Finding weird stuff (FWS) is part of SEO - Search Engine Land

I have a gift: an innate ability to find weird stuff in SEO.

As an SEO professional, this ability can be both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing, because I can typically figure out what makes one website rank above another. A curse, because I would spend many hours, including many late nights, studying search results and looking at stuff for so long that it led to what I called “brain aches.”

Never heard of FWS? That’s because it’s a new initialism, of my creation. Yes, you are witnessing SEO history right now.

Ready to FWS? Here are a few things you can do when approaching a new prospect or project.

FWS

In all of the years of running SEO initiatives and employing SEOs, I have found that there are many who have a talent in content strategy, Information architecture/taxonomy, or perhaps even deep technical analysis.

As much as we may try to create the perfect process documentation for SEO efforts, there will always be one-off issues. Challenges that you won’t find on checklists.

Sometimes, finding weird stuff may unlock the key to SEO success.

So let us account for time for FWS in our SEO scopes. We need a set amount of time for research and discovery, even a few hours each month, for a project.

Convincing a client to agree to “research” (pulling threads and following the trail) can be difficult.

So, assuming that you can convince the powers-that-be that FWS is necessary, what are some ways we might learn how to think differently and find those nuggets that might lead to...

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