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SEO – Jargon Buster [Search Engine Optimization]

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

SEO stands for “Scrabble Equality Organization”. This group was formed after the highly controversial World Scrabble final earlier this year. Trailing by 50 points to his opponent, Mr J. Smith of London, the Polish finalist Mr W. Iwillwinski scored 575 points, including his triple word score, for the word “JZCZWIZYQZZY”.

Mr Iwillwinski was incensed when the word was rejected for being a proper noun. “They cheated me,” he said after losing the final, and picked up his runner-up prize of $25, missing out on the $26 winner cheque. “The word was valid – it is my mother’s favorite flower,” he complained.  “Not only  that, but I saw it on my optician’s test chart last week,” he continued.

Such was the uproar that Scrabble World Series organizers have decided to clarify the rules. Rejecting claims of discrimination, they say that they treat all entrants equally, even the delegation of Somali pirates who stole the show, literally.

The Scrabble Equality Organization is charged with restoring the battered reputation of the sport. “This is a respectable sport and the top players are true athletes,” said Dr. Etymological, SEO Chairman. “We have a fine history of sportsmanship,” he went on. “This has really shaken our sport – it is the biggest upset since 1972, when the Italian competitor was caught eating alphabet spaghetti before a match.”

SERIOUSLY:

SEO is all about making your website attractive to search engines.  It stands for “Search Engine Optimization”. It’s the technical side of search (as opposed to the marketing side). SEO can improve your website’s positioning in organic (unpaid) search results.

It’s also about making sure that Search Engines know what your site is about and making it easy for the search engine spiders to find their way around your site. If your site is optimized for search engines, this can increase the volume and quality of traffic that you receive. It can therefore impact significantly on your bottom line.

I have grown to dislike the term “SEO”. Too many dubious SEO practitioners have given it a bad name. It has become a negative term in many people’s minds.  This is especially true when used in the context of Content.  “SEO Content” has become synonymous with poor quality, bland, keyword-stuffed content not fit for human consumption. I think it’s time for genuine, technical SEO practitioners to find themselves another name.

SEO, in its purest technical sense, remains valid (for now). As an online business, it is important that you make sure that the technical bits and pieces of your website are optimized for search engines. There is little point in having great content on your website if the search engines can’t find you, or don’t know what your site is about or can’t find their way around when they visit.

Google advises webmasters to “make pages primarily for users, not just for search engines.” Don’t overdo it on the SEO at the expense of the User Experience.  The ultimate aim of search engines is to ensure that they return quality results for search terms entered by the user. Make sure you put your user first too.

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Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content; Linkerati;  PageRank;  SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

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PageRank – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

Yo bro.

To get by in the hood, you need street cred. In the web hood, street cred is called PageRank.

To get the top street cred in the hood you gotta be connected. You gotta be connected to names – big mo-fo names, like Google and Apple. You’ve gotta run with the big dogs, the bigger the better, and the more the better too. When you connected with a big gang of bad-ass dudes, you get respect and cred.

Street cred goes from 10 down to 0. To get a “10” you gotta be Google, Bo Derek, or Superman, but “3” is common enough for the average brother in the web hood. Nerds get a great big zero, but there is a “N/A” for kids – who ain’t got their cred assessed yet. (The Google-man’s a busy guy, and assesses every crib in the web-hood every three months or so).

To make sales, you gotta make a connection with a user. The user puts out the enquiry with the Google-man, specifying what kinda shit he wants. Google-man acks all the brothers who can supply what the man needs. If a brother can supply, his name goes on his list, then he sorts the list, and the brothers with the biggest cred cahoonies get their names top of the list.

Then the Google-man gives the list to the user.

SERIOUSLY:

PageRank is Google’s way of determining the importance of a webpage or website. A website’s PageRank influences where that site will appear in search results for relevant terms. It can influence the amount of organic (unpaid) traffic that comes to your site from the search engine. It can also influence and inform potential advertisers, partners and others interested in your site. They often check out your PageRank to see what Google thinks of your site before doing business with you.

Google’s view is that if another site links to your webpage, that site is saying that it likes you. Google builds up a picture of your website’s likeability by examining who is linking to your site, how important the linker is and by looking at the context of the link. Not all links are equal and not all links are counted by Google. PageRank Values range from PR0 to PR10.

