How to start SEO-promotion on the principle of "Lean Startup"
Do you remember your very first day at the office? The very moment when you, a newcomer, come to work for the first time? This is exactly what, as I recall, I did quite well here in Distilled. In addition to the welcoming smiles of colleagues, there was my desktop, equipped with a laptop, monitor and Kindle. A library of recommended reading materials was uploaded to Kindle, including The Lean Startup .
Reading the book The Lean Startup, I asked myself why Distilled recommended this book to me and how does it relate to SEO?
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The Lean Startup is a book written by Eric Rees that includes advanced product development and business development techniques that have been applied by companies around the world, such as Kodak, Toyota, Dropbox and their own company, Eric Rees - IMVU .
In the book The Lean Startup (Lean Startup) talks about entrepreneurship, productive through the use of non-standard methods, resulting in achieved success in business.
After reading The Lean Startup (Thrifty Startup), I decided to check whether some of the principles are applicable here in Distilled, as well as how they can help in the field of SEO.
Working in small batches is a great way to increase productivity and avoid future problems in the production chain. They create conditions under which problems can be detected in the early stages, and under which further progress is impossible until a solution to these problems is found.
The Lean Startup demonstrates the strength of small-scale production through an experiment in which letters are distributed over one hundred envelopes. On each envelope, you must specify the address, paste the stamp, attach a letter to it and seal it. There are two ways to do this:
The second method is an illogical way of doing the job. Our instincts tell us to accomplish the task using the first method, with the belief that we will achieve greater efficiency by improving the execution of simple repetitive actions. However, when working with large volumes, our intuition does not take into account the extra time required to sort, stack and move this huge pile of papers. In the experiment, the illogical method turned out to be faster , and this applies not only to this test, but also to the following examples.
One of the last stages of this whole process was the attachment of a letter in an envelope. However, what if at this stage we find that the envelopes are too small? It turns out that we have lost a huge amount of time specifying an address and sticking stamps on a hundred envelopes. In the case of a stream of single products, we would have discovered this problem after the first envelope!
One of the main problems that we, as SEO's, can face is to get stuck at one of the stages of the production line. Waiting for one person to finish the previous task, while we are waiting for drawings from designers or data from researchers, and everything that we have been waiting for so long suddenly comes to us at once. This creates periods of high and low productivity, the opposite of a uniform workflow.
For example, I have a client - the owner of bluewidgets.com; He wants to create localized landingpage (special start page) for all cities where they sell their products.
The content list consists of the top 200 cities to buy bluewidgets widgets, and writing this content is given to freelancers. The instruction is written and, together with the list of cities, is sent to copywriters. A couple of weeks later, my mailbox is breaking down from descriptions of 200 cities, each of which consists of 400-500 words. With a closer look, I find out that they misunderstood my instructions. Perhaps this instruction was not clear enough, but it would take an enormous amount of effort to edit the entire material.
So how to avoid a similar problem? This is where we can use a stream of single products. As in the previous task with envelopes, it may happen that this method will require more time and effort, however, we already know that the process as a whole will become more efficient.
Initially, send freelancers a smaller amount of work, maybe even just one article. As soon as this article is ready, it is returned for editing. Feedback about this article is sent back with wishes that should be taken into account in the next article.
Despite the fact that this system may become more time dependent in the early stages, small errors will be corrected with each cycle, creating the preconditions that they are less likely to recur in future articles. In general, due to the smaller percentage of errors committed, the speed of creating, editing and adopting content will increase as a result of a more efficient system.
The minimum viable product, by testing assumptions, helps to begin the process of collecting information as quickly as possible. Instead of spending a huge amount of time on product development, characteristics or advertising campaigns, only in order to launch them to find out that there is no demand for them, we can issue a simplified version and collect feedback from real consumers in a shorter time, and thus avoid possible losses.
Not so long ago, Distilled made a small scheme for Simply Business , called the Simply Business Step-by-Step Guide to your Social Media Success. This is a great example of how SEO users can use MVP principles.
If we strictly adhered to the principles of MVP, then perhaps our initial action was to conduct smoke tests (smoke testing). The idea of ​​a smoke test is to find out whether a product is interesting to users or not. In order to start receiving information as quickly as possible, we could start with a survey of a group of small business representatives, “Would you like a handbook describing the best ways to conduct advertising campaigns in social networks?” This can be a really useful method of getting feedback on the assumptions you made in relation to their product, before investing additional time, effort and money in it. However, the answer would be a peremptory "no." Would this stop us from writing this guide?
It is very important that when creating MVP, he had a chance of success. During the survey, small business representatives may not have an idea about the entire depth of this content, for this reason, having made false assumptions about our product, they may misunderstand its essence.
