your Work by Training Owners & Their Employees

Try to get as much information from the client as possible. They know their niche best. They know the clients’ possible needs and they know their products.

Firstly, try to get them to write the content if they have the time. A corporation owner won’t have time, but a small business owner might get the occasional weekend off and can squeeze 2 hours of high quality content writing.

Even if they don’t do the entire article, once you have your keyword research and content gap analysis done and have chosen a couple of topics, at least get the owners to outline key points which should be covered and provide inspiration sources for the writer.

You should always work with your clients to build an SEO opportunity seeking culture within their company.

Do they have employees who upload products on the site? Make sure they know how to do it from an SEO point of view.

Do they often go to conferences or meetings? Make sure they always seek a backlink opportunity with their acquaintances. What blogger friends do they have that could help with a campaign?

Remember though: make it clear that everything must pass through your approval before it gets implemented. They shouldn’t start any spammy link building and then blame you for bad SEO results.

5. Don’t Rely On Clients Delivering

Although it’s great that your clients accept to help you by providing all the information you have requested, don’t rely on them delivering it, at least not on time.

Make sure they are making progress on their task from time to time, if it’s a bigger one. If you talk on Monday that they will give you the list of employees to add on the site by Friday, call them on Wednesday and remind them that you’ll need the information on Friday.

If possible, set up a meeting and get all your questions ready to be answered right then, right there.

6. Avoid Taking Clients That Don’t Fit You!

Many requests can come from sketchy businesses or websites. Once someone wrote to me:

Client: “Hey, my website was hit by a Google Penalty after the recent Google Update and I can’t figure out why. Can you help me?”

Me: “Sure. What’s the website?

Client: “www.piratedmovies2019.com”

Me: “I think I already have an idea…”

Many other requests I get are for video chat websites, porn sites, loans and other barely legal or sketchy niches. However, the truth is that the niche doesn’t really matter. And it’s not up to me to tell you what your moral boundaries are.

However, I’ll tell you this: Those sketchy niches… are HARD. Not because the competition is good, but because it’s bad. Literally bad. More like EVIL.

Why? Because the earnings are big. And, although you can make good money there as an SEO, prepare for a heck of a ride. Competitors prefer to blow into your candle instead of making their own shine brighter. This means you’ll deal with SPAM, negative SEO attacks, DDoS and whatever other Black Hat SEO stuff you can think of.

But this doesn’t just stop at the type of website or business they’re running.

Are they asking you to create videos for them? If you can’t outsource and profit from it, decline! Do they want graphic design? Do not purchase a Photoshop course! Decline. Outsource. Focus on search engine optimization.

Then there are the people. How’s the client as a person? Too pushy and you don’t like pushy persons? Decline.

I once met a client who was disappointed with his previous SEO providers. I asked him whom he worked with previously and his answer was “everyone”. Kinda’ made me feel the problem was with him and not everyone else so… wanna guess what I did? Yeah… that’s right. I said no.

I once declined optimizing a butcher’s website because I don’t like it when animals get slaughtered. It would’ve made me feel bad so I just refused it, although it probably had a good pay.

Taking a client you don’t really like or don’t feel comfortable with will make you feel less motivated. This might end up in you delivering poor results and you don’t want that to happen. On the long run, you’ll feel better and less stressed and you might even end up making more money.

I know it might be hard, but it’s a good idea to learn to say no. Early.

7. Perfectionism Holds You Back. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail

Unfortunately for me, I’m a perfectionist. Although I’m not speaking from experience (I can’t say I’ve actually failed really bad so far), I can say this: I probably didn’t try hard enough.

Most of my life’s biggest lessons came from mistakes and I wish I could do more of these in my business as well. Now I’m not telling you to be a fool and to not be cautious. Everything is about calculated risk. Just don’t stop at calculating.

Overthinking, over-planning, constant supervision are not good friends and they set you back most of the time. In other words…

8. Focus on Important Tasks

As previously mentioned, clients will always ask you for minor things that will take you time. While changing a background color might take 5 minutes, adding a popup might take hours, depending on the platform.

