Optimise All Content

If you had asked me a few years ago if I saw myself working in online marketing or SEO strategy I'd think you were bent - but here I am, in a role I never imagined for myself. I always thought I'd be working in some role that focused on the user experience. Coming from a forum and moderator background - being in the "trenches" is where I've always loved being. I think it's a great job to interact with people, find out what interests them and what they like and dislike about the platform or website content - and then working with the team that makes it the best user experience possible.

I assumed online marketing was just an old practice in a new media. Sometimes online marketing is a little like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. I'm not a huge fan of AdWords and banner advertising - I think it's lazy to be honest and generally ineffective.

I guess because of my background and personality I want to create an experience for people online. I want interactive, fun, and if possible- inspiring capabilities that result in people having a good experience. To me, my job is about making it easy for the right audience to find the right content. That doesn't always mean a website- hence, AdWords and Banner Ads aren't always the right fit. Video is a great tool for just about any brand.

A great example comes from a post by a brilliant guy named Ian Lurie.

One innocent Tweet and everyone went nuts. Sheesh.

The YouTube Video Optimization session at SMX West today kicked butt. Out of many cool tidbits, one really stood out: Matt Ballek pointed out a Forrester study showing that an optimized YouTube video is 50x more likely to get onto page 1 of Google than an optimized HTML page.

I tweeted it. It then got retweeted. And retweeted again. And then some more. And so on.

Since it got a lot of attention, I figured I'd better provide a proper citation. Matt was referencing a Forrester report that said:

Now that's a lot of math, but here's what it means: on the keywords for which Google offers video results, any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index.

Matt's presentation was dynamite. Learn more from him on his site, vidiSEO.

I think it's a great point to raise - SEO is about optimised content. As much as it's good practice to optimise a website it's just as important to optimise each piece of media you create.

Usability Focused SEO Strategies

Recently I had a brief phone call with someone asking me how to ensure a website quickly shows up in the first page of a search engine result. I offered that showing up in organic search can take time, and a fast solution is pay per click. Conducting an entire site overhaul is commonly what it takes to show up in the top results of an organic search. There are also simple tricks to show up in local search results. Geotargeting is an easy way for locals to find you.

Years ago, SEO was an extremely dry concept entailing keyword strategies and primitive analytics as clairvoyant as a Magic Eight Ball. (Anyone who tells you they can read a users’ mind using a heat map is a charlatan.) The answer to a question such as this one is not simple and can’t be summarized without insight into a company’s objectives and core demographic. Also, the truth of the matter is that SEO has far surpassed traditional online marketing and keyword selection. SEO starts with good development strategies and ends with consistent testing. Knowing your user and seeing your site through their eyes is the best way to developing fine-tuned optimization.

To start, knowing that web browsers are the point of entry should help in determining keyword selection. I think it’s a good idea to know what the experience is like in both the latest version and preceding version of Firefox and Internet Explorer. Not only test that your site is efficient and bug-free, but conduct regular outside user testing to gain insight into how users find your website. As an example the Awesome Bar in Firefox slowly adapts to a user’s preferences and offers better fitting matches when entering a URL. Firefox can also tell websites your physical location resulting in more relevant and useful results (for example, getting directions or finding restaurants nearby). Another idea is to consider what languages are most common in specific regions. Certain browsers can translate site copy; however, it's not always perfect and you might want to consider providing translated versions of your site. I recommend using Google Trends for Websites to find out more about keywords based on regional statistics. Knowing what capabilities exist within a browser will help you know how to optimize the user experience and improve SEO.

An important element of SEO development is ensuring your content is properly categorized, labeled, and indexed. Amazon.com is a great example of how to label and index content. The site is consistent with it’s use of titles and descriptions which lends to optimal searching - both internally and externally. Search Engines such as Google dislike Dynamic URLs. Masking dynamic content using URL Rewrite will optimize the pages of your site. Also, creating an XML site map and using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to assist crawlers in locating the important content is an easy and important undertaking. Always remember that content is king, and duplications or sloppy organization can ruin SEO.

Linking and navigation are also vital to improving SEO. The easier it is to get around your site the better the overall experience for everyone - both users and bots. Google’s Webmaster Guidelines clearly states that it is important to ensure there is a clear hierarchy of content and text links. “Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.“ Another vital element is to employ robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines. Using my previous example, Amazon is a great site to model after in terms of it’s use of linkage. Internal links whisk you through near flawless navigation while external links and widgets are fun to use and easy to setup. Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the best I’ve seen and it’s resulting traffic is phenomenal. Amazon’s online presence stems from a quality website and utilization of online partnerships. The more sites that link back to yours means you must be important or at the very least extremely popular.

In conclusion, the whole point to the beautifully simplistic algorithm deployed by leading search engines is to ensure a quality experience for the user. The 1990 attitude of “if you build it they will come” doesn’t cut the mustard anymore. Your website needs to work well, actually know it’s audience, and be setup as a service to the user. All the marketing in the world can't make a site run better and SEO is Web Usability - contrary to what some may believe you can't enhance the experience by adding a blog. The purpose of a quality search experience is to present the user with the information they want to find; not send them to content masquerading as important in a desperate attempt to gain more site traffic. Always ask yourself, "does this have value?" if not loose it and focus on what matters most.

