TV series are one of my greatest passions, so I used my imagination to imagine what some of the protagonists of my favorite shows would be like as colleagues. In particular, I am referring to the field of Seo, which has many facets and is populated by very different professionals.
Which of these characters do you recognize yourself in? Have you identified any colleagues? And which ones would you like to have or avoid in your Seo team?
Don Draper (Mad Men): the marketing genius.
Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) is the marketing and advertising genius of Mad Men. In a Seo group, his approach is more sales-related: his KPI is not traffic, but volume of conversions. He also often deals with affiliation, an area in which he excels because of his persuasive language.
The starting point is a careful analysis of buyer personas, interests and search intent. From conversions, it ranges to brand awareness. If “Lucky Strike is toast” is not yet a high-volume search query, Don Draper is able to make it one.
The Professor (The House of Paper): the perfectionist
The Professor (played by Alvaro Morte) in The House of Paper is the mastermind behind the plan to rob the Madrid State Mint. He has painstakingly studied every detail of the operation, all the variables, and knows everything about the background.
In a Seo team, he is the mastermind who analyzes all Google Analytics and Google Search Console reports, downloads endless Excel files from SEMrush, Screaming Frog and dozens of other tools. The Professor plans at the table and then moves his pawns: the editors, the link builders, the technicians. The plan is precise and well-articulated, then suddenly, like mad Gandia, a new Google algorithm comes along that throws everything into question.
Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory): the guideline maniac.
Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons) is the number one nerd in The Big Bang Theory. For him, everything must follow the rules and be regulated-he even has a long contract that defines the rules of cohabitation with his roommate Leonard.
On a Seo team, Sheldon is the one who knows by heart all of Google’s guidelines from 1997 to the present and the details of new algorithm updates. For him, everything has to be perfect and by the book: he can’t stand people who sit in their seats on the couch or who make a title too long.
Jack Shepard and John Locke (Lost): the Seo of science and the Seo of faith
Jack Shepard (played by Matthew Fox) and John Locke (played by Jeremy Bentham) are the man of science and the man of faith in Lost. The former, medical, seeks causes and explanations, is very materialistic; the latter is carried away by fate and a higher entity, is more spiritual.
They are often at odds and in a Seo team represent the opposite approaches of technical and semantic. One is more concerned with structure and code; the other with words and content. As in Lost, both are needed in real life to achieve good results.
Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock): the Seo looking for connections
Sherlock Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) is the English detective who can find connections between things that are often overlooked by ordinary people.
In the Seo world, it is the Knowledge Graph investigator, the one who looks for the deepest connections between entities to quickly rise in the Google Serp and go for all kinds of positions and snippets. In the TV series, we are shown Sherlock’s reasoning and maps thick with links that often resemble those of the great Bill Slawski when he describes the science behind semantic Seo.
Rick Grimes (The Walking Dead): the builder of PBN.
Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln) is the leader of the group of survivors we see in The Walking Dead. It builds, unbuilds and rebuilds. For him, the most important thing is his community; he would like to make connections, but he is afraid of what may be out there.
As a Seo manager, he builds the PBN (Private Blog Network), a closed set of sites that link and empower each other. He is afraid of the outside because there could always be a malicious site like Negan lurking, but isolating himself too much could also be a bad choice both during a zombie apocalypse and on the Web.
Ragnar Lothbrok (Vikings): the link builder
Ragnar Lothbrok (played by Travis Fimmel) is the legendary leader of Vikings. From his first raids in the surrounding lands, he managed to build a dense network of connections all the way to England that allowed his little Kattegat to grow and him to become one of Scandinavia’s greatest leaders.
Unlike the other Vikings, Ragnar is open to the outside world and wants to build solid and lasting connections. In a Seo team, it is undoubtedly the link builder who goes out of his or her way to obtain and maintain links that bring authority and richness.
Walter White (Breaking Bad): the black hat Seo
There is a line between right and wrong, and Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston), aka Heisenberg, repeatedly crosses it in Breaking Bad. He is the terminally ill chemistry professor who decides to manufacture and sell methamphetamine to leave a legacy for his family before he dies. The intent is noble, but the methods are illegal, selfish and highly questionable.
In digital marketing Walter White is the black hat Seo who resorts to irregular techniques to outperform or harm competitors: “I am not in danger, I am the danger.” Like himself or his business, many of his sites are also short-lived, continually hounded by Google (instead of the Goddess) or other unscrupulous adversaries. Walter is paced by many internal contradictions, he is not proud of what he does, and his irregular activities often harm himself and those close to him.
Saul Goodman (Better Call Saul): the one looking for shortcuts.