A successful social media guide was the MVP for a possible series of similar products. Distilled continued to use a lean approach to the product, and, as an MVP, he created content for himself by answering questions from business representatives. As a result, we created a catalog of really great content, which we thought was necessary for business representatives to successfully conduct advertising campaigns in social networks. We produced a manual that was convenient to use and which freed customers from the need to conduct their own research.
The feedback received during the development of this content was subsequently used to improve future products. First, from the collected data, we learned that people really need this kind of information. Secondly, from the comments and feedback that were received by Simply Business, we found that people and business representatives find the product useful.
This allowed Simply Business to decide to continue creating this kind of content, investing additional time and money into it. Today, using the initial concept of MVP, they are developing tutorials with the addition of their own production videos, such as the Guide to WordPress for Small Businesses ( Small Business WordPress Guide).
For SEO's, MVP can be a great way to get incredible feedback quickly on your assumptions. In this particular case, Distilled believed that there was a potential demand for leadership related to social networks. By applying the basics of MVP, we can begin to get rid of unnecessary costs, and using the feedback received will help us in organizing subsequent advertising campaigns. Such feedback will give us clues as to where we might possibly take the turn (the pivot-turn will be described later).
At the LinkLove 2012 conference, Will Crichlow spoke on Mediocre To Great (mediocre to great) (you can watch the full version of the video on DistilledU ). He touched on the principles mentioned in The Lean Startup (Lean Startup), which we apply when focusing on a particular work, and they are called “The Five Whys” (Five “Why”). Here is how Will explains the meaning of the Five "Why":
This does not mean that “why” you need to ask exactly five times, sometimes three or four times it may be enough to determine the right direction and identify the source of the problem.
The main idea of ​​the Five "Why" is to direct efforts to eliminate the most problematic symptoms.
The book The Lean Startup describes how the use of the Five "Why" prompted IMVU to create an employee training program. Imagine such a situation, they begin to receive complaints regarding their new product:
What seemed at the beginning of a purely technical problem, turned into a human error, and the root cause of this error was a lack of training. IMVU could just fix a technical error and end it. However, with the next update, this engineer might have problems again. By revealing the source of the problem, we can try to prevent the repetition of the same mistakes.
When you ask the Five "Why", then it is normal that something may not go according to plan and the results may be unexpected. People put their time and effort into this project, and all this with good intentions. This may force them to take a defensive position; they may try to shift responsibility to another department or find some other reason.
To avoid such “ambushes”, make sure that when identifying the source of the problem, everyone she touched was in the same room. This can be a daunting task, in view of the incredibly busy schedule of participants, but this is very important, because the absent employee can easily become a scapegoat. When, however, the accusations are voiced, it is important that the most senior (ex officio) officer reassures everyone:
Remember that the purpose of this process is to identify the source of the problem, and not to find the culpable employee or department. The goal is to develop a system that will prevent the repetition of the same mistakes and that will not allow you or your client to end up in a similar situation.
The benefits of using the Five “Why” in SEO should not necessarily be limited only to finding the sources of problems and their solutions. They can be an assistant in planning projects, whether it’s a blog article or something larger. Applying the Five Whys can be a great way to validate and justify future decisions.
The last thing I would like to talk about today is at what point when you are working on a company you say “it didn’t work”? What if the reward for all previous efforts is not far off, or what if the rewards will not be?
Eric Rees summarizes this decision by making the following statement: “If we do not change the direction of our business model, we do not progress. This is a sure sign that the time has come to turn. "
We, SEO's, are lucky that we are surrounded by a large number of information and analytical data that can be collected as soon as possible. We can see what works and what doesn't. This allows us to make deliberate decisions, noticing the positive and negative impacts from the very beginning, as well as making the necessary turns to adjust our strategy to meet the requirements of users, Google and our customers.
It is very important not to jump from one point of view to a completely different one. The result will be only unnecessary costs. Do not neglect your previous experience, instead use it, take turns , and, with the help of this information, improve your future products and strategies.
We have been doing such turns for a long time (perhaps unconsciously). We constantly have to make turns due to changes made by Google in its search algorithms. Gone are the times of rewriting and various network directories. We had to change our strategies and focus on providing quality content, making the Internet a place full of pages that users really want to see!
I sincerely believe that we can all be more productive and help our clients become more productive by applying at least one of these methods.
The translation was made as part of the Tolstoy Summer Camp start-up summer school and the MetaBeta project.
Reading the book The Lean Startup, I asked myself why Distilled recommended this book to me and how does it relate to SEO?
')
What is The Lean Startup?
The Lean Startup is a book written by Eric Rees that includes advanced product development and business development techniques that have been applied by companies around the world, such as Kodak, Toyota, Dropbox and their own company, Eric Rees - IMVU .
In the book The Lean Startup (Lean Startup) talks about entrepreneurship, productive through the use of non-standard methods, resulting in achieved success in business.
