Coffee IV: 4-2-08
Not much interesting going on today, perhaps everyone is hungover from all the April Fool’s sillyness.
CEO SEO - Rand Fishkin wrote a really good post about Internet CEOs that ignore SEO. While I didn’t go into nearly the detail that Rand did I also touched on this back in the summer with my SEO is for Idiots post. The basic point here is that you shouldn’t be the CEO of anything if you can’t recognize the value of a good rank. I realize most people who hire CEOs or fund new startups are looking for a certain pedigree, but common sense should probably be the first thing you look for, as in if you don’t have any you shouldn’t be running a company. Read Rand’s post though, it’s very good and goes into detail with some good examples.
Passion - A big part of my little startup is content. As I’ve been hiring contributors to write for me the first and most important quality I look for is passion. If you’re not passionate about what I’m asking you to write about then you have no chance of writing for me. I get all sorts of resumes from people with English degrees, etc, but they don’t have a strong interest in the subject I’m looking for. Immediately these people are disqualified. In my humble little opinion, the one thing you can’t teach someone is passion. On the other hand, I believe grammar/english skills can be taught (I need to be taught myself). I’ve actually hired a couple people that have serious grammar/english problems but they are some of the most passionate individuals I’ve ever met. Their passion comes through in their content and in-turn, that makes for really really good content that others love to read, exactly what I want. I don’t mind taking the extra time to edit and I actually enjoy teaching these individuals how to write good blog posts, etc. I like passion.
I really enjoy writing these posts. I took a break from blogging for awhile because it got to the point where I no longer enjoyed what I was writing about. Things were starting to feel forced and it burned me out. I no longer want to feel like I have to write about SEO or social media or any of that stuff. I just want to have fun and write what’s on my mind - whether that happens to be SEO stuff or just personal stuff. Hope you enjoy this new direction as much as I do.
Cameron Olthuis is the Founder of
FWIW man, I enjoy the new direction.
thanks greg, much appreciated.
Yes, definitely agree, there’s more to the business than just business. It’s helpful to hear what you (and others in our line of work) are going through and are interested in. I’m a firm believer that sometimes our most important revelations and ideas are discovered on tangential rants. I guess thereby making tangents not tangents anymore? Despite the urge, I’m not going to go off on one right now. (or will i…)
Just caught up to this post, and have to say that you’re absolutely right about passion when it comes to writing for the web. I recently interviewed for a writer position, and while his skills and capability were there, his lack of passion was definitely underwhelming. He would have been bored with the position within a month easily.