I often suggest that for the new SEO training graduate, you are smart to build a couple of projects for yourself, before you begin taking on client work (assuming that’s what you want to do eventually.)
Why Start By Building My Own Projects?
The reason why is so that you can build exactly what you want and be as creative as you like without needing to convince a client that of anything.
You get to build the project exactly as you wish to, optimized for what you know will be most effective (plus if it is your site, then you get to keep the profit.)
But maybe now you are wondering, “what shall I build?”
Let’s talk about how we can ramp up your creative ability and give you a few things to think about when starting.
How To Increase Your Creativity and Innovation
The first thing to we need to realize is that whether you are more of an analytical thinker or you are more of a creative thinker, that both styles are important. It is possible for a team of creative people to come up with literally dozens or even hundreds of new ideas (which will often separate someone from their competition.)
This is for example, the way Walt Disney viewed it back in the early days His creative right-brained thinkers were all brought together in a room and encouraged to just go wild with their ideas. Eventually, he called them “imagineers” and rightly so, since that group was responsible for coming up with unique and creative ways to tell a story or design a new ride at Disneyworld.
Disney believed that there was a valid place for both creative and the analytical thinkers and the only difference was that the Imagineers were in one room being creative, coming up with cartoon movie plots, ideas for adventure stories, or adapting established stories over for the screen for maximum entertainment value while the more left brained, analytical, logical types were also engineers, but of a different type. They were the builders who’s job it was to make the Imagineer’s visions into a reality by creating and building a production and bringing it to reality. The same is true today at companies that try to get a mix of creative help along with a mix of balanced, logical thinkers.
10 Ways To Help Expand Your Creativity:
1. Most experts agree that it is far easier to be creative when you are doing something that is fun to do. Some of our best ideas for our Search Engine Workshops were stimulated for example by going for a walk in one of the parks at Disney world. Even though you are having fun, you can still think about new ideas and the ideas will come easier to you while you are relaxed. Children often come up with new ideas when they are playing a game. Adults are no different. If you are stressing to come up with some new creative idea, stop stressing or stop putting yourself under pressure. Instead, go out and do something you enjoy.
2. Some of the most creative business minds understand the importance of playing and some companies will equip their employee’s work place with things like a gym, a pool table or perhaps a ping pong table, so employees can take a break and relax once in a while.
3. It’s a good practice to keep an active journal so that when a new idea or twist on an idea pops in your mind, you can write it down quick.
4. I know of one company that has employees feel free to bring their pet to work maybe one day a week. As strange as it sounds, this also can put people in a more relaxed state.
5. It’s hard for some people to realize why the shell of the first computer server ever made at Google by founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin was actually built from nothing but toy Lego blocks.
6. The original legendary animators at Disney, were encouraged to create whatever characters they were bringing to life, by studying the actual
animal’s behavior. For example for Bambi, the artists had the opportunity to study a real dear and its movements.
7. Sometimes, you want to be the originator of something new, but it can seem so hard to know where to get started. If you have an image of what the finished creation might be, sometimes it’s possible to start by visualizing the finished result first and then try and work backwards in incremental steps.
8. Creativity is extremely helpful when mixed with other types of technical skills such as programming or even doing effective keyword research for search engine optimization. Some of the most powerful keyword observations I’ve made are not in just taking the logical approach or going after the most obvious keywords that first pop into your mind. There are ways to explore some of the more common data for phrases that many people miss.
9. When you do have new ideas or come up with something that no one else is doing, be sure to take the all important step of testing your ideas. There are some people that continually come up with innovative ideas, but that’s where they stop. It is important to test all your ideas to see how they work out.
10. Try not to fall into the trap of continually trying to examine and copy the competition. So many times you will experience much greater benefit, by developing something new. You become the trail blazer and establish new foothold through your own creativity and innovations. The obvious benefit here, is that it puts you ahead of the competition because you created it first. The next thing you know, you’ll find others trying to copy you but no worries, they won’t have your batting average or have the lead, if you are the originator of your own creative.
Check out the next Search Engine Academy Dates here.