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rosesisupposes · 6 years ago

Note

If you're craving prompts, might I humbly request DLAMP, "we keep doing everything out of order."

…this took much longer than I planned, and is far longer than I planned. Also, much fluffier. But I hope you like it, dearest @potestessemagishomosexualitatis 💗💗

Last To Know

Pairing: (hurtling towards) DLAMP

Warnings: immigration, marriage of convenience, mild swearing? I think that’s it

Word count: 3,135

Tag list: @residentanchor @royally-anxious @bewarethegrammarpolice @jemthebookworm @arandompasserby @sparkly-rainbow-salt @astral-eclipse @thelowlysatsuma @adorably-angsty @max-is-tired @almostoveranalyzed @hawthornshadow @mariniacipher

read on ao3

There was a very reasonable explanation for all of this. It had been purely a logistical decision. Four acquaintances of Logan’s needed a place to live in his city; Logan had four vacancies in the house he owned and rented. He always kept the top floor for himself, making new tenants a risk, but he at least knew of the others through a combination of mutual friends, shared classes back in undergrad, and generally living in the same area.

They’d settled in fairly easily, right up until Roman confessed his visa was running out and he would likely have to leave the country. Patton had immediately started crying and hugging Roman and insisting they’d find a way to keep him there. Logan was unaware of when Patton had started caring so much. But even Virgil looked distressed, and Damien started wondering aloud how well they could hide him in the house so that he didn’t have to leave.

“Why can’t you apply for a new visa?” Logan asked.

“I’m no longer a student, and I’d need a more regular job for them to sponsor me for a full green card…” Roman said, facing Logan with some difficult thanks to Patton still being twined around him.

Dee’s dark eyes alit. “I know! You should marry one of us! Spouse visa! And then you can work on citizenship!”

“Isn’t that a bit extreme-” Logan started, but he was interrupted by Patton and Virgil both raising their hands as volunteers and Dee cackling in delight.

“But how to choose,” Roman said mournfully. “All my best friends in the world, how could I possibly marry only one of you!”

Virgil suddenly smirked, and Logan looked over curiously. “You know…” the dark-clad man said thoughtfully. “If you’re marrying someone for a visa, it really should be someone responsible and trustworthy. Someone who could believably support you.”

Logan had no idea what he was talking about, but suddenly all heads were turned towards him, and there was a more-than-a-little disturbing resemblance in the mischievous grins on each of his housemates’ faces.

Roman gently dropped Patton back onto the couch, and strode over to Logan wearing his “pompous prince” face (as coined by Virgil, of course). Stopping a foot away, he bowed elegantly.

“Dearest Logan, generous landlord, resident nerd, first stop for endearing space trivia and Sherlock obsessions, would you do me the great honor of giving me your hand in transactional matrimony?”

Logan blinked once. Then twice. Then attempted to speak but only achieved opening his mouth like a particularly stunned fish.

“Is that a yes?” Patton whispered to Dee in the background.

“I think it’s just gay panic,” Dee whispered back, looping an arm around the smaller man’s waist.

“…me?” Logan finally got out.

“Yes, my textually-charged academic,” Roman purred, taking Logan’s hand in his. “I need a man to support me in this foreign land of haw-yees and rednecks, you are the only one I trust to protect me.”

“Hey, we’d protect you too!” Virgil objected, sitting down on top of the couch. “But if you were in trouble, Patton would cry, I’d probably end up punching someone by accident, and Dee’s plan would either end in flames or crimes or both.”

“…isn’t this proposal also Dee’s plan?” Logan asked weakly.

“Yes, but this one is wonderful,” Roman said, kissing Logan’s hand in a way that was not distracting at all, thank you. “Plus, this way you don’t need to find a new lodger midway through the year!”

“I suppose that is a perk,” Logan admitted. “And the immigration process is so convoluted, this would likely be easier…”

“That’s the spirit! Almost!” Patton cheered. “Logan, you own a tux, right?!”

“Yes, why?”

“For the wedding, silly!”

~~~~

Logan really should have thought this through more. But the house had dived into preparations before he could properly object. Dee had made a Pinterest board and “ironically” sent Logan post after post of nerdy wedding aesthetics. Patton kept sneaking up on Logan and Roman with cake samples to try. Virgil popped his head into Logan’s room on a regular basis with out of the blue questions like “Black Parade could be a reception song, right?” and “How many volts of fairy lights could we run without fucking over the electric bill?”

And Roman just kept… being Roman. Flirting outrageously in that way that clearly meant so little to him but was starting to mean something to Logan himself. He’d taken to kissing his hand a lot and greeting him as “my darling fiancé,” and sitting next to or practically on top of him whenever the group was in the same room. Logan found himself agitated by how easily he was blushing now, all the time.

Roman had apparently opened the floodgates, because everyone was being far too affectionate now. Yes, Patton had always been a hugger, but now he kept planting kisses on Logan’s cheek, and holding hands with Dee, and sitting on Virgil or Roman’s lap and sometimes both at once. Dee flirted with, Logan was quite sure, every single person he laid his eyes on ever. But now he kept upping the ante and using fantastical phrases and wordplay tailored to the object of his attention. Logan had had no idea that being called ‘starlight’ would be quite so jarring and endearing and infuriating all in a moment. And Virgil had entirely betrayed him. They used to be the two reasonable ones, or so he thought. But no, Virgil was willingly participating with all of this madness, and had an amazing irritating habit of rubbing the nape of his neck when he was stressed so that all his muscles went involuntarily fluid and relaxed.

Logan arrived home one day to see their small backyard decked in lights, all the lawn furniture moved to the side so that the patio was clear. Patton greeted him at the gate with a hug and yet another cheek kiss as he said, “Lolo! Thank goodness you’re home, you need to get changed!”

“Whatever for?”

“Silly, it’s the 15th! The wedding!”

Logan stopped in his tracks. “I thought we weren’t going to the courthouse until next week?”

“Yes, but the semester will be over and all our friends still in undergrad won’t be able to make it. So we’re having the reception part tonight. We had this whole conversation after the movie last week, don’t you remember?”

But Logan did not. He didn’t even remember which movie it had been. Because Virgil had been slowly stroking his hairline, right at the back of his neck, and Patton had been lying across his lap so that he was across all three of Roman, Logan, and Virgil, and Roman had been giggling and leaning into his side in a way that it only made sense for him to lift his arm and drape it around him, and Dee had been telling Virgil how lovely his eyes were and… Logan had absolutely no memory of any other conversation that may or may not have happened.

But apparently that meant they had a party tonight.

Virgil convinced him to wear the tux still, and Patton blocked off the kitchen to finish the cake in secret. Dee kept making cracks about helping him change, but Roman was mysteriously absent all afternoon. Logan definitely didn’t miss him. It had only been a couple of hours! That would be silly and ridiculous and not what a highly logical person would do.

As 5pm arrived, Logan was in his well-tailored midnight-blue tuxedo. Dee, grinning in a tux with a bright yellow tie and matching gloves, arrived at his bedroom door to ‘escort the groom to the festivities.’ Somewhere on the walk down the stairs, Virgil joined them in a plain but nice-looking suit in black with a purple vest.

They walked out into the yard, filled with friends from the city and university they’d all attended. Everyone was in various forms of ‘their best’ from sundresses to cocktail dresses to gowns, from suspenders to jackets to tuxes, and some wonderful mixes of the two. Patton, glorious in a blue dress, had a microphone (where had they found a mic?) and greeted all his housemates happily and loudly.

“And now that the whole gang’s here, we can welcome the star of our hearts and the show! Roman, come on out for your first dance!”

Logan was pushed into the middle of the patio and Virgil held his shoulders facing away from the house. He could hear the door opening behind him and some “awws” and gasps from the crowd. Logan turned to look but Virgil held him, grinning. “Patience,” Virgil said teasingly.

Finally, the arms released him and Logan turned. Roman was only a couple of feet away, and he looked… stunning. He was wearing a gorgeous fluffy gown of red and gold and sequins, and matching makeup. Logan reached out a hand without thinking, and Roman took it with a smile. Music began to pour out of the speakers.

“It’s a beautiful night/We’re looking for something dumb to do/Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you”

Logan snorted. “A little on the nose, perhaps?” he murmured.

“I wanted to be precise,” Roman said back, lacing their fingers together and placing his free hand on Logan’s waist. With Roman taking the lead, they started to dance around the small dance floor of the patio. Virgil had done an amazing job with the fairy lights, rigging them to create a ceiling of sparkles that cast them all into a warm golden glow.

Roman suddenly smiled wide, and spun Logan around, letting his hand go free. Before Logan could catch himself, Dee caught his hands instead. Now Logan and Dee were waltzing around the floor in parallel to Roman, who was now dancing with Virgil. Their height difference made it a little awkward for Virgil to reach Roman’s shoulders, but then he lifted Roman by the waist to spin him through the air. The watching crowd whooped, and Roman laughed out loud, and Logan accidentally stepped on Dee’s foot because he forgot to watch where he was going. He stumbled, but was caught by something soft and blue. He looked down into huge blue eyes and a freckle-dappled smile.

“Thank you, Patton,” he said. “I’ve not quite got the hang of this dancing thing.”

“Maybe I can help!” Patton replied, pulling Logan close and guiding them into a simple waltz. “One-two-three, one-two-three,” he counted softly, and Logan followed the count, watching his feet.

He kept looking up slightly and then down again. Something about how bright Patton’s smile was, and how the lights reflected in his glasses and eyes, he just couldn’t look too long. But he did note that Dee and Roman were dancing now, some complicated dance that Logan felt himself mentally tripping just watching. But the two biggest drama queens of their house were in perfect sync, moving with fluid precision and both grinning hugely.

A tap on his shoulder pulled Logan’s attention to his side. Virgil smiled comfortingly. “Can I cut in, Lo?”

“Of course, Virge!” Pat said, stepping back. Logan was going to object to yet more dancing, he was, but Virgil had dressed up for this, and he was just self-conscious in front of crowds, so it would just be more polite to not turn him down. Virgil guided Logan’s hand to his hip, and Logan most definitely did not blush to be able to feel the shorter man’s muscles even through his formal outfit. And Patton had swirled off to dance with Ro, something much less regimented but with plenty of twirls and giggles. Dee kept the music going with “Can’t Keep My Eyes Off Of You,” and Logan and Virgil danced sedately, just swaying and turning.

“Virgil, why isn’t anyone else dancing?” Logan asked. “I thought after the first dance, the guests joined in?”

“Well, that is how it works for traditional weddings, yeah,” Virgil said in his familiar rumble. “But what about this is traditional?”

Logan chuckled at that, and let himself relax into the dance. Roman parted from Patton to change the music as Dee and Patton started to swing dance. Virgil and Logan both grinned watching them. Clearly all those old movie marathons had paid off.

Finally, Patton broke off and grabbed Virgil away from Logan. As the shortest members of the household, they were matched perfectly, and Virgil was willing to twirl and lift Patton to make the other man wriggle and laugh. Roman took the opportunity to pull Logan into his arms once more, and the crowd finally started to fill out the dance floor.

“Have I told you how good you look tonight, Logan?”

Blushing would absolutely be his cause of death. He hoped there wasn’t an afterlife, otherwise he would never live it down.

“I… thank you. Your dress is very dramatic and a little ridiculous but it’s so you.”

“They told me I couldn’t have a quinceñara,” he replied with a sniff. “So what better way to celebrate now?” They spun in relative quiet for a moment, when Roman smiled softly. “So, are you enjoying our wedding so far, Lolo?”

“You know, I rather am,” Logan admitted. “My feet are starting to get a bit tired, though.”

Roman swept Logan up off his feet and into his arms. “Is that better?”

Logan blushed hotly, muttering, “I meant I needed to sit down.”

“But is it better?” Roman wheedled. “No lying to your almost-husband, dear nerd.”

“…yes,” Logan admitted, and Roman laughed. The world was fairy-lights and glittering gowns, Logan was surrounded by his favorite people in the world, and later there would be five-tier cake and Crofter’s. It wasn’t something he’d ever expected, but he wasn’t such a stick-in-the-mud that he wouldn’t admit that it was magical.

~~~~

The flourescent lights of the courthouse were a far cry from the dreamlike lights of their reception, but today was the day and they were getting legally married. Logan was still a bit unsure about how they had reached this point, but found he cared less and less.

The whole house had come, of course, Patton linking Virgil’s and Dee’s arms around his own as he bounced in excitement. They waited through the decently-sized line until they finally reached the desk.

“Good morning, we would like a marriage license, please,” Logan said.

The clerk grinned just a bit bigger. “Congratulations! And what date would you like it made out for?”

“Today, please,” Roman said happily, linking his arm with Logan’s and squeezing. Patton make a sound of delight behind them.

The clerk nodded, and typed on the computer until they were interrupted by a question. “Do you know if it’s possible to enter a legal partnership with more than one person in this municipality?” The seemingly-idle question was in Dee’s unmistakeable drawl.

“Oh, yes, certainly! Marriage, domestic partnerships, and adoption can all be amended to have any number of partners. I think we need special permission at ten or more, but even that is still possible, just a longer process.”

Roman squeezed Logan’s arm tighter. “Lo? Is that okay?”

Logan looked back in confusion. “This is for you, Roman. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

Patton squealed again, and hugged them both from behind. “Form for five, please!”

Logan supposed that was all right. That would make it more believable, right? If Roman was equally committed to all his housemates, that would be more reason to let him stay in the country. And it made Patton so happy.

He felt slightly divorced from his body as he went through the motions of showing his ID, and signing the forms, but suddenly they were finished, and Roman had his arm looped around him on one side and Dee was on the other. Pat and Virge were on the outside, both snickering as the group tried to walk down the hallway without detaching with varying levels of success.

They were married. All five of them. And Roman would get to stay.

As they got home again, they all ended up sprawling across the couches. They fell into their most comfortable configuration, with Logan the only one sitting normally. Patton was taking full advantage of being the small one to sit across their laps. Dee was lying on the back of the couch up against the wall, fingers intertwined with Roman’s where he lounged diagonally with Pat’s head in his lap. Virgil was upside-down from the back of the couch, curled oddly so his head was on Logan’s thigh but Pat could still hold his hand.

Logan sighed contentedly.

“Whatcha thinkin’, Lolo?” Dee asked, a little sleepily.

“I was just reflecting on how comfortable I feel with you all. Even though we started as mere acquaintances, I do think of you all as very much like my family, now. And it’s rather nice that we’re legally a family now, for however long.”

Logan didn’t see the glances exchanged around and over him, but did hear Roman’s question. “How long would you like us to be, Logan?”

“Well, as long as it takes for your citizenship, of course.”

“What about after that, L?” Virgil asked.

“I… I don’t know. Divorce is rather a process, I suppose we could stay in this arrangement until a large enough inconvenience comes along to justify it.”

“So… you would like to stay married to us all?” Patton asked. Logan couldn’t tell what his tone meant, but there were hints of… curiosity.

Logan answered slowly. “I believe… yes. I would. I am… rather fond of you all, and always appreciate the time we spend together, for whatever reason.”

Roman smiled softly, and reached out to pat his face. “We love you too, Logan.”

Logan blinked. “Love? In which sense of the word?”

“Romantic, you dummy,” Dee muttered, practically falling asleep on the back of the couch.

“…wait, you… all? Romantic? Love?” Logan stuttered.

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Yeah, man. Normally that’s what marriage means. Plus our first dances? Of the people in love?”

“Hey, don’t make fun of Lolo, he’s not that good at his own feelings,” Patton chided. “Yes, cupcake, we all love you. We thought you knew.”

“Oh,” Logan said, blushing. “I… apologize for being the last to know. I suppose it’s a good thing that I’ve fallen in love with you all, too. We keep doing everything out of order, don’t we?”

“Nah, ‘s just you,” Dee said, snuggling into the blanket Roman had just passed him, seconds from sleep.

“But we all got here in the end,” Virgil said, a comfortable rumble on Logan’s left.

Logan ran a hand through Patton’s soft hair, and smiled at Roman, who’d started it all. “Here’s to arriving, then. I look forward to being your collective husband.”

“We love you too, Lolo.”

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merryhollingswor-blog · 6 years ago

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wickedbananas · 7 years ago

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Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Tell me if this rings a bell. Are your search recommendations overlooked and misunderstood? Do you feel like you hit roadblocks at every turn? Are you worried that people don't understand the value of your work?

I had an eye-opening moment when my colleague David Mitchell, Chief Technology Officer at VML, said to me, “You know the best creatives here aren’t the ones who are the best artists — they’re the ones who are best at talking about the work.”

I have found that the same holds true in search. As an industry, we are great at talking about the work — we’re fabulous about sharing technical knowledge and new developments in search. But we’re not so great at talking about how we talk about the work. And that can make all the difference between our work getting implementing and achieving great results, or languishing in a backlog.

