#i understand why artists use whiteboard now this is fun

[average-halloween-enjoyer]

whiteboard doodles

[yslsevy]

Virtual Sketchbook Section 1

Discussion 1:  Hello, my name is Yves Feron. In the future I plan on working as an attorney. I would specifically like working in immigration. I am dual enrolled and will be hoping to graduate with my A.A. as well as my high school diploma. A fact about me is that I love drawing, but right now I will say I am on an artist block. I usually take large breaks in between drawing. And then randomly I have the urge to draw out of nowhere.

(Music, Pink and Blue No. 2 by Georgia O’Keeffe in 1918)

The names of O’Keeffe’s paintings are in reference to music, which points to the connections between the visual and the aural. 

Georgia O’Keeffe with idea of music being translated into something for the eye. 

The paint lines and colors all suggest and are inspired by the rhythms and harmonies O’Keeffe perceived in nature and was painted during her exploration of abstraction. 

This artist, in her century, was often misunderstood as people misinterpreted her artwork as psychological depictions of her sexuality, when in reality it was heavily inspired by nature. 

The painting Pink and Blue No. 2 was one of the paintings that helped O’Keeffe gain recognition in the abstract expressionist movement.

I initially thought of this painting as one of those stereotypical artworks that be called technical. I personally don’’t thinks much of the meaning behind it. Afterwords, learning the context of the painting really helped me understand it. Now I think it as a calm depiction of nature because the artist uses soft colors and soft paint lines to make what similarly to maybe a rose in my eyes.

Select a work of art from your life. It must be something that hangs in your house or your room, something that is important to you or that you look at everyday. Include a picture. In paragraph form (4 sentences), tell me about the art – what media were used to create it? What use does it serve? Do you think it is beautiful? Why?

(By: Yves Feron)

This artwork is currently hanged up in my room made on a whiteboard which is erasable and can change at anytime. I use this as a decorative piece in my room, but also it represents a new era in my life. It includes my name and for some reason I always put the alphabet at the bottom. It’s a tradition I do for myself, which I think is is beautiful because it is supposed to be a drawing of me. 

What “baggage” are you bringing along when you look at art? Answer the following questions – How old are you? What is the gender you primarily align with? Where are you from? What is your ethnicity? What do you do for fun? Are you a member of any organized group? Where do you work? What makes you uniquely you? This helps us see from what exact point in the world we view and receive visual information.

I am an 18-year-old female and have lived in Florida all my life, however I was born in the Virgin Islands. I am Black or more specifically Haitian American. I love watching the reality TV Love Island (UK). Their accents make the drama on the show more entertaining. I do volunteer at different places, such as Healthy Teens, which train teenagers to advocates against drugs and alcohol and educates other teens and younger on issues they may deal with on a day-to-day basis. I think my name makes me very unique. I’ve never met anyone else, besides the brand name Yves Saint Laurent, who has my name. Through the information given about me, I believe the baggage I carry when looking at art is trying to take all pieces seriously. Unless the art is easy to understand, I’m more likely to just look at it, rather than appreciate the work the artist put into it. It may be my age and how I don’t really have the patience that comes with age. Also, I tend to take things that affect me or my friends more serious. An example is vaping or mental health which I spend time every week to work against, or even advocating for minorities like me. I tend to not venture out into stuff I do not know about.  SELF PORTRAIT

(By: Yves Feron)

[light-lanterne]

so, i got an ask on my other account about my spanish teacher from middle school, who i briefly mentioned in a little post about how her daughter is now living in my building.

in the (now deleted for aesthetic reasons) post i'd made, i mentioned how this teacher used to bully me and this person now wants to know a bit more and i know i don't owe it to anyone, but i don't have anyone to talk about this with and i want to vent so why not ?

tw for bullying and ableism

anyway, i'm not going to share everything this teacher did (we'll be here all day), but allow me to explain the crux of the problem she had with me:

ever since i was a kid, i've always struggled with anxiety related conditions and one of them is selective mutism. it started at a very young age and my mom worked really hard to get me through it and, while i still fell back into it every once in a while, i was mostly over it by the time i entered middle school.

enter this teacher. she was strict and way too demanding in some aspects, but i've always been good at adapting to such personalities so my grades and schoolwork weren't the problem.

the problem was the way i talk.

you see, i have a condition called rhotacism. it basically means that the little ligament under my tongue is shorter than average and, as a result, i can't really articulate the letter "r". i've always had this problem, but other than some bullying in primary school, it's never been much of an issue for me.

until this teacher took an issue with it. almost from the start of my first year of middle school, she started poking fun at me for it: she would always correct me when i "said something wrong", she would make me read passages with a lot of r sounds, and she would claim that the reason i couldn't pronounce it was not something physical (which it is), but something neurological.

she claimed something was wrong with my brain and would call me all the common slurs. at least once a day, she would make sure to humiliate me in front of all my classmates (who naturally followed her lead so yay for that).

it sucked. and it made me very self-conscious and anxious. but it didn't stop there.

i think it was one or two months into my second year of middle school that she tried to get me expelled. her reasoning was that i was clearly in need of special-needs education and that she couldn't properly give class with me in there. moreover, she claimed my classmates couldn't understand me (they could), so i was actively affecting their education and that wasn't fair to them.

so she made a big fuss about it and it didn't really go too far, the principal was smart enough to know that it was all bull and it could get bad for them if she were allowed to continue, but it did take a toll on my 13-year-old self.

so i stopped talking. i'd only do it when needed to keep my grades up, but other than that i wouldn't talk to anyone ever,,, even if this obviously added fuel to the fire.

she got nastier with her insults. she moved me to the back of the classroom even if i couldn't read the whiteboard. she would pretend i was breaking random rules like "not drawing in class" so she could send me to detention (i actually really liked drawing back then,,, so maybe i was an artist at one point but she took that away from me x.x ), and she would complain about how i was good at english when i "couldn't even speak" my own language

(english has softer r sounds than spanish, especially if i use a british accent,,, also, my english teacher was not a meanie >.< )

it got really bad, so bad i eventually managed to get the principal on her case (we had a nativity play thingy and she wanted to make me a piggy, when all my other classmates got to be human :\ i ended up as a background shepherd in the end) and by my last year of middle school, she finally toned it down,,,

,,,via not speaking to me in the slightest, and encouraging my classmates to do the same. i think they even stopped using my name all year, which raised concerns from the most random teachers (who i thought didn't care) but there was little they could do about it :[

alas, it beat the bullying and i've never had a problem with being alone, so i got a bittersweet break and i managed to be top of my class despite everything. so i guess i won in the end.

nevertheless, i never knew why she had a problem with me. i think she didn't like my brother all that much either (he's two years older than me, so he was on his way out by the time the bullying started), but i don't really know. all i know is that this teacher was very mean and left me with a lot of problems (including the selective mutism, which is now here to stay woo) so, by all means, i think i am righteous to say that she was a bully,,, abuser, i'd even say,,, and that i hope she never sees me when she comes visit her daughter.

