Blog Me, Amadeus!
Bloggers are starting to call the tune. So let's dance!
Content Beats SEO
Search engine optimisation (SEO) can improve your website traffic.
But each time Google changes its ‘secret recipe’ (algorithms), you may lose benefits.
Content which solves customer problems is emerging as a cheaper, more reliable alternative to SEO. And the best way to create such content is blogging.
Free Blogging Resource
I’ve spent years getting a grip on blogging.
By writing a blog to help you write a blog to help your clients, I believe we’ll all live long and prosper.
Below is a sample post from my new blog: Practical Social Media Tips.
See what you reckon.
Your Emails are Blog Posts
Many of my clients understand that they need to blog. Yet they’re thwarted by two mind blocks:
1. What will I write about?
2. How will I find the time?
What they don’t realise is that their blog posts may already be written – in their emails!
Let’s say you make uber-hi-tech vacuum cleaners.
One day, a frantic customer asks how to extract a hamster from the hypohepozappofilter without damaging either.
As a caring, conscientious manufacturer, you (or your tech person) take the time to write and send clear instructions to resolve this problem.
Six months later, you’re about to clean out your email Sent Folder.
DON’T TOUCH THAT FILE!
Your hamster extraction email needs only a brief ‘top and tail’ edit to become a blog post.
And while this problem may not be common, anyone who does suffer it in future will be mighty grateful the answer is already online.
They can search your blog and fix their issue, without the hassle and embarrassment of contacting you.
And you don’t have to waste time considering the situation and writing the solution all over again.
If you don’t keep an email Sent Folder, start today.
If you do, cast your eye over it.
I’ll bet London to a brick you and your staff have written heaps of content that’s begging to be posted on your blog.
I’m not fond of the word ‘leverage’.
But when it means wringing the last atom of utility from a piece of work you’ve already done by reusing it in elegant new ways, I’m a fan!
I’m sorry if you’ve already seen this post.
If not, what did you think? Could this sort of thing help you get with the social media program?
Times are changing. Fast.
To keep in step with clients, you need to know the score.
Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire
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Great post as usual and I’m finally onto the social media blogging 2.0 caper thanks to your advice and bugger me if it isn’t working!
By the way, where did the expression London to a brick come from and what is its literal meaning?
Thanks, Malcolm. You certainly are my poster man for the Great Corporate Reformation I’m seeking to orchestrate.
If you have any heart-warming success stories of what social media has done for you, now would be a very good time to table them!
Thanks for sending me to the dictionary. You and Adam have a habit of doing that. Courtesy of The Phrase Finder, here’s our answer (complete with twist):
‘Phrase ‘London to a brick on,’ (of an outcome) extremely likely:
It’s London to a brick on that he’ll chicken out. [popularised by race-caller Ken Howard who used it to unofficially announce winners in a tight finish while awaiting the official decision.
In racing parlance it is a statement of betting odds in which a punter is so certain of the outcome that they are willing to bet London to win a measly brick.
Many people unaware of betting lingo leave out the vital word on, thus making the phrase the opposite of what is intended, i.e. the odds of laying a brick to win all of London, not much of a risk.’
Well there you go. That’s a new one on me! Ye gods it’s a rum thing how we pepper our speech willy nilly (and with gay abandon) without knowing if we’re Arthur or Martha, isn’t it? Thanks again, Mate!
Paul,
Like your new websites and they provide tips we can use. Well done on spending the time learning and sharing your knowledge.
Regarding SEO versus blogging, I do think you need both. If your blog is not optimised then you may end up blogging to yourself. Google I think does seem to list posts quite quickly, or that is what I have found with my blog. However the blog is optimised.
The easiest way I have found to do this if you use Wordpress (as a website or blog) is to either use their plugin or an even better alternative is to purchase a premium theme such as Thesis or a new one I am about to try – Headway Themes. The SEO is built in and they also allow you to put in a meta description etc that can contain your keywords.
Thank you, Susan. I’ve decided that 2010 is going to be the ‘Year of Giving Dangerously’. My Practical Social Media Tips Blog has already brought me one fabulous new client and one hot new prospect, so that’s a jolly good start.
I’m glad you challenged me on the SEO thing. I bypass SEO because I consider it expensive, arcane and unstable. By announcing my blog posts on Twitter, I get wonderful commenters like you!