It’s so important to learn how to navigate corporate bureaucracy and cut through red tape to help your clients and colleagues understand your search work — and actually get it implemented. From diagnosing client maturity to communicating where search fits into the big picture, the tools I share in this article can help equip you to overcome obstacles to doing your best work.

Buying Your Services ≠ Buying In

Just because a client signed a contract with you does not mean they are bought-in to implement every change you recommend. It seemingly defies all logic that someone would agree that they need organic search help enough to sign a contract and pay you to make recommendations, only for the recommendations to never go live.

When I was an independent contractor serving small businesses, they were often overwhelmed by their marketing and willing to hand over the keys to the website so my developers could implement SEO recommendations.

Then, as I got into agency life and worked on larger and larger businesses, I quickly realized it was a lot harder to get SEO work implemented. I started hitting roadblocks with a number of clients, and it was a slow, arduous process to get even small projects pushed through. It was easy to get impatient and fed up.

Worse, it was hard for some of my team members to see their colleagues getting great search work implemented and earning awesome results for their clients, while their own clients couldn’t seem to get anything implemented. It left them frustrated, jaded, feeling inadequate, and burned out — all the while the client was asking where the results were for the projects they didn’t implement.

What Stands in the Way of Getting Your Work Implemented

I surveyed colleagues in our industry about the common challenges they experience when trying to get their recommendations implemented. (Thank you to the 141 people who submitted!) The results were roughly one-third in-house marketers and two-thirds external marketers providing services to clients.

The most common obstacles we asked about fell into a few main categories:

Low Understanding of Search

Client Understanding

Peer/Colleague Understanding

Boss Understanding

Prioritization & Buy-In

Low Prioritization of Search Work

External Buy-In from Clients

Internal Buy-In from Peers

Internal Buy-In from Bosses

Past Unsuccessful Projects or Mistakes

Corporate Bureaucracy

Red Tape and Slow Approvals

No Advocate or Champion for Search

Turnover or Personnel Changes (Client-Side)

Difficult or Hostile Client

Resource Limitations

Technical Resources for Developers / Full Backlog

Budget / Scope Too Low to Make Impact

Technical Limitations of Digital Platform

The chart below shows how the obstacles in the survey stacked up. Higher scores mean people reported it as a more frequent or common problem they experience:

Some participants also wrote in additional blocks they’ve encountered - everything from bottlenecks in the workflow to over-complicated processes, lack of ownership to internal politics, shifting budgets to shifting priorities.

Too real? Are you completely bummed out yet? There is clearly no shortage of things that can stand in the way of SEO progress, and likely our work as marketers will never be without challenges.

Playing the Blame Game

When things don’t go our way and our work gets intercepted or lost before it ever goes live, we tend to be quick to blame clients. It’s the client’s fault things are hung up, or if the client had only listened to us, and the client’s business is the problem.

But I don’t buy it.

Don’t get me wrong — this could possibly be true in part in some cases, but rarely is it the whole story and rarely are we completely hopeless to affect change. Sometimes the problem is the system, sometimes the problem is the people, and my friends, sometimes the problem is you.

But fortunately, we are all optimizers — we all inherently believe that things could be just a little bit better.

These are the tools you need in your belt to face many of the common obstacles to implementing your best search work.

7 Techniques to Get Your Search Work Approved & Implemented

When we enter the world of search, we are instantly trained on how to execute the work – not the soft skills needed to sustain and grow the work, break down barriers, get buy-in and get stuff implemented. These soft skills are critical to maximize your search success for clients, and can lead to more fruitful, long-lasting relationships.

Below are seven of the most highly recommended skills and techniques, from the SEO professionals surveyed and my own experience, to learn in order to increase the likelihood your work will get implemented by your clients.

1. How Mature Is Your Client?

Challenges to implementation tend to be organizational, people, integration, and process problems. Conducting a search maturity assessment with your client can be eye-opening to what needs to be solved internally before great search work can be implemented. Pairing a search capabilities model with an organizational maturity model gives you a wealth of knowledge and tools to help your client.

I recently wrote an in-depth article for the Moz blog about how to diagnose your client’s search maturity in both technical SEO capabilities and their organizational maturity as it pertains to a search program.

For search, we can think about a maturity model two ways. One may be the actual technical implementation of search best practices — is the client implementing exceptional, advanced SEO, just the basics, nothing at all, or even operating counterproductively? This helps identify what kinds of project make sense to start with for your client. Here is a sample maturity model across several aspects of search that you can use or modify for your purposes:

This SEO capabilities maturity model only starts to solve for what you should implement, but doesn’t get to the heart of why it’s so hard to get your work implemented. The real problems are a lot more nuanced, and aren’t as easy as checking the boxes of “best practices SEO.”

We also need to diagnose the organizational maturity of the client as it pertains to building, using and evolving an organic search practice. We have to understand the assets and obstacles of our client’s organization that either aid or block the implementation of our recommendations in order to move the ball forward.

If, after conducting these maturity model exercises, we find that a client has extremely limited personnel, budget and capacity to complete the work, that’s the first problem we should focus on solving for — helping them allocate proper resources and prioritization to the work.

If we find that they have plenty of personnel, budget, and capacity, but have no discernible, repeatable process for integrating search into their marketing mix, we focus our efforts there. How can we help them define, implement, and continually evolve processes that work for them and with the agency?

Perhaps the maturity assessment finds that they are adequate in most categories, but struggle with being reactive and implementing retrofitted SEO only as an afterthought, we may help them investigate their actionable workflows and connect dots across departments. How can we insert organic search expertise in the right ways at the right moments to have the greatest impact?

2. Speak to CEOs and CMOs, Not SEOs

Because we are subject matter experts in search, we are responsible for educating clients and colleagues on the power of SEO and the impact it can have on brands. If the executives are skeptical or don’t care about search, it won’t happen. If you want to educate and inspire people, you can’t waste time losing them in the details.

Speak Their Language

Tailor your educational content to busy CEOs and CMOs, not SEOs. Make the effort to listen to, read, write, and speak their corporate language. Their jargon is return on investment, earnings per share, operational costs. Yours is canonicalization, HTTPS and SSL encryption, 302 redirects, and 301 redirect chains.

Be mindful that you are coming from different places and meet them in the middle. Use layperson’s terms that anyone can understand, not technical jargon, when explaining search.

Don’t be afraid to use analogies (i.e. instead of “implement permanent 301 redirect rewrite rules in the .htaccess file to correct 404 not found errors,” perhaps “it’s like forwarding your mail when you change addresses.”)

Get Out of the Weeds

Perhaps because we are so passionate about the inner workings of search, we often get deep into the weeds of explaining how every SEO signal works. Even things that seem not-so-technical to us (title tags and meta description tags, for example) can lose your audience’s attention in a heartbeat. Unless you know that the client is a technical mind who loves to get in the weeds or that they have search experience, stay at 30,000 feet.

Another powerful tool here is to show, not tell. Often you can tell a much more effective and hard-hitting story using images or smart data visualization. Your audience being able to see instead of trying to listen and decipher what you’re proposing can allow you to communicate complex information much more succinctly.

Focus on Outcomes

The goal of educating is not teaching peers and clients how to do search. They pay you to know that. Focus on the things that actually matter to your audience. (Come on, we’re inbound marketers — we should know this!) For many brands, that may include benefits like how it will build their brand visibility, how they can conquest competitors, and how they can make more money. Focus on the outcomes and benefits, not the granular, technical steps of how to get there.

What’s In It for Them?

Similarly, if you are doing a roadshow to educate your peers in other disciplines and get their buy-in, don’t focus on teaching them everything you know. Focus on how your work can benefit them (make their work smarter, more visible, make them more money) rather than demanding what other departments need to do for you. Aim to align on when, where, and how your two teams intersect to get greater results together.

3. SEO is Not the Center of the Universe

It was a tough pill for me to swallow when I realized that my clients simply didn’t care as much about organic search as my team and I did. (I mean, honestly, who isn’t passionate about dedicating their careers to understanding human thinking and behavior when we search, then optimizing technical stuff and website content for those humans to find it?!)

Bigger Fish to Fry

While clients may honestly love the sound of things we can do for them with search, rarely is SEO the only thing — or even a sizable thing — on a client’s mind. Rarely is our primary client contact someone who is exclusively dedicated to search, and typically, not even exclusively to digital marketing. We frequently report to digital directors and CMOs who have many more and much bigger fish to fry.

They have to look at the big picture and understand how the entire marketing mix works, and in reality, SEO is only one small part of that. While organic search is typically a client’s biggest source of traffic to their website, we often forget that the website isn’t even at the top of the priorities list for many clients. Our clients are thinking about the whole brand and the entirety of its marketing performance, or the organizational challenges they need to overcome to grow their business. SEO is just one small piece of that.

Acknowledge the Opportunity Cost

The benefits of search are no-brainers for us and it seems so obvious, but we fail to acknowledge that every decision a CMO makes has a risk, time commitment, risks and costs associated with it. Every time they invest in something for search, it is an opportunity cost for another marketing initiative. We fail to take the time to understand all the competing priorities and things that a client has to choose between with a limited budget.

To persuade them to choose an organic search project over something else — like a paid search, creative, paid media, email, or other play — we had better make a damn good case to justify not just the hard cost in dollars, but the opportunity cost to other marketing initiatives. (More on that later.)

Integrated Marketing Efforts

More and more, brands are moving to integrated agency models in hopes of getting more bang for their buck by maximizing the impact of every single campaign across channels working together, side-by-side. Until we start to think more about how SEO ladders up to the big picture and works alongside or supports larger marketing initiatives and brand goals, we will continue to hamstring ourselves when we propose ideas to clients.

It’s our responsibility to seek big-picture perspective and figure out where we fit. We have to understand the realities of a client’s internal and external processes, their larger marketing mix and SEO’s role in that. SEO experts tend to obsess over rankings and website traffic. But we should be making organic search recommendations within the context of their goals and priorities — not what we think their goals and priorities should be.

For example, we have worked on a large CPG food brand for several years. In year one, my colleagues did great discovery works and put together an awesome SEO playbook, and we spent most of the year trying to get integrated and trying to check all these SEO best practices boxes for the client. But no one cared and nothing was getting implemented. It turned out that our “SEO best practices” didn’t seem relevant to the bigger picture initiatives and brand campaigns they had planned for the year, so they were being deprioritized or ignored entirely. In year two, our contract was restructured to focus search efforts primarily on the planned campaigns for the year. Were we doing the search work we thought we would be doing for the client? No. Are we being included more and getting great search work implemented finally? Yes. Because we stopped trying to veer off in our own direction and started pulling the weight alongside everyone else toward a common vision.

4. Don’t Stay in Your Lane, Get Buy-In Across Lanes

Few brands hire only SEO experts and no other marketing services to drive their business. They have to coordinate a lot of moving pieces to drive all of them forward in the same direction as best they can. In order to do that, everyone has to be aligned on where we’re headed and the problems we’re solving for.

Ultimately, for most SEOs, this is about having the wisdom and humility to realize that you’re not in this alone - you can’t be. And even if you don’t get your way 100% of the time, you’re a lot more likely to get your way more of the time when you collaborate with others and ladder your efforts up to the big picture.

One of my survey respondents phrased it beautifully: “Treat all search projects as products that require a complete product team including engineering, project manager, and business-side folks.”

Horizontal Buy-In

You need buy-in across practices in your own agency (or combination of agencies serving the client and internal client team members helping execute the work). We have to stop swimming in entirely separate lanes where SEO is setting goals by themselves and not aligning to the larger business initiatives and marketing channels. We are all in this together to help the client solve for something. We have to learn to better communicate the value of search as it aligns to larger business initiatives, not in a separate swim lane.

Organic Search is uniquely dependent in that we often rely on others to get our work implemented. You can’t operate entirely separately from the analytics experts, developers, user experience designers, social media, paid search, and so on — especially when they’re all working together toward a common goal on behalf of the client.

Vertical Buy-In

To get buy-in for implementing your work, you need buy-in beyond your immediate client contact. You need buy-in top-to-bottom in the client’s organization — it has to support what the C-level executive cares about as much as your day-to-day contacts or their direct reports.

This can be especially helpful when you started within the agency — selling the value of the idea and getting the buy-in of your colleagues first. It forces you to vet and strengthen your idea, helps find blind spots, and craft the pitch for the client. Then, bring those important people to the table with the client — it gives you strength in numbers and expertise to have the developer, user experience designer, client engagement lead, and data analyst on the project in your corner validating the recommendation.

When you get to the client, it is so important to help them understand the benefits and outcomes of doing the project, the cost (and opportunity cost) of doing it, and how this can get them results toward their big picture goals. Understand their role in it and give them a voice, and make them the hero for approving it. If you have to pitch the idea at multiple levels, custom tailor your approach to speak to the client-side team members who will be helping you implement the work differently from how you would speak to the CMO who decides whether your project lives or dies.

5. Build a Bulletproof Plan

Here’s how a typical SEO project is proposed to a client: “You should do this SEO project because SEO.”

This explanation is not good enough, and they don’t care. You need to know what they do care about and are trying to accomplish, and formulate a bullet-proof business plan to sell the idea.

Case Studies as Proof-of-Concept

Case studies serve a few important purposes: they help explain the outcomes and benefits of SEO projects, they prove that you have the chops to get results, and they prove the concept using someone else’s money first, which reduces the perceived risk for your client.

In my experience and in the survey results, case studies come up time and again as the leading way to get client buy-in. Ideally you would use case studies that are your own, very clearly relevant to the project at hand, and created for a client that is similar in nature (like B2B vs. B2C, in a similar vertical, or facing a similar problem).

Even if you don’t have your own case studies to show, do your due diligence and find real examples other companies and practitioners have published. As an added bonus, the results of these case studies can help you forecast the potential high/medium/low impact of your work.

Image source

Simplify the Process for Everyone

It is important to bake the process into your business plan to clearly outline the requirements for the project, identify next steps and assign ownership, and take ownership of moving the ball forward. Do your due diligence up front to understand the role that everyone plays and boil it down into a clear step-by-step plan makes it feel easy for others to buy-in and help. Reducing the unknown reduces friction. When you assume that nothing you are capable of doing falls in the “not my job” description, and make it a breeze for everyone to know what they’re responsible for and where they fit in, you lower barriers and resistance.

Forecast the Potential ROI

SEOs are often incredibly hesitant to forecast potential outcomes, ROI, traffic or revenue impact because of the sheer volumes of unknowns. (“But what if the client actually expects us to achieve the forecast?!”) We naturally want to be accurate and right, so it’s understandable we wouldn’t want to commit to something we can’t say for certain we can accomplish.

But to say that forecasting is impossible is patently false. There is a wealth of information out there to help you come up with even conservative estimates of impact with lots of caveats. You need to know why you’re recommending this over other projects. Your clients need some sort of information to weigh one project against the next. A combination of forecasting and your marketer’s experience and intuition can help you define that.

For every project your client invests in, there is an opportunity cost for something else they could be working on. If you can’t articulate the potential benefit to doing the project, how can you expect your client to choose it above dozens of potential other things they could spend their time on?

Show the Impact of Inaction

Sometimes opportunity for growth isn’t enough to light the fire — also demonstrate the negative impact from inaction or incorrect action. The greatest risk I see with most clients is not making a wrong move, but rather making no move at all.

We developed a visual tool that helps us quickly explain to clients that active optimization and expansion can lead to growth (we forecast an estimate of impact based on their budget, their industry, their business goals, the initiatives we plan to prioritize, etc.), small maintenance could at least uphold what we’ve done but the site will likely stagnate, and to do nothing at all could lead to atrophy and decline as their competitors keep optimizing and surpass them.

Remind clients that search success is not only about what they do, it’s about what everyone else in their space is doing, too. If they are not actively monitoring, maintaining and expanding, they are essentially conceding territory to competitors who will fill the space in their absence.

You saw this in my deck at MozCon 2017. We have used it to help clients understand what’s next when we do annual planning with them.

Success Story: Selling AMP

One of my teammates believed that AMP was a key initiative that could have a big impact on one of his B2B automotive clients by making access to their location pages easier, faster, and more streamlined, especially in rural areas where mobile connections are slower and the client’s clients are often found.

He did a brilliant job of due diligence research, finding and dissecting case studies, and using the results of those case studies to forecast conservative, average and ambitious outcomes and calculated the estimated revenue impact for the client. He calculated that even at the most conservative estimate of ROI, it would far outweigh the cost of the project within weeks, and generate significant returns thereafter.

He got the buy-in of our internal developers and experience designers on how they would implement the work, simplified the AMP idea for the client to understand in a non-technical way, and framedin a way that made it clear how low the level of effort was. He was able to confidently propose the idea and get buy-in fast, and the work is now on track for implementation.