After reading The Lean Startup (Thrifty Startup), I decided to check whether some of the principles are applicable here in Distilled, as well as how they can help in the field of SEO.
Strength of small scale
Working in small batches is a great way to increase productivity and avoid future problems in the production chain. They create conditions under which problems can be detected in the early stages, and under which further progress is impossible until a solution to these problems is found.
The Lean Startup demonstrates the strength of small-scale production through an experiment in which letters are distributed over one hundred envelopes. On each envelope, you must specify the address, paste the stamp, attach a letter to it and seal it. There are two ways to do this:
- Collapse all letters, then put the addresses on all envelopes, then paste the stamps, put all the letters in the envelopes, and finally seal all the envelopes.
- Complete all actions with one envelope before proceeding to the next (single item stream).
The second method is an illogical way of doing the job. Our instincts tell us to accomplish the task using the first method, with the belief that we will achieve greater efficiency by improving the execution of simple repetitive actions. However, when working with large volumes, our intuition does not take into account the extra time required to sort, stack and move this huge pile of papers. In the experiment, the illogical method turned out to be faster , and this applies not only to this test, but also to the following examples.
One of the last stages of this whole process was the attachment of a letter in an envelope. However, what if at this stage we find that the envelopes are too small? It turns out that we have lost a huge amount of time specifying an address and sticking stamps on a hundred envelopes. In the case of a stream of single products, we would have discovered this problem after the first envelope!
Use small batches instead of large volumes.
One of the main problems that we, as SEO's, can face is to get stuck at one of the stages of the production line. Waiting for one person to finish the previous task, while we are waiting for drawings from designers or data from researchers, and everything that we have been waiting for so long suddenly comes to us at once. This creates periods of high and low productivity, the opposite of a uniform workflow.
For example, I have a client - the owner of bluewidgets.com; He wants to create localized landingpage (special start page) for all cities where they sell their products.
The content list consists of the top 200 cities to buy bluewidgets widgets, and writing this content is given to freelancers. The instruction is written and, together with the list of cities, is sent to copywriters. A couple of weeks later, my mailbox is breaking down from descriptions of 200 cities, each of which consists of 400-500 words. With a closer look, I find out that they misunderstood my instructions. Perhaps this instruction was not clear enough, but it would take an enormous amount of effort to edit the entire material.
So how to avoid a similar problem? This is where we can use a stream of single products. As in the previous task with envelopes, it may happen that this method will require more time and effort, however, we already know that the process as a whole will become more efficient.
Initially, send freelancers a smaller amount of work, maybe even just one article. As soon as this article is ready, it is returned for editing. Feedback about this article is sent back with wishes that should be taken into account in the next article.
Despite the fact that this system may become more time dependent in the early stages, small errors will be corrected with each cycle, creating the preconditions that they are less likely to recur in future articles. In general, due to the smaller percentage of errors committed, the speed of creating, editing and adopting content will increase as a result of a more efficient system.
Minimal Sustainable Product (MVP) for SEO
The minimum viable product, by testing assumptions, helps to begin the process of collecting information as quickly as possible. Instead of spending a huge amount of time on product development, characteristics or advertising campaigns, only in order to launch them to find out that there is no demand for them, we can issue a simplified version and collect feedback from real consumers in a shorter time, and thus avoid possible losses.
Not so long ago, Distilled made a small scheme for Simply Business , called the Simply Business Step-by-Step Guide to your Social Media Success. This is a great example of how SEO users can use MVP principles.
If we strictly adhered to the principles of MVP, then perhaps our initial action was to conduct smoke tests (smoke testing). The idea of ​​a smoke test is to find out whether a product is interesting to users or not. In order to start receiving information as quickly as possible, we could start with a survey of a group of small business representatives, “Would you like a handbook describing the best ways to conduct advertising campaigns in social networks?” This can be a really useful method of getting feedback on the assumptions you made in relation to their product, before investing additional time, effort and money in it. However, the answer would be a peremptory "no." Would this stop us from writing this guide?
It is very important that when creating MVP, he had a chance of success. During the survey, small business representatives may not have an idea about the entire depth of this content, for this reason, having made false assumptions about our product, they may misunderstand its essence.
Create! Rate! Learn!
A successful social media guide was the MVP for a possible series of similar products. Distilled continued to use a lean approach to the product, and, as an MVP, he created content for himself by answering questions from business representatives. As a result, we created a catalog of really great content, which we thought was necessary for business representatives to successfully conduct advertising campaigns in social networks. We produced a manual that was convenient to use and which freed customers from the need to conduct their own research.
The feedback received during the development of this content was subsequently used to improve future products. First, from the collected data, we learned that people really need this kind of information. Secondly, from the comments and feedback that were received by Simply Business, we found that people and business representatives find the product useful.