Google watches out for websites that try to manipulate rankings so it’s not a good idea to engage in dodgy SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices in an attempt to increase your PageRank.  The complete magic recipe for calculating PageRank is known only to Google and the big “G” works on this recipe (algorithm) all the time.

Probably the best way to improve your website’s PageRank is to ignore it. Concentrate instead on improving the User Experience, creating great content, and building relationships online. A good PageRank will follow. Pay attention to this extract from the Blog of Matt Cutts (who happens to be Head of the Webspam Team at Google):

“….A lot of bad SEO happens because people say “I’ll force my way to the top of Google first, and then everyone will find out about my site.” Putting rankings before the creation of a great site is in many ways putting the cart before the horse. Often the search rankings follow from the fact that you’re getting to be well-known on the web completely outside the sphere of search…. By chasing a great user experience above search rankings, many sites turn out to be what search engines would want to return anyway.”*

Remember that PageRank is a Google thing. If you’re building a business online, don’t obsess about Google all the time. Organic search engine traffic is great but look for other ways to bring visitors to your site. Don’t let your business model become solely dependent on Google.  For long-term viability try to think beyond the big “G”.  There’s an insightful post in the archives at DoshDosh.com which gives lots of food for thought about why PageRank may be overrated.

What do you think? Do you think your business model is overly-dependent on Google? If so, are you thinking about taking steps to deal with this?

*This quote is buried deep in the Comments section of the particular blog post. We’ve extracted it to make your life easier but read the entire blog post (including comments) if you have the energy and inclination.

Footnote: The information in this series is stuff that we’ve picked up along the way when setting up The Wittery. We don’t claim to be experts but we’re happy to share what we’ve learned.  The stuff in the “You Cannot Be Serious” section comes straight from the noggins of witty writer members at The Wittery.

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;   Duplicate Content;  Linkerati; SEO; SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

Welcome to The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit The Wittery to find Freelance Writers to write Witty Content for Your Business.

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Duplicate Content – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

Bad bad bad naughty.  Who’s been a vewey nasty blog then?  Noses Will Be rubbed in the bad duplicate content.  Otherwise known as “the little content that can’t”.  There are a number of prestidigitators out there who have not been doing their fair share of creating delightfully diverting NEW stuff for everybody to read.

Luckily a NEW task force has been created to take care of this. Every contributor to the Great Noggin Of The Net will have to pass through the Churn-A-Lator, which will assess every piece and determine if it’s sufficiently fragrant.  Any material judged free of fresh and therefore unfit will be chewed up and spat out and finally subjected to the indignity of appearing as an infomercial on high rotate, even if the subject matter was originally just an uninspired moan about the peeing habits of a neighbor’s cat.

The Churn-A-Lator doesn’t make personal appearances yet, but plans are afoot for the development of a complementary piece of technology called the Blahdeblah-O-Tron which will be so advanced it will not only vet political speeches, it will give them, making use of the deathless nuggets of pithy prose fed to it previously.

Then the Churn-A-Lator will be set upon it and the approving populace can watch them both battle it out unto the death in a massive circular pit, surrounded by jeering HP printers.

SERIOUSLY:

In simple terms, duplicate content is content that appears on more than one web page. There can be valid reasons for having duplicate content across more than one web page. For example, you may have a print version of the page.

However, many people use the term to describe content which has been duplicated with intent to deceive the search engines and manipulate rankings in the search results.  If you copy content from another web page and place it on your own web page Google is likely to consider this type of duplicate content as “spam”.  The big “G” is likely to punish you for this (not to mention the fact that it is usually also a form of theft).

How to avoid this fate? Create your own original fresh content.  It’s hard work but you will be rewarded in the long-run.

Additional Resources:

Blogging with Duplicate Content proves counterproductive. This post from iePlexus.com explains why business blogs should avoid duplicate content. It’s clearly written and easy to understand, even if you’re not so hot on technical issues relating to duplicate content.

Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issues:  This video from Google Webmaster Channel explores issues relating to duplicate content. The first third of the video provides a clear explanation of the term.  After that, it gets quite technical (e.g. references to Canonical, 301 redirects, HTP Server, Rel=Canonical, UI device, HTML Tag), so you may want to jump back out of the video after the first bit if that kind of stuff is not for you.

