Rex Ryan Is Great for User-Generated Web Content

If you go by Google’s edicts of gaining good rankings, content is king. The thinking goes like this: if you make stellar content–be it with simple text or more content-rich material–links will come your way. Now that the NFL is entering its full-swing mode, at least for the preseason portion of the schedule, one of the most vibrant personalities in football provided us with some amazing web content, courtesy of an frustration-filled explosion/tirade.

I’m talking about Rex Ryan, of course. The coach of the New York Jets is well-known for his boisterous ways–as well as his affection for attractive women’s feet, apparently–and last night, during the Jets game against the Houston Texans, Ryan provided us with an incredible outburst of frustration and belligerence.

The outburst was captured in animated gif mode by the always-vigilant content generator who goes by the name of “bubbaprog.” The creator in question runs the 30FPS and Gifulmination sites, and these properties do a fantastic job of capturing compelling sports screenshots that wind up being used by multitudes of sports blogs and sites with related content.

Before discussing just how effective such a simple method of content generation is–simply turn your computer into a DVR and record, clip, and save–we should really take a look at the incredible animated gif of Rex Ryan and the rage he feels when something on the football field doesn’t go to his liking:

And that’s just preseason, folks. Imagine Ryan’s potential reactions when something goes wrong against the Jets’ nemesis, the New England Patriots during the regular season. For some reason, images of heads exploding come to mind. You know, something from the Scanners movie.

Of course, Ryan could be reacting to the fact someone showed him the following picture of his starting quarterback, Mark Sanchez, taken during a recent GQ photo shoot:

For his choices in self-expression, Sanchez has been taking something of a proverbial Internet beating.

Just ask Kissing Suzy Kolber.

Sanchez is another example of someone who, for better or worse, generates mad amounts of entertaining web-based reaction, but since this about Ryan and, more to the point, the valuable web content produced at his expense. As you can see in the animated image above, Ryan is almost hypnotic.

Oh, his outburst was well-received by the Twitter crowd, too:

Which, of course, is taken from this YouTube gem (NSFW language):

More Twitter reaction:

While the content Ryan is an has been responsible for is second-to-none, enjoying his rage is not the only reason for this post. Great content comes in many, many different forms. Be it a well-written how-to from Matt Cutts or a humorous video on Funny Or Die, great content comes in many forms, as is the case of Rex Ryan animated gifs, and as bubbaprog’s web properties demonstrate, sports images clearly fit the bill.

Every time 30FPS or any of its brother sites features a screenshot of note, just about every sports blog worth its salt uses the content and is very generous about linking back to the source. Backlinks and pageviews. What else can a web marketer ask for, especially when so very little work is involved.

Granted, you have to know how to make animated gifs and you have to have the know-how to turn a computer into a DVR, but once these steps are accomplished, you’re now in a position to create unique content of which, there is a demand for. For further verification of such content’s effectiveness, just check out 30FPS’ backlink profile.

In it, you’ll find backlinks coming from The Big Lead, various Yahoo Sports blogs, and SBNation, just to name a few. Backlinks coming from these three powerful web properties that focus on sports are the kind of quality links every web marketer in the world is looking for. And look, all it took to achieve these acknowledgments is the ability to produce screenshots and animated images of whatever sport of interest is in season.

With that in mind, it wouldn’t be the least big surprising if that Rex Ryan animated gif was all over the sports blogosphere today.

Concerning strategy, does this mean web marketers should just chuck it all and focus on creating screenshots of scenes related to their industry of interest? Perhaps not, but it does demonstrate that effective web content is not limited to well-written white papers and how-to dissertations. The key here is to expand your horizons to see if there are any other areas of leverage-worthy content you may be overlooking.