Top Tier Search Engine Optimization professionals use web 2.0 to make news for ranking fortune 500 brands, public figures and other news makers and “it” factors differently than you may expect. This article defines the Ace in SEO practices, and basically gives you my secret, and the secret of the great SEO professionals.
Actually, I just told you the secret. I mentioned it in the title and I mentioned it in the first paragraph. The Ace friends, is becoming a News Maker and being the “it” factor.
Computer jockey SEO experts usually phrase it differently, that is because they are computer jockeys that have trended so deeply away from human nature and traded the real world in for a bunch of search engine garble on blogs, in social media and cheap parlor tricks, that they have lost sight of what humans are all about.
You read articles that state “Content is King”, that is true. You will read that things like being the “authority” and “trust” and “relationship” building are SEO fundamentals, that is also true. You will read that major search engines punish duplicate content for search rankings, and that is completely the case. You will read that the “H1″ tag is what search engines see as the most important content on your page and it should be used properly. That using”-“ between words instead of “_” is better. You will read that permalinks and keyword rich titles like”yourdomainwithcontent.com/seo-news-ace-secret“are better than generated urls like “yourdomainwithcontent.com/post=id6” and that “alt” and “title” attributes on pictures are hugely beneficial. You will read that placing “noindex” attributes on pages like login and register pages and admin pages is good because it’s not the content people are searching for, drains your “link juice” and adds security. All are true. There are even more fundamentals I could list.
None of the things in the previous paragraph will ever trump News Making, the Ace in SEO. And they will become even less relevant than news making as time goes on. With the emergence of the “Live Stream” in form of things like Twitter, and the fact that Tweets are now showing up in search results, this is really becoming a reality much faster than some may expect.
Let me put it in perspective for you. Search engine engineers are not trying to make search engines more SEO tactics friendly; they are rather using SEO tactics to make search engines more people friendly.
Another perspective is that there are simply new practices that must be considered for good SEO like using Twitter. And while these tactics are not yet considered conventional in some cases, if the desired result of performing SEO is to appear in the search engines and on other web pages, then SEO has simply evolved. With the addition of search to Twitter and the fact millions of users are already search Facebook for offsite references, we have got to accept that using these services is part of SEO. Perhaps, SEO is the wrong name, because the fact is many people would argue that Facebook and Twitter are not “search engines”, yet these web 2.0 juggernauts are becoming increasingly significant in linking to sites, driving traffic and producing references people trust. Fact is, it already has a better name, that is “Web 2.0″ which describes the entire living and breathing ecology of search engines and social media and other interactive online components.
Because search engine algorithms are getting smarter, meaning that they are getting increasingly better at serving up content people want, things like link directory submissions to build PR value are declining in search placement importance. They have been for years. Search engines are becoming more human, because humans make search engines.
The purpose of search engines is to serve up the best results to improve user experience. Real people, not coded web pages, want satisfaction and to get the results they were looking for and results that even increase their awareness of other related content and, related results that educate them about whatever topic the search is for.
Are you doubting me? Let me prove it to you.
Michael Jackson was undoubtedly one of the largest brands on this planet. His legendary publicity antics, his music, his family dynamic and his tribulations fascinated millions of people, probably billions.
Michael Jackson never spent a year out of the news. His music was well catalogued, played everywhere and promoted by the greatest minds in PR (Public Relations) and the music business. His merchandise was sold everywhere, in form of thousands of different products.
Online, Michael as a brand and as a person had been blogged about and chronicled by both professional wordsmiths and amateurs alike. The online content about Michael Jackson had been linked up, listed, search engine optimized to tears.
And when Michael Jackson passed, every result on the first page of Google was about him passing with the exception of Wikipedia, which was already being updated with the news.
People didn’t search for Michael Jackson on search engines because there was content about him. They searched for Michael Jackson because he fascinated them and his passing was News that interested them.
Another example. In Toronto this year, the Much Music Video Awards (MMVA’s) took place.
Millions of people watched it on TV, read about the awards and Much Music was practically an infomercial about the event leading up to it.
Lot’s of stars turned up, lots PR people stressed over “sound bite” recommendations for the acts they represented, coordinating EPK’s and show staff kept the acts running through the show schedule on time so that every act could get face time.
Yet what made the biggest splash online? Was is some stunning performance? Was it perhaps the award winners? Was it the massive turn out? Nope. Not at all friends. Let me give you a hint, it wasn’t even a musician, it was a blogger. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about yet, here is a kicker, the person is a publicly despised blogger.