(all because i can't pronounce some words properly and have trouble hearing,,,)

[scaredofthebasement-blog]

When Love Walks In - Chpt 11

Chpt 11 - Auston is moved out of ICU & Talks to Dr Quinn Privately

(I’d love to hear what you’re thinking of the story so far.) 

Words 4706

Warning:  Cuss words, Long Chapter

After congratulating Auston on his great progress, Dr Wright excuses herself for the day.  

Dr Quinn informs Auston and his parents that Nicole is looking after Auston’s transfer to a private room and he should expect to be moving shortly.  She tells them that she will drop by Auston’s room before she leaves for the day to see how he is settling into his “new digs” as she calls them. She expects to drop by sometime around 6 pm.

Auston is happy to hear he is going to see Dr Quinn again today.  He hopes he is settled into his room with enough time to spare to convince his parents, in an unsuspicious way, to leave him alone in his room.  He wants to be able to chat again privately with Dr Quinn before she goes home for the night.

Nurse Nicole makes sure Auston’s transfer to the 7th floor goes smoothly.  He has a private room with a view of University Avenue; but from Auston’s bed, all he can see are the windows of the other buildings across the street.  

Ema and Brian talk to Nicole about the possibility of unapproved visitors sneaking in to see Auston. Nicole tells them that she will speak with security on their behalf and try to get a guard to standby at the Nurse’s Station.  Brian thanks her and tells her that if the hospital can’t provide security for Auston, then he would like to hire someone privately, he just needs to know what the hospital wants.  

Later, Hospital Security indicates that they will only be able to staff a guard over the next 48 hours for Auston, but if the family want someone after that period, then they needed to hire a security guard approved by the Chief of Staff. Brian agrees to get that arranged as soon as possible and in the meantime takes an opportunity to meet with the Hospital Security Team to inform them of the restrictions he wants in place on visits to see Auston.  For the next 48 hour period, and until further notice, only staff and immediate family are to be allowed in Auston’s room.  

Auston has had a constant eye on the clock, so by 530 pm; he’s getting concerned that the ‘time-is-a-tickin’, and he needs to get his parents moving before Dr Quinn arrives to check on him.  

He writes on his whiteboard, “you guys gonna get dinner and sleep at my place tonight?  Go see the girls?”

“Yeah, if you’re okay, we were planning on taking the girls out for dinner tonight and staying at your place. What do you think?”  Brian asks.

“Yeah.  Good idea.  I’m good now”,  Auston writes.

“Okay, but we’ll miss Dr Q. Do you think we need to be here for when she comes this evening?”  Ema asks.

“No.  Dr Q’s just coming tonight to see that I’m settled.  I can handle it.”  Auston assures his parents.

“Well, if you’re sure?”  Ema confirms.

Auston nods and then writes, “Yup. Glad to be out of ICU but pretty tired.”

“Yeah, we’re happy you’re out as well, and we’re going to celebrate with the girls tonight and discuss plans to get them back to their lives in Scottsdale.”

“I wish I could join you to celebrate.  Good idea to have one of you go back home along with the girls.  I’ve been lucky to have you all here but no need for you two to both stay, now that I am on the road to recovery”, Auston encourages.

Brian reminds Auston, “Okay, we’ll think on that.  Contact us if you need us tonight. Anytime. Okay?  Phone us.  Text us. Your phone is charged and on your side table.  I know you don’t want to go on it right now but use it to keep in touch with me, your mom and sisters.  Okay?  Goodnight, son.  Sleep well.”

Auston nods as Ema kisses him on the head, goodbye.

Auston writes, “say hi to Alex and Bre for me”, with a heart after it.

“Will do.  But like I said, you can text them”, Brian reminds Auston with a pat on his shoulder.  Brian smiles and waves as he walks out of the room with Ema.

————————————————————-

It is now 6:15 pm and Auston is getting excited about Dr Quinn’s visit.  He just starts thinking about what he wants to say to her when she walks in his room.

Auston can’t help but notice how professional, chill and pretty Dr Quinn looks. It’s the end of the day, she has no visible makeup and must be tired, but she still looks radiant and so relaxed.  She is smiling, and instead of holding her usual chart, she has a brown paper bag in her hand as she walks towards him to stand on his left-hand side of the bed.

Placing the bag on Auston’s sliding table, she comments, “Well look at you in your new pad, Auston! Where are your parents?”  She asks, scoping the room.

Auston greets her with a big smile and small hand wave.  He grabs his board and pen and writes, “Dinner out with A & B.  Sleeping at Condo.  I encouraged it.”

“Oh, good!  I’m glad to hear it.  You’re a good son, Auston.”  Dr Quinn praises.

Auston smiles and writes “no biggie.”

“So do you have friends coming to visit you tonight?  A room-warming?”  She jokes.

“Am I allowed visitors now?” He asks.  

“But honestly, I’m kinda enjoying this bubble I’ve been in lately.  No desire to assoc with world when can’t breathe, talk or walk.  Don’t have energy to deal with stuff right now.”  He adds.

Dr Quinn takes a longer than normal look at Auston to see if he looks depressed.  It is hard to tell.  

“Ohhh, yes, sorry, Auston.  I forgot to mention earlier today that you can have visitors now that you are out of ICU.  Also, you can use your cell phone now whenever you would like since concussion symptoms are gone.  So you don’t want to get in touch with friends?”

Auston writes, “No, I don’t want to face my old life till I’m my old self.”

Dr Quinn is concerned.  “I see, Auston, that’s to be expected.  You have a lot to get your head around; your accident, your limitations right now, your team, your fans, questions about your future, therapy, focusing on rest and healing and I’m sure just thinking of the volume of messages you have received since this all went down must be daunting.  No doubt, you’re overwhelmed. Are you feeling overwhelmed, Auston?”

“Well, now I am!  Thanks, Doctor Debbie Downer!”, he writes, joking back with a big smirk.

“Ha!  Yeah, that was a downer.  Wasn’t it?   I’m so sorry, Auston.  Be sure to stop me if I decide to pursue Suicide Prevention Counselling, will ya?”

“Ha!  Yup!”  Auston writes, still enjoying the humour of it.

Auston thinks to himself but doesn’t share, And compounding things even further is trying to deal with my feelings for you.

