Mail-merge-based spam is so hawt! Just send emails galore to however happens to produce something and hope they bite. Not annoying at all.

Am I a bad person? I just want one day without spammers trying to guilt-trip me into buying stuff I don’t need.

I have two podcasts and two radio stations. So unsolicited mail is to be expected. I have little problems with that, until the the people sending the mail continue try to solicit for a response even when I do not respond at all.

The final mail that made me snap

My response

Hello

I have decided to answer your barrage of mails. I don’t really think much of your services to be honest, but I will give you an answer based on experience and understanding of the subject matter at hand.

So, the question of the day is this: does search engine optimization really work? The short answer is no; it does not.

Allow me to build my reasoning here. I have two podcasts, one called “IT-säkerhetspodden” and the one you’re asking about “Flashback, tracks from the past”. They have very different strategies and results. Allow me to elaborate:

IT-säkerhetspodden

It was started in 2018 by me and a friend. It’s in Swedish and covers the area of IT-security. When it started, it had only two other competitors in the same area in Sweden. We hit it off to a good start already from the get-go. A few years in, I was able to get approximate listening from the biggest competitors. Then I compared to ours: we were 10% larger than the best performing competitor. In short: we were the largest IT-security podcast in Sweden. This is no longer true, as we are a bit behind in curve. We have yet to transition to the video format, and that is a problem today for an audio only podcast. But we can pretty much do whatever we want, with no significant loss of listenership. The SEO-angle? Pretty lack-luster. We have not even cared about SEO. No transcripts, no key words, no key word tracking and no description following any SEO strategies. A basic presence on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook and X/Bluesky). No titles optimized for anything at all. A dry website that only 6% of our listeners use. We live on the big podcast directories (Apple, Google, and Spotify). We still perform like the 1% largest podcasts in the world. This is because the curve is exponential. At 1000 unique listeners per one episode and week, we are that big. It says so little about anything except the overwhelming number of podcasts in the world get NO listeners. This is the sad truth. And no SEO in the world can change that.

Flashback, tracks from the past

Started in 2020 and has the format of playing chiptune- and demo scene music with short form narration by me. It covers demo parties (think digital arts festivals) and old games from the past. It has enormous competition. There are a lot of old CGM, chiptune and demo scene podcasts and stations sharing the small number of listeners that are available. Check terraplayer.com and see for yourself. It’s also a narrow (“drainpipe”) instead of a broad (“lake”) of a format, so to speak. It has had a dismal listening from starts as it competes with a narrow format in a totally saturated environment. And the scene has been set in its way for so long that it just isn’t viable to compete as most listeners already got their favorite spots since the early 2000s (long before podcasts, and when it was called “on demand audio). Yeah, I remember that. I started a now long-gone scientific show in 1997 (!) before there were broadband. So, to no surprise: it has almost no listeners. One month of all episode-listening, compares unfavorably with one (!) day of listening for one episode of my other podcast. I decided (unwisely, I know now!) to go full SEO gung-ho on this! I am a software developer by hobby, not trade. So, I read up on the problem and added all things you must have consistent tags, keyword tracking, transcription, the two worldwide supporter chapter namespaces in use and all relevant Podcasting 2.0 attributes needed for full SEO immersion. I started tracking key word usage with PEOSEO.com.

I am now months down the line and the uptick in listening, visibility and usage have been small. Noticeable, yes, but not worth the days and months of development and hard research has not been worth it. I am grateful for the experience, though. It was good to understand that SEO only works to improve an already well-performing podcast or website.

Here are two observations from me:

1. You should not compete

Another old curmudgeon by the name of Troed Troedsson taught me this lesson in his book “Don’t panic”.

If you want the listeners and then money, do not go into markets that are heavily saturated. That’s a lost cause. Sorry, no exceptions! If it works, it is because the conditions change. What was unpopular yesterday, can be popular tomorrow and vise-versa. This just how it works. No need to sugarcoat it or trying to sell a panacea for it. SEO can do nothing here. It’s not possible.

2. You must adapt

A very nice podcast that made an interview with me. They have video. Video is nice!

Today, video-based podcasts are more or less a requirement. If you still have only audio, you are not in the leader quadrant if I may say so. This was not so when I started. But the changes are there all right. Then there is AI and AI-requirements. If you leverage AI today, you can improve your chances somewhat. That’s just the rule of today. There are no ways around this.

Then again, who cares?

I and my friend have earned a pretty good amount from IT-säkerhetspodden during the years. We have interviewed the Swedish CEOs of IBM and Microsoft about AI years before it became the topic of the hour. We have talked with intelligence officers, IT-security gurus, and other people in the market. No SEO needed for that. I bought a subscription from Yoast for the site and learned to optimize the show notes for SEO. It did nothing for the visibility of the podcast and never showed a readable increase in the listening. It cost a lot of money and was irritating as hell for someone proud of being able to express himself with texts and articles.

And Flashback, tracks from the past is a lost cause. Who cares? I certainly do not. I have loved nighttime radio since I religiously watched “midnight caller” in the 80s. And now I present chiptune music and talk briefly about various demo scene topics for a small audience. Fine by me. I sure wanted more listeners, so I did the SEO dance and learned that all the promises were just a pocket full of mumbles, for so are promises. And I really come to expect that all I can do is to enjoy the process not some sort of pipe dream of “stardom” that cannot be the reason to do anything today. Timing is everything. And the time of demo/chiptune is not now. It was 25 years ago. This much is clear. I will continue working the recording desk for as long as I enjoy it, without expecting the non-existing chance of become some sort of influencer. What a stupid goal that is, anyway. The other pod can’t really give me that either. I seek no fame and not becoming some sort of brand name in myself. So, yeah, that’s the whole thing. The last leg of this journey comes here…

“Slkmediaagency” and the spam angle (UCE)

Right, this is the least funny part of the discussion. But we must go there. I’m in my 50s, so I have seen the whole modern IT-era unfold. Back in the 90s, I was a consultant and system administrator. I so the early era of spam. Hormel, the creator the Spam brand of compressed meat, did not like having their name associated with the annoyance that was unsolicited mail. They even had a page on their website stating that their product was Spam with a capital “S”. Unsolicited mail was spam with a non-capital “s”. If the purveyor of the least popular “food” you can eat wants nothing to do with you, maybe it’s time to listen.

Sanford Wallace, legendary spammer from days past.

Later, the spamming industry struck back with a new term called “opt out”., It simply meant “you receive our spam and tell us to stop” (unsubscribe). What a dick-move that turned out to be. But here we are now everyone thinks it should be the norm. And it is.

So why am I even complaining? Well, I get a lot of emails from people selling stuff to my podcasts and radio stations. I answer politely to people trying to get their music on them by noting we have no possibilities to play commercial music. Then there are all the “we can develop your website”-spams. I don’t ever respond. Most people use social media today, so websites are strictly window-dressing or maybe hobbyist projects. And then there is you. If you wonder why I haven’t responded, now you know. But you continued spamming harder with follow ups, while not knowing how easy they could be understood as mass-emails. My name is “Erik Zalitis” and my demo scener handle is “DJ Daemon”. So, my first name is NOT “DJ”. You are calling me that, which makes me understand that you are just trying to automatically spam as many people as possible, hoping someone will respond. And I do, with the only response I can give you: “Please stop spamming. I’m not interested!”.

You should have taken the hint when I dd not respond to the first five or so emails with incessant nagging from you.

I could have been rude, but I do not do that. I only observe that your aberrant behavior highly correlates with “dark tetrad” traits. I will leave the discussion with that and ask you to just go away now.