However, I’m NOT an IT boffin, so I’m open to all Pro-SEO arguments. It’s just that everywhere I look, I see the phrase ‘content is king’ or ‘context is king’.
It seems the search engines are paying far more attention to these than to strategically placed keywords and such.
I’d love how to hear how you get on with your premium theme. So far, I’ve not found one good reason to make the switch from my free versions, but I’m keen to be corrected if I’m wrong.
Thanks again for raising such good points, Susan!
That is great Paul. Glad it is working for you.
There is a debate at the moment about SEO and content and like most things people will change their minds. Don’t be surprised if down the track they tell us content is no longer King, something else is what we must do or have to succeed.
I don’t know that much about SEO,but it is more than strategically placed keywords. I will let the ones who know about this area explain it. On my other website we had SEO done, it wasn’t expensive and we got and stayed number 1 on Google without a great deal of effort. Fresh content of course helped as well.
Regarding the premium themes I guess it depends on your objectives. For me they provide the flexibility with the design etc I need for the direction I am going with the business. There are features you can add that you can’t with the free ones which I find useful. I will let you know my feedback with Headway when I get it up and running.
Got you, Susan. I’ve just put a call out to my IT Guy. I don’t even know how (if?) he SEOed MY website when he rebuilt it!
Please do let is know how you go with Headway. That’d be beaut!
I have to agree with Susan: there is a place for SEO, but certainly not at the expense of providing excellent content.
Search engines reward relevancy, and most importantly visitors to your site reward it also. The goal of SEO is to attract visitors to your website; the goal of your website (including, but not limited to, your content) is to turn those visitors into readers/returning visitors/subscribers/customers/commentators etc etc. In other words, they engage with you via the website, enabling you to build some kind of relationship.
I also agree that Wordpress is an excellent platform, and a premium theme do provide easy, useful ways to enhance your SEO efforts.
I must point out, at the risk of being painfully picky, that as the Keyword Meta Tag Susan mentioned is actually (almost) completely useless for SEO. I’d explain why, but it is easier for you and me if you go straight to the source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
SEO and content: the two are not really opposing forces. They can and should be used together for success.
Thank you Stephen. You sound dangerously like you know what you’re talking about! I’m happy for you to pick ’til you’re blue in the face. It’s a great way to learn about an ever-changing field. Best regards, P.
Hi Stephen,
I perhaps used the wrong words. I was not refering to the keywords meta tag which has long been disregarded and I agree with you. I was refering to the meta description which is what people see when the results appear in Google. Should have also included reference to title tags as well which the premium themes allow you tailor.
Keyword Meta Tag.
Meta Description.
Title Tag.
Can you see why I perfer to stick to content?!
Great link, Stephen, BTW. And great discussion all.
No worries, Susan. I do hope I wasn’t being too picky. The Title and Description Meta Tags are indeed useful for SEO. I hope I didn’t offend you.
I’d also be curious to know how you go with the Headway theme. Also, you mentioned the Thesis theme above – have you used this, and if so, I’d love your opinion.
Paul: Generally speaking, the free themes are purely graphic enhancements. However there are themes out there that offer the ability to edit CSS in an easier fashion, easily complete basic SEO functions, are generally offer more all-round flexibility, and often have technical support included. These are paid themes aka premium themes.
Contrary to what some think, SEO isn’t a mystery – it is a task in which knowledge, experience and discipline are required.
Knowledge to know how the search engines work, how analytics packages work, and an understanding of how users typically respond to search results.
Experience tells one what is likely or unlikely to work, hence informing the direction of the effort.
Discipline is required, because it can actually be pretty boring and monotonous at times.
It is worth the effort or expense to get it done. But the content needs to be relevant, useful and authentic for it to be worth the effort. I would advise someone starting a new site with limited resources to mainly focus on their content. It is the foundation.
I hope my humble opinion helps, and doesn’t cloud the issue any further.
(sheesh, I see your point about reusing communications for blog posts…!)
Your contributions have been revelatory to me, Stephen, so please keep them coming.
I tried fiddling with Google AdWords for six months and it nearly made me slam my fat head through my flat screen. I know it’s not the same as SEO, but that abortive exercise showed me I do NOT have the discipline you describe.
Yet I can happily spend all day hunting for one typo among 500 pages of turgid text. Each to their own, I guess.
You’re dead right about content reuse. I’ve just repackaged all your comments into a 12-part DVD training tool. At only $499 + GST, they’re flying out the door! Thanks for EVERYTHING, Mate!