**BTW, Are there any developers out there who know whether the Rudd government decision to mandate online filtering, and to retrofit it to a decentralized network architecture has any ill effect on search?

More Services Less Advertising

The 'meat' of a website can often become overshadowed by trendy fluff counteracting the integrity of a site. The current formula is a simple one: get the "exclusive" stuff that users want to look at and then blast them with advertising- pop ups and banner ads, flash video is a must, and don’t skimp out on the explosively loud audio that will get a user to leave your site faster then the librarian can get across the room.

What we need is more services like RSS feeds, iGoogle, and all those great apps that help us reach the content we want to find. Having content fed to us and restricting the amount of searching may make you wonder: What about the advertising that pays for websites? If there is less traffic to sites how do we make money? Don’t fret there are lots of ways to get attention and promote products then flash banners and pop-ups.

Regarding SEO, let's say you have mastered your keywords and SEO’d the crap outta every page on your site. Do you really think that all you have to do is sit back and watch the dollars flood in? You could have the most perfectly constructed website when it comes to being found easily through search engines, but your site is meant for humans - opps.

I’d recommend most sites focus on the following: Quality Internal Search, Precise Auto-Recommendations (ex. if you like ‘this’ you may also like ‘this’), RSS Subscriptions, and Applications that have a purpose in the real world. A few ideas that quickly come to mind are: a wishlist to save time shopping - with a recommendation tool of course, a digital loyalty card (it worked for Starbucks - why not make a digital version to suit you?). Be bold and creative instead of following every other site - the point is to get noticed not be the same, correct?

Promotion is more effective when it seems to happen serendipitously. Make sure your business or product is associated with review sites or other recommendation tools and apps. Become a sponsor of online events and games. Focus on partnerships to combine products and services. Where you exist elsewhere is almost more important then existing at all. Being an online player is no longer a passive relationship between site and user. Ex. trade-shows, conferences, live events and performances, contests, etc. Find out what else is relevant to you and become apart of the experience. Wired Magazine's latest issue discusses Facebook's most recent advertising strategies which willfully block out Google. Integrating into social networks is important, and might overshadow the effectiveness of SEO in the years to come.

Being locatable is not enough. If a user finds your site and isn’t impressed they’ll leave and all that time (and money) becoming a SEO savant is wasted. Think of a website as a service instead of a presentation, and hopefully you’ll manage to find a way to connect more meaningfully with your users instead of relying on bots.

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SEO vs. Interactive Engagement

For the past few months I was busy traveling and not focused on blogging; however, I’ve now returned to reality and am actively searching for work, again. Working in interactive media is a challenging area in which to suss out potential work. Usability is still new, I suppose, because it’s rarely listed as a title or responsibility, and yet, if you were to infer a meaning from most digital media roles that aren’t specific to design or dev it’s essentially usability in a nut shell, or some form of it in any event.

The other observation I’ve discovered is not new, but it continually baffles me that many employers put an awfully high premium on SEO knowledge. Although I’d never claim that popping up in search results isn’t an important element of being a notable online player; I will assert that it’s by far not the most crucial in developing relationships with online customers/users. I believe that it is a tool to play the keyword game, but the real talent is to blend experience with products and services.

Keyword searching is a flat and empty experience; however, contextual advertising builds online relationships and provide a service that users are craving. A great example is SEGA’s use of ‘Toggle Skin’ a new rich media format created by CNET Networks. If social media have taught us one thing it is that users crave personal customization. Once SEGA successfully integrated it’s brand into the GameSpot UK PS3 pages users were provided with a third layer. Suddenly there is context through a richer experience.

Think of it in terms of the High Street. How often do you follow the advise of a person handing out flyers dressed in a sandwich poster? Personally, I’ve never been enticed by someone getting in my face and trying to persuade me, especially when it comes to parting with my hard earned money. However, when I walk by a department store with a gorgeous window display illustrating the wares on sale I’m far more motivated to wander in for a closer look.

There is a fantastic book called Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business, and I think anyone with any type of online business should pick it up.

My advise would be to understand your core users- not who you wish were your users, but the actual demographic of the users who visit your site. Once you know your audience do your homework and become an expert on their online behaviour, or hire someone who is the embodiment of the users visiting your site. Do regular usability testing with your core demographic and find out what they think about your site, products and services.

SMO, to me, is the ability to engage an audience in order to persuade and entertain. Having a discussion isn’t literal. No one expects Nike to speak to anyone personally - Nike isn’t a human it’s a brand, and everyone knows it. Nike knows it too and that’s why they’ve come up with fun ways to stay in touch with their online users. Interactive shopping is definitely the future of online advertising.

Become apart of the experience instead of shouting at users from the sidelines.

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