Taking Action Over Analysis
Okay, don’t let yourself get paralyzed into inaction through the abstract. Get a communication out to the client ASAP, and free up the rest of your weekend on what you really need to do to move things forward, at which time you should repeat the exact same warning to not let yourself get paralyzed into inaction through the abstract.
The abstract will paralyze you, per the classic paralysis through analysis expression. That expression spontaneously recurs for a reason, it is the human tendency and a natural risk-adverse position. Once bitten, twice shy.
Purpose and Process
This article is to help me forge forward through today, some very hard communication I need to do, but which also sets the groundwork for everything moving forward. I don’t need the roadmap for this communication but I will need it for next week, but the roadmap in the work that I should be should be just about a 2-week period of time, but circular and with a copy of itself over-top itself, rotationally offset by 1-week.
See? It’s a 2-week process but waiting the full 2-weeks for results is ultimately unsatisfying, so there is always one at bat and one on deck, so we can double the amount of things getting done for each client.
PageWorkers and SEO Strategy
It’s painful, but the way we’re probably going to measure these things is as individual JavaScript SEO edits in the system of my employer, called PageWorkers. My premise and value proposition will soon be as follows:
If you don’t have the PageWorkers part of the Botify product, you probably can’t get the advantage of using the Advantage SEO Consulting group. That’s because there aren’t an awful lot of levers you can pull for SEO all that easily with a rapid feedback cycle, but deploying tiny SEO edits in JavaScript is one of them.
The Power of JavaScript SEO Edits
Doing so also creates a log of edits and changes that should actually be done in the system proper, whether it’s something you have direct control over as if it’s your own system, or if you’re using some cloud hosting service which is the norm these days, like Shopify. Our system transparently layers over top almost any system no matter how its hosted, allowing the performing of SEO directly on the site by the SEO consultants themselves, without necessarily even going through the tech group. This turns software as a service (Saas) into managed services. Have an SaaS product, and then manage it for the client. Accumulate a log of optimization edits, and turn it into a specification for new migrations and replatformings moving forward.
But you shouldn’t have to wait until the PageWorkers optimizations accumulate up for the migration guides and new site specifications. We’ve been at it long enough that we can proactively look at all the sorts of optimizations we’ve had to do and make an overarching guide that should work for everyone. But that’s another story, and this is exactly the sort of analysis dodging the work at hand that I need to bring under control. Get to the work at hand.
Project Structure Template
Let’s start out with my skeletal structure for the script:
Example:
site:
domain:
sitemap:
robots_txt:
llms_txt:
size:
google:
bing:
gsc:
site:
url:
performance_12m:
index:
bing:
site:
url:
botify:
org:
project:
project_url:
decks:
agenda:
worksession:
summary:
The Art of Storytelling vs Powerpoint
There’s a few things going on here that I should articulate. First, I don’t believe much in preparing Powerpoint style decks. Even as we’re firmly in the age of Google Slides (over Powerpoints), the language and negative reaction is deep in my system. Yet, yet…
Yet, storytelling remains paramount. Front and center is the human experience. Charts and graphs are lovely, but there’s something about picking someone up by the scruff of the neck and leading them through the experience… controlling the messaging and instilling an experience.
The Power of Sequential Storytelling
And that usually screams one screen, the next screen, the next screen. It’s the storyboard thing. You’re telling stories, and the most powerful “random access” way to fill the screen and the human view-port is through consistently sized images. Sometimes it’s cards up on a wall. Sometimes it’s slides in a deck. But even though I hate Powerpoint/GSlides, I don’t hate storyboards or storytelling. I think it’s the bite of the proprietary bug, again.
Breaking Free from Proprietary Formats
Something as fundamental as storytelling has no right to be locked up in formats that can’t just be displayed on any hardware, under any conditions. I think this is in fact part of the driving force of the Web. There were plenty of hypermedia things before it, from Apple’s Hypercard to AOL/Prodigy. But it was the hypermedia hypertext on open standards that lit the world on fire. It seemed like solid validation that Powerpoint is just wrong.
