When they created Homer Simpson, they were really tapping into something that has been the basis of comedy writing for centuries; the babbling, unthinking idiot whose plans fail for lack of forethought, who stumbles through life, causing disasters. It’s hilarious when it’s fiction, but when it happens in real life… D’oh.
Those within the SEO industry can seriously learn from Homer. I’ve already talked about those ‘d’oh!’ moments that occur when making changes to websites. There’s another area in which Homer Simpson presents a shining (bad) example: forethought.
Much of the trouble good old Homer gets into could be avoided with some forethought. The same could be said of many things, SEO being a prime example. Many businesses get into trouble because they rush their search engine optimisation, needing results quickly. This leads to clunky content, baldly paid-for linking campaigns, and more than a few desperate black hat techniques.
In hindsight, owners invariably wish that they’d taken the time to plan their search engine optimisation better, saving themselves a lot of clean-up work on their now in-trouble site. Rushing again to fix the mistake, they make even more mistakes.
Whether you’re managing your company’s search engine optimisation plan, or whether you’re running your own agency, you can’t help but know the importance of forethought. Forethought helps to not only avoid those loud and obvious ‘D’oh!’ moments, it helps to avoid the more subtle ones as well. Forethought can help you to intuit trends as they are happening, anticipate the moves of competitors, and generally make your own work much easier.
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