“I’m really sorry, Auston. Sometimes I get lost in my thoughts, thinking about my patients’ challenges. I wish I could just take them all away.  I can help with the medical end of it but not the other stuff.  It gets a bit sad and overwhelming just thinking about what you all are going through and all the hurdles you need to jump, not just health-wise but everyday living stuff.  Life can be hard enough without adding health complications.  Saying the challenges out loud gets them out of my head, but that’s not fair to you, so I’m very sorry.”

Can you please forgive me, Auston?” she asks, looking him in the eye with sincerity.

“Of course!”  Auston writes  “No worries.  I was just having some fun with you.  I never really saw it from your perspective.  You opened my eyes to how extra tough your job must be, I mean, emotionally speaking.”

“Oh, Auston, please don’t misunderstand me.  What I go through is nothing compared to what you or any of my patients go through.  I just wanted to explain why I said what I said.”

“I understand.”  Auston writes and then adds a very silly smiley face emoji drawing to lighten the mood.  He turns the board to face Dr Quinn.

When she sees the crazy smiley face drawing, she bursts out laughing. “Ha!  Auston that’s hilarious!  Can u do others?!”  She quickly covers her mouth, looking around to see if she disturbed anyone by being so loud.

Auston loves her reaction. He erases his board, and with a smirk, he looks up at Dr Quinn.  Then with a straight-face, he proceeds to draw and show Dr Quinn, one hilarious smiley face emoji drawing after another hilarious smiley face drawing until Dr Quinn can hardly breathe; trying so hard to stifle her laughter and not to disturb anyone.

When she sees his last drawing which is a smiley face doctor emoji, that he labels ‘Dr Q’ and which has a headband light and a stethoscope that is listening to the head of another smiley face emoji that he labels ‘Auston’, she waves her hand in surrender, trying to catch her breath.

“Auston!  Oh my goodness, Auston!  That is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!”  She tells him; still trying to quietly, compose herself.

“How?  When?  How did you get so good at…?  Are you an artist or something?”  She manages to spit out, absolutely floored by his drawing talent and sense of humour.

Auston writes, “Long, long, boring, boring, road trips…Have I mentioned they were long and boring?”

“Ha!  So amazing!  You’ve got some serious skills, Mr Matthews!  If this isn’t your main talent, I can’t even begin to imagine what you can do on skates.  Thank you for that Auston!  I seriously have not laughed that hard in a long time.  Wow!  That was something special.”  She says as she giggles, fixing her hair and dabbing tears from her eyes with a tissue.

Auston can’t help but beam with joy at having made Dr Quinn so deliriously happy.  If he were honest, he’d have to say that was the most heartwarming moment of his life.

Auston writes, “It’s the least I can do.  Glad you enjoyed them.  Glad all that wasted time wasn’t wasted after all.  Your response was worth every boring, doodling minute.”

Dr Quinn takes a breath and starts, “Auhhhh…Okay, so back to what we were discussing.  I suppose what I was trying to say before you pulled your Picasso out on me, was that I was … Oh, my goodness!  That came out very wrong.”

Auston stares at Dr Quinn with a very funny, surprised and curious face that suggests she’s just shocked the hell out of him by saying something very inappropriately funny.  He knows she just slipped up but thinks it’s hilarious. He wants to tease her for it and listen to her try to explain her way out of it.

“Oh Auston, you know what I was getting at right?  Picasso, as in your crazy drawings were like the artist; Picasso-ish, you know?”  She pleads with him.

When he doesn’t stop making his shocked face, she continues, “You know what I was trying to say, right?”

He shakes his head no, smiles and laughs inside.

“I didn’t mean to make it rude. I’m so embarrassed Auston.  Stop smiling at me like that!  Stop making faces!  Auston!  You’re enjoying watching me squirm, aren’t you?  Oh, you drive me crazy!”

You have no idea how crazy you drive me, sweetheart, is what Auston wants to tell her.

Auston could not believe how much fun he was having just lying in a hospital bed.  He’s unable to speak, barely able to breathe, unable to eat, unable to go to the washroom on his own, unable to do much of anything, not sure of his future, but feels like if he could have this woman in his life, every day, he would want for absolutely nothing.  He would have everything.

“Anyways, Auston, you silly weirdo, I was listing all of your possible concerns because I get why you would want to stay in your bubble.  I’m so sorry you’re in this situation.  But, what I can do, since I probably drove you to jump off a ledge with my flair for motivational speaking, is offer you counselling.”  She tells him but is interrupted by another weird face he is making at her; this one is supposed to be a crazy person.

“Stop it!  Auston!”  She scolds him as he smirks.

“If you want to talk to a counsellor, we have some great ones that I can arrange for you to see here in the hospital.  They can come to you.  I highly recommend therapy, especially in cases like yours, it can be very helpful. Like I was telling you, there is a lot for you to process.  It’s good to have someone guide you.”  She informs him.

Auston pretends to have fallen asleep because of her serious talk.

“Oh Come on!  Auston!”  She pleads.  “I’m being serious.  This is serious.”  She gently scolds him.

Auston writes, “Thanks but no, I’m not ready for that yet.  Besides, I don’t trust anybody knowing my shit; except maybe you.”  Auston knows it might be revealing a bit too much to admit that last part, but he also figures she should expect her patients to trust her, so hopefully, no bells go off for her.

“Oh, thank you for trusting me with ‘your shit’, Auston!”  Dr Quinn says sarcastically and feigning upset.

She continues with a giggle, “I wish I were qualified to be entrusted with ‘your shit’ Auston, but counselling is not my area of expertise as you witnessed earlier.  There are far better people than me for that job.”

“I disagree”, He writes matter-of-factly.  “Not needing a Psych right now, just a friend who cares”, He adds.

Dr Quinn feels their chat is getting awkward.  If she’s honest, she cares and wants to be Auston’s friend, but because she is his doctor, she won’t mix those two worlds; doing so would only bring problems.   So not wanting to hurt Auston or make things more awkward between them, she chooses to change the subject by delegating a job to him instead of pointing out the necessary line that she won’t cross.

“Well, one thing I can do is suggest that you ask your parents or sisters to look after sorting out your cell phone messages and Social Media.  If they can help you by responding with just a message that they are overseeing your phone and social media accounts, for the time being, that might take some of the pressure off you.  If they take that load, then you may feel less overwhelmed and maybe feel more like reaching out to a good friend who can lend a supportive ear. Or, since your family already have enough on their plate, I’m sure you could give that job to your agent’s people. Just a suggestion, cause like I said, and you witnessed, I am not qualified”, Dr Quinn adds with a laugh.

