Visualizing Crap

One of the quotes I use in presentations is "Search Engine Optimizing a crappy Website makes it slightly less crappy." If this sounds familiar to you, it may be because I've blogged it a few times.

Using the words Search Engine Optimization and crappy in the same sentence is not only funny, but it gets the point across about what SEO can and cannot do.

But there's another angle that I didn’t think of.

Visualizing crap

Newt Barrett's post Why Being Visual Can Bring Beautiful Business Results interested me and as I was looking at the examples Newt showed from 'Visual Blogger' Mark Smiciklas who writes Intersection Marketing, I was startled that Mark used my crappy analogy to create a wonderful visual.

So I high-tailed it over to Mark's blog to check it out. Damn is this a great way to show information.

I'm a word guy. I can write but I suck as a designer. So when I see the work of people like Mark and Doug Eymer (who designed this blog), I realize how important it is to have both. Powerful communications indeed.

Here is Mark's visual (click to enlarge). Thanks Mark!

top image: Brian Bress / Shutterstock
bottom image: Mark Smiciklas / Intersection Marketing

Comments

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=525853504]

Absolutely beautiful David. Crap in = slightly less crap out. Another great post, proving content is truly king.

[Kirk Cheyfitz]

I love your aphorism and the visual, David, but here's a potential problem: If you search optimize a crappy website, then more people will find it. But if more people then decide to hate your brand because your website is so crappy, your search optimization will simply have resulted in your offending more people than otherwise and this, in effect, will have made a crappy website even crappier. If you think this is an alternate possibility, I'll get one of our designers to create a visual for you. Like you, I'm just a writer.

[Kimota]

Genius. That should be a poster in every marketing department, every design agency and every business strategy meeting.

Then again, the worst offenders are usually those who don't know their content is crappy.

[Omar Halabieh]

A 'crappy' picture is worth a thousand 'crappy' words! I am a big believer in the use of visual aids to drive the point home!

Thanks for sharing David,

Regards,
Omar

[xavier izaguirre]

There is a great sentence on this?

SEOing a crappy website is like raising your hand at class only to not know the question asked...(via Seth Godin)

[Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book]

David,

I'm with you all the way here. I'm a word person and wish I could design / illustrate -- because it often gets the point across more quickly and powerfully. Luckily we have http://www.eymer.com/eymer.llc.html and others who can do it for us. Check out http://vizedu.com/2009/03/corporate-blogs-challenges-and-success-factors/

[Jorge Cunha]

Hi,
Amazing crap it's almost recycled!
Another kind of:

->Beautiful Crap - Beautiful design but crap content

->Ugly Crap - Good Content but poorly designed

The mixed of two ugly and beautiful crap makes decent web site. Because it's not a question of what you think, but what your visitors may tell you, using Web Analytics and multivariate tests and A/B

From the author of http://ittechbuz.blogspot.com maybe a crap? maybe not if it smells like flowers

[Antony Wilcox]

There is an amazing wealth of info of these guy's blog and all presented in simple images, thanks for showing me this mate, it has been very useful.