6. Headlines, Taglines, and Sound Bytes

You can increase the likelihood that your recommendations will get implemented if you can help the client focus on what’s really important. There are two key ways to accomplish this.

Ask for the Moon, Not the Galaxy

If you’re anything like me, you get a little excited when the to-do of SEO action items for a client is long and actionable. But we do ourselves a disservice when we try to push every recommendation at once - they get overwhelmed and tune out. They have nothing to grab onto, so nothing gets done. It seems counterintuitive that you will get more done by proposing less, but it works.

Prioritize what’s important for your client to care about right now. Don’t push every recommendation — push specific, high-impact recommendations that executives can latch on to, understand and rationalize.

They’re busy and making hard choices. Be their trusted advisor. Give them permission to focus on one thing at a time by communicating what they should care about while other projects stay on the backburner or happen in the background, because this high-impact project is what they should really care about right now.

Give Them Soundbites They Can Sell

It’s easy to forget that our immediate client contact is not always able to make the call to pull the trigger on a project by themselves. They often have to sell it internally to get it prioritized. To help them do this, give them catchy headlines, taglines and sound bites they can sell to their bosses and colleagues. Make them so memorable and repeatable, the clients will shop the ideas around their office clearly and confidently, and may even start to think they came up with the idea themselves.

Success Story: Prioritizing Content

As an example of both of these principles in practice, we have a global client we have worked with for a few years whose greatest chance of gaining ground in search is to improve and increase their website content. Before presenting the annual strategy to the client, we asked ourselves what we really wanted to accomplish with the client if they cut the meeting short or cut their budget for the year, and the answer was unequivocally content.

In our proposal deck, we built up to the big opportunity by reminding the client of the mission we all agreed on, highlighted some of the wins we got in 2017 (including a very sexy voice search win that made our client look like a hero at their office), set the stage with headlines like, “How We’re Going to Break Records in 2018,” then navigated to the section called, “The Big Opportunities.”

Then, we used the headline, “Web Content is the Single Most Important Priority” to kick off the first initiative. There was no mistaking in that room what our point was. We proposed two other initiatives for the year, but we put this one at the very top of the deck and all others fell after. Because this was our number one priority to get approved and implemented, we spent the lion’s share of the meeting focusing on this single point. We backed this slide up verbally and added emphasis by saying things like, “If we did nothing else recommended in this deck, this is the one thing to prioritize, hands down.”

This is the real slide from the real client deck we presented.

The client left that meeting crystal clear, fully understanding our recommendation, and bought in. The best part, though? When we heard different clients who were in the meeting starting to repeat things like, “Content is our number one priority this year.” unprompted on strategy and status calls.

7. Patience, Persistence, & Parallel Paths

Keep Several Irons in the Fire

Where possible, build parallel paths. What time-consuming but high-impact projects can you initiate with the client now that may take time to get approved, while you can concurrently work on lower obstacle tasks alongside? Having multiple irons in the fire increases the likelihood that you will be able to implement SEO recommendations and get measurable results that get people bought in to more work in the future.

Stay Strong

Finally, getting your work implemented is a balance of patience, persistence, communication and follow-up. There are always many things at play, and your empathy and understanding for the situation while bringing a confident point-of-view can ultimately get projects across the finish line.

Special thanks to my VML colleagues Chris, Jeff, Kasey, and Britt, whose real client examples were used in this article.

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ezatluba · 4 years ago

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Holstein cows feeding at a dairy farm in Merced, California.

How Eating Seaweed Can Help Cows to Belch Less Methane

Emissions from the world’s nearly 1.5 billion cattle are a major source of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Now, researchers in California and elsewhere are experimenting with seaweed as a dietary additive for cows that can dramatically cut their methane production.

BY JUDITH LEWIS MERNIT

JULY 2, 2018

The spring morning temperature in landlocked northern California warns of an incipient scorcher, but the small herd of piebald dairy cows that live here are too curious to care. Upon the approach of an unfamiliar human, they canter out of their barn into the already punishing sun, nosing each other aside to angle their heads over the fence. Some are black-and-white, others brown; all sport a pair of numbered yellow ear tags. Some are more assertive than others. One manages to stretch her long neck out far enough to lick the entire length of my forearm.

“That’s Ginger,” explains their keeper, 27-year-old Breanna Roque. A graduate student in animal science at the University of California, Davis, Roque monitors everything from the animals’ food rations to the somatic cells in their milk — indicators of inflammation or stress. “The interns named her. She’s our superstar.”

Ginger is one of 12 Holstein cows participating in an experiment being conducted by Roque’s animal science professor, Ermias Kebreab, into reducing methane emissions from livestock by supplementing their diets with a specific type of seaweed. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with roughly 30 times more short-term, heat-trapping power than carbon dioxide. In California alone, 1.8 million dairy cows, together with a smaller number of beef cattle, emit 11.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent every year — as much as 2.5 million cars.

In the U.S., domestic livestock contribute 36 percent of the methane humans cause to be put into the atmosphere.

The enormity of those numbers, in part, motivated California lawmakers to pass a law to reduce methane emissions and other short-lived “climate pollutants” by 40 percent below 2013 levels by 2030. The California Air Resources Board subsequently ordered a majority of the reductions in the new law to come from the dairy industry. Other cuts will come from diverting organic waste from landfills and eliminating fugitive emissions associated with oil and gas operations.

The UC Davis study will contribute to a global store of knowledge on how to limit the methane produced by “enteric fermentation” — the digestive process in a ruminant’s upper stomach chamber, or rumen, where microbes predigest fiber and starch, releasing gases when they belch and exhale. It’s “one of a handful of options in various stages of development that seem to have the potential to reduce [enteric] methane by 30 percent or more,” says Ryan McCarthy, science advisor to the Air Resources Board.

Kebreab’s experiments with seaweed additives to cattle feed have now surpassed that 30-percent figure, with one type of seaweed slashing enteric methane by more than 50 percent. In the fight to slow climate change, such reductions are no small matter: In the United States alone, domestic livestock — including cattle, sheep, goats, and buffalo — contribute 36 percent of the methane humans cause to be put into the atmosphere, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Scientist Ermias Kebreab has studied how to reduce cow methane emissions for more than a decade.

Researchers worldwide are working on the livestock methane problem. In the past, scientists have tried mixing microbes from the low-methane-producing kangaroo forestomach into bovine gut microbes, selectively breeding less gassy cows. Researchers have also tried vaccinating to suppress “methanogens” — the bacteria that turn carbon and hydrogen into methane in the rumen. (That last idea was a little like trying to develop a flu vaccine that would work every year, in every corner of the world. “There were too many different methanogens,” Kebreab says. “We couldn’t calibrate it for all of them.” )

Feed additives have shown more promise. Three years ago, Alexander Hristov, a researcher at Penn State University, achieved a 30 percent reduction in enteric methane by salting ruminant feed with a substance called 3-nitrooxypropanol, or 3NOP (the substance is currently awaiting FDA approval). Kebreab believes seaweed might prove to be an even better solution. A native of Eritrea who came to the U.S. after working in the United Kingdom and Canada, the 45-year-old researcher has been working on the problem for 15 years. “It’s taken up pretty much my whole career,” he says.

In the research barn at UC Davis, Roque opens a large foil bag to reveal fistfuls of dried algae the color of old bricks: Asparagopsis, still off-gassing the ocean — fish and sulfur with bright notes of iodine. Interns have ground up the clumps and poured them into orange buckets. Roque puts on latex gloves to blend the dried seaweed with molasses to produce a shiny, viscous slop that the cows evidently find delicious. Palatability is key: One study in the UK that added curry to feed in a simulated cow rumen looked promising until the real-life cows refused to eat the curry.

“They’re pretty picky eaters,” Roque says. Foraging animals have to sort nourishment from potential poisons in the pasture. “If they run across something unfamiliar, they’ll avoid it.”

Farmers in ancient Greece and 18th-century Iceland deliberately grazed their cows on beaches.

Four of the cows eat a mixture of alfalfa and hay, heavily spiked with the seaweed-molasses mixture. Four more will eat the same feed, with less seaweed added in. The rest are the control group — they’ll eat plain feed, without any additives at all. Roque spent nearly two weeks training the cows in how to access their own specific feeding berths, affixing each one with a transponder that allows the cow to open an electronic door to her individual trough. Not all the cows are down with the program. One, large, black-masked Holstein repeatedly shoves her smaller, more compliant neighbor aside from the open door of her berth. The smaller cow obliges every time. Roque raps the bolder cow on the nose, and it withdraws, but not for long.

“They’re eating the exact same thing,” Roque says, a bit exasperated. In the paddock as in the pasture, “the grass really is always greener.”

When they finish eating, they’re enticed by the drop of a “cow cookie” to visit a compartment where an instrument, much like a breathalyzer, analyzes their emissions. “They hear it drop and come over,�� Roque says. “We try to get each of them there three times a day.” Each cow wears a ring on its ear that transmits an identification code along with its breath analysis to a database. Roque and Kebreab can view the results on their computers and smartphones.

The results have exceeded everyone’s expectations, including Kebreab’s. His three-month study of Ginger and her cohort found that spiking cows’ ordinary rations with one kind of marine macroalgae in particular, Asparagopsis, reduces enteric methane by 58 percent. More than other seaweeds, Asparagopsis contains compounds that inhibit the production of methane, or CH4, and interrupt the process by which carbon and hydrogen bind together.

“We did not expect these numbers in the doses we used,” Kebreab says. Milk production held steady or increased. A panel of tasters detected no differences among the different cows’ milk.

There’s nothing novel about cows eating seaweed, notes Joan Salwen, an environmental science fellow at Stanford University who introduced UC Davis scientists to the seaweed solution, and formed a nonprofit, Elm Innovations, to help focus and fund research. “Cows eat what’s available,” she says. In California, they eat almond hulls; in Georgia, they eat cottonseeds. Documented evidence attests to farmers in ancient Greece and 18th-century Iceland deliberately grazing their cows on beaches.

It was, in fact, an ordinary farmer who hit upon the idea of supplementing cows’ feed with seaweed — not for the climate, but simply for his animals’ overall health. On the shores of Prince Edward Island in Canada, Joe Dorgan observed that his beach-paddocked cows got pregnant faster and produced more milk than his inland pastured cows. When he retired from dairy farming in 2011, he launched a new business, North Atlantic Organics, to make “stormtoss shoreweed” from Prince Edward Island available to inland farmers who graze their cows during seasons of scanty forage.

Because it appears to promote milk production, the seaweed cure might catch on in other dairy states.

When Dorgan wanted data to market his product, he approached an environmental scientist named Rob Kinley, who was then at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. In 2014, Kinley and his colleague Alan Fredeen analyzed different varieties of seaweed that washed up on beaches, mixed in vitro with rumen microbiota, for their nutritional value and health impacts on ruminants. But being environmental scientists, Kinley says, “‘what if?’ possibilities are always in our peripheral vision.” With an interest in how all livestock feeds affect enteric methane, they measured their samples for methane production as well.

Kinley discovered in his laboratory tests that seaweeds could reduce methane production by as much as 16 percent. “That was the spark to deepen the search for more potent seaweeds,” he says.

By this time, Kinley had moved to Australia, where he went to work at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). In partnership with James Cook University and Meat and Livestock Australia, Kinley began screening different seaweeds for their impact on methane emissions from ruminant livestock. That process revealed Asparagopsis as the anti-methanogenic seaweed of choice. But Kinley is quick to warn that it does not grow in abundance all over the planet. If it breaks out as a global solution to enteric methane, it will need to be farmed.

Which is not, Kinley argues, a bad thing. Seaweed cultivation takes up excess nitrogen and dissolved carbon dioxide from ocean waters; cultivating it could create new economies in impoverished regions. Researchers still need to figure out how that would work. “There is no depth of knowledge in cultivation of Asparagopsis using any method,” says Kinley.

Ground-up Asparagopsis, a type of seaweed, which can reduce cow methane emissions up to 50 percent when added to feed.

“As far as we know,” says Salwen, “this supplement, if it proves out in all animal testing, could be offered in all livestock production systems that we know about.” Pasture-raised cows that eat primarily grass could have the supplement added to their water or to their salt licks.

Even though the California dairy industry at large fought hard against what farmers initially considered onerous regulation, at least some dairy farmers are tentatively enthusiastic about seaweed additives. “Methane is an indication of an inefficiency in the animal’s digestion,” says Jonathan Reinbold, sustainability program manager for Organic Valley, a cooperative of more than 1,800 dairy farmers, including 35 in California. “If you can increase the digestion efficiency of a cow by 5 percent you could remove 5 percent of the land you use for production for cows. It can go back to fallow or be used to grow other kinds of food.”

And because it also appears to promote milk production, the seaweed cure might catch on in other dairy states without many climate regulations. The California Air Resources Board’s McCarthy sees a future for seaweed boosting dairy production in developing countries. Reinbold imagines it spreading across his company’s U.S. cooperative.

“If the benefits are real and make sense financially, why wouldn’t we have the entire cooperative of 1,800 dairy farmers using it?” Reinbold says. “We certainly hope that’s the case.”

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the-b-l-o-o-m-blog · 5 years ago

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10 Wrong Answers To Common Decorative Concrete Sealant Questions: Do You Know The Right Ones?

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regrettablewritings · 8 years ago

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Day Bi Day: A Documented Study of the Bisexual (Rafael Barba x Reader)

A/N: I’m not off hiatus, but I’ve been sitting on this idea since maybe late-April/early-May, and Pride Month seemed like the best time to actually do it. So forgive me if it’s kinda crap, I’m not entirely back into my groove just yet. Also: There’s a reason documentaries are a visual medium: It’s because writing out one like a story is hard. But it helps to imagine the narration being done by Tilda Swinton or David Attenborough. Shoutout to @xemopeachx for looking forward to this and being my hype(wo)man and @mrsrafaelbarba – both of them let me pass things by them segment by craptastic segment! (Also, tagging @ohbelieveyoume because if they have to suffer through this monstrosity, then so do you. That being said, Happy Pride Month!!

New York City: Home to over 8,550,405 people, it is a melting pot featuring persons from varying walks of life. This port city has long served as a nesting ground for new ideas, and stomping ground for old-time culture treasured by the society of the present day. But in such a vast hub of differing ideals and backgrounds, it easily becomes a hotbed for practices unchecked. For in a city so grand and driven by the ambition to progress, some ideas can slip through the cracks. Or, better yet, slip right beneath our noses.

It is here that we introduce Rafael Barba.

A man of Cuban descent, Rafael has worked his way to the position of ADA in the Sex Crimes Bureau of New York City’s 16th Precinct. A self-made man, Rafael is easily a representative of the American Dream come to fruition. There is, however, one lingering secret that he carries: Rafael identifies as bisexual. In addition, his romantic partner, (Y/N), also identifies as bisexual.

Accounting for approximately 1.8% of the American population alone, the bisexual is a pariah in modern human sexuality. Unlike the heterosexual, who finds sex appeal in members of the opposite sex, or the homosexual, who finds it in those who identify like themselves, the bisexual foregoes both suggestions and meets characteristics of either extreme in the middle by expressing a desire to have sexual encounters with those like-gendered or the opposite. However, as with most situations, meeting in the middle of a two-way street can be catastrophic.

But why do these people choose to forgo sensibility? What drives them to commit such perplexities? What characteristics do they thereby display as they continue their decent into ruin? For the first time, in full depth, we will be exploring these matters with an up-close and personal examination into the lives of a completely and fully bisexual couple. Join us as we take a peek into the interactions of Rafael and (Y/N) as we unlock the secrets of this promiscuous pair,

Day Bi Day.

Given that they prefer sampling both extremes of the genders, bisexuals are inherently greedy in nature. Where the hetero and even homosexual finds satisfaction, the bisexual remains discontent with the average human being’s basic necessities.

Rafael’s big, brass “ego” was not a workplace-only thing: It also appeared in his home life quite consistently. For example, it was in the fact that he would not only hog the covers to himself, but run the A/C unit in the event he got too warm, giving him even more reason to pull even more blanket upon his side of the bed! You weren’t having any of that, both his greed and the blanket itself. You’d put up with him long enough and you weren’t afraid to use the tactics necessary to tarnish that brass.

This moment in particular, you decided as you sleepily glared at his back, called for a cold approach. Eyes narrowed from sleep and disgruntlement, you maneuvered your chilled feet up the back of the man’s shirt before pressing them against his spine. A sound caught between a groan, a whimper, and a displeased growl was his response as he weakly attempted to arch his back away from your icy torment but to no avail. Unfortunately, the same could be said for you in your own respect: His damn grip didn’t give. In fact, in his pathetic but noticeable effort to move away from your freezing feet, Rafael only managed to pull even more blanket off of your increasingly waking and shivering form. The nerve of him!

