Swiss psychologist Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity. He wanted a way to describe “meaningful coincidence”.
Synchronistic events reveal underlying patterns, a conceptual framework that encompasses, but is larger than, any of the systems that display the synchronicity. Ref: Wikipedia
Underlying pattern should make any Search Engine Optimizer’s ears perk up. Search is a dynamic, organic, emergent system with hidden and layered underlying patterns. What seems random is in fact connected.
Connected randomness can be a hard concept for pattern seeking minds. The idea that no pattern is a pattern sounds more philosophical than helpful. I use this idea of no pattern is a pattern to help break
SEO thinking patterns. Gold goes to the unusual able to think so differently even trolling patterns seem strange.
Think of the 1849 California gold rush and the "forty-niners" who risked life and limb to make their fortunes. If you were lucky enough to be one of the first miners to arrive in California’s wild gold was there for the easy taking. Once word was out, mining was work. Once the rush was on mining was a waste of time. Now we pan electronic streams for SEO gold.
When mining we seek comfort from other miners. Other miners mean gold must exist in the remote stream or cave we pan or dig. Not so much. The first SEO miners to arrive may have picked gold up with every PPC ad and key word listing. Now is the only time that matters to gold miners and SEO pros and now is always different.
Except, "now" is not how most search engine optimizers think. Most SEO companies follow pre-determined steps, steps they’ve already applied to fifty other clients with varying degrees of success. Wrongfully, these SEO companies think their process works just not the same for every client. In fact, their process is flawed. The only different variable is how many miners arrived first. Applied flawed pattern to fresh river and gold nuggets may plop into your pan.
How many gold nuggets does it take to incorrectly reinforce flawed logic? Key variables such as how many miners were present before we started panning are quickly forgotten. Humans move credit to innate intelligence and blame to circumstances. We aren’t lucky but smart. We aren't wrong but unlucky.
Add these to the many lies we tell. There is nothing wrong with being lucky especially if your process understands how to pan for luck. Perspiration trumps inspiration in SEO, but don’t be fooled by quid pro quo logic. Because you’ve worked hard discovering key words, researching trends and creating matching content doesn’t mean you win. Anytime you deal with something as dynamic as gold in a river or gold in them there SEO hills, logic must be supplemented by off track betting.
SEO's Off Track BettingI tend to think and talk in metaphor and analogy. This tendency can frustrate, so let me explain by example. Go to Amazon and type “
Seth Godin” into the Amazon search box. Select Seth’s excellent book
Tribes and go to the product page. Just below Tribes: We need you to lead us. You will see this line:
Key Phrases:
balloon factory, United States,
San Francisco, Acumen Fund (more...)
Click on any Amazon “Key Phrase” and it will be hard to find any relationship to Tribes. There is only the most remote connection. Amazon is creating SEO synchronicity. They are off the grid mashing up patterns to throw them to the world in order to see what happens.
Everyone knows the myth of the rabbit and turtle. The rabbit is flashy and fast, the turtle slow and sure. Amazon merges rabbit speed to turtle process. Tossing millions of seemingly unrelated keywords out into the ether Amazon acts like a speeding rabbit and like a patient turtle Amazon watches its snares. Once Amazon sees traffic coalescing around a keyword they invest in it. Notice the difference between “balloon factory" and "San Francisco” (linked above if you don't want to go to Amazon).
Balloon Factory is a simple list of related books. San Francisco, on the other hand, has its own key word cloud. San Francisco reached some magical algorithmic tipping point. Once that point was reached Amazon knew it was worth mashing a cloud into the page increasing the page’s ability to create new synchronistic patterns by a factor of 25 (the words in the cloud).
Deterministic Vs. SpontaneousHumans tend toward determinism. We see life as a series of tasks. SEO isn’t life. SEO is emergent and mathematical. My marketing determinism was spoiled by Malcolm Gladwell’s
Tipping Point. Prior to Gladwell’s masterpiece I believed what I was taught. Marketing was deterministic, a series of tasks whose implementation insured success. WRONG. Gladwell showed human behavior is more connected, viral and emergent.
Magic and passion may result from tasks, but there is no a+b=c equation able to predict the next M&M’s, Nike or Google. When I worked for M&M/Mars it was easy to be fooled. We were selling M&M’s and, as one of the company’s owners once claimed, “a trained monkey can sell M&M’s”. It wasn’t our marketing genius; it was M&M’s. Remember, our tendency is to assign credit to individual genius and blame to circumstances.
Approach spontaneous SEO only with deterministic steps and you will be bested and behind. DO the Word Tracker research, make lists and correct content just make sure you do some crazy things too. Create something akin to Amazon’s strange Key Phrases and then WATCH AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS. Half of what you do for your site under the SEO guise should be non-deterministic. It is hard to build spontaneity. Resist temptation to make yet another list and ask yourself how to mine the unknown, find the unfindable. How are you going to be the first to a new stream where gold nuggets fall into your pan?
What are you doing without any good reason? If your answer is nothing then break your own pattern and build a feedback loop whose results will surprise and possibly scare you.
Recommended Reading:
Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Martin
Facing Ali, Facing Ourselves