Auston realizes Dr Quinn has to draw a line to keep her role as his doctor separate from anything personal, but he really wishes she could be the one.  If he could confide in her, then they could develop a closer relationship while he has the chance during his stay in the hospital.  He accepts that he is just going to have to sneak in chats with her until he doesn’t need her as his doctor anymore.

Auston responds, “OK.  Good idea.  Thanks.”

Dr Quinn just remembers that she has something for Auston.  “Oh yes, on a happier note, you mentioned the other day that you are from Arizona and I just so happened to be in the gift shop this evening, and this beauty caught my eye. I figured since you moved into your new digs here, you might like this to brighten your days and remind you of home. Also, you can choose to see it as an award of sorts for your most recent accomplishment of getting yourself breathing without the ventilator.  I understand you’re pretty accustomed to getting trophies for your accomplishments so…” She says, teasing him.

Auston smirks and rolls his eyes for that last comment as Dr Quinn hands Auston the paper bag for him to open.

He’s curious and surprised. She’s excited to see his reaction. As he is about to put his hand inside the bag without looking, Dr Quinn gasps, “Oh no!  Wait!  Let me help you!”  She tries to grab the bag from him and touches his hand.  She is shocked by the electric-like current that passes between her and Auston as they touch momentarily.

Pulling the bag from his hands, she tries to ignore the spark.

“I’m so sorry Auston; I wasn’t thinking; there’s a cactus in the bag and if you put your hand in you’re going to get pricked.”

She rips the bag to expose the sharp green plant.  “Here it is. It’s just a little something”, she says as she places it on his bed next to him, careful to avoid touching him again.

As Auston looks at the small plant with a tiny blue ribbon attached to one of its spikes, he tries to process the rush of thoughts and emotions.  

He loves how she just made his stomach flip with her touch, and that he finally mastered keeping his heart rate under control with meditative-type breathing.  

He rushes to sort through his thoughts:  First, she thinks of me when she is away from me. Then, she wants to make me happy by getting me a gift.  Then, she remembers personal things about me like where my home is and that I get awards. Then, there is electricity in our touch, which I can’t believe she didn’t feel.  Then, she is concerned about hurting me.  Even if she can’t admit to being my friend right now, she just showed me that we are friends; and that’s enough right now.  He thinks.

Auston is tempted to call Dr Quinn out; that her actions mean more than she is willing to admit, by asking her if she gives all her patients a gift when they move rooms or accomplish something in recovery, but thinks better of it.  He knows that keeping the status-quo to just doctor and patient will allow her to remain his doctor and grant him time to develop a relationship with her; that works for him.

Auston writes, “Thanks very much, Dr Q.”

“You’re very welcome, Auston. I hope you like it.”  Dr Quinn responds.

“I do, very much”, he writes as he blushes and motions for her to put it on the window ledge across the room from him.  He wants to be able to see it all the time.

“Well, it’s not much, but I am just excited for you and this big step forward and wanted to cheer up your new room.  You’ve gone through a lot, and you still have a ways to go.”  She tells him.

“You’re a very special person, Dr Q.”  He writes on his board with a smile.  He figures that’s safe.  She’s his doctor, and she’s nice so there, he thinks.  Sue me!  He reasons with himself.  He would give anything to say more, but he knows there’s too much at risk.

Dr Quinn quickly changes the subject.  “I hope you will have some friends over soon.  That would be good for you, Auston.  Also, if you won’t see a counsellor, then please start talking to someone who can help you sort things out.  Give it some serious thought on who you have in your network that will be good to talk to about what you’re going through.  I’ll check back with you to make sure you do that, okay?”  She pauses and then adds “Consider that your homework.”

“Oh, so you’re my doctor AND now my teacher?!”  Auston writes cheekily.

“Well, I am actually qualified to teach, so I suppose I could be your teacher.  So yes, I am your teacher, and that is your homework, Auston Matthews. I expect you to do it or I’ll take back your trophy”,  Dr Quinn teases.

“Ahhh, Professor Q! You wouldn’t!” Auston writes in jest.

“Oh, yes, I would!”  She teases back.

“Well, I sure wouldn’t want you to take your gift away, so I’ll be sure to do your damn assignment”, Auston adds.

“Good to hear, Auston. Cause I will.  You know I will, don’t you?”  She teases again.

Auston can’t help but blush at her dominance.  “Yes, I know you will, Dr Q.”  Auston writes, acting dejected to make her laugh.

“Okay, well I better leave you to get some sleep”, Dr Quinn announces.

Auston quickly writes, “What are you doing tonight?  Hot date?”  He teases playfully trying not to make her suspicious, but honestly wants to know.

“Ha!  No!  But you got me thinking the other day when we talked about me needing to crawl out from under my rock.  Probably shouldn’t be sharing this with my patient but it’s because of you that I even contemplated this.  There is a guy who has been asking me to go out with him for a long while, but I didn’t think I had the time to date with my busy schedule.  However, you got me thinking that I really live a sad life of work, work, work.  I should make an effort to have a life beyond work.  Career-wise, things have been a little less intense lately, so I’m going to go on a date.”

Holy Shit, No!  What the hell did I do?!  Auston yells to himself.

He immediately tries to calm himself down to avoid setting off the heart rate monitor again.  

What do I tell her?  I want to tell her not to date him but can’t.  What do I do?  Oh, my God!  He panics to himself.

He is scared that the monitor is going to go off and reveal his feelings.  He needs her to get out of the room before it does.  He’s trying to contain his thoughts and the emotions they are bringing on with his meditative breathing.

Hoping to do damage control, he calmly takes his marker and writes, “No, I understand why you have little social life.  I am somewhat the same during hockey season.  I’d be exactly the same if I weren’t on a team.  So I get it.  No shame in it.  You are on a different level.”  

“I have a team of sorts through my work, but I don’t think it’s the same kind of comradery you have on your team. You all travel together.  We all work a variety of shifts.  It gets kind of lonely to be honest”, Dr Quinn reveals.

Auston doesn’t want to hear that she is lonely or unhappy, but he needs for her to wait for him to get better. He sees no way of getting her to wait without confessing his feelings, but if he does, he for sure will lose her as his doctor.

“I see.  Well, I wouldn’t want you to be lonely.  But I also wouldn’t want you to get hurt either. Are you sure he’s a good guy?” Auston asks hoping she will reconsider out of fear that the guy might hurt her.

“He seems to be”, Dr Quinn answers.

“Who is it?  A doctor?”  He questions her, but it really doesn’t matter who it is because he is jealous of anyone who takes her attention away from him.  But he wants to know who it is so he can find out more about him.