Through your weary state, you snapped your tongue against the roof of your mouth in annoyance. This man was really going to make you work for it, wasn’t he?

“Rafiiiiiiiiii,” you whined, realizing how much energy talking required. “Blankeeeeetttt.” You lazily reached out, fingers opening and closing but to no purchase. All you got back was yet another groan stifled against his pillow. For the love of God! You swore that you would destroy the man the next chance you got as you summoned every iota of energy you could to shakily push yourself up onto your elbow. You didn’t care that Rafael couldn’t see your glare (both because his back was to you and because his eyes were closed). All you cared about was that you were cold and it was because he wouldn’t share the damn cover!

“Rafael,” you groused. “Share.” With that command, you reached out and gripped as much of the comforter as your sleep-weakened grip could muster. When he didn’t make a sound of objection, you willed yourself to pull.

No luck.

Scowling, you tried again. Your little heart gave a fatigued leap of joy when you felt his hold on the blanket coming loose. Just had to pull a little harder –

You weren’t thinking too much when you pressed your feet against Rafael’s back once more for leverage and strained yourself as hard as you could in such a state. In fact, with how little he responded, it didn’t occur to you that he would actually make the effort to move, much less in a dramatic way.

When he turned over, front facing you, you got smacked with way too many thoughts and emotions for this forsaken hour: There was glee that the blanket was no longer nearly as wedged beneath and around him as before; contentment that you would now have enough coverage from the cold elements Rafael had cast upon the bedroom; shock when you realized that your body wasn’t stopping from tipping over; and that small but nevertheless realistic fear one gets once their body realizes that it’s falling.

Frankly, it was the lack of blanket on his body that made Rafael’s eyes crack open. But as his body dragged itself somewhat into consciousness, he came to the realization that he’d just heard a small yipping sound, followed by a thud. When his eyes adjusted to the dark just enough, he found your side of the bed barren, the blanket nowhere in sight. From your place on the floor, you heard your bedmate grunt, followed by the shuffling and squeaking of him dragging his body to the edge of the bed. It was quite easy to make out his face peering over the edge now that you were wide awake.

“… J’you fall over?” Rafael yawned dully.

He wasn’t expecting you to yank him off the bed to join you in your disgruntlement at 3AM.

It is due to this ravenous nature that the bisexual cannot be trusted. Their willingness to cross boundaries creates a brazen attitude, leading to a proneness of cheating. Imagine the frequency such occurs in a relationship wherein both participants identify as bisexual …

You knew what to expect when you opened up the pantry that afternoon: Whole wheat crackers, dried pumpkin seeds, Craisins, rice cakes – all placed neatly in a row on your side of the space. Courtesy of Rafael’s meddling, of course.

What you did not expect, however, was the sticky note pasted to a small container of low-sodium trail mix:

Good luck! You can do this! ❤ Rafi 😊, inscribed in his precise yet purposeful handwriting.

Your hand gently placed itself on your heart as you released a small “aww” of complete adoration. Soon after you’d professed your goal to begin eating healthier, he had become your biggest supporter, buying all kinds of lean snacks and substitutes for your usual junk food. He’d even offered to take the health plunge with you but you insisted that just putting in the effort to provide you with the foods you would need was kind enough. The letters, though? Unwarranted but nevertheless greatly appreciated.

It felt wonderful and empowering to know that your beloved believed in you, and it only made you believe in yourself all the more. You missed Double-Stuffed Oreos like the dickens but now you knew: You could do this! Filled with a newly stoked flame of determination, you decided to nosh upon the pre-determined serving size of whole wheat crackers – and then paused. Right as you were reaching for the box, a glimmer flickered from the corner of your eye. It came from Rafael’s side of the pantry.

It wasn’t that Rafael was an enabler – far from it! – but he certainly had a different approach to snacking than you did. While he certainly had consideration for his health, this did not mean that he restricted himself as drastically as one might think. The both of you knew how stressful and bitter his job was; you therefore had no qualms about his side containing more comforting foods: pretzels, Twizzlers, chocolate-covered sunflower seeds …

At first.

Rafael’s exact and orderly placement of snacks and foods was meant to wipe away any potential trouble caused by misplacement or supposed lack of space. For the first time in your relationship, this method had failed.

There, placed at just the right angle for the light of the kitchen behind you to hit the shiny packaging, was a small bag of milk chocolate Godiva truffles Rafael’s guilty pleasure snack. From the way the top of the bag was rolled, you could see that it had been opened. However, for as much of a snacker as Rafi was, he was pretty precise when it came to his chocolates. He probably even counted them to make sure he knew how many of the dollops he had left.

Considering this as a very real possibility, you shook your head gently and returned your attention to the whole wheat crackers.

…

The dry, crunchy, drag-against-your-throat-as-you-swallow-them crackers that would require way too many gulps of water to moisten them as they drain the saliva out of your mouth crackers …

Godiva, on the other hand, made your mouth salivate instantly. You wouldn’t need nearly as much watery assistance if you ate them –

No! Those weren’t a part of the plan, they were Rafi’s! Rafael had all the confidence and pride in the world for you, Rafael believed – no . . . He knew you could stick with your goal. It was only fair that you did your part and proved to him that you could! Come hell or woman riding naked on a high horse! … Speaking of which, what did Lady Godiva have to do with chocolate?

You got why nude plus chocolate could equal sensual, but there was a horse involved. And it was all because she wanted her husband to lay off on his oppressive taxes. Where the heck did the jump from dare to delicacy happen? Better Google it.

It was when you reached for it in your pants pocket that you realized you had left your phone in the bedroom. So no Googling the answer there … But surely there was an explanation on the bag, right? Godiva had probably received thousands of questions and comments about their choice in name and logo; to place an answer to all the queries on their packaging wouldn’t be farfetched in the least.

Besides, you thought to yourself as you pulled out the bag of truffles, it might be good to read something while I eat my crackers …

After a day full of errands, tackling the bustling streets of the city, and gritting his teeth as he withstood the annoyances of shouting pedestrians and work-related texts from Liv, Rafael needed an elixir to heal his fatigued body. And there were three things he usually turned to for such a purpose: Food, scotch, and you, not necessarily in that order.

With you lounging on the couch watching some show about the devil living in Los Angeles or whatever, and his favorite bottle of scotch still full and glimmering on the counter, there was one last thing he could use to perfectly sweeten this well-deserved respite.

Rafael thought himself to be the best, most considerate man in New York as he opened the pantry in search of Godiva. He felt that one truffle wouldn’t hurt you. After all, you’d been so dedicated these last few weeks, surely you, too, deserved a little treat –

Wait, what?

His brows furrowed over his confusion-filled, green eyes. Rafael took a step back to recollect exactly what his side of the pantry had looked like this morning when he’d opened it to find cereal. That bag of blueberry Craisins wasn’t there before, they were by the Twizzlers! He pushed the bag to the side, only to confirm his suspicions.

“Uhhh … Honey?” he called, eyes still trained on the shelf before him. “Have you seen my Godiva?” Had Rafael glanced back at your form, lazily lounged upon the sofa, he would have regarded how much more tense you’d suddenly become in the last second.

By the time he looked back at you, you had become somewhat less rigid. But only by a fraction. Thank God he couldn’t see your eyes from this angle, otherwise, they would have directed him to the wicker basket of magazines in the corner: the burial ground of the evidence of your crime.

But alas, it didn’t matter that he couldn’t read your eyes. As a lawyer, Rafael could read the atmosphere alone and that would be enough.

You knew this as you heard his voice ring from behind you, “Did – Did you cheat on your diet!?”

You didn’t care that the apartment wasn’t massive by any means; you booked it for a hiding place.

With an identity that lacks the certainty or foundation assured by those with definite attractions, the lifestyle of the bisexual is a peculiar one worthy of observation as it finds itself buffeted day in and day out by the individual’s ever-changing pronouncements. The lives of Rafael and (Y/N) are no exception to this pattern or lack thereof. Their shared abode is regularly populated with sordid activities in a modern recreation of Sodom and Gomorrah with the weekends serving as a bacchanal devoted to drugs, sex, and absolute debauchery.

Friday night.

It had been a long, physically grueling and mentally taxing week. It was time to let loose and throw out as much care as possible for the next few days and glut yourselves on all of humankind’s earthly delights.

You and Rafael had had it all planned out a week in advance: You were going to put on your Friday night best, plop down on the best seats in the house, down a few drinks to make you let loose, and keep your eyes peeled for the best-looking of the night, the worst-looking, and what you’d be willing to go home with if you had the right amount of alcohol in your systems. With your love of those that beamed wildness beneath the innocent demeanor and Rafael’s keen eye for peoples’ weaknesses, the both of you were sure to come out with a pleasurable evening.

This was, of course, the parade of bad choices that is Friday Bride Day on TLC.

“That’s an awful dress,” Rafael commented, popping a pretzel into his mouth. You hummed an agreement against his chest, analyzing what the poor fool on TV had just slipped herself into. The cut was all weird, there were frills here and sheer there. You were confident that you, as you currently were, in your best college sweats, would have been a better vision of a bride than the lady currently was in that getup.

As the glittery box showcasing the price showed up, you cocked an unimpressed eyebrow. $17000 for that?

“Not to mention out of her initial price range,” you muttered. Rafael echoed your previous hum.

“This is the one she’s gonna pick. But hey, that’s okay,” he picked up sarcastically. “She can just call up ‘Daddykins’, insist how she needs this dress, and he’ll bend over backwards to assure that she can have this one dress worth more than their car, which she will only wear once.” He shrugged. “May need to put in a mortgage on the house but …”

You nodded along to his commentary as you shoved a fistful of popcorn into your mouth, eyes still trained on the screen.

“ – I’m saying yes!” the white-clad blonde proclaimed in a shrill voice, adding an excited little wiggle to her decision. Well, at least some designer was getting paid instead of the punch to the knuckles that they deserved.

“Yaaayyy,” you murmured in unison. It was a notedly droning one, complete with lazily raised hands that slapped back down to your laps and sides once the effort of being excited proved to be too much for the moment.

As the screen cut to interviewing the bride about her dress and to her mother, who was agreeing that the dress was “without a doubt ‘her daughter’”, you couldn’t help but continue to critique the end result. “She should’ve gone with the first once she tried on,” you insisted. “It was all nice and frilly … It wasn’t anything crazy new or out there, but at least it was nice.”

“They never do,” sighed Rafael as he slowly shook his head.

“No …” you admitted. There was a shared moment of silence between the two of you as the episode came to an end and the next one began. As the camera focused in on the Kleinfeld assistants being given their usual morning lecture, you lightheartedly glanced up at Rafael. “But I would’ve loved to see you in it, Rafaelito.” You emphasized your comment with a gentle pat to his cheek.

Rafael, however, wasn’t on the same level as you. “Seriously, (Y/N)?” he scoffed. “No seas ridículo, Cariño. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Vera Wang wedding dress. Those things are cursed.”

You pouted. “But maybe with your beauty, the curse would break itself out of shame.”

The small chuckle that fluttered out fizzled in his chest and tickled your ear that was still pressed against it. “ ‘Beauty,’ you say? I had no idea that I was anything more than surly and perpetually ready to punch somebody in the throat.”

“Mhmm,” you insisted. As you stretched and yawned against your beloved’s torso, you managed to grunt out, “Rafael is the prettiest guy in New York City. All the dresses want to fit him like a glove. Even the cursed ones.” By the way he exhaled, you could tell that he was smirking.

As he playfully pinched your cheek between two knuckles, Rafael confirmed: “Segúro que sí.”

Returning back to the show, he found himself visually insulted by sewn-together monstrosity passing for a dress being gleefully pulled from the selection by the bride of the episode. Immediately, his smirk fell. “Except for that one,” Rafael said quickly. “That dress is too awful for to feel sympathy for anyone, no matter how pretty.”

“Agreed.”

But perhaps this deviant behavior is actually a key to unlocking the mystery of bisexuality. This never-ending venture through the many chapters of the id has proven to be a point of interest to psychologists and sexperts alike, who collectively suggest that this constant search to fulfill an impossible high is the bisexual wandering in a constant state of confusion. With a lack of understanding in their own identity, their place in life, and an entire flurry of other complications, the bisexual is in a constant state of limbo: Lost, uncertain, and with the stability of a broken bridge.

“Lupita Nyong’o.”

“Definitely. Cute smile, pretty eyes, altogether sweet girl. A younger Richard Gere.”

“Well, if that’s the case, then just say you like Jon Bernthal. They look alike, you’d get the same cute smile and everything.”

“I’m counting that as your turn. Anyway, Sofía Vergara.”

“Eeeehhhh …”

“What’s wrong with Sofía?”

“Nothing, it’s just … Wasn’t she in The Smurfs movie?”

“We are not holding that against her,” Rafael asserted crossly. He topped it off with an especially pronounced spoonful of cereal. It was Tuesday night, and the both of you were too tired from work to cook up dinner. But you were also too hungry to withstand the half-hour wait for delivery. Cereal for dinner it was.

Somewhere along the way, it had turned to dinner and a show – or, rather, a showcase of people whom you both found attractive. Neither you nor Rafael could recall how or why it started in the first place but whatever the case, it had since evolved. Not necessarily into revelations over one another’s tastes, but more so a way to critique each other’s very tastes. And so far, no one was truly winning. At least, not for long.

“Okay, well what about . . . Chris Pine!” you enthused.

“Uh-uh-uh!” Rafael bounced his spoon in rhythm to his tutting. “We agreed: None of the Chrises. It’s too obvious.”

You bit your lip, trying to hold back a gushy grin worthy of any schoolgirl. “Well, yeah, but … But he’s just so cute!” The smile flew loose from its weak captivity and released a series of fawning over “how blue” his eyes were, and how he “still uses a flip phone like a nerd.” Rafael, however, was not as swayed by Chris Pine’s unchronological appeal.

“Mi alma, he looks like stock footage of a poster you’d see in the room of a teenage girl in a movie,” he attempted to tease. You shot him a glare for his very specific description.

“Chris Pine is a goddamn treasure, and his name and likeness will not be besmirched in this household! He made me feel things in Wonder Woman!” You slammed a hand to your heart for effect. You leaned in closer and whispered, “Feelings I thought I had ripped out of me to better survive in this world, only to learn that they made me stronger.”

Rafael rolled his eyes. It was after work hours and he’d exhausted the best of his attorney abilities; he didn’t feel like even trying too hard to win this argument. Best to just let you have this one. For now. He dug around in his bowl, collecting cereal.

“Oh, that reminds me: Lynda Carter,” he said between bites.

You cocked your head in consideration, chewing on the thought, before subtly nodding. “Mm. Yeah, I can see that.”

A short, incredulous chuckle escaped from him. “What was with the hesitation? It’s Wonder Woman. The original Wonder Woman!”

“I mean, yeah, definitely, she’s gorgeous but … Now whenever I think Wonder Woman, I think Gal Gadot.” To further get across your point, you added, “Talented, sweet-hearted, athletic, smart, Gal Ga-freaking-dot!” This managed to coax a chortle out of your dining mate.

“Okay, okay, both of them. Both are fine.” Rafael then flashed that smirk of his. “Glad to know you really do have tastes outside of me, Cariño.” Before you could throw acidic words back at him, Rafael hurried in with, “George Clooney.”

That stopped you. Your brow wrinkled in slight disbelief. “George Cloo – Oh, Rafi!” you exclaimed, your tone heavy with what could only be described as pity and disappointment. You even cocked your head to the side, as if changing the angle would make you comprehend what you were hearing any better. Meanwhile, confusion startled itself onto Rafael’s face.

“What? George Clooney is – is a classy man and – ” he struggled to defend.

“And he’s a total cliché, that’s what!” you interrupted.

“He’s not a cliché, he’s an attractive man and everyone but you seems to understand that,” Rafael stated, adding in a purposefully snooty upturn of his nose. Had he looked down (or even not), he would be able to see that this only riled you up further.

“Well, if you’re gonna put him out there, then I’m using another Chris!” you declared. Your threat of calling another Chris from the pack caused Rafael to lower his head in an instant.

“Honey, no, we agreed – ”

“Chrissss,” you went on, “Pratt.” You made sure to snap the ‘t’ off with especial vigor.

At the clarification by way of surnaming your choice, Rafael’s countenance once again returned to confusion. “Chris Pratt?” he inquired. “Not Hemsworth?” You shook your head, confirming that he had, indeed, heard you correctly.

“I find Christopher ‘Thor’ Hemsworth’s lack of tummy disturbing.” You placed a spoonful of cereal in your mouth to signify your dedication to the subject.

“What is it with you and men’s stomachs!?” Rafael cried. You gave him no answer. He knew you wouldn’t.

“Idris Elba,” he sighed, having been forced to give up on you.

