E-mail:
jsem@patrikpilous.cz
Erika Fashion case study with 436,000 visits from Google in a year
I started working for Erika Fashion, a women’s fashion client (erikafashion.cz and erikafashion.sk), as an outsourced SEO consultant and link builder in April 2024, and I was given a lot of freedom and trust. Because we can move and change things quickly, the results...
How to build a marketing strategy, with a step-by-step process and an example
A marketing strategy is a decision about who you will sell to, what you will sell and how, so that the company meets its business goal. The plan, campaigns and posts are simply what follows from it. In my experience, a good strategy fits on a single page. If you can’t...
Who a CMO is and what they really do in a company
A CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) is the person in a company’s leadership who is responsible for what marketing delivers in revenue and customers. Not for how many campaigns it launches. They decide where the money goes, who does what and which numbers show that it is...
USP, or unique selling proposition, and how to find yours
A USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is a unique selling argument. It is one specific thing that only you offer, or that only you can clearly state and prove, and that makes a customer choose you rather than the competition. Both count as a USP, but the second one lasts for a...
Why SEO and AI visibility depend on associations and entities
A brand has two layers in the customer’s mind. The entity, meaning a clear idea of who the brand is, and around it a network of associations that people connect with it. Search engines and language models such as ChatGPT or Gemini build their picture of a brand in a...
What makes my eyes pop out of my head when it comes to pricing development in the age of Claude Code
For years I have been reviewing and writing briefs for developers at my clients. I am not a developer, I am an SEO and marketing consultant. But I am the one who defines what needs to be done, who then signs it off and who defends it in front of the client. So I sit exactly...
Brand positioning explained with brand examples
Brand positioning (positioning značky in Czech) is a marketing term for the unique value a brand gives its customers and for where the brand, with its offer and the way it is perceived, sits among competitors in its category.
I like to split positioning into the...
Survivorship bias
We only see successes because failures have disappeared from view. Abraham Wald’s planes, Bára’s story and how it applies to marketing and analysis.
Cognitive biases in marketing and everyday life, with examples, books and research
A cognitive bias is a systematic or systemic natural error in human thinking that occurs when people process and interpret information around them in a way that illogically affects their decisions. Cognitive biases shape the human mind in fascinating ways and often lead us to...
Customer journey, or a slightly different view of your business
Clients think everyone has long known how people buy from them. In most cases, though, it is just a mix of feelings and unquantified experience.
The customer journey is a description of everything that happens between a customer and your brand, from the moment they first...
SEO pricing. How much it really costs and what you pay for
I have heard the question “how much does SEO cost?” many times, and it really is a tricky one. We dealt with it years ago at the agency, and I have dealt with it as a freelancer too. It is important to remember that SEO should not be seen as a cost. It is an...
The bystander effect and why a crowd rarely helps
The more people watch, the fewer of them help. The Kitty Genovese case, the Darley and Latané experiments and why a vague CTA on a website fails.
Backlinks, what they are for, how they evolved and how to earn them effectively
When I started with SEO years ago, link building worked in a surprisingly crude way. On the other hand, the relationship between the links you earned and your rankings was very direct. You put your website into twenty directories or content sites, bought a few so-called PR...
How to build a functional website architecture and structure
One of the first things I look at in a more comprehensive SEO audit or in ongoing collaboration is website structure and architecture. You can have the best content in the world, but if it is hidden 5 clicks from the homepage, too concentrated or scattered without any system,...
The Dunning-Kruger effect
The less we know, the more confident we are. The story of the lemon juice robber, the confidence curve and how to use the Dunning-Kruger effect in marketing.
FOMO, the fear of missing out
FOMO is the fear of missing out, which pushes us to act straight away. What the acronym means, FOMO syndrome, stories from flight tickets and social media, and how it is used in marketing.
Social proof
We see what others do as the right thing to do. The Asch experiment, Cialdini and using social proof in marketing (reviews, numbers, testimonials).
The Streisand effect
Trying to hide something paradoxically draws more attention to it. The story of Barbra Streisand, reactance and how to avoid the Streisand effect in PR and crisis communication.
Paradox of choice
Too many options lead to paralysis and lower satisfaction. The jam experiment, Barry Schwartz and how to narrow your offer so that it sells.
AI Performance and how to use it beyond online PR
AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools gives us a new perspective. According to the product managers behind this release, it is “the first step towards generative engine optimisation tools in Bing Webmaster Tools”.
The dashboard tracks citation activity in...
Bandwagon effect
We join in with something because others are joining in. The origin of the term bandwagon, Leibenstein and how to show growing popularity, plus its relationship to social proof.
Zeigarnik effect
We remember unfinished tasks better and they won’t leave us alone. Zeigarnik and the waiters, progress bars and how to use the effect, plus its link to the IKEA effect.
My 2025 in marketing
Reading my reviews of previous years (2023, 2024 and the ones I keep just for myself) is extremely interesting and rewarding. Suddenly I can see what I was dealing with at a given time and in a given year. From my priorities and the language I used, I can also tell what...
The decoy effect and how a third option steers your choice
A planted third option changes the choice between the other two. The story of The Economist, popcorn and using the decoy effect in price lists.
Pygmalion effect
Our expectations can change another person’s reality. The Greek myth, Rosenthal’s classroom experiment, the golem effect and how it is used in marketing and leadership.
Peak-end rule
We remember an experience by its peak and its end, not by its average. Kahneman’s research, the ice cream at IKEA and how to use it in customer experience.
Authority bias
We trust an authority’s opinion more, without checking it. The white coat, the Milgram experiment and how authority bias is used in marketing.
Availability heuristic
We overestimate what we can easily recall. Tversky and Kahneman’s experiment, the fear of flying and how to be top of mind, plus the link to the mere exposure effect.
Confirmation bias
We only see what confirms our opinion and overlook the rest. Francis Bacon, the Wason test, social media bubbles and how it is used in marketing.
Illusory truth effect
What we hear often, we start to accept as true. Propaganda, advertising slogans and fake news, how the illusory truth effect works and how to resist it.
