The Pizza SEO Project

Hello. I'm the Pizza CEO. My name is Justin Boland, and I am a memetic pirate -- a keyword hijacker.

I "stole" the name Pizza SEO just like lions "steal" meat from an antelope. See, when I came into the game, there already was a company called Pizza SEO. They were weak: their methods were outdated, their content was horribly written, and their business model was based on imitation and repetition.

Since I wrote that last paragraph, the Slovak Usurpers have fired back, creating a parody blog and devoting a whole Squidoo lens to research about me.

In other words, they responded to my accusations by proving them right. A remarkably advanced strategy, and perhaps I don't fully understand the high-level SEO logic behind their work.

Meanwhile, Pizza SEO continues to grow into one of the most interesting and useful websites investigating Memetics today. Although the Slovaks can parrot terms like "Memetic Warfare," they lack the background knowledge that Pizza SEO can provide.

We're not the cheapest anything -- we're working to be the best. Brand Subversion and Memetic Warfare are disciplines that require speed, agility and dedication. At Pizza SEO, we understand what the stakes really are...

I AM NOT ALONE IN SAYING THAT QUALITY CONTENT FOR ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF ANY AND ALL SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.

No doubt, I'm a hippie weirdo, but Eric Schmidt is not. He's actually the CEO of a corporation known as Google. He refers to most of the internet as "a cesspool" -- precisely because of the "SEO tips and tricks" that cheap hustlers like my Slovak competition are trying to build a business out of.

Internet marketing is more than a business idea -- it's also a cancer/virus hybrid that's making Teh Internets a much more boring place to be. The cost of your pathetic short-term gains -- less than $100 in AdSense income in most cases -- is an increasingly polluted Global Brain.

Computerized search engine proto-brains are trying to sort out bad information, working every day to separate the signal from the noise. This is an automated process that occurs on a massively simultaneous scale, and the good news is, humans cannot keep up.



Despite the constant background pollution of cheap "SEO" templates, spamblogs and stolen content, and startup internet marketers trying to out-sleaze those who came before them, the internet is still an amazingly coherent emergent system. It's literally too strong to be killed, even by capitalism.

Hilariously, the most important discipline to enhance your website's performance in search engine rankings is not SEO -- it's actually Information Architecture.

Without an overarching strategy behind your work, a blog post is a waste of effort. You're competing against too many other bloggers, and they're all looking for shortcuts and "viral" traffic, too. You need to focus your efforts and build bigger than your competition.

ESSENTIAL READING




Web Standards Solutions, by Dan Cederholm. Absolutely the best introduction to CSS I've found anywhere -- if you only buy one book about website design, make it this one. The technique and theory here is rock solid, and his approach will make your life easier and your work faster.







Information Architecture, by Louis Rosenfeld. IA is a discipline I didn't get at first -- it seemed so obvious and simple. However, actually making a complex body of information into something obvious and simple is not a skill any of us are born with. The systems thinking that this book teaches has been invaluable, helping me with web design, my writing projects and even my music career. This is potent brainfood.

Getting the Brainsturbator Twitter Account has been a valuable move. Near as I can tell, it's increased my productivity, and I can't say that for any other social network I have ever joined. Myspace is a vampire wasteland of Dumb Internets and Facebook is prettier, simpler, and twice as empty. Twitter, as stupid as it looks, has put me directly in touch with fascinating people who've inspired me to step my game up. Here's ten of them, not ranked, but all chosen for three reasons: 1. at least daily updates, 2. posting quality reading instead of personal updates, and 3. being relevant to the Pizza SEO audience.

Flowing Data You've already checked out the site Flowing Data, right? Then this is a no-brainer. Obviously you understand that the visualization of pure data will be the international language of the future, and you know that following this guy's updates will add value to your human lifespan. Enjoy.

Public Individual This one just started up, but I love the approach of constant links to high quality material. Public Individual -- you can check their site here -- never post personal updates or mere news links. Instead the focus is on detailed, serious material on "studying online social optimization and implementing open-access information policies."

Clifford Pickover I think it's safe to assume you want to follow the man who wrote Sex, Drugs, Einstein & Elves: Sushi, Psychedelics, Parallel Universes and the Quest for Transcendencesince you're here. I highly doubt that I'm wrong. Pickover has written over 40 books now, most of which are flat-out amazing. He's a very open human on Twitter and constantly delivers great weird science news and food for thought.

Blair Warren It's no secret I have a deep respect for Blair Warren. Honestly, I don't even know what he "does" for a living, but I do know his writing is consistently concise, always important, and sometimes perfect. I recently linked to The Illusion on his blog, and I also recommend One Sentence Persuasion. His Twitter stream is full of gems and devoid of fluff.

Chris23 A busy and creative mammal, Chris works for Adobe, thinks for the world, and makes badass music, too. (Not only that, but he recently remixed Yours Truly.) Chris provides constant brainfood, and he can also introduce you to many equally interesting people.

Dan Gould Dan is one of those optimistic and intelligent humans that can get you thinking and calm you down at the same time. He's an Editor for PSFK, which also has a Twitter stream, but Dan's is much more human-scaled and interesting. He's got a strong background in design and science, and he's also apparently a badass DJ. If you're in NY, check him out.

Blustr No clue who this is, but I'm sure glad he exists. A steady stream of thought-provoking links covering a wide and diverse range of topics -- this guy is into everything, and if you're reading something on Pizza SEO, odds are you're wired the same. I also recommend checking out his website -- lots of quality reading, especially this.

Acrylicist Another Masked Primate, and another source of potent, high-quality brainfood. Acrylicist also runs the Google Group Time as Money, which I find quite intresting. I'm especially grateful for the recent heads-up on the conceptual tool of de Bono Hats, which has been immediately useful to me in turning a few problems around.

Andrew Jecklin Andrew has been a great help for as long as I've known him -- he's one of the most authentic people you'll find in social media, and appropriately, he'd never refer to himself in those terms. He's just Jecklin, and he's honest, intelligent, and brings a huge amount of background knowledge to the table.

Appropedia Appropedia is a great website -- basically a Wiki for renewable, sustainable technology, natural design, community solutions, and more. It's also a work in progress, so if you see something missing...get your fingers dirty and help them out. (They also have a wiki entry about their Twitter account.)

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW: The rest of the Back Brain Media extended family are also on Twitter - Charles Blingus, Wishtank, Triple Dosers Yosef1 and Gomar2.