His big tip? Stand out from the crowd (he famously wore yellow shoes). People remembered him for doing so - it was easier for him to be remembered by those who were at the conference.

The power of personal brand building cannot be underestimated, and the great thing about it for other SEO consultants and freelancers is that it is just so, so simple!

Building a Personal Brand - My Own Experience

After hearing about Rand’s advice, and reading about the power of leaning into eccentricities and personal character traits, I decided I’d give it a go myself.

One thing that helps me to stand out vs other SEOs is that I tend to mumble quite a bit. Sometimes it’s a bit of a problem but I see it more as my superpower.

With that in mind I leaned into it fully when I went to my first SEO conference.

If you’re doubtful at this moment then just consider this - imagine I’ve just given a talk at a big SEO conference or event, and 2 attendees are having a chat later that afternoon nursing half a pint of warm Fosters…

Scenario 1

Dave: Hey did you see that talk by Matt Tutt about that super-cool SEO topic everyone is raving about (again)?

Phil: No I didn’t actually, who was that?

Dave: Oh he was the white guy, mid-to-late 30’s with a beard…

Phil: Sorry no, I’m still not sure who you are talking about.

Now compare the above to the below…

Scenario 2

Dave: Hey did you see that talk by Matt Tutt about that super-cool SEO topic everyone is raving about (again)?

Phil: No I didn’t actually, who was that?

Dave: Oh he was the guy who was mumbling all the time.

Phil: Yeah I did actually! No idea what he said though...

Dave: Yes me neither but he sure was memorable wasn’t he!!!

6 Free Personal Brand Building Tips

These tips apply mainly for those who are attending an SEO conference - but could probably be used in other environments…

1 - Wear a tshirt that reads “FUCK OFF SCUM”.

2 - Carry a Nokia 3210 in your pocket. Make a point of taking it out every few minutes so everyone sees it. When someone comments on it tell them you hate modern phones (and society).

3 - When meeting a new person for the first time ask them a nice little icebreaker, eg “Have you ever been caught buying links?” - when they nervously answer “No” instantly shout “You must be bloody good at it then!!” and then walk off.

4 - During the conference whenever someone asks you a technical (or a personal) question reply very loudly “IT DEPENDS” (look around smiling maniacally as you say this to watch the reaction of other people).

5 - Get an anchor tattooed on a highly visible area of your body. Tell them it is to show your love to the world of building links (obviously).

6 - Hand people a signed photograph of yourself after meeting them before excusing yourself (you’ve got to hop on an urgent call with Adrian Chiles).

TLDR - Building Your Personal Brand

If you struggled with the length of the above here’s the jist of it - no-one cares what you have to say these days, what is more important is that you are memorable.

Wear some stilts when you give your talk, take a dump on stage or try faking a Glaswegian accent despite coming from the Home Counties - the key is to be as different as possible.

Got any other good personal branding tips? Good for you (what do you want, a biscuit?) 🙂

You know - all those usual buzzwords that get thrown around like sweets at a carnival - streamline your content, skyrocket your rate of publishing, automate your content strategy, all that usual nonsense.

But this webinar felt a bit different - something wasn’t quite right.

And then it hit me - the host must have looked about 13.

I was convinced his voice hadn’t yet broken.

Mid way through the webinar (don’t ask why I hadn’t already logged off), I hear an older womans voice calling out from somewhere in the distance “Andrewww, your dinner’s ready!”

There were muffled sounds of laughter coming from the attendees.

Andrew (the host) blushed heavily but carried on regardless, the true professional that he was.

And then we all hear it again “Andrewww it’s your favourite - turkey twizzlers and chips!”

I can tell he’s a bit flustered by now. He starts to claim he’s having some “technical difficulties” on his end, and that we should “bear with him for a few minutes”.

And then his video turns off, writing on the chat that he’s got to update his version of Zoom (I find this interesting as the webinar isn’t being hosted on Zoom), and that he’ll be back in 10 minutes…

True to his word he does return.

Someone writes in the chat “did you enjoy your dinner Andrew?”

Whilst he tries to get the webinar back on track, I’m sure I can make out the faint glow of tomato sauce around his mouth.

We can all blatently tell he’s just wolfed-down his entire meal, as he’s now barely able to string a full sentence together without pausing for air - you can tell he’s suffering badly from indigestion.

At one point when he’s talking about humanising the use of ChatGPT by hiring freelancers from third-world countries for peanuts, I fear he’s going to be sick.

And then, if you think it can’t get much worse for poor old Andrew, we again hear that woman’s voice calling out…

“Andrewww you forgot all about your rhubarb crumble - the ice creams melting!”

Shocked, I nervously peered downwards to check all was in order.

You see, I’d been wearing a very, very old pair of England football shorts, (think Gareth Southgate and Euro 96) that had since become quite baggy and very loose fitting due to the elastic slowly losing its elasticity over the years.

After - to my great relief - realising I hadn’t inadvertedly been exposing myself to the neighbour again, and that they were instead referring to the plum tree over my shoulder, I waddled over for a little chat.

Chinwag complete, it reminded me about how great, and important, community really is. And no where is that more obvious than within the confides of the world of SEO.

I remember when a few months ago I sent out a tweet, asking fellow SEOs to share any one of their most-disliked marketing sayings.

I got the ball rolling by sharing how I really dislike the term “low dangling fruit”, obviously referring to the way in which SEOs might prioritise any opportunities that are the easiest to accomplish.

This is actually quite a common tactic when you’re starting out work with a new client and you’re really keen to get things off to a good start, opting to fix/optimise any of those quick wins.

Several people later kindly pointed out to me that the saying was in fact “low hanging fruit”. But I was touched at how delicately and tentatively my oh-so-foolish mistake had been dealt with.

It would have been easy to have laugh and point the finger, but thanks to the truly gentle, loving and caring nature of SEO twitter it was dealt with in such a beautiful way.

God love the SEO community, and phrases like low dangling hanging fruit 🍒

It was during a very popular SEO conference on the south coast. I don’t want to name the conference explicitly, in case the party involved can be identified.

This girl he’d met seemed great fun, and was clearly a very passionate SEO.

After getting back to the hotel room, and going through the usual motions, he was quite literally shocked.

And as you can imagine, as an experienced web developer he’s seen a lot of things in his time – from a site operating a blog within an iframe on a third party subdomain, to a 5MB homepage carousel image.

Once they had “done the deed” and cemented relations between the web dev and SEO community for the better, she bent over to pick up her phone which had fallen to the floor in a fit of mad, yet quite nerdy passion.

At first he’d not noticed this but on her left bumcheek were the letters “SE”.

He was thinking to himself what kind of tattoo was that – just having “SE” tattooed on your backside? Maybe it was the initials of someone important to her… but on her backside?!

But after she had bent fully over to collect her phone – he got the full picture!

Now that is dedication to the cause!

It went something like this:

“…don’t get my wrong, I’ve got nothing against the guy but if Chiang Mai is as good at SEO as everyone says he is, then where’s his presentation? His blog posts? Everyone raves about him but for me there’s nothing that backs up all that talk. And that’s the problem with the SEO community, all talk no action.

Now if Chiang Mai was to come out and show his face, give a blinding presentation then I’ll hold my hands up and be first to admit I got it wrong, but until then I reckon he’s all smoke and mirrors.”

My mate wasn’t sure if they were both drunk or just a bit thick.

If you were involved in the conversation please do get in touch, I’d love to get to the bottom of this.

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