Category Archives: web

SEO: write for people, code for search engines

One way to get search engine optimization right is to think of SEO from the earliest stage of conception of a web site, or a web page. That means you’ll write the site for people and you’ll construct the code for search engines.

Writing for people includes

  • Starting with your keyword list
  • Using your most important keywords, rather than many variants, in title tags, urls, page’s description tag, headings, and body text
  • Be authentic and trustworthy
Construct code for search engines
  • Heed the power of the url
  • Create the most important Meta tags; title tag, description tag, keyword tag
  • Create image tags for each image on your site (this is also a good accessibility guideline)

You can optimize every page on your web site. If you have 40 pages that’s easier than if you have 40,000 pages. Simply triage the needs for improvement and invest where you’ll see the biggest return on your investment: for instance, home page, secondary landing pages, or key sections. 

New content should simply be conceived with these simple SEO concepts in mind, rather than be retrofitted later.

Social media and PR

Here’s a worthwhile article on social media relations and how and why current PR is missing the boat.
Opinion: Why social media relations is more important than good PR

I think the developments in all manner of media mean that anyone with a vested interest, in particular infrastructure, that allowed them to make money in another era – like 10 years ago – needs to rapidly retool. That retooling needs to take place at the business model level. And it requires new skills and expertise and a whole different mind set about risk and managing risks to a business.

The financial crisis and global recession isn’t so much the cause of the demise of so many businesses, from banks to department stores to media empires. It simply accelerated a trend that began in the 1990s.

Social media vs social networks

I went to a presentation at MRIA Ottawa Chapter this week by Robert Hutton of Pollara. He was presenting some research on attitudes about social media, both among marketing professionals and users. There was certaily some interesting data. However, what struck me most was the very premise of the study: people who are using Facebook, LinkedIn, Ebay, YahooGroups and so on are not participants or users of social media. They are using social networks.

This crucial difference seems to continue to elude corporations and institutions as they are trying to figure out how to harness these supposed social media. Taking an advertising point of view is futile: users migrate away from social networking sites when they become too commercial, ie turn into media (whatever that means to the individual).

From the beginning the web has been about relationships, users defining what they accept and engage with. It’s the genesis of the shift in power from the brand to the consumer. The challenge is not harnessing social media at all. The real challenge is working on having authentic relationships with ones audiences, including prospects. That means becoming a valued part of a social network. And it’s way beyond buying ads on Facebook.

The old ways aren’t going to keep on working. Let’s invent new ones!

Teaching clients about online presence

In the last few days I’ve lead two Q and A workshop sessions with completely different clients to help them understand how they can start to use the web for much more than, well, than having a web site.

Helping clients draw the connections between their own site and how to drive the right kinds of traffic to their site means that they can become a lot more effective in their marketing, relationship building or sales efforts.

It’s been interesting to speak about these issues to non-specialists – being understood seems to involve a lot of non-web metaphors that are grounded in people’s real lives. (Something about marketing speak that mystifies and obscures rather than enlightens sometimes.)

Anyhow, having done these two sessions I now have a ready-to-go, customizable workshop on how to think about integrating online channels and using anything from SEO to search marketing to facebook or myspace and other social networking fora, to lead generation and nurture to e-news to RSS and whatever else we will be able to do on line next. Since surely its greatest hallmark remains its “evolution.”