Rethinking Presentation Investment
But part of the premise is that much time, energy and effort was spent on something that got locked-up in proprietary platforms. The thinking changes once you accept that these can be low-investment, slam-them-out things. They don’t have to be perfect and they don’t have to be designed with a long shelf-life in mind. And perhaps most importantly of all, the underlying system that pushes the information out to you, for screenshotting or whatever, can be as FOSSy as you like.
The Power of YAML and Linear Thinking
And that’s how I start going into this weekend. Whether the storytelling uses slideshow decks or just a bunch of URLs that are bookmarked or that you know how to surf to, there is… what? Knowing the story to tell. Knowing how to proceed from one thing to the next… the flow.
And that’s why I keep coming back to YAML. It’s just like typing out lists in text. It’s linear, because no matter how you format things, it’s still a top-to-bottom list. Text is text. That’s one of the biggest lessons of future-proofing here on this site. Most tech is text, as plain old fashioned text-files. And if your tech is not directly text-files, it most certainly is indirectly. LLM training, for example. Interoperable anything. Gotta be text.
Structured Data Through Simple Text
So when thinking out loud and organizing ideas, even for storytelling in this case, just making those tiny concessions to YAML rules, your thinking out loud becomes ready-to-load structured data. No, not just a raw textfile, but pretty much any data structure you can make with JSON or Python standard datatypes, such as dicts and lists.
Planning the Path Forward
Okay, you’ve got a good plan for today and going into the weekend. It’s about linear story telling with YAML which could directly be loaded as data and used for stuff, but doesn’t necessarily have to be. But it will effectively be the “roadmap” for every client engagement, but when you loop that linear YAML around in a circle, it’s the positive feedback loop.
And regarding the communication to the client, I got it out. It was Powerpoint style storytelling. It’s going to be tough to get that out of the picture even when we go to using the built into the product custom reports.
The stories then become even more reliant on what I’m building. There’s really nothing that couldn’t be un-hardwired (not put into decks), if the linear story brought up the correct webpage at a time, layering in the narrative.
Hmmm, is it time to add a voice to the local LLM?
Me: Is there stuff like ElevenLabs but for running local? Free and open source?
Perplexity: Yes, there are several free and open-source alternatives to ElevenLabs that can be run locally on your machine:
-
Coqui TTS: An open-source project originally started by Mozilla’s team. It allows for voice cloning and supports 13 languages. While the company behind it shut down in early 2024, the code remains available on GitHub[3][5].
-
StyleTTS2: This model offers quality comparable to ElevenLabs and can be run 100% locally. It’s particularly fast when combined with other open-source components like Whisper and OpenHermes2-Mistral-7B[6].
-
XTTS-v2: A popular voice generation model capable of cloning voices into different languages with just a 6-second audio sample. Although the company behind it shut down, the source code is still available on GitHub and remains one of the most downloaded TTS models on Hugging Face[5].
-
Kokoro TTS: A powerful text-to-speech tool that can be installed and run locally for free. It’s considered a great alternative to ElevenLabs and other paid TTS services[7].
-
VALL-E X: An open-source implementation of Microsoft’s VALL-E X zero-shot text-to-speech model. It allows for voice cloning with just a short audio sample and supports multiple languages[8].
-
F5TTS: This AI voice model can be run locally and offers results comparable to ElevenLabs. It includes a web UI for easy use[9].
These alternatives offer various features such as voice cloning, multilingual support, and customization options. They can be installed and run on your local machine, providing faster processing and unlimited use without the need for an internet connection or subscription fees.
Citations:
[1] https://nerdynav.com/open-source-ai-voice/
[2] https://www.datacamp.com/blog/best-open-source-text-to-speech-tts-engines
[3] https://crikk.com/elevenlabs-alternatives/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQLENKh7wIQ
[5] https://www.bentoml.com/blog/exploring-the-world-of-open-source-text-to-speech-models
[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38335255
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZJmm94h9xk
[8] https://fosspost.org/open-source-speech-recognition
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTqAQvARMEg
[10] https://www.toolify.ai/ai-news/free-alternative-to-elevenlabs-xtts2-local-voice-cloning-1316363
[11] https://www.edenai.co/post/top-free-text-to-speech-tools-apis-and-open-source-models
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xocpm2ddN8
[13] https://modal.com/blog/open-source-tts
Avoiding Voice Generation Rabbit Holes
Hmmm, this sounds appealing, but it is also a potential rabbit hole and not critical for today. Focus only on those things that are critical and get the momentum going, without increasing complexity.
