By RJ Jacques, FastF.com
When people usually say “kung fu”, they are normally referring to martial arts, crane stances or Bruce Lee. But the phrase “Kung Fu” has a vastly richer meaning than these images tend to convey, and one that has a practical significance for the SEO community.
The Wikipedia entry for “kung fu” says:
Originally, to practice kung fu did not just mean to practice Chinese martial arts. Instead, it referred to the process of one’s training – the strengthening of the body and the mind, the learning and the perfection of one’s skills – rather than to what was being trained. It refers to excellence achieved through long practice in any endeavor.”
In the colloquial, one can say that a person’s kung fu is good in cooking, or that someone has kung fu in calligraphy; saying that a person possesses kung fu in an area implies skill in that area, which they have worked hard to develop. Someone with “bad kung fu” simply has not put enough time and effort into training, or seems to lack the motivation to do so.
It’s easy to obtain knowledge about SEO. There’s hundreds of free blogs, videos, e-books and courses that can give you all the terminology, how-to’s, and opinions you can handle. In no time flat, you can talk up a storm about Penguins, linkbait, and H1 tags.
But it takes time and practice to understand SEO.
No one can really understand the value of landing page optimization, engaging content, or social signals without going into the trenches and experimenting. It takes weeks to run split tests, it takes months to build a social following, and it takes years to build a solid brand. There are no shortcuts, and no instant fixes.
Because of this, poor SEO’s are easily rooted out for weaksauce kung fu. They have some knowledge, but lack understanding. They promise quick wins, quick fixes, and instant success with tricks and gimmicks and never deliver results.
“Rank you to the top of Google in a week” is no different than someone promising to make you “a kung fu master in a weekend”. They won’t. Because they can’t.
In summary, there are no substitutes for time, discipline, dedication, and a passion for knowledge.
This is the meaning of good kung fu.
-RJ