“Yeah.  His name is Doctor Scott Peters.  He’s a plastic surgeon.  Works in his own practice and I send patients to him.  I met him at a seminar and see him off and on when he comes to the hospital to do surgeries”, She explains.

“Good looking?”  He wants to know what she classifies as attractive.

“I think so anyway”, She responds blushing; uncomfortable that he would ask this.

“Well, be careful.  You deserve the best, so don’t settle.  I also wouldn’t want to see you get hurt. You’re pretty important to me”, Auston writes.  He figures that letting her know that she is important to him is safe since she is, after all, his doctor.  But he also hopes she might take from his comments, the subtle message, that he is in the wings so she should just wait for him.  He feels he really has nothing else he can say or do at this point without risking losing her as his doctor.

“Thanks for your concern, Auston. I will be careful.  You have a great night’s sleep, and I’ll see you tomorrow okay?”  She tells him.

“Yeah.  Thanks for stopping by and for the cactus.  I really love u. Ha!  I mean, IT.”  He can’t help himself.  He feels desperate and jealous.  He makes a subconscious mistake writing “u” but refuses to erase it.  Instead, he thinks that if he adds the other parts, he can play innocent but leaves her free to take it any way she wants.  

Auston hopes she gets the message because there’s nothing else he can do right now.

Dr Quinn leaves Auston’s room confused by their exchanges but refuses to focus on it as doing so might add issues to working with him.

Auston begins to wallow in his frustration.  He is sickened by the thought of Dr Quinn going out with another guy.  He is frustrated at the timing.  He immediately turns to his nightstand to get his cell phone. He needs to see what this guy is all about.

Just as Auston sees a photo of Dr Peters and begins reading about him, his heart rate monitor goes off.  He is relieved that Dr Quinn is out of his room, but then he sees her walk back in.

Oh, Fuck Me!  He says to himself.

“What happened Auston?  I just left you.”  She looks at Auston perplexed as she heads over to check the machine.

Auston seems upset and is holding his cell phone.  Dr Quinn surmises that Auston has been trying to do the “homework” assignment she gave him and it has distressed him.

Before Auston can try and make up a response, Dr Quinn answers for him, “Oh, your cell phone?”

Auston just nods figuring she bailed him out again by jumping to conclusions.  She really has no clue how I feel about her, which is both good and bad, he thinks.

“Auston, I suggest you don’t look at your cell phone this evening unless to contact your family.  Once your family has a chance to deal with your messages, you will feel better about using it.  They are the last thing you need to look at right now.  Okay?”

Auston nods in agreement.

“Or is it something else that is bugging you?”  She asks.

Auston shakes his head no and writes, “I’m tired too.”

“Okay then, let me tuck you in, and you get some sleep right now.  Hand me that cell phone please.”

He quickly closes his phone as she takes it and puts it in the drawer of the side table.  He enjoys the attention of her caring for him, adjusting the cords attached to him, getting him comfortable and tucking the covers around him.  She finishes with a touch of her hand on his arm as she says, “Sleep tight, Auston.” With that touch, the current of electricity that no one acknowledges returns.  Auston wants to grab her arm and pull her to him.

Instead, he closes his eyes and sighs to himself as he relishes the chills she gives him.  He is gone, gone, gone for her.  He doesn’t want to watch her walk away, and out of his room, so instead he just keeps his eyes closed and imagines she has sat down in the room with him as he falls asleep.  By doing this, he is able to keep thoughts of Dr Peters out of his mind and drift off into slumber.

[woohooligancomics]

Webcomic Whimsy: Furry Experience!

Welcome to the Woohooligan Weekly Webcomic Whimsy! If you're a webcomic author and would like a review, you can see my announcement and review rules here.

Title: Furry Experience

Author: Ellen Natalie • Patreon • Facebook • Twitter

Site: Smack Jeeves

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Furry, Mormons

Rating: G (?)

Updates: Saturdays

My Starting Point (requested by artist): Page 182 (I'm not sure if they're arranged in chapters -- the archive doesn't seem to have chapter numbers)

Synopsis (from the About page): Three roommates attending college in Utah Valley. Between their different backgrounds, beliefs, and friends, there's sure to be lots of comedy and drama before anyone earns a diploma.

This starting page is probably a decent example of what you can expect from Furry Experience. Obviously the characters are anthropomorphic animals, as you'd expect from the title. The main characters are college roommates, so you would expect that kind of sit-com-esque, day-in-the-life humor. And the art is of good enough quality that we're not scratching our heads about what's going on here.

Ultimately, yes there's a good bit of comedy and a little drama in it, but the drama seems rather tame and the comedy seems very much of the family-friendly variety. I think where the story really excels is in a kind of smooth-seas, non-threatening character development. The characters never seem especially challenged by the events in their life, despite plenty of displays of emotion, and there are lots of scenes of friend and family bonding. To be honest, a lot of it feels to me like the TV commercials the Mormon church sometimes airs, where something ostensibly portrayed as bad seems to have happened, like the kids got their dress clothes all dirty, and just as the parents are about to lay into them, they start a water-fight with the garden hose instead.

I seem to always be waiting for something more outlandish or more personally challenging to happen to one of the characters and it never really does. Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm conditioned to expect that from the TV shows I watch. In any event, if you like friend and family bonding and g-rated humor, this might be for you! :D

The first several pages of this story arc is all three of the roommates continually changing the whiteboard to pass the dishes chore onto each other until Cat, who I presume is a dimwit stereotype, reaches the conclusion that the whiteboard is cursed, rather than that her roommates have been changing it.

Some people might not like me saying this, and fuck them. I like the fact that the cast is weighted on women. I counted fourteen female characters to six male on the about page. The reason I say I like this is because culturally, we've been programmed to expect the cast to be heavily male weighted. This programming is so strong, that when you ask people to estimate the number of women in a room, they usually will say "about half" when the room is actually only 20% or one in five women. Despite its sexist origins, Star Trek: the Next Generation did a better job featuring a 6-to-3 cast ratio in the first season, before Yar died, leaving the ratio 6-to-2. To be fair, Furry Experience isn't even that heavily weighted, the men are slightly less than one in three, so it's comparable to ST:TNG's first season.

The whiteboard joke ends abruptly after a few pages once Cat destroys it, and without showing any further bickering over the dishes chore, so those several pages are essentially a really short comedic subplot or a really long self-contained comic strip.