I’m writing about Perez Hilton being hit by the Black Eyed Peas manager at an MMVA after party that took place at Cobra nightclub in Toronto. Read the whole story here.
Now some of you SEO experts reading this are thinking this guy is full of beans. And that is was good old fashioned SEO fundamentals that got those Michael Jackson links on the first page of Google results, and that only the top bloggers scored the best real estate in search results for the MMVA after party debacle. Yup, your right, kind of, unless of course you get jobs like me and understand brands and retail friends in which case you may already know where I’m going with this.
Michael Jackson was a brand, something you could buy into. Same with the MMVA’s (they sell commercials). Same with Black Eyed Peas. Same with Perez Hilton (he sells advertising, words and his persona).
Those brands have various ways consumers can buy into them; they have things like affiliate programs and retailers attached to them on thousands of well ranked channels. Not just one website with really amazing SEO. All of those brands value something called “brand awareness”. Today’s web 2.0 environment (if you don’t understand web 2.0 start reading Gerd Leonard, the media futurist who consults for major labels and even Google) is about getting connected and connecting the web. Computer Jockey SEO professionals miss the boat philosophically, starting with fact they even call it “link building”, so passé.
The smartest SEO professionals were not out there writing blog pages, twittering like tools or wasting their time when these News flashes happened, they were thinking and researching their clients lists, sending private emails, texts and making phone calls letting their clients know now is the time to focus their selling, retailing and marketing efforts on unique products and services that were related to the brands making the News. In many cases they were the news makers, and the blogging and Twitter use was a secondary product performed to support the news they were creating and releasing. They were not out there doing traditional keyword research, they were sending press releases or encouraging PR professionals to hit the wires with smart headlines that attracted bloggers, Twitter users and the like web 2.0 community to link up their stories and headlines with related brand products. The smartest SEO professionals make their clients millions of dollars every time related News fit to make top headlines hits. The best SEO pros let the web 2.0 world do it for us and take advantage of the news. The best SEO’s take advantage of the news, rely on user generated content and follow the trends. Perosnally, I only call it SEO for marketing reasons, I’m pretty quick to inform people of the fact I primarily consider myself a web 2.0 professional and my “link building” methods are just called web 2.0. and rely on user generated content being produced from the information (ex. Press Releases) our clients give us to send out, link to and optimize.
Top level search engine optimization relies on an ecosystem of intelligent media professionals including Advertising Agencies, Magazines, Bloggers, Public Relations and Communications companies, Agents, Managers and Marketing Directors.
Can good top tier SEO be done if you have real news but no money to pull it off? Yes. The reason is that Advertising agencies can be slow moving large beasts. Some are simply dinosaurs. And some are already brilliantly making the transition in new media. Some public relations people are still not up to speed on what’s available to them (the best ones are all in on the game), and in my experience they can be very nimble and fast acting if they are good. But like any profession, there are those who are still those hanging onto to a fading past and relying on dated communication methods because it was once a tried and true method. Bloggers are still easy to reach out to, but amateur-ish. Agents and managers can be hard to reach, stand offish and in some cases unapproachable, often working against the client with the exception of a few great ones, and Marketing Directors, brilliant as some may be, have to answer to a board of directors whose operating procedures may not be nimble enough to jump on the news. Also standards for producing content have fallen in recent years (ex. Average Joe YouTube video popularity or Leno moving to a 8PM slot).
I imagine the communications profession won’t take too much longer to optimize itself to the new world web 2.0 communications. But right now there are still unique and phenomenal ways the “average joe” can make a mark.
If you are planning to make the news because you have good content and important information that you want to share, and you are doing it with few resources, you are going to have to plan well ahead of time, which is no easy task. You are going to have to time the release and probably pre-produce things like press releases, blog posts, emails, videos, pictures, text messages, print media etc. All of those things should be well tagged and labeled with well-written copy . Your news distribution portals and sites should be preselected, and you should have the various submission information and formatting ready to go.
If you have somewhat of a budget to work with you should probably find a great PR person or firm, before you spend your dollars on an SEO firm or SEO freelancer if you are not sure about how to shop for one. In Toronto alone there are several brilliant PR people and firms ready to help you (sorry guys, you are not getting my link juice). Beyond an education in communications (which is not required in my opinion), they have real experience dealing with brands and news. They know where to publish press releases, how to produce enticing copy and they know about where to look for web 2.0 strategy like SEO. The best ones will likely have things like Clio Awards or Cannes Lions award in their resume. The shady ones are fairly easy to spot because they have no good work on the shelf.