“Yes. God, yes,” you willfully agreed. It was now your turn. You tapped the tip of your spoon against the corner of your mouth as you put yourself in thought. Eyes turned up, you searched your mental catalog, trying to recall who you already voiced, whom Rafael had already named, who would be too obvious, and then – you found them:

“Jeffrey. Dean. Morgan.” You punctuated every name with precise wave of your spoon. Tall, funny, plays a lovable bad guy so well, and a silver fox: A mighty fine choice, in your (superior) opinion.

As he began to process your most recent addition to your list, Rafael’s brows pushed downward.

“Jeffrey Dean Morgan,” he repeated slowly, as if trying to get a feel for the name himself. He then pursed his lips critically. “(Y/N), he’s old enough to be your father.”

You shrugged, albeit with an obvious lack of true consideration of Rafael’s point. “Yeah, well, you know . . . He’s not.” You seemed to leave it at that as you leaned toward your bowl of cereal. From the way your voice trailed, he took it as a sign of self-accepted defeat.

Rafael soundlessly scoffed, rolling his eyes and shaking his head for good measure. You sure had weird tastes and no right to question his at this rate. It was quiet for the next moment, with Rafael trying to think of whomever else he found attractive, and with the both of you chewing your newest respectful spoonfuls.

Therefore, with the silence settling in, it was quite easy for Rafael to hear you quickly mutter into your bowl, “Sure is my Daddy™, though.”

The rest of the silence was shattered by the dramatically bombastic sound of Rafael coughing over a piece of cereal that he had carelessly allowed to fall the wrong way.

Knowing that he would be fine, you tried to hide the evil smirk growing on your face. You’d won.

With these characteristics taken into consideration, it has become common proposition that bisexuality is, in fact, a phase. One powered not necessarily by the inevitable changes of life that may drive other stages, but more so by the individual’s determination to be different by any means necessary, regardless of deviancy. It is this sort of decision, which can potentially span across a lifetime, that impacts not only people like Rafael and (Y/N), but their loved ones as well.

You decided that you liked Eddie Garcia. You had only met the man a handful of times before and never had any reason to dislike him, per se, but tonight, you knew for certain: Eddie Garcia was a sweetheart and an all-around pleasant guy to be with, so long as you were on his good side. The revelation that he had been one of the secret-keepers of Rafael’s sexuality growing up, and had even created more of a protective presence for him also did plenty for how you viewed the man.

Plus, being one of the Three Musketeers of Jerome Avenue, Eddie had access to even more embarrassing Rafael stories than even Lucia! Especially once you got a little liquor in his system. Of course, you hadn’t truly known this in full depth before. But tonight, in an effort to keep in touch better, Rafael had invited Eddie over for some drinks. And lord, were the three of you having one hell of a time filling the apartment with all kinds of laughter, spurred on with every sip taken and every story recounted.

“ – and so then, Eddie finally lets me handle his BB gun. I was feeling cool, I swore I was the hottest little shit,” Rafael carried on. You nodded, eagerly awaiting the next fragment of the story. From his position at the table, Eddie was shaking, trying to hold in his own laughter as he recalled in his own head exactly what had gone down in his old friend’s story.

“I don’t even know where the hell I was aiming or even what at, I just remember pulling that trigger, hearing glass shattering, and seeing everybody else scrambling to get away from me. Eddie left me in the middle of the street with that damn gun still in my hands and I’m going, ‘What are we gonna do!?’ and Eddie – still running, mind you, yells back, ‘Whaddya mean ‘we’!?’”

In an instant, Eddie gave way to howling out in laughter. Stuck in your own fit, you had no time to determine whether his face was red from roaring or from the alcohol intake.

Between his gasps for air, Eddie threw in, “And – and the best part was that Mr. Viteri never did find out what happened to his car window!” before getting sucked back into the mindless merriment.

You giggled in hiccups as you tried to down another gulp of this evening’s poison of choice.

“Dang, Rafi! I and thought what you did to impress Lauren Sullivan was bad,” you teased. Rafael shrugged, lop-sided smile present as he raised his glass of scotch to his lips. Eddie’s expression, however, became one of bewilderment. He sat up straight, brows creased over eyes sparkling with amusement.

“Lauren Sullivan? You thought Lauren Sullivan was the worst of it!? Naw, sweetie, she wasn’t the worst one,” Eddie insisted, his hand slapped the air as if to wave all assumptions out. It was only after this that he appeared to pause to recollect his thought. “Wait. Wait, Rafi,” Eddie’s attention flew to Rafael. “Rafi, you never told her about Antonio?” At the sound of that name, you noticed Rafael’s face become flushed, further emphasizing the wideness of his eyes. Oh, this was about to be delicious.

“No, he hasn’t,” you responded, cutting off the stammered attempt of a reply Rafael had been trying to get out. “But please: Tell me more about this ‘Antonio.’ Was he another one of Rafi’s little friends?” You propped your elbows on your knees as you leaned forward with baited breath.

“ ‘Friend’? Ha! More like his obsession!” Eddie corrected before taking a sip of his beer. Once he was satisfied, he leaned back in his seat as if to mimic a wise storyteller. “Antonio Espinosa – or Tony, as we were lucky enough to call him, in Rafi’s opinion. He was in the grade above us, and Rafael was not-so-quietly smitten by him behind his back. And at first, you could see why: he had the hair, the smile, had a cute lil freckle on his face…”

With every description Eddie provided, Rafael slouched further and further into his seat. It was as if the memory of Tony was pushing him downward as it rose up. While his features never entirely expressed such, you surmised that Eddie was relishing in Rafael’s growing embarrassment just as much as you were. Maybe even more.

“Problem was, Tony couldn’t dress for shit! Boy wore a cheap leather jacket to school on picture day, slicked back his hair with his papi’s shoe polish – while trying to grow a mullet. Walked around wearing this crappy pair of leather pants, looked like a walking garbage bag! Stunk of his papi’s cheap cologne, tried to make up slang to come off as hot shit … And Rafi ate. It. Up. Pobre estúpido, ¿qué estaba pensando?”

You couldn’t tell which was funnier: The toothy, proud grin Eddie wore as he taunted your sweetheart’s crappy tastes, or the red face that Rafael was trying to hide behind his hands, ashamed that his classy reputation was being dismantled by one flaw in the system.

“Rafael!” you squealed. “He sounds so tacky – You can’t talk about my tastes anymore!”

Rafael muttered through his fingers, “Jesus, I can still see that mullet …” The glare he slipped between his fingers failed miserably. “Look, you like what’s in proximity, okay? Tony was nearby and he wasn’t … bad.”

“Well, not in the traditional sense. But, oh, he wanted to be, (Y/N). Wanted to be the designated bad boy of our block,” Eddie snarked into the lip of his bottle.

You couldn’t help but giggle at the idea. “Rafi? Having a thing for a bad boy!?”

Eddie nodded. “A bad boy who wore crappy jeans he painted dollar bills on, no less.” That summoned a rippling chortle from you as you slapped your hand on the table in defeat. Rafael, having since released his burning face from his hands, grouchily poured himself a full glass of whiskey to temporarily distract himself.

The two of you couldn’t stop laughing soon enough in his opinion.

“Seriously, though, (Y/N), I think we both can agree that I protected Rafi from more than just bullies: I protected him from himself,” Eddie stated. He flashed a mischievous grin. “If I didn’t help keep him grounded, he would’ve started to dress like Tony just to get his attention. He seriously was considering saving up for a members only jacket – a red one, so Tony would know he was bold!”

“It was – It was fashionable at the time, I thought if he saw me in it, he’d think I was cool!” Rafael attempted to defend. Unfortunately, flustered and being full of alcohol was not the best state to be in when trying to use your lawyering skills.

“No, mi bien amigo. You honestly would’ve been cooler if you went with the leather jacket and pants – and that’s still a poor fit for you.”

“I dunno, Eddie,” you offered, biting your smiling lip. “Leather jackets are a pretty bisexual thing … I have a few myself, I’m surprised Rafi doesn’t have at least one.”

“Come on, now, (Y/N), could you see this one” (Eddie gestured to Rafael, who suddenly seemed heavily interested in the nutrition label of the scotch bottle) “wearing a leather jacket all the damn time? Or even at all!?”

Both pairs of eyes turned back to the man in question. Apparently Rafael had grown bored with all the nutrition whiskey had to offer and was now finding entertainment with the button on his sleeve.

You pursed your lips, then nodded once. “I can see that. Might even be sexy.”

This coaxed a raspberry from Eddie. “Wow, keep making up claims like that and you’ll be a better lawyer than Rafi.”

You shook your head, continuing, “But I dunno; ‘Rafael Barba’ doesn’t sound enough like a bad boy worthy of the leather.”

“What about ‘Ramirez’?” Eddie suggested. “ ‘Rafael Ramirez’: The baddest boy of Jerome Avenue.”

“Working title. But location names are good for bad boys. Like Arizona Ramirez!”

As you and Eddie were preoccupied with your various states of drunken laughter and name-giving, Rafael had begun to down his scotch with a mad fervor. Maybe if he drank enough, he wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning and, perhaps, even forget the brief yet monstrous Tony Phase of his life.

He did not. And apparently, neither did you, as a few days later Rafael returned home to find a leather jacket just his size laid out on the bed.

If this is, indeed, the case, then it would be sufficient to come to the conclusion that bisexuals do not truly exist in any form beyond the theoretical.

Rafael gave his tie one last tug and considered his reflection. After taking a moment to observe how it looked on him, how it harmonized with his suit and pocket square and even socks, he gave in: He would have to thank you for convincing him to buy this. It was legions better than the color gradient one he was worried he’d have to consider settling on. It wasn’t unusual for the great Rafael Barba to don immaculate clothing both in and out of court. And anyone who knew him or had seen how he dressed would find nothing out of the ordinary with today’s tie.

But with every stripe of the pink, purple, and blue pattern, there was meaning. There was pride.

Pride in who he was, in the person he was with. There was even a bit of pride and support for the person whom he was set to defend in today’s trial. It was entirely coincidental that their trial landed on September 23rd. Rafael was sure that it had meaning to them, just as it held meaning to himself. But the truth was, with not too many people seeing it as such, today as another day with another case.

In this, however, they could easily just assume that this was yet another one of Rafael Barba’s famously colorful ensembles. They wouldn’t likely pick up on his agenda, just assume that it was “Barba being Barba.” If today’s first part of the trial didn’t necessarily work out, he could at least have the ability to wordlessly console his client and let them know that he was going to fight like hell for them. He considered that a victory. A small one, but one nonetheless.

Making sure that his shirt was tucked in, pink-and-black suspenders in place, cologne thoughtfully applied, and his hair neatly styled, Rafael called out to you that he was preparing to commute to work.

Your reflection soon joined his from behind, entering the proximity from your previous location at the table with breakfast. A small smile eased its way onto Rafael’s lips as he regarded your own apparel: Pink blouse, purple skirt, blue flats.

As he turned around to face you and reveal the front of his own outfit, a small, syrupy gasp escaped from your ever-growing smile. Your hands flew up to your mouth as you fawned over your dapper man.

“Oh, Rafi,” you gushed, “you look so proud and handsome!”

Ever one for praise, Rafael not-so-subtly basked in your compliment with a raised head and that crooked smile of his that you loved so much. “I thought I always looked this good,” he joked lightly.

You nodded vibrantly. “Oh, you do. But today, you look even more handsome because it’s an outfit that I helped coordinate!” You expressed your pride through small but gleeful and rapid claps using the tips of your fingers.

A small puff of a chortle passed Rafael’s lips as he allowed his smile to grow. You were quite lively this morning. “Fair enough,” he allowed, collecting his briefcase by his feet and making a beeline towards the door.

“Now what do you say?” you said as you followed him.

Even from your position behind him, you could tell that proud and flattered smile of his had since converted into one of mischief. “I am afraid that I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he claimed.

“Rafiiiiii,” you pouted, playing along with his claim.

“What? I really don’t!” Rafael swore, turning around to greet your trailing figure. He didn’t even bother hiding his crooked smirk. The nerve of this man!

“Rafael!” you snapped. You tried to come off as intimidating, but your amusement was obvious. It was hard work looking upset when you were fighting back a laugh.

Thankfully, you needn’t hold it in for long: Rafael’s own chuckle fluttered out of him as he gave in to your insistence. “Si, si, gracias, mi alma,” he murmured. “You have excellent taste.” He then leaned forward, pressing a kiss to your hairline.

Your blush and smile bloomed beneath his lips, his kiss serving as the sun. “De nada, Rafaelito,” you whispered.

You didn’t want your sweetheart to go. And Rafael didn’t exactly want to separate himself from this warm moment, either. But a job is a job, and he was about to be late for his if he didn’t get a move on soon. Sighing quietly with acceptance, he mumbled against your hair, “I have to go now, Cariño.”

Your smile faltered, but only slightly. “Gotta represent?” you spoke. The attempt to liven up the mood gave Rafael a reason to gently beam.

“You know it.” He didn’t dare move as you stood on your toes to press a peck for good luck on his cheek.

Whilst still extending yourself, you implored, “Go get ‘em, Rafaelito. Show them what happens when you invoke the wrath of the bi-furious!”

Once again, you managed to coax a small laugh out of him.

Gently insisting that he would, Rafael pressed his lips to yours for one last kiss to hold him over for the rest of the day, telling you he loved you. He almost regretted it, as it only made it harder for him to leave. However, your work needed you, his client needed him, and he needed to prove a point to the jury and the public.

And if that point required him to give the defendant hell, then Rafael would, indeed, induce “the wrath of the bi-furious.” He would never dream of giving anything less.

From these observations, we can only conclude that the self-proclaimed “bisexual” is unlikely to lead an entirely wholesome life. Until they confront their circumstances and contradictories and make an effort to correct their circumstances of sex and hedonistic pursuit, bisexuals such as Rafael or (Y/N) will be unable to achieve a sense of completion. A lifestyle of monogamy and happiness are decidedly incompatible with a force that refuses to change for the betterment of the individual’s physical, mental, and emotional health.

You weren’t sure what hit you first: The sound of music, or the realization that Rafael wasn’t in bed next to you. Regardless, you awoke with a quiet groan and your fist gently gripping at the part of the bed he usually occupied. The more you came to, the more you began to realize how cool his half of the bed was, signifying that he’d actually been gone for a while. And the more you came to, the more you began to recognize the song: Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E.” The Spanish version. It came echoing out of the bathroom, rising above the hiss of the shower.

As you gained further consciousness, you could just make out an extra voice singing along: Rafi’s voice.

“ –Sé todo lo que me dirás, Ha de darme la felicidad. Dime pronto qué es ‘amor’ Que tu palabra espero Háblame de nuestro amor – ”

At the sound of his voice, a sleepy smile grew upon your face. Rafi used to sing it all the time during your second year of dating –

At this recollection, you willed your eyes open, forcing the sleep and initial disappointment over Rafael’s absence away. You knew what today was. And now you were halfway tempted to join him in the shower. To your dismay, the creak of the spout handle sounded, leaving only the sound of Rafael and Nat King Cole’s voices bouncing against the bathroom walls and lingering into the bedroom.

You didn’t even try to not look a bit disappointed when your singer finally rejoined you in the room, already dressed.

Upon realizing your awoken state, he released a small whine. “Maldito. I was hoping you’d stay asleep just a little while longer.”

You scoffed, “Well, if that was the case, then you shouldn’t have been blasting music and singing along to it.” You made sure to include the smile you’d really wanted to give him at the end of your accusation. Rubbing the last bit of sleep from your eyes, you pushed yourself into an upright position to better greet him.

“What? I thought you liked this song; at least, you loved it when I sang it,” Rafael smirked. As he approached his nightstand to put his watch back on, he looked upward in apparent thought. “I wonder why I felt the need to play it?”

“Gee, I wonder why,” you played along, sarcasm hanging from every word.

Rafael pretended to consider the situation. “Maybe because it’s catchy?”

“Hm. Could be. But I don’t think that that’s the case today.”

“Well, I do,” Rafael shrugged. “So I guess that must be it –”

“Rafi,” you jokingly warned.

“I know, I know,” he finally gave in. With his smile becoming less impish and more sincere, he gently pulled you into a hug. “Happy anniversary, corazón.” A warm, pleasant feeling trickled down your skin as you felt him whisper into your hair.

Wrapping your arms around his waist, you looked up at those eyes you loved so much. “Happy anniversary, Rafaelito,” you returned, sealing it with a kiss. The embraces on one another only tightened with the newest sign of affection. The two of you would have potentially stayed like this a bit longer, had Rafael’s playlist not gone on to the next song.

At the sound of the rhythmic drumbeats, followed in by a bouncy flow of piano, you found Rafael’s lips had detached from your own.

