Tune in to Everything

The greatest foe a writer must face isn’t actually writer’s block; it’s a much more nefarious enemy: “rut syndrome.” Every brand has its own voice, and every project has its own tone. But after you’ve thrown a few thousand words at something, it gets harder and harder to write anything original while staying within these established parameters.

Familiar phrases start to reappear with increasing regularity, and you may find yourself unopposed to using them again. “Tried and true” becomes “tired and clichéd.” Buzzwords turn into buzzkill. The walls of your rut begin to close in on you, and you get the feeling that your best work might lie behind you, at least in this particular field.

So how can you claw your way out of this rut while staying in your groove? By looking outward rather than trying to dig deeper into yourself. And by “outward,” I don’t mean industry blogs or field-related resources. Sure it’s important to stay informed, but often the fresh perspective that fuels a new direction in your writing will come from unexpected directions. The key is to turn your attention toward those unlikely sources – and let the creativity flow.

Living on “high-receive”

One of the creative sparks for this very article has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of years now. It’s an off-the-cuff bit of writing that appeared on the Facebook page of Fame Foundry’s chief architect, Kenneth Vuncannon. The title alone speaks volumes about why I enjoy working with Ken: “On creative design (and in stern defense of all creative people)”.

In this piece, Ken wrote, “Not even designers know where all the inspiration comes from, but they are the ones who sacrifice normal life and choose to live constantly on high-receive, subjecting their brains to everything in this world in the name of creativity.”

That bit about high-receive struck me at the time, and it remains with me still, informing my work process day in and day out. And here I was just casually spending five minutes on Ken’s page, looking at pictures and catching up – probably drawn to his profile by some quip that made me laugh.

Ken’s brief paragraph in praise of designers – “they are the ones” who draw inspiration from “everything in this world” – also serves as a great piece of advice for anyone wishing to challenge their own creativity: look outside yourself. Look everywhere, all the time. Be ready for that happy coincidence. Train your mind to make connections that can grow into your next great work.

The more you think like this, the more your ideas will begin to flow from moments that might otherwise slip by as ephemeral instances of random beauty or humor. And the greater the chance that something original can find its way into one of those dry assignments that threatens to drag you down into the rut.

Here are a few examples from my own efforts to stay tuned in to the greatness around us:

Crazy people

Here’s a piece that has stuck with me for some 20 years. I was at my grandmother’s for the weekend with the rest of my family, home from college, sometime in the early nineties. Grandma Whipkey’s was a fine place to visit, overflowing as it was with homemade cookies and cable TV – HBO to be specific. We were flipping through channels when I stopped for a few minutes on something called “Crazy People,” a movie starring Dudley Moore and Paul Reiser as advertising pitch men.

I hadn’t heard of the movie and had no interest in the premise. But the part that happened to be showing was Dudley Moore’s pitch for Volvo. The tag? “Volvo: Boxy but good.”

As a college kid only just discovering the verbal agility and wit of Monty Python, this bit struck me as funny. All these years later, I think of this clip often. There’s a bit right after it as well where Moore argues that he and his fellow execs should “level with the people.” Reiser’s reply is, “We’re in advertising. We can’t do that.”

It’s a sharp piece of satirical writing – one that serves as a great reminder that marketers can – and should – tell the truth.

A reverent – and irreverent – obituary

Here’s an opening line that has never before been used in an obituary: "If you're about to throw away an old pair of pantyhose, stop."

You read that right. But such a goofy first line couldn’t possibly be part of a well-written obituary, could it? Surely this is a misguided attempt at humor that falls as flat as a vulgar joke in church.

Wrong. This one, written by the family of Mary Agnes Mullaney, a Milwaukee native who recently passed away at 85, hits it out of the park. There isn’t a hint of typical dry obit tone, but the piece overflows with joy, grief, dignity and every other emotion that naturally occurs when a well-loved person passes away.

Take this passage, which recounts lessons to live by, as demonstrated by Mary the gentle firecracker:

“Go to a nursing home and kiss everyone. When you learn someone's name, share their patron saint's story and their feast day, so they can celebrate. Invite new friends to Thanksgiving dinner. If they are from another country and you have trouble understanding them, learn to ‘listen with an accent.’

Never say mean things about anybody; they are ‘poor souls to pray for.’

Put picky-eating children in the box at the bottom of the laundry chute, tell them they are hungry lions in a cage, and feed them veggies through the slats.”