Then we're on to the next story which starts with Ronnie and her friend Vikki visiting a book-store at the mall. I have to agree with Ronnie here, I've been inside Mormon book stores and I'm not sure I would call it "culture". Mormons are if anything extremely conservative, so aside from picking up on some of their religious idiosyncrasies, the Mormon bookstore would actually restrict the amount of alternative views you're exposing yourself to, not expand them. I personally was raised Mormon (I'm Unitarian / positive agnostic), and my mother was Mormon until some time in my mid thirties. She still refuses to believe anything a liberal says, but takes on face value anything said by a conservative, like for example that Trump never said "grab them by the pussy" (even though he and his wife both admitted it on TV and during the debates), because the whole tape was manufactured as a part of a grand conspiracy. As far as she's concerned, the conspiracy is more believable than the idea that Trump said it, despite the fact that there are numerous TV apperances showing Trump bragging that he wants to fuck his daughter. :-/

But I'm off topic... Ronnie and Vikki are going to the Mormon book store. If you're unfamiliar with Mormonism, Utah is like the Mormons' Vatican... Well, Salt Lake City is, but also most of Utah. Mormonism is such an entrenched part of the state that it's actually somewhat difficult to live in the state without being Mormon, because you can't go or work anywhere without the Mormons in the office giving you crap about the fact that you drink coffee. (They have a religious prohibition on coffee like they do alcohol and cigarettes.)

Honestly, it's hard for me to say much about the following page except "agreed".

So they leave the book shop and they're talking about hanging out the rest of the evening and of course, like I said, it's hard to live in Utah if you're not Mormon, the subject comes up again.

Yes, that's really a thing, Mormons are supposed to have a "family home evening" (most of them do it on Monday), in which they have a gospel lesson... but because it's super hard to maintain that amount of bullshit for such an extended period of time (they all just spent three hours at church the day before), most of them don't manage to have their gospel lesson ready and then feel guilty and go out to eat somewhere with their family instead. And this isn't even mentioning the host of extracurricular church activities they're supposed to engage in, like their weekly study-buddies with other church members.

So the discussion about where to hang out leads to some mystery about what Vikki is hiding at her apartment.

Ronnie decides to stalk Vikki to find out what's wrong with her apartment, and thanks to the laws of sit-com world, what's wrong is that all three of Vikkie's roommates aren't just practicing Mormons, they even bought the "god is watching you" poster from the previous page.

Ellen told me that this series included furries, comedy, drama and Mormon's in that order. So I'm taking her word for it that most of the content isn't specifically about Mormonism, but she did start me out right in front of an arc about how annoying it is to live in Utah if you're not. Vikki's roommates are all attending "Furry Young" university in Provo (Brigham Young is the university owned by the Mormon church) and have stereotypically conservative, female career goals like school teacher, nursing and housewife.

When the discussion turns to the typical Mormon attitude that "of course everyone wants to get married", the story does briefly touch on one of the more awkward and imo hilarious aspects of Mormon religion: if you don't marry on earth, you get to marry one of god's soldiers in heaven! :P

It seems a little odd to me personally that Ellen sidestepped the fact that the Mormon church is polygamist, so it wouldn't matter that those soldiers had already married, because they would get to be wife #3 or 8 or whatever and should be just as happy with that. :P But damnit, Ronnie, don't use the G word in front of the roommates, it really upsets them, and Vikki still has to live with them.

I mentioned all the extracurricular churcch activities, right? Basically the Mormon church expects its members to fill every waking moment with church doctrine in some form. On the toilet? Great opportunity to brush up on Leviticus!

Okay, that's actually a sweet moment between Ronnie and Vikki, and as much as I think Vikki's approach was off, at least now I understand why she was going to the Mormon bookstore. This page was originally published in 2012... I don't know, it seems to me like using Google on your smartphone would be an easier way of learning the Mormonisms than frequenting their bookstore. Google? Why? I have libraries!

So Vikki's roommates want Ronnie and Vikki both to participate in their "family home evening" (which, when you're not living with family, necessarily beccomes "roommate home evening"), which involves praying, singing hymns and a lecture about the importance of marrying in the Temple (a place non-Mormons aren't allowed to go, so obviously you have to marry within the religion to do that). As this is about as appealing as sand-papering your eyeballs, Ronnie gets them out of it by suggesting a "more interactive" activity so she can get to know them better: doorbell ditching! Which, to Vikki's surprise, the Mormon girls are toally into! Because when Mormons do it, they leave cookies, so... for all their faults, at least they're engaging in random acts of diabetes. :P (Fun fact, Mormons use more sugar in their cooking, are heavier set, and have more diabetes than just about any other religion.)

And then rather than buy cookies at the store (it's Monday, they're allowed), they start baking cookies at the last minute to go doorbell ditch them. The point of this page is primarily about how jargon-laden Mormonism is and, although I'm unfamiliar with these specific terms, I don't doubt them.

This story wraps up with a sentimental exchange between Ronnie and Vikki, which seems to me to be much of the flavor of the series as a whole: yes, there's your typical sitcom humor, but the overall tone feels to me less "let's make this hilarious" and more "even Lifetime movies have comic relief". Obviously that's a personal opinion and mileage varies.

The following story centers on one of the few male characters, Hunter, who's also college age, though still living with his parents. He's decided to make (nude) modelling for college art classes his full-time job, which sets the story up for tension between Hunter and his mother.

It isn't apparent until the following page that Mom is aware that Hunter's job is getting nakedy naked in the colleges of the world's most sexually repressed city ... seriously, there's probably more fucking in the Vatican than in Salt Lake. Probably a lot more. Anyway, Mom doesn't like it, that's why she's helicopter-momming Hunter and calling to set up job interviews without his consent.

And like I said before, this is where the story gets real Lifetime on us, with Mom talking about Hunter's entirely non-sex job like he's an alcoholic or a drug addict and this is an intervention.

I definitely have some questions about the pirate job. If we're talking movie or theater, that might be pretty cool, but it would be so much cooler if someone's hiring crew for a replica of the Queen Anne's revenge to terrorize rich people on their yachts in Lake Erie. It's probably disappointingly, a mascot job for a seafood restaurant or worse pirate-themed tax prep. "We be takin' deduction ARRR!"

Yes, he's deep undercover in Salt Lake City, trying to recover state secrets stolen by the Illuminati and hidden in the Mormon temple. Okay, that may not be as funny to you, but it's hilarious to me... after growing up with my Mormon mom, who's now a non-denominational pagan (ask me about her salt altars) who obsessively watches atheist YouTube channels. :P

Honesty, yes... that goes over great with Mormons who're so sexually repressed their sex organs have literally shrivelled up and become vestigial. Seriously, these people think kissing on the lips is a sin.

Oh! Hunter's family are mormon, wow... I sort of assumed they were the rare non-Mormon family in Utah... When I was younger, I think my mom's reaction to me being naked for money would have been on the order of apoplexy or a stroke. But I can certainly relate to the sleazy sales company -- I've been on a few of those interviews, even tried to work those jobs once or twice. Ugh! The only bright side there is that when you do eventually go to hell (and you will), the job will have prepared you for it.