“Oh, no …” you muttered as you watched the smile on Rafael’s face grow. “Ra –”

Rafael was unraveling the hug and pulling you off of the bed and to his chest before you could even finish whatever it was you were planning on saying.

“Oh, come on, honey,” he persisted as he noticed you putting up some resistance. “Dance with me a little!”

You shook your head like a stubborn child. “It’s too early!” you tried reasoning.

“It’s never too early or late for Benny Moré! I’m feeling quite lively this fine morning.”

“You’ve been up longer! And besides …” You bit your lip. “You know I can’t keep up with ‘La Cocaleca.’”

“And you never will unless you actually try dancing to it,” Rafael pointed out.

“You sure are lively, Rafi,” you said. “Our anniversary should be every day if it means you’ll be like this more.”

Rafael rolled his eyes. “Just come here and follow my lead.”

You weren’t entirely joking when you had said earlier that every day should be your anniversary. It always seemed to bring out the brighter part of Rafael’s personality. The part that very few were privy to.

You were lucky enough to be one of those very few. You were also lucky enough to be the one who got to hold his hand now, as you walked the streets of the city. You had long since given up on trying to figure out where you were headed. Instead, you’d decided to relish in how you hand entwined with his and how he made no qualms against you laying your cheek against his shoulder as the two of you appeared to be walking aimlessly around the area. Even if you were fighting back a growling stomach, empty due to being ushered out of the apartment without breakfast.

Rafael could easily go without a genuine meal, becoming so used to having to snack throughout his days between paperwork and visits to the precinct. You, however, were not as used to it. It also puzzled you a bit that he would even choose to forgo breakfast at all considering that the man loved to actually eat when he could.

You had your suspicions, but kept them to yourself.

“Okay, we’re here,” Rafael spoke, breaking you from your reverie. As you took a moment to gather your surroundings, you found yourself in front of a very familiar café: Café Adelaida. A hint of pride became evident on Rafael’s face as he felt your grip tighten with realization.

As he began to lead you inside of the establishment, the two of you were hit with the smells of coffee and culinary masterpieces, the sounds of dishes and silverware clashing, and people chattering in English and Spanish alike.

“I remember this place: This is the first non-work place we ever went to,” you breathed. Your sparkling eyes flickered from corner to corner, reliving that day and remembering what used to be where, thankful that very little had changed since then.

Rafael chuckled by your side. “Yep: This was where we had our first date,” he confirmed.

“Is that what you want to call it?” you asked tauntingly. “I thought you took me here to prove the superiority of Cuban coffee to American coffee.”

“What, I couldn’t do both? Besides, you should be thanking me: Without this place, you never would’ve known the miracle that is café con leche.” Normally, you would have playfully swatted at his arm for boasting. However, at the prospect of getting some genuine café con leche after such a long hiatus from it, your mouth watered. You would let Rafael have this. For now.

“This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have eaten so much,” you whimpered. The weight of the authentic Cuban food you’d eaten a little less than half an hour ago was beginning to hit you. Added in with the fact that you’d been woken up relatively early on a Saturday, and the feeling of sleep was beginning to massage your eyes.

Rafael, interestingly enough, appeared to be wide awake.

“I told you not to push yourself if you couldn’t finish it all in one go,” he reminded. There was a hint of mockery in his tone.

You scowled. “You probably ate more than I did, how are you not ready to collapse onto the pavement!?”

“Because first off, ew. But secondly, I’m a man on a mission. Sube a mi nivel, amor.” He shot you a cocky smirk at that last sentence. If you weren’t so curious as to what kind of mission he was on, you would’ve found motivation to keep up with Rafael by that look of his alone.

Thankfully, you needn’t keep the pace up for too long. A few shortcuts and you found yourself in the park. Thank God, now you could take a seat –

“Not there,” Rafael said as he gave your hand a small tug. You raised an eyebrow but followed his lead. But after looking back on the bench you had nearly sat upon, you realized it had one too many bird dropping stains on it. Good call, Rafi… . And yet, when you came upon the next bench, he did the same thing: “Sorry, sweetie. Not that one, either.”

“Come on, Rafi, I need to sit.”

“Just a little more, then I promise you can sit,” he assured. You gave in, finding no real point in putting up a fuss. For as tired as you were getting, the scenery around you was sure helping you feel better.

It was a lovely day for a stroll around the park: The sun was out, the smell of the blossoms in the trees were carried by the wind, and people were out with their children, dogs, or their own loved ones. You considered stopping for a moment to bask in the stimuli, but Rafael appeared to be focused elsewhere. Interestingly, however, that “elsewhere” was a bench. Not even one with a dedication plaque on it, but a regular, black bench positioned by a small, wiry tree and a previously-planted patch of pansies.

“Okay, (Y/N),” Rafael allowed. “Now you can sit.” He held your hand as you not-so-gracefully plopped your tired body down on the seat. Sighing with relief, you closed your eyes and took in the sounds of the wind in the trees and squeals of laughter from the playset down yonder. The warmth of Rafael’s body soon resonated from your side as he joined you.

“Do you remember this place?” you heard him ask.

“How can I forget the park?” you asked, eyes still closed.

You heard a small laugh. “No, I mean this bench. Do you remember it?”

Opening your eyes, you looked around you. The more you looked, the more you couldn’t help but feel like maybe this wasn’t a regular bench after all. But you couldn’t quite place where this was …

“It’s where we had our first kiss,” Rafael quietly reminded you, gently squeezing your hand at the thought. In an instant, the memories came flooding back. It had been at dusk when the two of you first sat here together, hence why you had trouble remembering it. Everything looks different when it’s darker. But then, everything also looks different when you’re locked in a kiss with someone you feel greatly for.

“How did you remember it was exactly here?” you asked, eyes widened.

“How could I not?” he replied. At this, you slouched in your place on the bench.

“Well, now I feel like crap. I couldn’t remember it …”

“I think I have a way of making you feel better, then,” Rafael offered as he gingerly turned your head to face him.

As much as you enjoyed the stimuli of the soft, sweet breeze and how it carried the smells of the flowers and the sounds of laughter and children at play, it was all so easily drowned out once you found yourself sharing yet another memorable kiss in the place where a new chapter in your relationship had begun.

You were thankful that Rafael decided not to make you suffer again by walking back home. A cab ride may not be entirely romantic (especially after reliving an important stage in one’s relationship), but it sure beat the trouble of arriving home sweaty and too exhausted to get ready for dinner. Not that you were even certain that you could ever be too tired to want to go out Even if you weren’t the biggest fan of fancy dining, doing so with Rafael always made it more tolerable.

However, you might’ve been too eager in your efforts to ready yourself: The cab wasn’t due for another half hour and you’d been sitting on the couch with Rafael the entire time. Not that you truly minded it. Sure, the exchange between you two or lack thereof was quiet, but it was a good kind of quiet. From the way you both took quick glances at each other and held hands in wait against the backdrop of music he’d left on, it was almost adorable. It felt a lot like how it had been when you’d first started dating, if Rafi were a more open person at the time.

It was in this shared moment of silence that the playlist went to its next selection:

So when it rains, I’ll shield your head And when you cry, I’ll wipe those tears. Because it’s you, through all these years, And I’m still in love with you …

“Huh,” Rafael hummed. “This takes me back.”

You tried not to bite your lip and disturb the makeup on it. “Don’t make yourself sound so old, Rafi,” you cooed.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Cariño,” he mumbled. “I meant, this brings back a lot of memories for me.”

“Really?” you purred, scooching closer. “Like what?”

Rafael licked his lips in thought. “Well … I once heard this at a bar I went to after a rough day at court. Reminded me how lonely and pathetic I was.”

You nodded. “And?”

“And once, I heard it at a department store when I was shopping for new cologne.”

You pressed your lips together. These weren’t quite the answers you were looking for. “And what else?”

“What else is there?” Rafael prodded. You gently nudged him, knowing that he knew darn well what you were getting at.

“Come on, Rafi, you remember which bench we were on when we first kissed but not what this song means to us?”

“I am afraid that I do not.”

Your frustrated sigh was betrayed by the fact that it came from a smirking mouth. “This is the song you first told me you loved me to.”

Rafael cocked his head as if to mimic the process of thinking. “Is it?”

“Yes!”

“Bueno, mirate,” he finally gave in. “Looks like you have quite the memory on you as well, princesa.” As his thumb grazed across the back of your hand, you couldn’t help but nuzzle at his neck as you recalled that moment: You’d been trying to get him to relax after a tense week. Perhaps your methods had worked too well, as after a couple of minutes spent massaging his shoulders, he uttered out his confession. You’d never seen him so relaxed. And you never thought you’d see him in such a state again.

A sigh of content flowed passed your lips as you enjoyed the feeling of Rafael’s caresses. The remainder of the wait was spent listening to the way he sang in whispers.

“So when the day turns into night, I know that everything’s alright. Because it’s you, through all these years, And I’m still in love with you …”

You knew you should have given Rafael his anniversary gift this morning, before he’d dragged you out of the apartment. Curse Benny Moré and his beautiful voice and its ability to bewitch even the likes of Rafael Barba to dance at nine in the morning. It wasn’t that you didn’t enjoy all that Rafi had done for you – far from it! Even dinner at a restaurant that required a reservation turned out to be a delightful affair. But now, as you wiped away your makeup and changed into clothes suited for comfort, you couldn’t help but feel … insecure.

Rafael was never one for half-measures: If he wanted to get a point across, then he darn well did it. You both loved this quality and felt a bit rushed by it. Sometimes, he made it so hard for you to keep up with him and gave him back exactly what he gave you. You wanted to make sure that the happiness he supplied you with was returned at the same amount. If not, tenfold!

But how is one to keep up with reliving important relationship firsts and an evening out at a hard-to-get-into facility? How could your gift compare to his?

“Cariño,” you heard Rafael call from the living room.

Drat. It was too late to toss it out of the window and pretend that you’d ordered something that had gotten lost in the mail.

With the shaky sigh, you resigned delaying the inevitable. You willed your hands to not shake the rectangular package wrapped in pastel blue paper and proceeded to where your significant other was.

As you entered the room, Rafael appeared to be messing with the stereo.

That man and his music, you thought, taking a seat on the couch. If he thought he was going to get you twirling and twisting to more Benny Moré on a full stomach, then he had another thing coming. Thankfully, the sound of brass and percussion instruments never pierced the air, even as he appeared to be finished with whatever task he had put himself up to.

Swiveling to meet your sitting form, Rafael neared you with a purpose before stopping just before you.

After clearing his throat (which caused you to roll your eyes at the theatrics), Rafael began to extent his hand. “Cariño,” he repeated. “Would you please –”

“Wait!” You had to admit, you startled yourself by blurting that out in the midst of Rafael’s sentence. Now you went and made it awkward. “Uh …” you stammered. “I … I –” With no other thoughts to fall back on, you softly directly the package in your hands to Rafael. “Before we do anything else, please open my gift …” You hadn’t meant to sound so quiet or uncertain. You wanted to take the box back and smack it into your face.

Rafael, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind, taking a seat on the cushion next to you and accepting the parcel from you.

“Careful,” you instructed. “There’s glass.” You said nothing more as you watched him gingerly peel back the wrapping to reveal your gift.

It was a shadow box. One you’d made over the course of the last few months whenever he was out. Your silhouettes, white and standing in the foreground, were further emphasized by the vivid imagery that served as the background: Stickers of Spanish phrases, pictures of the two of you, of him at work or cooking. Stickers of coffee mugs and sandwiches and of the Cuban and American flag. Images of the people both of you found attractive. There was even a textured sticker of a leather jacket pasted in one corner, with “Ramirez” scrawled on the back in gold sharpie. And, dangling from a white ribbon at the top of the box, was the first ring he’d ever bought you.

It was a Valentine’s Day gift, you wore the thing to practical death until Rafael convinced you to move on to something cleaner and less scratched up. He didn’t know that you kept the thing in your jewelry box until now.

Rafael said nothing as he began to realize the components of the box in his lap, and it made you nervous. You anxiously began to twirl a lock of hair and began muttering.

“I know it’s not expensive or crazy out-there or anything but …” You trailed. But what? There was no butt. You had no excuses; you just couldn’t keep up with the likes of Rafael Barba.

He said nothing, slowly placing the shadow box onto the coffee table. You tried not to sigh in disappointment and embarrassment. Well. So much for ending the evening with –

A small squeak slipped out of you as you found yourself being pressed flush against Rafael’s chest, his arms wasting no time to wrap themselves around you in a world of warmth. But what was even warmer was the way his words puffed into your hair as he murmured a thank you. And it sounded so genuine. You couldn’t believe it.

“Bu – ” Once again, you were cut off. This time, by the constant peppering of kisses along your face. In between every other peck were coos of “thank you” and how much the kisser himself appreciated your gift.

“But,” you attempted again, “you went and did all this other neat stuff! You even remembered all these firsts …” At this, Rafael stopped his flattery and maintained eye contact.

“Not every first. I mean, not yet …”

Your eyes would’ve popped from your head had your brows not pressed downward in disbelief.

“You mean there’s more!?” you cried. “I can’t keep up!”

“But I really loved what you gave me, Cari –”

“You did all this thoughtful stuff and all I got you was a high school art project,” you whimpered, pressing your hands to your face in shame. It therefore frustrated you to hear the man beside you actually chuckling in your moment of dramatic despair.

“Ahem,” you groused. You lowered your hands to reveal a glare. “I’m in distress, here, Rafi, let me mope.”

“Si, si, I can see that,” Rafael said. “Pero mira: I’m serious. I really do love your gift. It’s something only you could give me, and it’s something I’d only accept from you.” In sincerity, he placed a hand on your cheek to caress it. “And speaking of accepting …” Reaching at the coffee table, he retrieved the remote to the stereo and clicked the play button.

With the whirring of it spring to life, it did not take long for the air to be filled, once more, with the sound of a very familiar song. Only it wasn’t rowdy and heavy like “La Cocaleca”, or even low and slow like “Still in Love with You.” It wasn’t even in necessarily bouncy in the way that “L-O-V-E” was.

It was the only song to truly strike a chord with in you that evening, the only song to make you forget all your worries for the moment and gasp. The hand that flew to your mouth caught a sliver of tear that managed to escape your eye.

It was the first song that you and Rafael had danced to as husband and wife.

It took Rafael clearing his throat once more and offering his hand to you yet again for you to reel yourself back in.

“(Y/N) – mi alma,” he spoke, eyes still transfixed on your own. “¿Me concedes éste baile?”

In your excitement, you had forgotten words. However, you definitely didn’t forget how to take your husband’s hand and all but launch yourself at him as he chuckled, putting his unoccupied hand at your waist as he led you to more open ground.

“It only took a kiss to know this: Baby, I’m in love with you. One look is all it took To say, ‘I do.’ And baby, when you smile, I’d walk a mile Oh, just to be with you For a chance at that glance That says, ‘Me too.’”

In the midst of your simplistic swaying, you could hear him humming along to the first verse. You could poke fun at him all you wanted to about his habit of singing in the privacy of his home; you felt blessed to be able to hear him do it at all. You couldn’t help but squeeze his hand, tempted to join with him.

“So when it comes to those other guys, This may come as no surprise: I don’t get jealous; I don’t worry ‘Cause I’m with you.”

Damn the temptation.

“It only took a kiss – but what a kiss! And baby, I love you,” you joined in. “What a look – oh your look – That says, ‘I do’! And baby, I agree: I’d rather be Nowhere else but here, my dear. There’s no place – I feel so safe! – Than here with you – ”

“Then here with you,” your partner echoed. Harmonizing, you sang in unison:

“It’s like finding a penny and pickin’ it up And all day, you’ll have good luck. It only took a look – It only took a smile – It only took a kiss.”

As the song’s bridge in the form of a piano solo began, you couldn’t help but blush. No matter how often the two of you sang together, or how eager Rafael always ways to get you to sing at all, it always made you nervous. And considering the value of this song to you, the sense of unity and love that performing it so beautifully required – it all became too much.

You attempted to nuzzle your burning face into Rafael’s chest, but he apparently knew exactly what you were up to.

“A bit late in the night and marriage to still feel coy about this, isn’t it, (Y/N)?” he snickered. He laughed even more when you grumpily patted at his back with the hand that had been at his waist. “Five years and you still get flustered when I get you to sing.”

“Keep talking like that and see what happens,” you mumble-threatened, face still snug against his torso.

Rafael pursed his lips. “What’ll happen, then? I’m curious.” He pulled you away from your position against his middle to give you a twirl. By the time he allowed you back to him, your face was turned outward, your ear placed at the perfect position to hear his heart beat against your ear.

“I dunno … You know I have double the love to give, I could find somebody easy.” You immediately regretted such a joke. It just wasn’t the kind of thing anyone would want to hear whilst dancing to the first song they played as a married couple, bisexual or not.

