SEO Tips: News Values & Brand Values All Count on Google

Content marketing is the hot thing now for many companies. It isn’t rocket science, but it requires you apply newsroom values and discipline to make it work well. Fact is, there’s no quick fix, SEO isn’t a `black art,’ it is a skill set rooted in journalism.

You need trained journalists because your brand is competing with media outlets for P1 on Google. It’s a shark pool out there.

If you want your content on Page 1 of Google, recruit an SEO trained, experienced writer. It works.

You could cut corners, use an outside agency or freelancer who syndicates blogs and re-writes press releases in a keyword-stuffed kinda way, circa 2009. But it probably isn’t going to work.

So read the papers, watch the TV news, use Google Trends, Alerts, trade journals, websites, forums and Twitter to see what’s hot in search volumes. Both within your business niche and the wider economy.

Never forget human nature; people are greedy, they love something for nothing, like PPI compensation, dodgy insurance claims, cheaper petrol, designer clothes reduced by 50% in the Debenhams Sale, or vouchers for a free meal at their local restaurant.

Give them news about freebies, shops going bust and selling stock cheap, big brands dishing out voucher codes.

NOT ALL CONTENT IS LINKBAIT

You need some values, something beyond keywords.

This is where most companies lose the plot because they often see content as essentially subservient to commercial needs – every article has to make money, or gather data.

Good content can get your brand a top position on Google’s search pages.

But business is about brands too, and the trust you build into a brand has a tangible, cash value. Ask John Lewis, M&S, Aston Martin, Apple, the BBC, or Moneysupermarket.com who paid Martin Lewis £87 million for Moneysaving Expert, because readers TRUSTED what they read there.

Give your readers true value; like the knowledge to avoid online scams, or ways to buy something expensive that bit cheaper than your neighbour. People want knowledge and the internet is a knowledge economy, still developing its true potential and power.

In a decade there will be no UK High Streets as we understand them now.

There will be leisure shopping experiences, places that are fun, pleasant, safe and packed with major brands. But we will make all our essential, everyday, `distress’ purchases online. Content marketing will ease the sting of that impersonal process, empower some consumers with wisdom and expose the shabbier, more obviously dubious companies.

We live in interesting times, chronicle them.

SEO is Shakespeare, but Google doesn’t know Romeo

If you want to understand SEO, read Shakespeare.

The thing about old Bill is that he possessed both a beautifully sharp, direct economy of prose, whilst also being capable of expressing complex, poetic ideas. The sparks fly from Shakespeare’s text, igniting fireworks within our souls, even today.

SEO is, like Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth or Julius Caesar, ultimately about human nature. We search to have our needs sated, our questions answered, our dreams fulfilled. Unwittingly, we define ourselves, for no matter how we paint a portrait of ourselves in real life, our search histories encode a great part of what makes us tick.

Where our eyes covet, our money follows.

SEARCH ENGINES DON’T KNOW SHAKESPEARE

Google can read Shakespeare, but it doesn’t understand it. Humans do that.

It’s been said many times before, but computers are dumb. They have to be taught stuff by geeks, which is why they keep breaking down. In real life, geeks tend to lack humanity – they just don’t care enough.

Search engines, designed originally by academic geeks who wanted a kind of peer-to-peer equation which rated their metaphorical willies, have now evolved into a frenetic, never-sleeping global marketplace.

People sell stuff, they meet for a chat, or perhaps they gamble, view potential lovers or purchase things which make them feel happy.

Google is exactly like a 16^th century marketplace in Southwark, except it doesn’t understand the nuances of language like Bill Shakespeare. Google struggles with layers of meaning, it’s still learning to sift wheat from chaff.

When you look at the blunt, `short tail’ keywords which bring people to web pages, you don’t get the full story. `Car insurance’ on its own is almost meaningless. Ranking on page 1 for it, is nothing more than a start, a jumping off point.

What matters are the couplets that follow – or as SEO geeks call them, the keyword modifiers.

What did they add next; `car insurance for under 25s, older drivers, banned, drink drivers, women, over 70s, London, one day, student, overseas visitors etc?

CONSORT! WHAT, DOST THOU MAKE US MINSTRELS?

When Mercutio shoots his verbal barbs at Tybalt’s cat-proud ego, he uses a double meaning popular in Shakespeare’s era.

`Minstrels’ was slang for gay lovers and Mercutio knows Tybalt won’t be able to handle the jibe. If you google the word `minstrels’ you will eventually discover this literary reference. But only after reading about medieval lute pluckers, racist variety shows from the 70s, Richard the Lionheart’s Blondel buddy, or the chocolate sweet formerly known as Treets.

The point is, Google doesn’t know your website. Or your business. It doesn’t understand what the words on your pages actually mean, it only really sees the structure of the site and views the traffic patterns which drive visitors to your pages – or pictures/videos for that matter. As regards content, it takes an educated guess, based on other sites which feature similar keywords to yours.

So always explain things for Google. Tag every photo with relevant keywords and have a theme to those magic words. Write a meta description based on KEYWORD RESEARCH, not a hunch your marketing girl Sophie had whilst chinning another bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

Be methodical, but be creative too. Be unique.

CREATING CONTENT MEANS LEARNING, BEFORE WRITING

Google is dumb. Fact.

Create content based on search patterns relevant for your business. Study your customers carefully, listen to the language they use, watch where their eyes take them online, learn from the layers of meaning they type into Google.

Google Analytics is agreat place to start this process. But email records, phone conversations, news sites consumed, social media photos shared and a dozen other metric analysis tools and apps can all help.

Again, sifting wheat from chaff is the art of understanding.

ALL THAT GLISTERS…

The story of your customers true lives; the passions they pursue, the fears they assuage with medicines, alcohol, food, cars or a hundred other trinkets, contain the code which links them to you.

The way your content is consumed, and crucially, shared online, is the real gold dust within your site. Ask `what is the nature of this person, what do they do with my site?’ Don’t set too much store by what they say. Half of that is bullshit.

Never stop studying your customer search volumes, always test keywords relentlessly, watch how people refine and develop their search term language as new interests hook them, because human nature never sleeps. It endures.

Like Shakespeare.

 

 

SEO tips: Content is King, so add a photo or video clip

This isn’t just theory, I tested it last year whilst studying SEO and social media last year at Salford University. Add a photo and your post will gain about 60% more traffic over the following month. There are lots of things you can debate in the arcane world of SEO, but you can’t argue with cold hard stats. Traffic speaks volumes.

This pic from New Zealand was perfect for the MCi Tours motorcycle travel blog

The other great thing about adding photographs or video clips is that people engage far more with the blog. They like it, they share it, they comment.

If you are blogging on behalf of a brand, not just for fun, then adding well composed, beautifully lit, eye-catching images is essential. You want comments because one of the main reasons for promoting your products on social media is market research, seeing genuine comments – seeing what inspires, enthuses, impresses.

By the way, if you are one of those companies who thinks this can all be done on the cheap, using outsourced keyword-rich copy and stock images, think again.

Google will knock your page rank down if you simply paste press releases and samey photos, or wobbly video clips with duff sound. You need to post something original.

If you film an entertaining clip that’s a start. Then set your own You Tube channel, link it to your blog, and tag the clips using keyword research tools, not just the seat of your pants.

In short, create something engaging and people will engage with it. The old saying, ` a picture paints a thousand words,’ was never so true as it is today.