Yes, an hour is a typical amount of training in a lot of telemarketing jobs, and they're just as evil as the door-to-door sales job. I'm pretty sure I saw Stabby's owner on the cast list page, so I guess not all the characters know each other.

Called it! I really wish it had been actual pirating on Lake Erie. :-(

Meta joke! It must be about a webcomic I haven't read. I have no idea why Panda-Joel works as a joke.

Anyway that story ends with Hunter getting a concession job at a movie theater to replace Luke (Joel) and the end of the tension with his mother is that the job is great because it's mostly at night and fits neatly into his existing schedule so he can work both jobs and save up to potentially move out. Mom appears stunned at the news, which I'm guessing is supposed to mean she's not entirely happy with him moving out (and we know she wasn't happy with the art-modeling job he's still keeping). So I think the "punchline" there was "be careful what you wish for". As a former Mormon, I can't tell you how Mormon that whole thing feels. It's all so... mundane and uncomplicated. I'd have tried to end that story with a more challenging, possibly even surreal punchline, like the introduction of Stabby.

Artist insert. There's usually a single-page joke between stories and they're all labelled "filler page #". This one is 28.

I like the fact that the whiteboard changes mid-scene when it's obvious nobody's touched it. It may have just been a callback to the haunted whiteboard from the previous story, but I just think it's a cool bit of meta humor in general. I did the same thing with writing on the walls of the women's bathroom in the Pit (hell's bar, run by Azrael, who's Grumpy Cat's dad).

Again, this is Salt "No Sex Period" Lake City.

And just like they have a prohibition on sex, they also have a prohibition on ... you know, fun.

Tricking your kids out of things they want is really the job of being a dad if we're being honest.

Like I said before, the strip seems to focus primarily on friend-and-family bonding, sort of a furry, colorized Leave It To Beaver. So if you like family-friendly sitcoms, give Furry Experience a look!

If you are a webcomic author and are interested in a review from me, you can check out my announcement and my review-request rules here.

If you enjoyed this and want to help me make more reviews, you can contribute on our Patreon or if you're short on funds you can also help by checking out and sharing my own comedy and laughtivist webcomic, Woohooligan!

Thank you for sharing yourself with us! Sam

[michaelandy101-blog]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/seo-is-not-an-on-off-switch-whiteboard-friday/

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You’ve already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they’re doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we’re going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you’re tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we’re in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don’t want you to do that because that’s where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I’ll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it’s an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can’t do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, “My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?” Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it’s a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there’s no magic to this. We can’t expect to do more with less.

It’s a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they’re stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can’t expect them to do more with less, and we can’t expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can’t treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don’t get the traffic, but we’re not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That’s not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don’t want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you’re optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don’t get the leads. Okay, that’s rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It’s not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It’s a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That’s not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let’s say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you’re not producing new content and you’re not optimizing. It’s not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that’s a good thing about SEO. It doesn’t immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you’re going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it’s going to take time. There’s going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we’ve already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you’re going to be disappointed, right? That’s going to take time. So it’s not just a situation of a pandemic. Let’s say you close down for remodeling or let’s say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can’t expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that’s a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don’t optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don’t see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn’t really working. I think it’s a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You’re feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That’s how it works, and that’s how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn’t really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don’t feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don’t want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, “Well, okay, we’re going to get less leads. We’re going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen”. 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, “Oh, I guess they’re not around anymore. I guess they’re gone.”

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there’s a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn’t have to be as frequent — you don’t have to do as much work, you don’t have to put out as much content, you don’t have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you’re still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it’s okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you’re remodeling, you’re going to be closed for a couple months. That’s a real negative thing that’s hard. It’s okay to be personal. It’s okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids’ orthodontist, they’re a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn’t sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That’s something you should do. It’s okay to tell that, “Hey, this is hard. This is what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on with us. We hope you come back. We’re still here.”

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it’s okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we’ve had with Whiteboard Friday. I’ve been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I’ve had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There’s a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, “Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can’t go into the office for a while.” Actually, currently we’re moving the office, so again we’re delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I’m using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks’ worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven’t tried before. Don’t worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don’t want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don’t disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you’re going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It’s great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Source link

[camerasieunhovn]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[lakelandseo]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[epackingvietnam]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

#túi_giấy_epacking_việt_nam #túi_giấy_epacking #in_túi_giấy_giá_rẻ #in_túi_giấy #epackingvietnam #tuigiayepacking

[bfxenon]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[nutrifami]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[daynamartinez22]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[xaydungtruonggia]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[camerasieunhovn]

SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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SEO Is Not an On/Off Switch — Whiteboard Friday

Posted by Dr-Pete

When business is struggling, budgets are tight, and resources limited, your company might be tempted to cut back or cut off SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize. But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is actually a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run. 

Dr. Pete is here with a brand new Whiteboard Friday to tell you why SEO should not be treated like an on/off switch, and provide some suggestions on what to do instead. 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, everybody, Dr. Pete from Moz here. I want to welcome you to my first recording from Whiteboard Friday Studio Chicago, aka my basement. I want to thank the content team, first of all, for getting me set up with the equipment, but especially for their patience. I am not an AV guy, so this has taken a little while longer than I had hoped. You've already seen some remote Whiteboard Fridays from Russ and Britney and Cyrus, and they're doing a great job. So hopefully we can have some fun, and now I know the ropes and can get this going a little easier. 

So I want to talk about a serious topic today. Obviously, we're going through some tough times. Budgets can be tight, and when that happens, you're tempted to scale back marketing. Obviously, we're in the business of selling SEO tools, and we don't want you to do that because that's where our food comes from and the roofs over our heads. I'll be transparent about that. But I do think there are some real dangers to treating SEO like it's an on/off switch. So I want to talk about the reality of that, and what can happen, and some of what to do to mitigate that. 

You can't do more with less

A friend reached out to me and she said, "My boss is worried about budgets, and he wants to cut back paid search, and he wants to cut back content, and cut back social, but get the same results. What do we do?" Before the pandemic, I might have laughed at that. But it's a serious question and a serious situation, and the reality is there's no magic to this. We can't expect to do more with less.

It's a nice thing to say. But especially when people are struggling, and when our workers are having problems, and they're stressed, and their time is being taken up doing mundane things — like grocery shopping — that are three times harder now, we can't expect them to do more with less, and we can't expect to do nothing and get results. So what do we do, and how do we deal with this problem?