And yet, Rafael didn’t seem fazed at all. If anything, it might’ve been why a small smirk was now playing on his lips. “Oh, I don’t doubt that,” he said. “But me? Without you?” His hold on you tightened as you felt your body being lowered. At the end of the dip, Rafael pressed a loving kiss to your neck. “Eso es imposible.”

The goosebumps remained on your skin even as he pulled you back into an upright position.

“It only took a kiss,” Rafael sang along, daring you to follow.

“I know you say,” you followed.

“ – to know this: I’m in love with you –”

“ – you’re in love with me –”

“One look is all it took to say, ‘I do’ –”

“ – you know I love you, too –”

“And baby, when you smile –”

“Why should I question –”

“ – oh, just to be with you –”

“ – how I feel for you?”

“ – for a chance at that glance that says, ‘Me, too.’”

“You make me feel brand new,” you cuddled against your husband once more, feeling less nervous with every line you professed.

“So please believe me when I say,” the two of you chanted together, “I’ve never felt this way. And trust me with you heart – I knew right from the start –”

“It only took a look – it only took a smile – it only took a kiss.”

“It only took a look – it only took a smile – it only took a kiss,” you repeated, daring yourself to look up at the one you loved so much. The smiles you both shared were brighter than the lighting of the lamp in the corner of the room. The desire to pull him into one big kiss, expressing not nearly enough of what you could tell him, what you could thank him with – that was all you wanted in this moment. Just one more line in this song, to give him the sense of completion he always aimed for when he sang. Then you could do exactly what your heart was begging for you to do.

“It only took a look,” you whispered. “It only took a smile. It only –”

By the time you realized that Rafael had not been singing along with you anymore, it had become old news. At this moment, all you could remain aware of was the way his lips were pressed against yours and how his hands, no longer in your own or on your waist, were now cupping your cheek and holding your body even closer to his respectively. Without hesitation your own hands slipped up his back to hold him close. Any possibility of space between the two of you closed.

The sheer power and adoration that flowed into the affection were overwhelming. Beautiful. Warm. The concept of loneliness and confusion were nonexistent.

You sighed into the kiss, completely swept into a state of pure bliss. Four years dating, five years of marriage, and Rafael Barba still managed to surprise you and love you as if every day were the first day of your lives together.

You were both lucky. You were both exceedingly blessed. For all the people you could have loved, even with double the possibilities of the average person, both you and Rafael were so happy and lucky to have found the half that was perfect for them.

115 notes · View notes

jocialinfluencer · 5 years ago

Text

The death of paid-for advertising and the rise of “influencer marketing”

Recent research will be revealing something blunt: a substantial reduction in the effectiveness and power of"traditional" paid advertisements. With the debut of social media and its own development as the communication medium, people are able to quickly and easily view and read exactly what peers, friends, actors, commentators, along with critical influencers have to say in regards to a item, a picture, new music, a restaurant, holiday, travel choices, a new company support a bank, an insurance provider...or anything it might be. Folks expect that the influencer more and their decision and decision is nowadays far more driven by this than by some bit of compensated for advertising.

In the past 5 yrs, there have been Quite a Few improvements which have established"Influencer Advertising" over the value and effectiveness of paid for advertising: Several analytics: 69% of customers say their favorite purchasing channel Is by Way of Social Networking and social networks -Accenture survey 74% mention peer reviewed recommendation as the Crucial influence on their purchase Choice -IDC Analysis 82 percent of Folks use Tips from people they understand to decide what to buy 58 percent of customers state that they are ready to share their encounters of the company or Brand -Ogilvy /TNS report Influencer Promoting currently creates the Maximum RoI of marketing activity with up to 6x yield for each $ spent Alongside all the optimistic advancements across Social media and IM there happen to be other advancements which are making paid and display to advertising significantly less appealing: The number of people using advertising blockers has become believed at 200m significance about 20 percent of most the on-line advertisements never even gets witnessed! This tendency was encouraged by the likes of Apple who allow thirdparty programmers to market advertisement blocking apps in its AppStore. The expenses of online advertising for example have grown substantially within the past five yrs significantly diminishing its RoI. Marketing is now dominated by the duopoly of both Google and also Facebook who take c.65 percent of all online ad-spend (using Google with the majority of this ). This duopoly have led a considerable rise in advertising costs, estimated to have climbed 300% in the last five yrs, with eg Google price tag /branded click costing up to 61% more at the last 1 2 months (re-search by SearchEngineLand). Programmatic advertisements which is intended to enhance frequency and reach in cost-effective rates can be currently resulting in more economical, much less effective ad-space that virtually a number of their prospective audience will likely see. Additionally this automated way to advertising has led in some ads being put in the inappropriate location eg along with incorrect or indecent content, forcing some Brands to draw from such a advertising approach. In the meantime,"IM" has now reached critical mass and also is now beginning to outperform on line screen in driving conversion and sales. Influencer promotion spent my youth starting with the birth of the major social networking platforms in 2007/8. Then some evangelists, outstanding and unprompted, beginning running a blog and then vlogging sharing their own feelings and comments on everything and anything involving the most recent brand new item launches from famous Brands. Burberry was one of those earliest ever to recognise the developing influence and number of followers those everyone was using and begun to formalise its technique, among those first to article Facebook, to utilize Twitter, and also to adopt societal media marketing and pro motion through influencers because its principal advertising and marketing tenet. All the additional luxury brands have to a certain degree or other today followed and they have set the pace and trends to all B2-C manufacturers to check at exactly what societal media and IM can perform for these and also to examine and trial how effective it could be. Let's Think about a Couple Casestudies: General public Desire General public Desire (www.publicdesire.com) is a successful on-line start-up operating in the footwear industry, based originally in great britain with a primary purchaser foundation of 16 into 25yr old women, priding itself on competitive pricing and informed use of social networking and IM. Even before its official launch, it set up on Insta-gram to gauge customer reaction and to tweak its own product and offer proposal. "When we first started, Insta-gram and influencers were actually taking away...we understood that the possibility there and that I believe clients today are somewhat more loyal to influencers and More Inclined to react to these , more so the Actual influencer who is also a user Instead of a celebrity who is obviously being compensated because of their acceptance" "Our Instagram accounts struck inch million followers this past calendar year, we have 35k on Twitter and not quite 100k around face book and also have a exact impressive Snapchat following as well. "We feel you need to check in wherever your visitors are and in which they want to be and to understand how tech and the way that social media marketing is changing. We want to be the very first to promote what we perform. So farin our industry, there's no other apparel merchant on line who is as focussed and powerful in social media even as we have been." -Co Founder Ateeq Akhlaq LifeBEAM Wearable tech organization LifeBEAM desired to launch a new AI-powered personal physical fitness product, Vi. They chose to produce a fresh advocacy group to raise attention for the kick-starter campaign these certainly were utilizing to invest in this undertaking. Through the power of social media-this became a excellent success. Over a hundred brand recommends signed-up to market the brand using the promise of absolutely free product samples, discounted purchase price . They're also provided with item samples, demos and invites to to see/private occasions. These 100 became committed"disciples" and were instrumental in raising the 1.6m Kickstarter necessary. Since IM gets even a developed advertising and marketing application, so employers are denying that they do not need to signup the largest star they're able to. It has a whole lot more concerning credibility, which has come to be the most recent buzz. Finding individuals who are new users and already keen advocates, they're the individuals who have the authenticity and believability that can correctly influence others' purchasing behaviour. Such people now are also being clarified as"micro-influencers", possibly with merely a small have an effect on network themselves but who collaborated using a multitude of similar others can produce a highly effective group. Manufacturers also are discovering that micro-influencers are easier to locate , quicker to sign-up and much more eloquent in exactly what they say (as opposed to a celebrity figure who might be more prone to mention something unscripted!) . Also these kinds of micro-influencers cost-less. Most will bill c. #a hundred and often less per branded post. On Facebook, the average micro-influencer fee is just a generally a great deal less compared to a typical $250 per branded Facebook submit. This usually means that for a effort price of devoting $5-k, a fresh could expect eg approximately 35 to a hundred Insta-gram articles that will hit c. 200k followers, or even approximately sixty to 200 Twitter posts which could reach around 300k or around 35 to 100 Facebook articles which will reach around 125k followers, or even any mix. Not just a significant investment, the capacity to easily trial and install, in case unsure out source to a few of the multitude of agencies that now offer social media IM platforms and campaigns, easy to track and quantify, and discovering and diluting the capacity of that wider group of people who love your product, want to tell people about it and also happy to have a little commission to complete this. To amount up here are some more good examples of IM: Glossier Glossier (www.glossier.com) can be just a US-based start-up attempting to sell skin and beauty care products. It is often ranked as"Most Innovative business" and owes much of its early achievements and cult following to ever-expanding network of micro-influencers. Instead of paying several large titles, Glossier relies on"ordinary folks" to disperse the term. "What's quite inspiring is this idea of every single woman can Turn into an influencer with us...we Finally Have an referral application to enable more influential followers to connect people and to provide product discounts and other incentives to Their Very Own networks" Unilever Unilever has been doing something like its Dove brand of skin care, trying to boost its goal user base to comment and blog on its own products. "we would like to focus on empowering material. Every year users acquire more informed and crucial plus they ask more of all brands. So such as we have developed our Dove self confidence venture. That has made a wealth of reviews, persuasive reports and also ideas. It also currently features intends to move in to 165 educational institutions annually to lead courses, activities and offer sources. The entire Self Esteem programme has reached 1.5 million folks in great britain...it is an conversation the newest is devoted to having with women, but we are also committed for this longer term as well as the upcoming generation." -Alison Fisher, Unilever Marketing Manager Hall-mark Hallmark, the greeting card provider, decided they needed to participate a great deal more effectively with their crowd and find strategies to encourage visits for their own internet site and use their collectible handmade cards. They chose to build an internet community of families who'd a massive numbers of followers and who enjoyed sharing and posting photos on line...they had a lot to select from! They invited them to combine with a program which will run on Instagram to talk about personal moments from their loved ones getaway. They were encouraged to present"frank glimpses" into their own family holiday traditions. In exchange for post these photos, they've been invited to share them by their particular followers and network also to insert hyperlinks to Hallmark's personalised homemade cards. You will find decorations for the best images and families had been given free use of Hallmark's personalised discounts and service to other merchandise. Whilst an easy task to prepare and implement, this IM campaign was highly popular and successful and was voted at the yearly Shorty awards as one of the ideal IM initiatives. The goal audience put in more than 25 million moments engaging with content. Hall mark realized a good share of voice in all the main element societal media by which everyone was sharing and posting holiday pictures. Most notably for its very first time for Hallmark it built at very inexpensive a influencer base and set of relationships which may be leveraged for future activity. One of the Absolute Most thorough research on the ROI of utilizing Influencers has been performed by Nielsen Catalina Solutions. They followed the promotion efforts of the Fortune 500 consumer goods company. Here are the results: Influencer marketing yields an Yearly ROI of 23, in Comparison to $4.30 on the brand's best performing banner ads For each 1, 000 viewpoints, affecting earned $285 in incremental sales Influencer campaigns brought in 11 times the ROI of traditional advertising over the Duration of annually "No wonder that 84% of Marketers at a latest survey said they proposed a minumum of a IM effort annually ." -Marketing Insider Group

0 notes

seocompanysurrey · 7 years ago

Text

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Buying Your Services ≠ Buying In

What Stands in the Way of Getting Your Work Implemented

The most common obstacles we asked about fell into a few main categories:

Low Understanding of Search

Client Understanding

Peer/Colleague Understanding

Boss Understanding

Prioritization & Buy-In

Low Prioritization of Search Work

External Buy-In from Clients

Internal Buy-In from Peers

Internal Buy-In from Bosses

Past Unsuccessful Projects or Mistakes

Corporate Bureaucracy

Red Tape and Slow Approvals

No Advocate or Champion for Search

Turnover or Personnel Changes (Client-Side)

Difficult or Hostile Client

Resource Limitations

Technical Resources for Developers / Full Backlog

Budget / Scope Too Low to Make Impact

Technical Limitations of Digital Platform

The chart below shows how the obstacles in the survey stacked up. Higher scores mean people reported it as a more frequent or common problem they experience:

Too real? Are you completely bummed out yet? There is clearly no shortage of things that can stand in the way of SEO progress, and likely our work as marketers will never be without challenges.

Playing the Blame Game

But I don’t buy it.

But fortunately, we are all optimizers — we all inherently believe that things could be just a little bit better.

These are the tools you need in your belt to face many of the common obstacles to implementing your best search work.

7 Techniques to Get Your Search Work Approved & Implemented

1. How Mature Is Your Client?

2. Speak to CEOs and CMOs, Not SEOs

Speak Their Language

Be mindful that you are coming from different places and meet them in the middle. Use layperson’s terms that anyone can understand, not technical jargon, when explaining search.

Get Out of the Weeds

Focus on Outcomes

What’s In It for Them?

3. SEO is Not the Center of the Universe

Bigger Fish to Fry

Acknowledge the Opportunity Cost

Integrated Marketing Efforts

4. Don’t Stay in Your Lane, Get Buy-In Across Lanes

One of my survey respondents phrased it beautifully: “Treat all search projects as products that require a complete product team including engineering, project manager, and business-side folks.”

Horizontal Buy-In

Vertical Buy-In

5. Build a Bulletproof Plan

Here’s how a typical SEO project is proposed to a client: “You should do this SEO project because SEO.”

This explanation is not good enough, and they don’t care. You need to know what they do care about and are trying to accomplish, and formulate a bullet-proof business plan to sell the idea.

Case Studies as Proof-of-Concept

Image source

Simplify the Process for Everyone

Forecast the Potential ROI

Show the Impact of Inaction

You saw this in my deck at MozCon 2017. We have used it to help clients understand what’s next when we do annual planning with them.

Success Story: Selling AMP

6. Headlines, Taglines, and Sound Bytes

You can increase the likelihood that your recommendations will get implemented if you can help the client focus on what’s really important. There are two key ways to accomplish this.

Ask for the Moon, Not the Galaxy

Give Them Soundbites They Can Sell

Success Story: Prioritizing Content

This is the real slide from the real client deck we presented.

7. Patience, Persistence, & Parallel Paths

Keep Several Irons in the Fire

Stay Strong

Special thanks to my VML colleagues Chris, Jeff, Kasey, and Britt, whose real client examples were used in this article.

from The Moz Blog http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/9375/9708781

#The Moz Blog

0 notes

ericsburden-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Buying Your Services ≠ Buying In

What Stands in the Way of Getting Your Work Implemented

The most common obstacles we asked about fell into a few main categories:

Low Understanding of Search

Client Understanding

Peer/Colleague Understanding

Boss Understanding

Prioritization & Buy-In

Low Prioritization of Search Work

External Buy-In from Clients

Internal Buy-In from Peers

Internal Buy-In from Bosses

Past Unsuccessful Projects or Mistakes

Corporate Bureaucracy

Red Tape and Slow Approvals

No Advocate or Champion for Search

Turnover or Personnel Changes (Client-Side)

Difficult or Hostile Client

Resource Limitations

Technical Resources for Developers / Full Backlog

Budget / Scope Too Low to Make Impact

Technical Limitations of Digital Platform

The chart below shows how the obstacles in the survey stacked up. Higher scores mean people reported it as a more frequent or common problem they experience:

Too real? Are you completely bummed out yet? There is clearly no shortage of things that can stand in the way of SEO progress, and likely our work as marketers will never be without challenges.

Playing the Blame Game

But I don’t buy it.

But fortunately, we are all optimizers — we all inherently believe that things could be just a little bit better.

These are the tools you need in your belt to face many of the common obstacles to implementing your best search work.

7 Techniques to Get Your Search Work Approved & Implemented

1. How Mature Is Your Client?

2. Speak to CEOs and CMOs, Not SEOs

Speak Their Language

Be mindful that you are coming from different places and meet them in the middle. Use layperson’s terms that anyone can understand, not technical jargon, when explaining search.

Get Out of the Weeds

Focus on Outcomes

What’s In It for Them?

3. SEO is Not the Center of the Universe

Bigger Fish to Fry

Acknowledge the Opportunity Cost

Integrated Marketing Efforts

4. Don’t Stay in Your Lane, Get Buy-In Across Lanes

One of my survey respondents phrased it beautifully: “Treat all search projects as products that require a complete product team including engineering, project manager, and business-side folks.”

Horizontal Buy-In

Vertical Buy-In

5. Build a Bulletproof Plan

Here’s how a typical SEO project is proposed to a client: “You should do this SEO project because SEO.”

This explanation is not good enough, and they don’t care. You need to know what they do care about and are trying to accomplish, and formulate a bullet-proof business plan to sell the idea.

Case Studies as Proof-of-Concept

Image source

Simplify the Process for Everyone

Forecast the Potential ROI

Show the Impact of Inaction

You saw this in my deck at MozCon 2017. We have used it to help clients understand what’s next when we do annual planning with them.