We see Saul Goodman (played by Bob Odenkirk), or James Morgan “Jimmy” McGill, both in Breaking Bad as Walter White’s lawyer and in the prequel Better Call Saul. He is the brilliant, creative, and somewhat mannered lawyer who, like Walter, stands along the line between right and wrong. He always looks for the fastest and easiest solution to achieve his goals.
Unlike black hat Seo, it does not have a well-constructed illicit design, but it does indulge in the occasional stray from the rule. For example, it buys or sells links without even reporting them as sponsored or repeats keywords a few too many times on the page.
Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer): the rebel who breaks the mold
Lucifer Morningstar (played by Tom Ellis) is the devil himself who descends to Earth to spend a vacation in Los Angeles. Already the biblical character was a rebel, sent to hell for divine punishment. In the TV series, the devil is seen as a positive character who wants to break the mold by questioning and challenging his father’s divine design.
In a Seo team, Lucifer is the innovator who wants to go beyond the usual patterns used by other Seo specialists. Find new and original ways to converse with the search engine or to conquer valuable snippets. He knows his deity Google very well, but he does not completely play along and rebels. He may seem like a fool at times, but he is the true innovator in a world ruled by an inscrutable entity.
Angus MacGyver (MacGyver): the problem solver
Angus MacGyver (played by Richard Dean Anderson) is the protagonist of the 1980s TV series of the same name. He is the agent who can get away with anything and fix advanced mechanisms with a simple tweezers. He is the solutions man.
In Seo it is the problem solver, capable of solving complicated indexing problems by spotting a tiny error amid endless strings of code. MacGyver is the colleague we would all like in emergency situations.
Michael Scott (The Office): the bungling boss
Michael Scott (played by Steve Carrell) in The Office is the area manager of Dunder Mifflin in Scranton. He is the leader who is as funny as he is incompetent and causes trouble when he wants to enter territories beyond his reach.
In a marketing team, it is the leader who is good at talking and cultivating relationships but does not know the technical aspects. He can be a useful resource when he agrees to delegate some aspects and listens to his team, less so when he wants to do everything himself.
Jen Barber (The IT Crowd): the influencer Seo
Jen Barber (played by Katherine Parkinson) in IT Crowd is the head of the IT department at Reynholm Industries, and she works in an environment where she is completely out of place. She is beautiful, casual, and loves to be the center of attention, but she often makes blatant gaffes, such as when she explains what happens if you type in Google on Google.
In digital is the influencer or Seo guru who intervenes everywhere on social and also has a good following. Or, more simply, he wants to have his say even when he has nothing to say. More time is spent talking about Seo than working on Seo. We have all met Jen at least once in some meeting; or we are Jen.
Ross Geller (Friends): the undecided.
Ross Geller (played by David Schwimmer) is the eternal indecisive of Friends. He is the insecure boy of missed decisions. He does not know exactly what he wants from Rachel and often finds himself out of time by missing opportunities to be happy.
In Seo, it can be both a team member and a leader, and it is the one who is unclear about goals and afraid when he or she has to make a decision. Even in this context, he risks missing many opportunities and then finding himself behind in a very fast-paced world.
Jon Snow (Game of Thrones): the one who knows nothing
Jon Snow (played by Kit Harington) is one of the main characters in Game of Thrones. Raised as a bastard at Winterfell under the tutelage of Eddard Stark, he travels to dangerous and distant places until he reaches beyond the Wall. Here he meets and falls in love with the brute Ygritte who sums up with “Jon Snow, you know nothing” the fact that he is moving in a context that is not his own. But, in spite of everything, he manages to become Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and then King of the North.
In a Seo team, Jon Snow is the person who comes from other realms (usually a journalist, web editor, social media manager, Sem specialist, e-commerce manager) and starts approaching Seo precisely because of its importance to any digital marketing strategy. Some then decided to return to the safe castle of the Starks; others chose to brave the cold and dangerous lands beyond the Wall, becoming the touchstones for both the wildlings and the Night’s Watch. Each Seo specialist has been Jon Snow at some stage in his career.
Fox Mulder (played by David Duchovny) is the FBI special agent who investigates unsolved cases in The X-Files. He is convinced that there is something mysterious being hidden by governments and wants to find out what it is.
In the Seo world, Fox Mulder wants to understand what is the hidden truth behind Google’s algorithm because he is convinced that from Mountain View they are working to collect humanity’s data and use it for some obscure commercial purpose (and he may be partly right). He is constantly looking for some hidden message behind the tweets of John Mueller or Martin Splitt, who are the knowers of the truth just like the smoking man.
Jacob (Lost): John Mueller
Jacob (played by Mark Pellegrino) in Lost is the timeless guardian of the island. He controls men and is privy to the most mysterious secrets.
There is no doubt about it: on Seo Island, Jacob is John Mueller, that mysterious and timeless entity who knows all of Google’s secrets and with a simple Twitter response is able to affect Seo around the world. Jacob/John show us the way.
