What Happens When You Leave Designers To Their Own Devices
You know those creative meetings when you start with the best intentions? Everyone arrives complete with a fresh Moleskin and pencils sharpened so much they’ll snap if you even breathe near the tip. A glimmer of anticipation in everyone’s eyes and the hopes and dreams that we’ll think of something better than “an infographic” this time.
At QueryClick we had one of those a while back. A bunch of us sat down and had a think about some stuff we could do to keep things interesting. Part linkbuilding, part promotion, part “just for the hell of it, and why the hell not”.
A stack of gently conservative ideas came out to begin with. Things that were almost definitely on the cards, and would serve us well in future. All fine and well, but most of those initial ideas had less edge than a Pizza Express knife.
I sat, secretly hoping we’d get to the “Monkey Tennis event-horizon” without much delay. Sure enough, a few more minutes of suggestions on par with “like… A blog post about something?” and we got to the real meat.
Once we’d all relaxed into the notion that any and all suggestions are welcome (the dafter the better), the ideas started to flow. I worry that this might be where I excel. When the going gets tough, the designers get stupid.
Like a veritable conceptualisation diamond in the rough, glistening with prospects of untold potential was “F**king SEO Tips dot com”. Met with ghastly approval and languid hatred in equal measure, it was pretty much a sure-fire hit (in my mind at least).
How could it go wrong? In the same vein as a few “add the word f**k” type sites before, it seemed like an entertaining thing to do with wholesome undertones of “we should really be past this sort of thing by now people”.
Left to my own devices, I feel that most of my ideas would probably come out a bit like that. My other two proud potentials (which will almost certainly still be on the cards) included getting drunk before podcasting about SEO (what’s not to like?), and some horrific chunks of black-hat SEO in the face of adversity as a how-not-to-do-it guide.
I thoroughly look forward to pushing those both through the business in the next few months and watching half of the staff members here at QueryClick wet their pants about brand association.
There’s nothing like a breath of fresh air, and something a bit more opinionated to get people’s heads turning. In the words of our illustrious leader Chris: “This is (f**king) awesome.”
So I present to you something of a personal project – not entirely sanctioned by QueryClick on the whole, and tentatively endorsed by some of our more cautious staff here (fair play). Fucking SEO Tips.
It’s as simple as that. SEO tips, with a few swears thrown in for good measure. You’d better f**king enjoy them.
This post was originally written for the QueryClick blog.
About The Author: Alex Cowles
A largely cynical and often sarcastic designer and front-end developer by day. Unknown international DJ & music producer extraordinaire by night (and at weekends). You probably won't like him.