This allowed Simply Business to decide to continue creating this kind of content, investing additional time and money into it. Today, using the initial concept of MVP, they are developing tutorials with the addition of their own production videos, such as the Guide to WordPress for Small Businesses ( Small Business WordPress Guide).
For SEO's, MVP can be a great way to get incredible feedback quickly on your assumptions. In this particular case, Distilled believed that there was a potential demand for leadership related to social networks. By applying the basics of MVP, we can begin to get rid of unnecessary costs, and using the feedback received will help us in organizing subsequent advertising campaigns. Such feedback will give us clues as to where we might possibly take the turn (the pivot-turn will be described later).
Be a child, always ask "why" ...!
At the LinkLove 2012 conference, Will Crichlow spoke on Mediocre To Great (mediocre to great) (you can watch the full version of the video on DistilledU ). He touched on the principles mentioned in The Lean Startup (Lean Startup), which we apply when focusing on a particular work, and they are called “The Five Whys” (Five “Why”). Here is how Will explains the meaning of the Five "Why":
The idea is that when something goes wrong in order to get to the source of the problem you need to ask "why" five times, just like a child. In essence, our outreachcampaign (promotion company) does not work. Why? Nobody answers our emails. Why? Because the content in question is located on a suspicious commercial domain. Why? In the end, you get to the source of the problem, solve it, and everything is getting better. That is the idea.
This does not mean that “why” you need to ask exactly five times, sometimes three or four times it may be enough to determine the right direction and identify the source of the problem.
The main idea of ​​the Five "Why" is to direct efforts to eliminate the most problematic symptoms.
The book The Lean Startup describes how the use of the Five "Why" prompted IMVU to create an employee training program. Imagine such a situation, they begin to receive complaints regarding their new product:
- The release of a new version of the product blocks a specific function from users. - Why? One of the servers fell.
- Why did the server crash? Because a little-known subsystem was used incorrectly.
- Why was it used incorrectly? The engineer did not know how to use it properly.
- Why did he not know? Because he was not taught this.
- Why wasn't he taught this? Because his manager does not consider it necessary to train beginners, as he and his team are too busy.
What seemed at the beginning of a purely technical problem, turned into a human error, and the root cause of this error was a lack of training. IMVU could just fix a technical error and end it. However, with the next update, this engineer might have problems again. By revealing the source of the problem, we can try to prevent the repetition of the same mistakes.
Remember that this is Five "Why", not Five "You are to blame"
When you ask the Five "Why", then it is normal that something may not go according to plan and the results may be unexpected. People put their time and effort into this project, and all this with good intentions. This may force them to take a defensive position; they may try to shift responsibility to another department or find some other reason.
To avoid such “ambushes”, make sure that when identifying the source of the problem, everyone she touched was in the same room. This can be a daunting task, in view of the incredibly busy schedule of participants, but this is very important, because the absent employee can easily become a scapegoat. When, however, the accusations are voiced, it is important that the most senior (ex officio) officer reassures everyone:
If an error has occurred, then it is our common fault that we so easily allowed this to happen.
Remember that the purpose of this process is to identify the source of the problem, and not to find the culpable employee or department. The goal is to develop a system that will prevent the repetition of the same mistakes and that will not allow you or your client to end up in a similar situation.
The benefits of using the Five “Why” in SEO should not necessarily be limited only to finding the sources of problems and their solutions. They can be an assistant in planning projects, whether it’s a blog article or something larger. Applying the Five Whys can be a great way to validate and justify future decisions.
Turn or continue in the same direction?
The last thing I would like to talk about today is at what point when you are working on a company you say “it didn’t work”? What if the reward for all previous efforts is not far off, or what if the rewards will not be?
Eric Rees summarizes this decision by making the following statement: “If we do not change the direction of our business model, we do not progress. This is a sure sign that the time has come to turn. "
We, SEO's, are lucky that we are surrounded by a large number of information and analytical data that can be collected as soon as possible. We can see what works and what doesn't. This allows us to make deliberate decisions, noticing the positive and negative impacts from the very beginning, as well as making the necessary turns to adjust our strategy to meet the requirements of users, Google and our customers.
It is very important not to jump from one point of view to a completely different one. The result will be only unnecessary costs. Do not neglect your previous experience, instead use it, take turns , and, with the help of this information, improve your future products and strategies.
We have been doing such turns for a long time (perhaps unconsciously). We constantly have to make turns due to changes made by Google in its search algorithms. Gone are the times of rewriting and various network directories. We had to change our strategies and focus on providing quality content, making the Internet a place full of pages that users really want to see!
I sincerely believe that we can all be more productive and help our clients become more productive by applying at least one of these methods.
The translation was made as part of the Tolstoy Summer Camp start-up summer school and the MetaBeta project.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/188282/
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