You can't treat organic like paid



So first of all, I just want to say that I think sometimes we look at the situation like this. If we scale back marketing, we can just wait until times are better, and then we can push it back up. So we turn on our search marketing. We get the traffic and things are great. We shut it off. Okay, that sucks. We don't get the traffic, but we're not paying. Turn it back on and boom the traffic is back. 

That's not how it works, not even close. 

This is more like how paid search works. I don't want to oversimplify. I used to work in paid search. Obviously, you're optimizing and improving and adding negative keywords and doing A/B testing and all these things to hopefully get better and better performance. But, generally speaking, one of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You get traffic right away that day. When you turn it off, you get nothing. The money is not there. You don't get the leads. Okay, that's rough, but you expect that, right? But you turn it back on, the leads come back that day. So this is the double-edged sword in a sense. It's not that one is better than the other, but this is how paid search works. It's a machine that you can flip off and on. 

That's not how organic works. Organic does take time. So what happens is you turn it on, and you see this gradual ramp-up. Finally, it starts to peak and level off, and then you turn it off. Let's say budgets are tight.

Okay, I understand that you're not producing new content and you're not optimizing. It's not a thing you can just turn off frankly. But you still see positive results. You still see that traffic until this starts to trail off over time. Now that's a good thing about SEO. It doesn't immediately turn off. You still continue to get that traffic.

But the problem with SEO is when you turn it back on and when the money comes back, you're going to have to go through this ramp-up again. The curve may be different shapes, and it may not go all the way down and it may not go back to where it was. But it's going to take time. There's going to be a lag, and it could be weeks or it could be months. So I think we make two mistakes. One we've already discussed.

One is number two ironically, that this is going to take time to come back. So if you count on just turning the switch back on and things recovering, you're going to be disappointed, right? That's going to take time. So it's not just a situation of a pandemic. Let's say you close down for remodeling or let's say you had some kind of flooding or some kind of damage or something you needed to do to shut down for a month or two.

You can't expect that, when you turn things back on, it will immediately come back. So you may have to get ahead of that. You may have to start spending again before things pick up. I know that's a difficult thing, but you have to anticipate this lag. You have to be realistic about that. The other problem, though, is I think sometimes we hit this point, and we shut off our efforts.

We cut down content production. We don't optimize. We switch agencies, whatever we do. We don't see an immediate drop, and so we start to say maybe this isn't really working. I think it's a bit like exercise. I have this habit certainly over the years. You get motivated.

You do really well for a few weeks or a couple of months. You're feeling good, and you start to plateau. You get a little frustrated, and then you stop. For a while, you still feel good, right? You have these dividends. That's how it works, and that's how organic search works. So you think, well, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal.

Maybe it wasn't really helping me. Until two or three or six months later, when you realize how much worse you feel. Then by then, to start back up again takes effort, right? You don't feel good when you start exercising again after that six weeks of sitting around. So it takes a couple of months to get back to where you were. So I don't want you to go through that, and I want you to be a bit careful about that.

What you can do

So what can we do? By the way, I have no artistic skills. This is from my 10-year-old daughter. Any drawings you see on my Whiteboard Fridays will be probably from her. So thank you, Jordan. So a couple suggestions I have that are general.

1. Have a pulse

First of all, and I mean this quite literally, you need to continue to have a pulse.

If you shut down your business or your marketing, you may just think, "Well, okay, we're going to get less leads. We're going to get less of a good thing, but nothing bad is going to happen". 

But the problem is this may be the only place people see you, and this may be where they come looking for you. So if you disappear, and especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people may look at that and say, "Oh, I guess they're not around anymore. I guess they're gone."

They might not come back. They might not come looking for you again. I think there's a very real danger of that, especially for small local businesses. So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist. You have that pulse. 

It doesn't have to be as frequent — you don't have to do as much work, you don't have to put out as much content, you don't have to be as active on social — but I think you have to at least show people that you're still alive and kicking so that they know to come back when things improve. Otherwise, they might just forget and go somewhere else. 

2. Tell your story

I think it's okay, especially during times like this — and really any time that something is kind of going wrong — if you're remodeling, you're going to be closed for a couple months. That's a real negative thing that's hard. It's okay to be personal. It's okay to tell some of that story. 

My kids' orthodontist, they're a family-owned business locally here. They were really great when they were closed. They were closed for a couple of months, about two or three months. They were as responsible as I think they could be about it. They communicated their plans, but they talked to us. They sent emails. They told us about their story. They told us about being a family-owned business and why this was hard and why they thought it was the right thing to do. So when they reopened, there was a real trust there, and I was willing to send my oldest back and get her checked out and get the normal stuff done, that I might not have been if I wasn't sure what was going on.

But I knew their procedures. I knew their story. I empathized with them, and I think that was a big deal. That's something you should do. It's okay to tell that, "Hey, this is hard. This is what's going on. Here's what's going on with us. We hope you come back. We're still here."

3. Try new things

Then I think this is an interesting time to try new things. And maybe that sounds counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something new seems like a bad idea.

But it's okay to try new things. Maybe not as well as you normally would have. Ironically, this is a problem we've had with Whiteboard Friday. I've been remote my whole time at Moz, and so I've had to fly to Seattle to do recordings. So you see very few Whiteboard Fridays from me. There's a handful over the years and one that gets repeated a bit. Because we have a studio there, we were afraid that the quality might not be as good.

It might not be up to par. It might hurt our brand, honestly. But when the pandemic came, we said, "Hey, you know what? Now we have no choice. The studio is closed. We can't go into the office for a while." Actually, currently we're moving the office, so again we're delayed. So it opened up this opportunity to try something new, try something different. Even with equipment, it costs less than one of us flying out there and staying for a few days one time.

So it made sense, and we realized that during this time people were going to naturally be forgiving. If we could get to 70% or 80% quality and improve back up over time, it was going to be okay. So I encourage you to do that. Try some formats you might not have tried before. Try some video. Use some basic equipment. We did home recordings for MozCon this year.

It was great. We had some basic equipment, Logitech web cam, a clip-on USB mic, much less sophisticated than what I'm using right now, a couple of ring lights. Maybe 200 bucks' worth of equipment and a backdrop that really I thought looked great. It was really professional once we got used to it. Try podcasting.

Try something you haven't tried before. Don't worry about it being perfect, because I think this is a time that people will be okay with that. You can try some new things and hopefully come out stronger and come out with a new thing and resume what you were doing and maybe be ahead of where you were. So again, I just don't want you to think that if you turn this thing off, you can flip it back on.

Be realistic. Don't disappear. Try something new. Tell people what you're going through. Be human. I hope you all get through this okay and that things are going all right. It's great to see you. Thank you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!