Opinion: When you're in the content creation business, you like to think that your content will succeed on its own intrinsic merits. Right?I've been at Search Engine Strategies the past few days, and I'm feeling a little unclean right now.
When you're in the content creation business, you like to think that your content will succeed on its own intrinsic merits. Right?
Well, sort of. The thing is, the days of "build it and they will come" on the Web were over before they ever really started. And the best practices of yesterday -- things like META tags and keywords -- aren't enough to cut through the buzzcloud between you and your intended audience.
Search engines have become the new intermediaries (along with A-list bloggers and other big-draw websites), and gaming the search engines is now big business. So to make sure your content, your product, or your service gets noticed-especially when your competitor may already be paying for premium positioning--you've got to be increasingly aggressive about jockeying for position in search results. But don't be too aggressive, or Google will ban your ass like BMW and throw you right out of the search results.
And it's not enough to just search-engine optimize (SEO) your web pages anymore. With the increasing "verticalization" of searches,if you'll pardon an Alexander Haig kind of turn of a phrase, you've got to make your RSS feeds, podcasts, blogs, and everything else more search-engine friendly as well.
Read the rest of this post on Sean's blog, Buzzword/Compliant.