Make sure you estimate right what you can do quickly and what you can’t do. Don’t spend hours trying to figure out how to implement that particular feature. The feature won’t be useful if the site isn’t ranking.

Focus on those important tasks related to SEO, such as publishing blog posts on schedule, constantly optimizing pages and seeking backlink opportunities.

Otherwise, these less important tasks, although small, stack up and end up taking a lot of time, leaving too little for dealing with the important things.

Source: grasshopperherder.com

9. It’s Useful to Have a Monthly Schedule & Estimate

As much as I don’t like relying on very strict patterns, as I feel they limit creativity, you do need some.

It’s good to have a checklist of SEO best practices you generally do for all clients (for an SEO audit) and it’s also good to develop monthly schedules for each client.

How many blog posts are you going to publish per month? When should you start looking for new topics? When do you launch a new wave of outreaches?

You can also purchase some nofollow backlinks from reputable sites which are relevant to your client’s niche. Avoid using the same sites for all your clients. If it’s a car rental website, look for car news publishers.

This will also help you deliver an estimate at the end of the month to justify your labor. Some clients don’t really care and if you deliver good results they will start ignoring them, but it adds to the transparency and helps you keep track of your progress (it acts like a journal).

10. User Intent & UX Really Do Matter

Once you get to the 1st page, you’ll start noticing that slight changes that align with user intent have a positive impact. Now it’s hard to isolate in order to see if the changes have impacted rankings, but it’s definitely worth taking a look at conversion rate, which will usually improve.

You have to figure out what makes a client buy or take the appropriate action that you want them to take and what makes them leave and never come back. Once you know that, you’ll know exactly what you have to do.

Do they want to see the price? Make the price font bigger. Are they looking for images? Put them first. Answer their questions and they will convert.

Here’s a good video to watch to understand the basics of UX:

youtube

A general rule of thumb is that your clickable objects are obvious. You can use tools like Hotjar or Yandex Metrica to figure out if your users are clicking where you don’t want them to click.

A good first step is to take a look at what the top competitors are doing. Don’t copy paste them, but consider that since they’re #1, it means that they’re definitely doing something good.

For me, working on improving the UX brought results in both rankings and sales. Even if Google doesn’t reward the UX changes with rankings early on, you can measure its success by looking at the conversion rate. Higher conversion rates mean more money and more money means more SEO, which eventually ends up in better rankings.

11. Tools Are Really Useful & They Save up Time

Having the luxury of being able to use the CognitiveSEO Tool was essential to my success. It saved me countless hours of work and sorting Excel files by aggregating everything into the platform, from backlinks and technical audits to rank tracking.

SEO tools can really help you speed up the optimization process, so make sure you pick the right ones and use them to leverage your work.

If you’re just starting out and don’t have a budget to spend on tools, you can obviously help yourself with free ones. Here’s a list of free SEO tools that I use in general, along with the CognitiveSEO Toolset.

12. Paid SEO Audits Are Better

When you do an SEO audit, don’t copy paste some info from a free tool. Firstly, the client might test you with that. Secondly, following that path your results might not be impressive.

Wasting too much time on things such as 100% PageSpeed Insights score or keyword density will really hurt you both short and long term. Instead, focus on important things such as indexability, keyword research, UX, content creation, title & meta description optimization and promotion.

A great deal you can make is to offer a free audit if they decide to sign a monthly services contract.

If they say no, they can keep the audit, but it’s going to cost them. This way, it’s not actually a free audit anymore, but it’s like labor included in a monthly contract. You’ll have to audit their site before you start the job anyway, right?

This way you’ll feel more responsible for the work, knowing that it’s actual work and not just a pitch. You also have the audit as an incentive for them to sign a monthly SEO services contract.

As a client, free SEO audits can cost you more than paid ones on the long run. So better get the real deal.

13. Links Are Still Important

There’s not much to say here. I always do technical things first while preparing the keyword research and content gap analysis. Then I immediately start the content optimization process and long term monthly content via the blog.