YAML Stories and Workflow Systems
Okay, so I’ve got the clear idea of the story as told in YAML, so that it’s easily loadable and parsable in Python. But I don’t want to get locked onto working out this workflow before the workflow system has the hardest parts worked out yet, which is what will benefit most from my weekend energy – if I can even muster it.
Dealing with Startup Friction
The fact I can’t tackle this fresh and with vigor and verve every time, means there’s startup friction on a per-day or per-session basis. And there absolutely should not be. That is precisely what this system is supposed to prevent. By getting large JavaScript frameworks and client-side state syncing out of the picture, leaning into FastHTML / HTMX / Nix, everything should become simpler. Eliminating large enterprise scaling concerns in favor of local host full access to the machine and direct manipulation of the DOM with HTMX should… well, simplify. It should reduce friction.
The Replatforming Journey
A certain amount of this may still just be the massive replatforming I’ve undergone, ditching Windows, ditching Mac all in favor of NixOS, which gives me back Windows and Mac in one fell swoop. I’ve taken up the Nix way, and along that way is steep learning curve and then future-proofing. And there’s some pain there, and I’m feeling that pain. I’m scratching the hardest to reach itch with the best back scratcher ever invented, but I’m learning how it all works.
Learning HTMX
Also, there’s HTMX itself. It’s not really so much FastHTML, as that’s basically just another Flask ripoff, like nearly every other Python web framework. It’s just that in eliminating templating systems in favor of HTMX… well– you have to know HTMX attributes and all their nuances.
Embracing the Challenge
Yup. I’m suffering compounding replatforming syndrome. But honestly, I love it. I’ve struggled to find ways to scratch this itch over the years, and finally I’m in a position to do it with nix. But it takes some commitment and persistence from the perspective of the developer.
The End User Experience
Of course, when it’s done it should just be 2 commands for the user of things built with my framework:
- One to install nix
- Two to run the app
Gemini Advanced 2.0 Brainstorming’s Thoughts
As usual, I go for a summary of the article to get a good description for the top. As of yet, I have not been able to get Gemini to do 1st-person first pass, haha!
Gemini 2.0 Advanced: This article is a personal reflection on overcoming analysis paralysis in SEO consulting, emphasizing action over planning. The author advocates for immediate client communication and iterative, two-week project cycles, leveraging JavaScript SEO edits via PageWorkers. They explore transitioning from traditional PowerPoint presentations to YAML-based storytelling for structured data and streamlined workflows, while navigating the complexities of a NixOS replatforming and HTMX learning curve to simplify and future-proof their system.
Title and Headline Ideas:
- Titles:
- “Breaking the Paralysis: Actionable SEO Strategies”
- “YAML Stories: Streamlining SEO Workflows”
- “From Analysis to Action: Future-Proofing SEO”
- Headlines:
- “Stop Overthinking: How to Drive SEO Results Now”
- “Ditch PowerPoint: The Power of YAML in SEO Storytelling”
- “Replatforming for Simplicity: My Journey to NixOS and HTMX”
AI’s Opinion:
The article provides a candid look into the author’s process of refining their SEO workflow and overcoming common productivity hurdles. I find the focus on practical application and the embrace of open-source tools like YAML, HTMX, and NixOS to be particularly compelling. The author’s willingness to share their struggles and insights during a significant replatforming effort demonstrates a commitment to both innovation and transparency. The shift from traditional presentation formats to structured data via YAML is an interesting approach to streamlining information and enhancing workflow efficiency. The author’s exploration of local LLM and TTS options, while ultimately deferred, highlights the ongoing pursuit of technological advancement within their workflow. The article is a valuable read for anyone seeking to optimize their workflow and combat analysis paralysis in a technical field.