Personally, I talk to clients about the world of SEO and the basics of search engine placement in the context of the real world, I don’t flood them with technical mumbo jumbo to appear smarter, and I tell them all that SEO is very simply to achieve and learn about if they are using great tools like Wordpress as a CMS or WP as a Blog. I tell them because this because it is true, heck, in one simple paragraph above I basically gave them 75% of the fundamentals. I always offer to teach or explain what I mean and am prepared to show examples. You’d think that costs me work, just giving it away. Quite the contrary. Clients come because I get past the BS immediately. In the SEO profession honesty and a real desire to provide help works better than any pitch. By nature I like sharing, being kind, helping people and being honest. That is why it was easy to stop being a commercial producer for me and to make the transition to doing SEO and Web 2.0. I can’t summarize how rewarding it is when my clients see the results. All of them have used someone else, and they come to me with work, sometimes just for advice, but when they are with me they are there because I am giving them something of value constantly. If you are an SEO professional reading this, you may have been through the whole pitch thing with potential clients. Stop pitching, stop showing off, and if you’re capable, start sharing and relating, start teaching, start really learning about what and who your client is so that you can speak to them about there interests and goals. Do that so you can create a solution that is unique enough to rock the Casbah for your clients search engine placement. I swear, if you are good at SEO, creative, honest and take that advice your ratio for success will improve.
If you are just shopping around for services don’t settle for cookie cutter services. You are unique, your brand is precious to you and your solution must be unique. Incorporating Web 2.0 is crucial, and today I believe it accounts for more than 50% of your final results.
Never forget, you do get what you pay for. The diagram below shows you the “triangle” that can be applied to so many things in life, including choosing how to go about making news and hiring SEO and PR professionals in Toronto.
SEO with fries = Search Engine Optimization Services | Wordpress Expert Services | Viral Marketing and Digital Content Distribution | Social Media Management | Web 2.0 Strategy | Social Media Marketing | Film & Video Production | Video Post Production | Blogging + Blog Creation | New Media Services & Communications in Toronto & GTA
SEO Ace – Making the News – Monetizing via SEO online
Top Tier Search Engine Optimization professionals use web 2.0 to make news for ranking fortune 500 brands, public figures and other news makers and “it” factors differently than you may expect. This article defines the Ace in SEO practices, and basically gives you my secret, and the secret of the great SEO professionals.
Actually, I just told you the secret. I mentioned it in the title and I mentioned it in the first paragraph. The Ace friends, is becoming a News Maker and being the “it” factor.
Computer jockey SEO experts usually phrase it differently, that is because they are computer jockeys that have trended so deeply away from human nature and traded the real world in for a bunch of search engine garble on blogs, in social media and cheap parlor tricks, that they have lost sight of what humans are all about.
You read articles that state “Content is King”, that is true. You will read that things like being the “authority” and “trust” and “relationship” building are SEO fundamentals, that is also true. You will read that major search engines punish duplicate content for search rankings, and that is completely the case. You will read that the “H1″ tag is what search engines see as the most important content on your page and it should be used properly. That using”-“ between words instead of “_” is better. You will read that permalinks and keyword rich titles like”yourdomainwithcontent.com/seo-news-ace-secret“are better than generated urls like “yourdomainwithcontent.com/post=id6” and that “alt” and “title” attributes on pictures are hugely beneficial. You will read that placing “noindex” attributes on pages like login and register pages and admin pages is good because it’s not the content people are searching for, drains your “link juice” and adds security. All are true. There are even more fundamentals I could list.
None of the things in the previous paragraph will ever trump News Making, the Ace in SEO. And they will become even less relevant than news making as time goes on. With the emergence of the “Live Stream” in form of things like Twitter, and the fact that Tweets are now showing up in search results, this is really becoming a reality much faster than some may expect.
Let me put it in perspective for you. Search engine engineers are not trying to make search engines more SEO tactics friendly; they are rather using SEO tactics to make search engines more people friendly.
Another perspective is that there are simply new practices that must be considered for good SEO like using Twitter. And while these tactics are not yet considered conventional in some cases, if the desired result of performing SEO is to appear in the search engines and on other web pages, then SEO has simply evolved. With the addition of search to Twitter and the fact millions of users are already search Facebook for offsite references, we have got to accept that using these services is part of SEO. Perhaps, SEO is the wrong name, because the fact is many people would argue that Facebook and Twitter are not “search engines”, yet these web 2.0 juggernauts are becoming increasingly significant in linking to sites, driving traffic and producing references people trust. Fact is, it already has a better name, that is “Web 2.0″ which describes the entire living and breathing ecology of search engines and social media and other interactive online components.
