{34} Creator Economy, Web Components & Long-Tail Keywords

Featuring Zack Honarvar, Keval Shah, Lea Verou, Shripal Soni, and Jonny Geller

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Creator: Culture

Zack Honarvar

Zack Honarvar @ZackHonarvar

I want to mention publicly that @jackconte is the one of the most thoughtful and warm hearted individuals I’ve ever met. He’s an incredibly sharp founder and has built a company that arguably empowers more creators than any other. You deserve your flowers, Jack 🙏🏽❤️

I love what Patreon is doing to empower creators. It has never been easier to become a solopreneur, thanks to tools like Patreon.

One major hurdle I see with today’s creator economy is the high level of risk required to get started. Most people either need to have enough cash saved up to take the leap or work nights and weekends until they hit a critical milestone.

Both options tend to be a stressful deterrent. It kills me to imagine how many creators are stuck in soulless corporate jobs right now.

Why not build a company or a collective composed of creators? In order to join, you need to be some form of community builder. It can take the form of a newsletter, blog, podcast, tutorial series, open-source project, etc.

Everyone on the team would essentially be working half-time on a collective project and the rest of their time building their personal community.

Here are some of the advantages:

1. No managers – Solopreneurs can be fantastic autonomous contributors with an instinct for finding opportunities to add value.

2. No marketing – Members would be encouraged to include the collective in their bios. Then every personal project is basically a growth hack for the collective. Members would also benefit from the collective cross-promoting their projects.

3. Less risk – The stable income extends the personal runway for each member. When they hit a milestone, they graduate and go full-time on their own project.

4. More time – It’s damn hard to make progress on a project if you only have nights and weekends free. Working full-time while also bootstrapping is not sustainable.

Why aren’t more tech startups structured as collectives?

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Marketing: SEO

Keval Shah

Keval Shah | Ecommerce SEO 🛒 @SEOKeval

When doing keyword research, don't just go after keywords with the highest search volume. These keywords are often the most competitive. And you probably won't be able to rank for them. Target low competition, long-tail keywords. You can get into the top 3 position for these

My personal SEO strategy is simple. I don’t really care about competing for popular keywords. At least not initially. So I don’t do keyword research, link building, or follow all the micro-optimization recommendations.

Instead, I’m going with a long-tail strategy focused on uncommon keyword combinations. By writing a long-form daily newsletter covering 5 different topics, I’ll naturally create long-tail opportunities.

For example, consider this issue and the combinations that might arise from the first 2 sections. In the first section, I talked about a “startup collective”. In this section, I’m talking about “SEO”. I’ll likely rank for terms like “SEO startup collective”. With 5 sections, there are a lot of permutations. (ways to mix and match keywords)

I like that this strategy requires minimal effort and allows me to write more naturally. We’ll see how it works once I’ve produced content for 6+ months.

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Web: Components

Lea Verou

Lea Verou @LeaVerou

The point of Web Components was modularity & encapsulation. Sadly, the vision of using WC to encapsulate blocks of functionality that you can drop into any web app and they just work and look like they belong, without dev effort to integrate the two, is largely unrealized. 🧵

I’ve been thinking about components lately. Here is an interesting take on why web components are modular in theory but challenging to reuse in practice. The problem stems from not having more control over how components interact with a surrounding page’s CSS.

Components can be implemented with either the Light DOM or the Shadow DOM.

• Light DOM – Works as if the component were embedded directly into the DOM. Global styles can easily override component styles. This can be problematic. The same component added to different web pages is likely to differ visually.

• Shadow DOM – Components built with the Shadow DOM have scoped styles that do not inherit from global styles. This makes Shadow DOM components more visually stable but harder to configure.

Lea has created a proposal that allows Shadow DOM component authors to declare parts of the component to be stylable from global CSS. This seems like you’d get a lot of the isolation benefits from the Shadow DOM without completely shutting the door. Let’s say your component is a form, and most styles need to be locked down, but you want the input and button elements to look like the other inputs and buttons on the page. It sounds like a nice compromise if the details can be worked out and the implementation is intuitive.

Alternatively, you could use CSS variables. This might not be a perfect solution because it’s more rigid than Lea’s proposal. You also run the risk of a component using variable names already in use which would be problematic. The advantage is variables are reasonably intuitive. Here is a codepen example. I’d likely go with this approach if I were to build a web component today.

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HTML: Telephone/SMS

Shripal Soni

Shripal Soni @codewithshripal

HTML Tip 💡 Many websites need to show a telephone/SMS number. Rather than showing it as text, we can provide a better UX to the users 🤩 Learn how to do it 👇

I wasn’t aware you could show a phone number that triggers an SMS with a default message. If I were to implement this on a page, I’d consider doing 2 thing:

1. Show a phone icon if using a “tel:” link and a conversation bubble when adding an “sms:” link. This way, people don’t assume clicking the number will trigger a call.

2. I might use media queries to hide sms links for desktop. This depends on compatibility with desktop messaging apps. If compatible, I’d leave it as is. If not compatible, i’d hide sms links.

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Writing: Tips

Jonny Geller

Jonny Geller @JonnyGeller

Steinbeck born #OTD His #writing tips still work.

My writing is better when I say it aloud. Saying what I type makes it easier to avoid confusing combinations of words.

I should think more about writing for a specific person vs writing for a nameless, faceless audience. “Scaring you to death” might be slightly extreme, but it is directionally correct. It’s easier to connect when your words have a person in mind.

I’m less excited about the warning of becoming too emotionally attached to a scene. There is absolutely a risk of bias. But that emotional connection can also add character. So it’s a little bit of a give-and-take thing. Awareness is good, but don’t avoid it entirely.

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