However, to really push it to the next level, I have to admit that links have definitely showed good results, especially when pushing from the 5th position to the top 3 ones.

So if you have a tough competition, you’ll still need to think of some ways to get sites to link to you, even in 2019.

14. Links Are Indeed Expensive

Obviously, the easiest way to get links is to pay for them.. But god damn, some links are expensive! And when I say expensive I don’t mean just money but also all the problems that paid links can bring (penalties for instance).

I’ve had cases in which certain publications have asked me for a client’s whole month budget just for one link. And I also had to provide the content myself!

The truth is that cheap links are also bad links and they’re usually not worth it, since they come from sketchy websites that don’t provide much quality. I know “bloggers” that write about everything… today they write about one brand and the next day about their competitor, recommending both.

However, I would high recommend that you nofollow those links. Even though you might think that they don’t, the truth is that nofollow links impact SEO. Not as much as the dofollow ones, but they do.

15. Links Can Be Obtained For Free (#naturally)

Yes. You’ve heard me right. It is possible. Even for small websites in uninteresting niches. But links don’t come that easily.

You can’t just publish your post and pray that it will rain backlinks. You have to promote it. Be it through direct e-mail outreach, organically on social networks or through Facebook ads, your chances of landing a backlink will increase.

You need to be persuasive. The truth is this requires both earned skills and some talent. A good way of increasing your success rate is to get under their skin. Don’t outreach directly with what you want, but try to build a relationship before. In general, you have more chances if they also get something in return, so figure out how you can help them first and they will help you back.

I’ve started conversations by asking about soccer, favorite movies or personal stories. Many people share these experiences on social media. Follow them for a while and try to start a conversation. Once they reply the first time, your chances of collaborating are already high.

Also, when you’re starting with e-mail outreach, make sure you’re outreaching to people that might be interested in collaborating with you. If you do your research well, your chances will increase even more.

Some even go one step further by writing posts specifically for the people they’re about to outreach. For example, if you see someone constantly talking about certain aspects of a diet, you could write about it on your nutrition website and then outreach them.

Most of them will at least be happy to share the post on social media and, even if it’s not quite as good as a backlink, it still helps make your post more popular. Who knows, maybe someone else who follows them will see your post and link to it.

You can also try some other methods, such as the mention outreach technique.

16. The More Money Clients Have, the Less They Stress You Out

Don’t get me wrong. People are all different and character is what matters most. I’ve had people that have money and stressed me out a lot.

However, in general, the ones that don’t have the money upfront or always postpone payment for different reasons might also be the most demanding and they can also be the first to call you out if you take a bad step.

Generally, people with money have a better understanding of how things work and they ask more questions about what the final result will be and fewer questions about how you’re going to achieve that.

If your offer isn’t ridiculously high, you’ll have an easier time signing a contract for a decent pay. They are focused on the final result and don’t micro manage you too much.

However, they are also the most fierce if you try to scam them or take them for fools, so make sure you avoid that. They have good lawyers.

17. Be Firm About Your Schedule Upfront

I’ve made the big mistake of always answering the phone and trying to serve the client immediately whenever they needed assistance. However, that put me second and, over time, it affected me both personally and professionally.

Even if you work from home or if you’re an entrepreneur, you need to have a limit on how much you work.

It’s a good idea to tell your clients upfront that you prefer to be contacted via e-mail (or your preferred social network channel) and that your schedule is between xx AM and xx PM.

I know it’s all #GaryVee and stuff and I love him, but don’t overwork yourself or you’ll get too tired to be motivated at all.

If the clients keep calling you all the time, you can consider telling them that the hours spent act as marketing consultation sessions which can be billed.

18. Transparency Matters More Than Quick Results

Many clients that come don’t have any SEO training. Most of them will ask questions about Google’s algorithms that might seem silly. Answer then with calm and honesty.

If you’re dealing with someone who’s had bad previous experiences, being transparent might help even more. If the others have promised them #1 in no-time and haven’t delivered, do you think they will fall for it again?

