Are You a Sellout?
This post was made Apr 01, 2008 by Carlos del Rio
According to a young woman I met this weekend you are, or will be. Everyone eventually gives up the long hard road to their dreams for the comfort of immediate reward. The real question is how much have you sold?
Search has 3 major players makers, rankers, and searchers
- Makers build content: Bloggers, web designers, game makers, etc.
- Rankers order content: Search engines, directories, social media hubs, or evangelists.
- Searchers are the people who are looking for things.
Makers find success producing content that someone wants, Rankers are successful when they connect the Searchers to the right content. Searchers are the most limited by the system, but they can also put the other two out of business by changing where or how they search.
For Makers selling is a daily experience, they have a skill and someone is willing to pay for it. Makers have the ability to sellout searchers by making a mountain spammy content. Makers can also sell themselves out by taking on clients that undercut their own morals.
For Rankers selling out is easy. Google, Yahoo, and MSN started selling ads, so rank isn’t free. No matter how good your content is someone can buy the top real estate on the search. On the Social Media front there are people who sell their votes for popularity. Or you can just sell your endorsement.
Searchers are selling out when they allow themselves to accept low quality content, because they can’t find anything better. But this one I understand, when Rankers and Makers sellout they make searching so difficult that “good enough” quickly enters your search process.
Search Marketers are often a mix of the three types. Social Media & Paid Search are mainly Maker/Rankers and Organic Search is largely Searcher/Makers. Whatever combination of roles you play on the Internet you should be doing your best to keep high standards in your role.
