I am a big believer in “SEO is nothing without providing decent user experience to your visitors“. Imagine you ranked as #1 for many popular keywords, but your website is crap and people who enter your website cannot find what they want, they will definitely go away and never come back again.

Well, you must be curious how the hell I could learn website user experience from Gordon Ramsay’s TV Progam: Kitchen Nightmares. Before I tell you the full story, please let me quickly introduce this TV program to readers who have never watched it. Each episode of Kitchen Nightmares was about how Chef Gordon Ramsay helped a desperate restaurant and saved them from closing. I watched several episodes of Kitchen Nightmares during Christmas (check out my Xmas seo posts collection) because I simply love food and cooking. What surprised me was that running a restaurant was amazingly similar to running a website, and below are the lessons I learnt from this TV program.

Lesson #1 – You need to offer good food to let customers come back again

You don’t need to be super expert in SEO industry (or any others), but you have to deliver decent quality content so that your visitors might visit you again. In Kitchen Nightmares, no doubt that customers would be sick of disgusting food and leave.  Same in world of web 2.0, your bad content is going to 100% drive people away.

Lesson #2 – Don’t offer services you are not capable of

In Kitchen Nightmares, a guy opened a restaurant in Spain and had 72 dishes on the menu, even including Chinese food, and he was cooking on his own. Even Gordon Ramsay admitted he could not do this, how could this guy? So concentrate on what you are capable of, if you have a small SEO agency, don’t try to pick up on everything such as PPC, Social Media, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing…etc.

Lesson #3 – Don’t give customers too many choices on the menu

An indian restaurant owner had his menu fully flexible to customers, it meant you could choose whatever sources you want to make your very own curry (more than hundreds of combinations). Sounds interesting isn’t it? But in reality, that decision ruined his kitchen and entire service, because people had no idea what flavor they would get. On your website, don’t give visitors any chance to mess your service up. For example, I want to SEO for page A, C, E, Google adwords for page B and D, MSN adcenter for page F, social network for A and B, affiliate marketing for D, flash banner for A and C….etc. Say NO to me.

Lesson #4 – Environment and atmosphere matter

Back to the guy who owned a restaurant in Spain, he had a dog, and Gordon Ramsay found dog sh*t several times in dinning room and kitchen was filthy. How the hell could anyone eat in a restaurant like that? And atmosphere, at a english pub in Lancashire, the old couples who owned pub always weared formal suits… They apparently had no idea what a traditional pub would be like. On your website, design is very important, don’t be dodgy and ugly. Also encourage relevant comments as this is atmosphere on your site.

Lesson #5 – Don’t serve dead seafood

A restaurant based in Brighton, was only about 50 meters away from seashore, and they served opened mussels (means dead) to customers, unforgiveable. Don’t post SEO news from 2006, they are *dead* and nobody wants to see them unless you have really good reason.

Lesson #6 – Never ever shout at your customers

An ex-boxer and his wife opened a pub somewhere in Wales (cannot remember the place lol). They cooked crap food and even worse, they shouted at customers who dared to complain about the service. Nothing was worse than shouting at customers, the consequence was obvious, they never ever came back. On your blog, or your website, discuss with visitors who have different opinions, don’t argue and never ever shout at them.

Lesson #7 – Let it go if your employees can do better jobs

The old couple owned a pub in Lancashire, the husband was 62 and was cooking for 30 years. He couldn’t remember things clearly and his cooking speed was like a snail. Gordon Ramsay demonstrated that his employees could do much better job than him, so why not just let it go and relax? On your business site, if you find someone can do a better job, let him do it, it’s always great to have a hand to help you.

Lesson #8 – Do listen to expert

Gordon Ramsay is one of the most popular chefs on this planet (he is also good at business), if he is willing to help your restaurant, listen to him! Many times that restaurant owners refused to follow Ramsay’s advise, and things were only getting better once they could listen to Gordon Ramsay. If Darren Rowse wants to teach you how to blog, do what he says. If Rand Fishkin or Dan Thies are willing to give you SEO advise, do what you’re told. It’s not following them with blindness, you will learn a lot and be able to see the difference.

Have you ever got any seo lessons or any other lessons from *unrelated* things? Please share them here

By the way, Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares is quite good to watch.

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