Instead, tell them that nobody can actually promise you that. If they want to work with you it’s good and if they don’t, it’s also good. You can instead promise them that you’ll do your best.

Here’s a list of questions and answers on how to convince clients to buy your SEO services. They should help you get more deals.

19. Communication Is Key

Sounds like couple therapy, doesn’t it? Well, you and your client are sort of a couple and communication is very important. You have to make it very very clear what you need, what you’re going to do, what they can and can not do. And they should communicate things back to you as well.

Make sure your clients understand that they can’t make any modifications to the website without consulting you first. SEO can be affected by anything, so make sure they know this.

More importantly, make sure they don’t start getting backlinks from sketchy websites. Sure, it’s a very good idea that they always seek backlink opportunities, but this doesn’t mean they should also start any link building without telling you.

When talking about big changes, make sure you have a written consent, either via e-mail, SMS, social media or even paper. It’s best via e-mail as it’s harder to lose.

20. Most People Who Want SEO Don’t Have Websites on Popular Platforms

This might not make you happy, but many people that really need SEO campaigns don’t run on popular content management platforms, such as WordPress, Joomla or Magento.

Those platforms are already pretty SEO friendly and there’s usually a lot of information on the web that covers specific cases related to them.

Prepare to deal with very weird platforms, as well as custom built sites which are either old or simply not SEO friendly.

This might be a case of SEO lesson no. 6 (not an ideal client). However, if you’re just focusing on the SEO part strictly and can guarantee that someone else will implement the changes, then it’s good.

But again, if you don’t want to waste time, just don’t take clients that don’t meet your ideal criteria.

21. Programmers Are (Sometimes) Difficult to Work With

Disclaimer: I’m not trying to insult anyone. Programmers are awesome. If you’re a web developer/programmer, then you should definitely have a good understanding of technical SEO.

This might just be something local, but 2/3 of times I’ve got the impression that they have a can’t do attitude, an excuse or something similar.

A common mistake I see with programmers that build custom websites is using the same titles as URLs, menus and slugs and not having enough flexibility.

So, if I create a page with the title “X lessons I’ve learned from optimizing small/medium businesses” then the URL will be automatically generated as “x-lessons-I-ve-learned-from-optimizing-small-medium-businesses” and that same title will be in the menu of the site, which isn’t quite favorable.

Again, most of these issues don’t come with WordPress and seem basic knowledge to us, but for PHP developers it might be different, they might focus on other things they find more important.

Explaining the importance is essential but you also have to be assertive in your communication. Most of them are always trying to be nice, but you can feel that tension somewhere… Sort of like you’re addressing a criticism on their work, as if it weren’t good enough.

Sometimes though, they might have good arguments, such as “That would probably cause a security issue, are you sure it’s worth it?” to which the answer would be “If you’re certain it causes that much trouble, then probably not”.

youtube

If you want to save time, record videos showing exactly what you mean instead of e-mail texting. A video recording of your screen showing where the changes should take place + your voice explaining the process will be more effective.

Prepare for bugs and let them know upfront that it’s not a 1 time deal. In one case there were some redirect issues in which URL parameters with unique identifiers from Facebook would result in a blank page. The programmer fixed it, but then we figured out that Adwords parameters do the same.

Then some other bugs came out and so on. At this rate, both you and the programmer can get annoyed, but keep your calm.

It might sound logical and simple to you, coming from a world where these small issues don’t really exist (WordPress) but to them and their platform it might not be the same. However, some SEO training won’t hurt. They should be interested in learning these things. The truth is that the code can be pretty, but it doesn’t matter if the site doesn’t rank.

It’s a different thing when they understand how SEO works, though. For example, the awesome programming #team here at CognitiveSEO definitely isn’t a difficult one. And believe me… our CEO is a champion at finding bugs.

What SEO lessons have you learned in your journey as a digital or content marketer? Which one was the most important? Please share in the comments section below!

The post 21 SEO & Business Lessons Learned From Optimizing Small Websites appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

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krisggordon · 6 years ago