Because search engine algorithms are getting smarter, meaning that they are getting increasingly better at serving up content people want, things like link directory submissions to build PR value are declining in search placement importance. They have been for years. Search engines are becoming more human, because humans make search engines.
The purpose of search engines is to serve up the best results to improve user experience. Real people, not coded web pages, want satisfaction and to get the results they were looking for and results that even increase their awareness of other related content and, related results that educate them about whatever topic the search is for.
Are you doubting me? Let me prove it to you.
Michael Jackson was undoubtedly one of the largest brands on this planet. His legendary publicity antics, his music, his family dynamic and his tribulations fascinated millions of people, probably billions.
Michael Jackson never spent a year out of the news. His music was well catalogued, played everywhere and promoted by the greatest minds in PR (Public Relations) and the music business. His merchandise was sold everywhere, in form of thousands of different products.
Online, Michael as a brand and as a person had been blogged about and chronicled by both professional wordsmiths and amateurs alike. The online content about Michael Jackson had been linked up, listed, search engine optimized to tears.
And when Michael Jackson passed, every result on the first page of Google was about him passing with the exception of Wikipedia, which was already being updated with the news.
People didn’t search for Michael Jackson on search engines because there was content about him. They searched for Michael Jackson because he fascinated them and his passing was News that interested them.
Another example. In Toronto this year, the Much Music Video Awards (MMVA’s) took place.
Millions of people watched it on TV, read about the awards and Much Music was practically an infomercial about the event leading up to it.
Lot’s of stars turned up, lots PR people stressed over “sound bite” recommendations for the acts they represented, coordinating EPK’s and show staff kept the acts running through the show schedule on time so that every act could get face time.
Yet what made the biggest splash online? Was is some stunning performance? Was it perhaps the award winners? Was it the massive turn out? Nope. Not at all friends. Let me give you a hint, it wasn’t even a musician, it was a blogger. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about yet, here is a kicker, the person is a publicly despised blogger.
I’m writing about Perez Hilton being hit by the Black Eyed Peas manager at an MMVA after party that took place at Cobra nightclub in Toronto. Read the whole story here.
Now some of you SEO experts reading this are thinking this guy is full of beans. And that is was good old fashioned SEO fundamentals that got those Michael Jackson links on the first page of Google results, and that only the top bloggers scored the best real estate in search results for the MMVA after party debacle. Yup, your right, kind of, unless of course you get jobs like me and understand brands and retail friends in which case you may already know where I’m going with this.
Michael Jackson was a brand, something you could buy into. Same with the MMVA’s (they sell commercials). Same with Black Eyed Peas. Same with Perez Hilton (he sells advertising, words and his persona).
Those brands have various ways consumers can buy into them; they have things like affiliate programs and retailers attached to them on thousands of well ranked channels. Not just one website with really amazing SEO. All of those brands value something called “brand awareness”. Today’s web 2.0 environment (if you don’t understand web 2.0 start reading Gerd Leonard, the media futurist who consults for major labels and even Google) is about getting connected and connecting the web. Computer Jockey SEO professionals miss the boat philosophically, starting with fact they even call it “link building”, so passé.
The smartest SEO professionals were not out there writing blog pages, twittering like tools or wasting their time when these News flashes happened, they were thinking and researching their clients lists, sending private emails, texts and making phone calls letting their clients know now is the time to focus their selling, retailing and marketing efforts on unique products and services that were related to the brands making the News. In many cases they were the news makers, and the blogging and Twitter use was a secondary product performed to support the news they were creating and releasing. They were not out there doing traditional keyword research, they were sending press releases or encouraging PR professionals to hit the wires with smart headlines that attracted bloggers, Twitter users and the like web 2.0 community to link up their stories and headlines with related brand products. The smartest SEO professionals make their clients millions of dollars every time related News fit to make top headlines hits. The best SEO pros let the web 2.0 world do it for us and take advantage of the news. The best SEO’s take advantage of the news, rely on user generated content and follow the trends. Perosnally, I only call it SEO for marketing reasons, I’m pretty quick to inform people of the fact I primarily consider myself a web 2.0 professional and my “link building” methods are just called web 2.0. and rely on user generated content being produced from the information (ex. Press Releases) our clients give us to send out, link to and optimize.