[The "You Cannot Be Serious" part of this post comes to you courtesy of a Wittery ghost writer. The rest of the post emanated from Witto's fingertips. Do let Witto know if there are particular topics that you would like him to cover in this Jargon Series. He's highly suggestible.]

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Linkerati;  PageRank;  SEO;  SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

Welcome to The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Find Freelance Writers at The Wittery to write Fresh Engaging Content for Your Business.

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Attraction Marketing – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

It’s all about arousal. It’s making people forcibly aware of just how alluring you are. And this is a serious business.

Such is the dangerous state of the dating scene today that it would take an unbalanced individual to even think about opening up negotiations with a potential mate, who may be:

a)  a spotty giggling schoolboy
b)  a flatulent pension fund manager
c)  irrational and inebriated.

So it’s easy for any sober marketing professional to see the problem.

Obviously what is required is a systematic approach to overcoming a natural opposition towards engaging in any sort of silly sex-talk or crouching outside someone’s bedroom window in the fork of a handy tree. In the normal course of things, this sort of behavior will lead only to disappointment and athlete’s foot, not to mention a citation.

Therefore, what is needed is a multi-media campaign that clearly demonstrates the benefits of being attracted to someone, while drastically minimising the afore-mentioned drawbacks.

It’s beyond the scope of this forum to elucidate further upon how exactly this would be achieved. And I’m bloody glad I don’t have to come up with it.

SERIOUSLY:

Attraction marketing is a technique where you create a relationship with the prospective customer well in advance of the sale.

Your online business can do this by providing informative, engaging content so the potential customer starts trusting you in advance of considering a purchase.

An updated, informative, engaging business blog is an effective attraction marketing tool. It establishes your reputation and encourages the visitor to revisit your website.

Attraction marketing can turn your business into the buyers’ natural choice when they’re ready to buy.

(Yes, you’ve guessed it. The Wittery ghostwriters have interfered again.)

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content;  Linkerati;  PageRank;   SEO;  SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

This is The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Find Freelance Writers at The Wittery to write Fresh Engaging Content for Your Business.

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Buzz Marketing – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

Buzz marketing is a cutting-edge marketing technique executed by ex-US Marines turned marketers. The technique’s name has its roots in the traditional marine hairstyle, the buzz cut.

The highly successful strategies used by marine marketers include:

1) The Stubbly Strategy

Here the prospect is invited to run their hands over the marketer’s bristly head. Marketers report this stimulates the prospect’s interest in the product.  An online home improvement store sold its entire stock of toilet brushes and sandpaper within minutes of one such marketing campaign.

2) The SWAT Strategy

Here groups of marine marketers ambush unsuspecting prospects as they go about their ordinary business.   The innocent prospect is surrounded and the product is thrust into her face. The prospect’s knees turn to jelly and she is overcome with an irresistible urge to part with all her money to make the marines go away.

Immediately after the trauma the prospect shares the experience with all her friends on Facebook and Twitter. This is followed by a stampede of friends, family, fans and followers who rush out to buy the product. This is the only known way to avoid being the victim of a similar SWAT attack.

A hemorrhoid cream retailer has reported skyrocketing sales after a recent SWAT campaign. People, young and old, who had never suffered from piles before, were seen leaving the store with trolleyfuls of the product.

A reliable source has revealed that The US Marine Corps is conducting an in-depth review of its staff retention policy due to the recent mass exodus of personnel into stellar marketing careers.

SERIOUSLY:

Buzz marketing is a technique designed to ensure that those who receive the message get a buzz from it and pass it on. It’s a calculated marketing technique which, when it works, is very powerful.

Because the information is passed from person to person, this lends extra credibility to the product or service behind the strategy.

The campaign creator designs a campaign which they believe will spread. The success of the campaign depends on whether recipients feel the buzz enough to pass the information on.   Word of Mouth, Word of Mouse and Viral Marketing are related terms.

[Note from Witto: It appears that a Wittery Writer may have interfered with this article prior to publication. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.]

Additional Resource:  Check out DeanHunt.com, a buzz marketing guru who ranks very highly on my likeability scale.

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content;  Linkerati;  PageRank;  SEO;  SERPS; The Cloud;  User Experience

Welcome to The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Find Freelance Writers at The Wittery to write Fresh Engaging Content for Your Business.


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