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Why RoughMagick?

RoughMagick — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:12:23 +0000

Toward the end of Shakespeare’s The Tempest Prospero talks about giving up “this rough magic” – and gave freedom to Ariel, the fairy who helped him get revenge on his enemies. There are a lot of tricks used by supposed SEO and Internet marketing experts, but often those tricks can cause more harm than good. The last thing you want is someone helping you by scraping other peoples’ content, putting you in link farms, or spamming news wires with phony press releases. These might work in the short run, but after 10 years in this field, I can tell you that search engines eventually catch on to these short-cuts and they often punish royally their practitioners.

I remember in the early days of SEO (pre-2000) there were plenty of tricksters using doorway pages other bad practices. There was some pressure put on me to do the same: “Oh, why don’t we have hundreds of these single pages each optimized on a keyword?!” Because it’s a very bad idea. Anything you are trying to manipulate results rather than simple do the right thing to improve results, you put yourself at risk of being banned from a search engine. Even BMW got banned at one point – and had to beg it’s way back in (and reportedly had to give Google the name of the culprit – although I can’t confirm that happened.

The best SEO is that done to attract your specific audience in a compelling way. This is primarily done through well-structured websites and lots and lots and lots of good content (read: not copied from other people).

It takes a little longer and lot more work to achieve a strong Internet marketing presence the RIGHT way, but it has a persistent and powerful impact on the bottom line. SEO has come a long way from doorway pages and keyword stuffing and white words on white background (Note: Never did these silly things), but there are still people who want fast results and fall for short-term SEO strategies. These strategies can be at best ineffective, at worst, get you banned from search engines.

Writing

RoughMagick — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:07:04 +0000

A background in writing is probably one of the most important qualifications for an Internet strategist. Some might say they can just hire writers, and I do, but my ability to write well quickly has made me more nimble and effective. I earned my MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. I worked for a few years as a screenwriter – Writer’s Guild and all that – but became disenchanted as time went on. Bad projects, bad writing, and one disappointment after another just turned me off the whole business. I started creating my own websites and writing about subjects that interested me and found I loved the work.

My parrot website led to Barron’s contacting me to write a book about lovebirds, the small African parrots I loved.

Screenwriting Background

Produced: Television Long-Form

Rapture, TriStar TV.

Split Images, TriStar TV (based on novel by Elmore Leonard)

Television Series

Lazarus Man, Castlerock/TNT. Two 1-hour episodes (Starring Robert Urich)

Unproduced Work-for-Hire:

Tales from the Crypt, HBO. Half-hour episode

Shoot-Out, NBC. Long-form (Movie of the Week)

Unloved Crimes, Winkler Films. Created dramatic series; pilot written.

Feature Film Scripts (spec): Criminal Minds, Tommy Gun, Dream of the Jaguar

Current Projects

RoughMagick — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:21:30 +0000

I’ve been developing Everything Addiction to be a comprehensive site for anyone researching addiction and related issues. I’ve been working on the Internet side of the behavioral health field for 10 years and I find there still isn’t really a go-to place to learn all the aspects of addiction, such as media portrayals, public policy, research, and the latest trends in addiction treatment. The project will be ongoing, but has substantially grown already.

I am also taking a stab at a wiki, although it is limited to invited participants. The Drug Rehab Wiki will be a comprehensive dictionary of sorts on anything related to addiction, drugs, and treatment.