Top level search engine optimization relies on an ecosystem of intelligent media professionals including Advertising Agencies, Magazines, Bloggers, Public Relations and Communications companies, Agents, Managers and Marketing Directors.
Can good top tier SEO be done if you have real news but no money to pull it off? Yes. The reason is that Advertising agencies can be slow moving large beasts. Some are simply dinosaurs. And some are already brilliantly making the transition in new media. Some public relations people are still not up to speed on what’s available to them (the best ones are all in on the game), and in my experience they can be very nimble and fast acting if they are good. But like any profession, there are those who are still those hanging onto to a fading past and relying on dated communication methods because it was once a tried and true method. Bloggers are still easy to reach out to, but amateur-ish. Agents and managers can be hard to reach, stand offish and in some cases unapproachable, often working against the client with the exception of a few great ones, and Marketing Directors, brilliant as some may be, have to answer to a board of directors whose operating procedures may not be nimble enough to jump on the news. Also standards for producing content have fallen in recent years (ex. Average Joe YouTube video popularity or Leno moving to a 8PM slot).
I imagine the communications profession won’t take too much longer to optimize itself to the new world web 2.0 communications. But right now there are still unique and phenomenal ways the “average joe” can make a mark.
If you are planning to make the news because you have good content and important information that you want to share, and you are doing it with few resources, you are going to have to plan well ahead of time, which is no easy task. You are going to have to time the release and probably pre-produce things like press releases, blog posts, emails, videos, pictures, text messages, print media etc. All of those things should be well tagged and labeled with well-written copy . Your news distribution portals and sites should be preselected, and you should have the various submission information and formatting ready to go.
If you have somewhat of a budget to work with you should probably find a great PR person or firm, before you spend your dollars on an SEO firm or SEO freelancer if you are not sure about how to shop for one. In Toronto alone there are several brilliant PR people and firms ready to help you (sorry guys, you are not getting my link juice). Beyond an education in communications (which is not required in my opinion), they have real experience dealing with brands and news. They know where to publish press releases, how to produce enticing copy and they know about where to look for web 2.0 strategy like SEO. The best ones will likely have things like Clio Awards or Cannes Lions award in their resume. The shady ones are fairly easy to spot because they have no good work on the shelf.
Personally, I talk to clients about the world of SEO and the basics of search engine placement in the context of the real world, I don’t flood them with technical mumbo jumbo to appear smarter, and I tell them all that SEO is very simply to achieve and learn about if they are using great tools like Wordpress as a CMS or WP as a Blog. I tell them because this because it is true, heck, in one simple paragraph above I basically gave them 75% of the fundamentals. I always offer to teach or explain what I mean and am prepared to show examples. You’d think that costs me work, just giving it away. Quite the contrary. Clients come because I get past the BS immediately. In the SEO profession honesty and a real desire to provide help works better than any pitch. By nature I like sharing, being kind, helping people and being honest. That is why it was easy to stop being a commercial producer for me and to make the transition to doing SEO and Web 2.0. I can’t summarize how rewarding it is when my clients see the results. All of them have used someone else, and they come to me with work, sometimes just for advice, but when they are with me they are there because I am giving them something of value constantly. If you are an SEO professional reading this, you may have been through the whole pitch thing with potential clients. Stop pitching, stop showing off, and if you’re capable, start sharing and relating, start teaching, start really learning about what and who your client is so that you can speak to them about there interests and goals. Do that so you can create a solution that is unique enough to rock the Casbah for your clients search engine placement. I swear, if you are good at SEO, creative, honest and take that advice your ratio for success will improve.
If you are just shopping around for services don’t settle for cookie cutter services. You are unique, your brand is precious to you and your solution must be unique. Incorporating Web 2.0 is crucial, and today I believe it accounts for more than 50% of your final results.
Never forget, you do get what you pay for. The diagram below shows you the “triangle” that can be applied to so many things in life, including choosing how to go about making news and hiring SEO and PR professionals in Toronto.
Related articles by Zemanta
SEO with fries = Search Engine Optimization Services | Wordpress Expert Services | Viral Marketing and Digital Content Distribution | Social Media Management | Web 2.0 Strategy | Social Media Marketing | Film & Video Production | Video Post Production | Blogging + Blog Creation | New Media Services & Communications in Toronto & GTA
Related Posts
None