The purpose of an obituary is to announce someone’s death and convey a few carefully culled facts about the life that was lived. This piece turns the conventions of this medium upside-down and, in doing so, transforms it into something every obituary should be: a very human, deeply powerful ode to grief and celebration.

This one inspires me to look again at any dry or unwelcome writing task set before me. There is always a new and different way to approach any assignment, no matter how seemingly routine.

Kids run roughshod through ruts

If you want a prime example of setting your brain to “high-receive,” my sincere hope is that there are children in your life. My wife and I have four kids, ages two, five, seven and nine. I call them the Popcorn Gang – they’re packed with energy and exploding all over the place with creativity (among other things).

One of my favorite bedtime storytelling techniques is to turn them loose on a basic comic book plot and let them fill in the fun bits. They are the crusaders for justice, and they choose their powers. My main responsibility is voicing a made-up villain (Rovoltin’ Molten is a favorite; he controls lava and maintains a sinister lair deep in a volcano) and subjecting the baddie and his minions to my kids’ incredible feats of bravery and might. My evil mastermind will try to take over the world; this much is certain. But make no mistake, he will be utterly defeated by the end of the tale.

It’s always a big gulp from the fire hose of originality. If I didn’t set limits on the numbers of powers, talking animal sidekicks and tricked out vehicles, the stories would last until dawn. One example among hundreds: I’ve never heard of a superhero who shot blue popcorn from his knuckles before, but darned if young Captain Abel didn’t thwart a whole battalion of lava soldiers with this devastating ability. They’ve come up with enough plots and powers over the years to populate a whole new superuniverse.

My daughter Evangeline, our youngest, will be three in a couple months. The other day she had this revelation for my wife while they cuddled up and looked out the window at a gorgeous late summer day:

“Mommy, you are the flower and I am the green grass. Cole is the raincloud and Abel is the raincloud and Gibson is the raincloud and Daddy is the sun. Grandpa is the blue sky and Grandma is the green grass with me.”

So yeah, that’s unquestionably my favorite thing of the week. I was amused to note that her brothers are the rainclouds, while bursting with joy over my status as the sun (all the while realizing that I’ll undoubtedly take a turn as a raincloud in 10 years or so).

Later on, because I spend a lot of time each day in the marketing world, I thought about what a great moment it would make in a campaign. Not a cynical moment designed to manipulate emotions. Not a too-cute, overdone moment that feels like neon unicorns prancing on cotton candy clouds. But a light, authentic moment that could find a natural fit with any number of family-oriented brands. I may never wind up using it, but into the hopper it goes.

Kids are at the heart of so many memorable ads, from Volkswagen’s Darth Vader Kid to AT&T’s recent series of ad-libbed interviews. And it’s not hard to understand why: Kids don’t know from ruts. You want a fresh perspective on something? Run it by a human under 10.

Storing up genius

Staying open to unlikely sources of inspiration doesn’t always come naturally, but there’s no reason why creativity and structure can’t go hand in hand.

Keep a file of intriguing items you run across. Bookmark video clips, images or articles that strike your fancy. If you have kids, pets or friends who do things that make you shake your head for any number of reasons, by all means fill a notebook with their quotes and stories.

By the way, if you don’t end up using anything in some capacity (you will, but let’s say you don’t), there is still a tremendous benefit to be found in a life spent deliberately looking outward in pursuit of the good stuff. In the end, it’s not just about helping yourself create better work and serve your clients better. That is simply an inevitable benefit to the habit of tuning into greatness. But you can be sure that as you expand your horizons, your work will be distinguished not by its similarity to other campaigns or articles in the same field but by the part that stands out as original. Your fresh voice and your sideways angle are what will set your writing apart and keep your creativity flying high, safe from the depths of the dreaded rut syndrome.

So here’s to all those disparate bits of stimulation that will make your work better, stronger and more inventive. Stay tuned – to everything – and be inspired.

From Panda to Penguin: How to Practice Safe SEO Today

Anyone who has had some exposure to the internet knows the importance of Google. After all, as the world's single most important search engine in terms of user base and popularity, Google wields considerable power to make (or break) any website.

Time and again, Google makes changes to its SEO algorithm, in order to improve its search functionality and usability. Thus, while earlier it was an attack on paid links, last year Google came up with the Panda update that effectively tackled websites which were mere content scrapers or low-level affiliates.