Success Story: Selling AMP

6. Headlines, Taglines, and Sound Bytes

You can increase the likelihood that your recommendations will get implemented if you can help the client focus on what’s really important. There are two key ways to accomplish this.

Ask for the Moon, Not the Galaxy

Give Them Soundbites They Can Sell

Success Story: Prioritizing Content

This is the real slide from the real client deck we presented.

7. Patience, Persistence, & Parallel Paths

Keep Several Irons in the Fire

Stay Strong

Special thanks to my VML colleagues Chris, Jeff, Kasey, and Britt, whose real client examples were used in this article.

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

0 notes

tracisimpson · 7 years ago

Text

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Buying Your Services ≠ Buying In

What Stands in the Way of Getting Your Work Implemented

The most common obstacles we asked about fell into a few main categories:

Low Understanding of Search

Client Understanding

Peer/Colleague Understanding

Boss Understanding

Prioritization & Buy-In

Low Prioritization of Search Work

External Buy-In from Clients

Internal Buy-In from Peers

Internal Buy-In from Bosses

Past Unsuccessful Projects or Mistakes

Corporate Bureaucracy

Red Tape and Slow Approvals

No Advocate or Champion for Search

Turnover or Personnel Changes (Client-Side)

Difficult or Hostile Client

Resource Limitations

Technical Resources for Developers / Full Backlog

Budget / Scope Too Low to Make Impact

Technical Limitations of Digital Platform

The chart below shows how the obstacles in the survey stacked up. Higher scores mean people reported it as a more frequent or common problem they experience:

Too real? Are you completely bummed out yet? There is clearly no shortage of things that can stand in the way of SEO progress, and likely our work as marketers will never be without challenges.

Playing the Blame Game

But I don’t buy it.

But fortunately, we are all optimizers — we all inherently believe that things could be just a little bit better.

These are the tools you need in your belt to face many of the common obstacles to implementing your best search work.

7 Techniques to Get Your Search Work Approved & Implemented

1. How Mature Is Your Client?

2. Speak to CEOs and CMOs, Not SEOs

Speak Their Language

Be mindful that you are coming from different places and meet them in the middle. Use layperson’s terms that anyone can understand, not technical jargon, when explaining search.

Get Out of the Weeds

Focus on Outcomes

What’s In It for Them?

3. SEO is Not the Center of the Universe

Bigger Fish to Fry

Acknowledge the Opportunity Cost

Integrated Marketing Efforts

4. Don’t Stay in Your Lane, Get Buy-In Across Lanes

One of my survey respondents phrased it beautifully: “Treat all search projects as products that require a complete product team including engineering, project manager, and business-side folks.”

Horizontal Buy-In

Vertical Buy-In

5. Build a Bulletproof Plan

Here’s how a typical SEO project is proposed to a client: “You should do this SEO project because SEO.”

This explanation is not good enough, and they don’t care. You need to know what they do care about and are trying to accomplish, and formulate a bullet-proof business plan to sell the idea.

Case Studies as Proof-of-Concept

Image source

Simplify the Process for Everyone

Forecast the Potential ROI

Show the Impact of Inaction

You saw this in my deck at MozCon 2017. We have used it to help clients understand what’s next when we do annual planning with them.

Success Story: Selling AMP

6. Headlines, Taglines, and Sound Bytes

You can increase the likelihood that your recommendations will get implemented if you can help the client focus on what’s really important. There are two key ways to accomplish this.

Ask for the Moon, Not the Galaxy

Give Them Soundbites They Can Sell

Success Story: Prioritizing Content

This is the real slide from the real client deck we presented.

7. Patience, Persistence, & Parallel Paths

Keep Several Irons in the Fire

Stay Strong

Special thanks to my VML colleagues Chris, Jeff, Kasey, and Britt, whose real client examples were used in this article.

#The Moz Blog Blogger

0 notes

tainghekhongdaycomvn · 7 years ago

Text

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Buying Your Services ≠ Buying In

What Stands in the Way of Getting Your Work Implemented

The most common obstacles we asked about fell into a few main categories:

Low Understanding of Search

Client Understanding

Peer/Colleague Understanding

Boss Understanding

Prioritization & Buy-In

Low Prioritization of Search Work

External Buy-In from Clients

Internal Buy-In from Peers

Internal Buy-In from Bosses

Past Unsuccessful Projects or Mistakes

Corporate Bureaucracy

Red Tape and Slow Approvals

No Advocate or Champion for Search

Turnover or Personnel Changes (Client-Side)

Difficult or Hostile Client

Resource Limitations

Technical Resources for Developers / Full Backlog

Budget / Scope Too Low to Make Impact

Technical Limitations of Digital Platform

The chart below shows how the obstacles in the survey stacked up. Higher scores mean people reported it as a more frequent or common problem they experience:

Too real? Are you completely bummed out yet? There is clearly no shortage of things that can stand in the way of SEO progress, and likely our work as marketers will never be without challenges.

Playing the Blame Game

But I don’t buy it.

But fortunately, we are all optimizers — we all inherently believe that things could be just a little bit better.

These are the tools you need in your belt to face many of the common obstacles to implementing your best search work.

7 Techniques to Get Your Search Work Approved & Implemented

1. How Mature Is Your Client?

2. Speak to CEOs and CMOs, Not SEOs

Speak Their Language

Be mindful that you are coming from different places and meet them in the middle. Use layperson’s terms that anyone can understand, not technical jargon, when explaining search.

Get Out of the Weeds

Focus on Outcomes

What’s In It for Them?

3. SEO is Not the Center of the Universe

Bigger Fish to Fry

Acknowledge the Opportunity Cost

Integrated Marketing Efforts

4. Don’t Stay in Your Lane, Get Buy-In Across Lanes

One of my survey respondents phrased it beautifully: “Treat all search projects as products that require a complete product team including engineering, project manager, and business-side folks.”

Horizontal Buy-In

Vertical Buy-In

5. Build a Bulletproof Plan

Here’s how a typical SEO project is proposed to a client: “You should do this SEO project because SEO.”

This explanation is not good enough, and they don’t care. You need to know what they do care about and are trying to accomplish, and formulate a bullet-proof business plan to sell the idea.

Case Studies as Proof-of-Concept

Image source

Simplify the Process for Everyone

Forecast the Potential ROI

Show the Impact of Inaction

You saw this in my deck at MozCon 2017. We have used it to help clients understand what’s next when we do annual planning with them.

Success Story: Selling AMP

6. Headlines, Taglines, and Sound Bytes

You can increase the likelihood that your recommendations will get implemented if you can help the client focus on what’s really important. There are two key ways to accomplish this.

Ask for the Moon, Not the Galaxy

Give Them Soundbites They Can Sell

Success Story: Prioritizing Content

This is the real slide from the real client deck we presented.

7. Patience, Persistence, & Parallel Paths

Keep Several Irons in the Fire

Stay Strong

Special thanks to my VML colleagues Chris, Jeff, Kasey, and Britt, whose real client examples were used in this article.

bạn xem thêm tại: https://ift.tt/2mXjlRS Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented Bạn có thể xem thêm địa chỉ mua tai nghe không dây tại đây https://ift.tt/2mb4VST

0 notes

lawrenceseitz22 · 7 years ago

Text

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Buying Your Services ≠ Buying In

What Stands in the Way of Getting Your Work Implemented

The most common obstacles we asked about fell into a few main categories:

Low Understanding of Search

Client Understanding

Peer/Colleague Understanding

Boss Understanding

Prioritization & Buy-In

Low Prioritization of Search Work

External Buy-In from Clients

Internal Buy-In from Peers

Internal Buy-In from Bosses

Past Unsuccessful Projects or Mistakes

Corporate Bureaucracy

Red Tape and Slow Approvals

No Advocate or Champion for Search

Turnover or Personnel Changes (Client-Side)

Difficult or Hostile Client

Resource Limitations

Technical Resources for Developers / Full Backlog

Budget / Scope Too Low to Make Impact

Technical Limitations of Digital Platform

The chart below shows how the obstacles in the survey stacked up. Higher scores mean people reported it as a more frequent or common problem they experience:

Too real? Are you completely bummed out yet? There is clearly no shortage of things that can stand in the way of SEO progress, and likely our work as marketers will never be without challenges.

Playing the Blame Game

But I don’t buy it.

But fortunately, we are all optimizers — we all inherently believe that things could be just a little bit better.

These are the tools you need in your belt to face many of the common obstacles to implementing your best search work.

7 Techniques to Get Your Search Work Approved & Implemented

1. How Mature Is Your Client?

2. Speak to CEOs and CMOs, Not SEOs

Speak Their Language

Be mindful that you are coming from different places and meet them in the middle. Use layperson’s terms that anyone can understand, not technical jargon, when explaining search.

Get Out of the Weeds

Focus on Outcomes

What’s In It for Them?

3. SEO is Not the Center of the Universe

Bigger Fish to Fry

Acknowledge the Opportunity Cost

Integrated Marketing Efforts

4. Don’t Stay in Your Lane, Get Buy-In Across Lanes

One of my survey respondents phrased it beautifully: “Treat all search projects as products that require a complete product team including engineering, project manager, and business-side folks.”

Horizontal Buy-In

Vertical Buy-In

5. Build a Bulletproof Plan

Here’s how a typical SEO project is proposed to a client: “You should do this SEO project because SEO.”

This explanation is not good enough, and they don’t care. You need to know what they do care about and are trying to accomplish, and formulate a bullet-proof business plan to sell the idea.

Case Studies as Proof-of-Concept

Image source

Simplify the Process for Everyone

Forecast the Potential ROI

Show the Impact of Inaction

You saw this in my deck at MozCon 2017. We have used it to help clients understand what’s next when we do annual planning with them.

Success Story: Selling AMP

6. Headlines, Taglines, and Sound Bytes

You can increase the likelihood that your recommendations will get implemented if you can help the client focus on what’s really important. There are two key ways to accomplish this.

Ask for the Moon, Not the Galaxy

Give Them Soundbites They Can Sell

Success Story: Prioritizing Content

This is the real slide from the real client deck we presented.

7. Patience, Persistence, & Parallel Paths

Keep Several Irons in the Fire

Stay Strong

Special thanks to my VML colleagues Chris, Jeff, Kasey, and Britt, whose real client examples were used in this article.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2m6XadW via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

arthurjeffries · 7 years ago

Text

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Buying Your Services ≠ Buying In

What Stands in the Way of Getting Your Work Implemented

The most common obstacles we asked about fell into a few main categories:

Low Understanding of Search

Client Understanding

Peer/Colleague Understanding

Boss Understanding

Prioritization & Buy-In

Low Prioritization of Search Work

External Buy-In from Clients

Internal Buy-In from Peers

Internal Buy-In from Bosses

Past Unsuccessful Projects or Mistakes

Corporate Bureaucracy

Red Tape and Slow Approvals

No Advocate or Champion for Search

Turnover or Personnel Changes (Client-Side)

Difficult or Hostile Client

Resource Limitations

Technical Resources for Developers / Full Backlog

Budget / Scope Too Low to Make Impact

Technical Limitations of Digital Platform

The chart below shows how the obstacles in the survey stacked up. Higher scores mean people reported it as a more frequent or common problem they experience:

Too real? Are you completely bummed out yet? There is clearly no shortage of things that can stand in the way of SEO progress, and likely our work as marketers will never be without challenges.

Playing the Blame Game

But I don’t buy it.

But fortunately, we are all optimizers — we all inherently believe that things could be just a little bit better.

These are the tools you need in your belt to face many of the common obstacles to implementing your best search work.

7 Techniques to Get Your Search Work Approved & Implemented

1. How Mature Is Your Client?

2. Speak to CEOs and CMOs, Not SEOs

Speak Their Language

Be mindful that you are coming from different places and meet them in the middle. Use layperson’s terms that anyone can understand, not technical jargon, when explaining search.

Get Out of the Weeds

Focus on Outcomes

What’s In It for Them?

3. SEO is Not the Center of the Universe

Bigger Fish to Fry

Acknowledge the Opportunity Cost

Integrated Marketing Efforts

4. Don’t Stay in Your Lane, Get Buy-In Across Lanes

One of my survey respondents phrased it beautifully: “Treat all search projects as products that require a complete product team including engineering, project manager, and business-side folks.”

Horizontal Buy-In

Vertical Buy-In

5. Build a Bulletproof Plan

Here’s how a typical SEO project is proposed to a client: “You should do this SEO project because SEO.”

This explanation is not good enough, and they don’t care. You need to know what they do care about and are trying to accomplish, and formulate a bullet-proof business plan to sell the idea.

Case Studies as Proof-of-Concept

Image source

Simplify the Process for Everyone

Forecast the Potential ROI

Show the Impact of Inaction

You saw this in my deck at MozCon 2017. We have used it to help clients understand what’s next when we do annual planning with them.

Success Story: Selling AMP

6. Headlines, Taglines, and Sound Bytes

You can increase the likelihood that your recommendations will get implemented if you can help the client focus on what’s really important. There are two key ways to accomplish this.

Ask for the Moon, Not the Galaxy

Give Them Soundbites They Can Sell

Success Story: Prioritizing Content

This is the real slide from the real client deck we presented.

7. Patience, Persistence, & Parallel Paths

Keep Several Irons in the Fire

Stay Strong

Special thanks to my VML colleagues Chris, Jeff, Kasey, and Britt, whose real client examples were used in this article.

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented published first on https://steelcitygaragedoors.blogspot.com

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theinjectlikes2 · 7 years ago

Text

Your Red-Tape Toolkit: 7 Ways to Earn Trust and Get Your Search Work Implemented

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Buying Your Services ≠ Buying In

What Stands in the Way of Getting Your Work Implemented

The most common obstacles we asked about fell into a few main categories:

Low Understanding of Search

Client Understanding

Peer/Colleague Understanding

Boss Understanding

Prioritization & Buy-In

Low Prioritization of Search Work

External Buy-In from Clients

Internal Buy-In from Peers

Internal Buy-In from Bosses

Past Unsuccessful Projects or Mistakes

Corporate Bureaucracy

Red Tape and Slow Approvals

No Advocate or Champion for Search

Turnover or Personnel Changes (Client-Side)

Difficult or Hostile Client

Resource Limitations

Technical Resources for Developers / Full Backlog

Budget / Scope Too Low to Make Impact

Technical Limitations of Digital Platform

The chart below shows how the obstacles in the survey stacked up. Higher scores mean people reported it as a more frequent or common problem they experience:

Too real? Are you completely bummed out yet? There is clearly no shortage of things that can stand in the way of SEO progress, and likely our work as marketers will never be without challenges.

Playing the Blame Game

But I don’t buy it.

But fortunately, we are all optimizers — we all inherently believe that things could be just a little bit better.

These are the tools you need in your belt to face many of the common obstacles to implementing your best search work.

7 Techniques to Get Your Search Work Approved & Implemented

1. How Mature Is Your Client?

2. Speak to CEOs and CMOs, Not SEOs

Speak Their Language

Be mindful that you are coming from different places and meet them in the middle. Use layperson’s terms that anyone can understand, not technical jargon, when explaining search.

Get Out of the Weeds

Focus on Outcomes

What’s In It for Them?

3. SEO is Not the Center of the Universe

Bigger Fish to Fry

Acknowledge the Opportunity Cost

Integrated Marketing Efforts

4. Don’t Stay in Your Lane, Get Buy-In Across Lanes

One of my survey respondents phrased it beautifully: “Treat all search projects as products that require a complete product team including engineering, project manager, and business-side folks.”

Horizontal Buy-In

Vertical Buy-In

5. Build a Bulletproof Plan

Here’s how a typical SEO project is proposed to a client: “You should do this SEO project because SEO.”

This explanation is not good enough, and they don’t care. You need to know what they do care about and are trying to accomplish, and formulate a bullet-proof business plan to sell the idea.

Case Studies as Proof-of-Concept

Image source

Simplify the Process for Everyone

Forecast the Potential ROI

Show the Impact of Inaction

You saw this in my deck at MozCon 2017. We have used it to help clients understand what’s next when we do annual planning with them.

Success Story: Selling AMP

6. Headlines, Taglines, and Sound Bytes

You can increase the likelihood that your recommendations will get implemented if you can help the client focus on what’s really important. There are two key ways to accomplish this.

Ask for the Moon, Not the Galaxy

Give Them Soundbites They Can Sell

Success Story: Prioritizing Content

This is the real slide from the real client deck we presented.

7. Patience, Persistence, & Parallel Paths

Keep Several Irons in the Fire

Stay Strong

Special thanks to my VML colleagues Chris, Jeff, Kasey, and Britt, whose real client examples were used in this article.

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#IFTTT #The Moz Blog

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