While the impact and implications of Google Panda have been discussed all across the internet multiple times, certain newer changes in SEO algorithm are still relatively lesser known. In this article, we focus on the newest change – the Over Optimization Penalty, and how to tackle it.

What is it about?

To quote Google's Matt Cutts, certain websites are often built keeping search engines in mind, and thus many SEO folks have sites that are “over optimized”, or in other words, “overly SEO-ed”. In short, the axis mundi of Over Optimization Penalty is to target and punish websites that focus more on SEO and less on content quality.

Yes, that's right. With search engines controlling a good deal of incoming traffic for almost any website, many site owners publish content keeping Google and Bing in mind, not their website visitors. In other words, SEO becomes the King, while content takes back-seat. It is this very practice that Google's recent Over Optimization Penalty patch aims to hit at. The motive is to “level the playing field” and crawl websites that offer quality content, not quality SEO.

How does it affect me?

Before going any further, let me present you with (my version of) a handy guide to Search Engine Optimization.

At the most basic level, SEO deals with analysis of data related to your website, so that you can assess what interests your website's visitors the most, what makes them visit your site, which topics are popular (and which aren't), and so on. Once you have such data, you can optimize or tweak your website to provide your visitors with information that they prefer, and avoid information that they don't like.

For instance, say, you are running a website about coffee. Now, you notice that most visitors to your website come by searching for terms such as “how to make awesome coffee”, and not “utensils for coffee”. Thus, you can focus more on preparation guides for coffee, rather than offering advice about purchasing coffee mugs. Similarly, you realize that your visitors are keen on knowing about the production of coffee all across the globe, and you can further provide such informational articles.

This is where over optimization comes into play. In your bid to get more and more visitors, instead of simply providing awesome coffee-related articles, you may also resort to repeatedly offer technically similar or 'SEO-friendly' articles about the history of caffeine, which may or may not be totally useful.

Good SEO is about content, proper coding standards and information hierarchy, and definitely not just about extra keywords.

So what should I do?

Avoid excessive usage of keywords.

The crux of the Over Optimization Penalty is to promote websites that do not play a handicap match by relying on keywords more than the actual content itself. Of course, keywords still matter – but you should not stuff them or fall prey to the 'keyword density' gimmick.

Avoid unnecessary "networked" links.

Let's say you have 10 websites, and you've created a 'network' out of them. Now, if only you can cross link within this network of websites, your traffic will increase – after all, users visiting the first site will be like, “Hey there's more to this network. I gotta visit 'em all!” Right? Sadly, not anymore. Google has been going tough on websites that are abusing interlinking.

Avoid backlinks from uncanny locations.

In other words, avoid link spam, period.

Avoid spending days and nights to 'comprehend the algorithm'.

Do not create content that satisfies Google's search algorithm – instead, spend time creating content which meets the expectations of your users. Google will automatically follow suit and take notice of your hard work. Surely, many SEO experts can claim to give you instant traffic boost and content promotion – but rarely do such tricks work in the long run.

Update your old posts and articles.

If your website has older articles and posts which have a good rank in terms of SEO, it is worth updating them – not necessarily a re-write, but check for broken links, outdated information, etc.

Build links the proper way.

Yes, properly employed link-building techniques can be effective in promoting your website. Certain measures such as writing guest posts and posting relevant comments on websites that are similar in genre to yours can be fruitful.

Implement a healthy on-site strategy.

It goes without saying that simple and clean code, along with validated HTML and CSS promotes better crawling of your web pages. Also, it makes sense to employ plugins and methods to make your pages load faster. Good load times almost invariably lead to better traffic. Similarly, HTML5 and responsive web design are the way to go, like it or not!

Employ social networking.

Websites such as Twitter and Facebook are ideal for viral campaigns – this is a well known fact. Further more, just in case you haven't noticed, Google is now keeping social networks in mind when assessing the importance of a website – in any search page, you can see the +1 buttons under each result, thereby allowing users to like or dislike a website in one go. Naturally, you'd not want to miss out on the social networking front.

Keep track.

Google itself offers a plethora of tools to aid you in your quest to promote your website – for instance, you can consider using Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to your advantage.

Follow the golden rule of good SEO

So, what's the final word? Well, it's pretty simple, actually – Google is trying to offer search results that are clean of subpar content. Your best bet is to create content for humans, not search engines, so make sure you always write for people, not crawlers.