Hi Stephen,
No you were not being picky and definitely did not offend. I got a lot out of the article you linked to so thank you.
I am currently using Thesis and it is very good. The only thing is to get the most out of it you do need to know some coding, which I have no interest or experience in. To overcome that the forum is very helpful, however as a non technie I am sometimes lost.
I am about to change to Headway as it was built for non technical people like me. I have played around with it to get a feel and will be finalising site soon. So far it is very easy to use. They also have a forum and the guy who developed it is very helpful. I will let you know more when I am finished.
Hehehe….glad its helping someone out!
Thanks Susan. The Google Webmaster blog is one of the most useful blogs I know of.
Thanks for your feedback re: the WP themes. Please let us know when you’ve finished the re-developed site.
Hello Folks
I don’t reckon I’ve got much to add to this ’splendiferous’ bevvy of ‘Seriously Edifying Observations’ ;-P…but hey! Since when has that stopped me? So if nothing else, I might be able to offer a spot of ‘Slightly Entertaining Obtuseness’…who knows, this may spark some ‘Sustainable Effective Objectives’ via ‘Subliminally Evaluating the Obvious’
One need only go to the Supermarket to view overwhelming evidence of the inefficiencies of our so called ‘Free’ or ‘Perfect’ Market Economies. When I was little, I thought milk came from a Cow…’A COW’. What have we done with that?
Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m ‘pooh-poohing’ never ending complexity…actually yes I do
But I shouldn’t, because it has created massive employment…right? e.g. Is there a connection between exponential increases in hyper-allergenic humans and demand for doctors, nurses, ‘medical specialists’, prescription chemicals, 400 types of Milk, oil prices and deforestation? Of course not…that would be silly…right? ;-P
When I worked on a large Web2.0 project a couple of years ago, I remember the project manager explaining his rationale for the site design. NASA was using it…PistonHeads was using it, eBay was using it and Craigslist was using it.
I tried to explain to him that all of these sites became some of the highest traffic sites on the planet without ‘SEO Specialists’ and long before anyone had even coined the term ‘SEO’. Why? Because they had simple core functions that they delivered in ways that were useful to users.
I reckon SEO is a symptom of what we always do with things that work…we try to replicate it by trying to control every step of the process…ironically, that is not how these sites became successful in the first place.
There are bazillions of blogs in the world. I frequent about 4 or 5 and am a regular on 1. This one. Why? Because of SEO? Nope!
I’d be interested to see a study that assesses current global content. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that both SEO and Content are King, because such a large portion of the content is about SEO.
Is ‘Word of Mouth’ being replaced by ‘Word of Machine’? There are now ‘autobots’ on Twitter that assist with removing ‘autobots’ from one’s Account/Profile and so on…Are ‘real people’ that businesses say are most important, disappearing into the mist of ‘optimised service delivery’? What is market share? People or mouse-clicks?
What’s next ‘SEOO’ (i.e. Search Engine Optimization Optimization)?
Last year we were soaking in it…this year we’re drowning in it…next year?
Cheers
Stephen G
Interesting, Susan. Of all the paid templates around, I briefly flirted with idea of going for Thesis. This was due to all the promotion I saw on Copyblogger. I figured Brian Clark etc knew what they were about. Yet I thought a bought solution like that would be coding free. Thanks for the heads up!
On the other hand, as I’m now setting up blogs for clients, I may get one who wants more bells and whistles than I can currently tinkle and blow.
Should I leave my copywriting comfort zone and learn to code, or should I pass such clients to a more technically advanced blogger?
The object of the game is to be paid for what one enjoys doing. The game is over, however, if one starves to death waiting for fun to happen. Tricky…
Thank you, Stephen. Next year, I reckon we’ll BE it. All vitamised by a jaded deity into one heterogeneous ectoplasm.
Bits of whale, mahogany, goose liver, Velcro, iPhone, iceberg, TIVO and retrenched tram conductor shall wash and wave in a Jim Beam, Blaupunkt, Pollywaffle and light crude neap tide. With carrots.
I’ve switched all my superannuation to zippy board futures. I strongly advise others (especially at long BBQs) to do likewise.
Paul,
Thesis is great if you want to learn coding and I think it is still the leading theme. Brian Clark developed Thesis with another guy and owns it. You do not have to know a great deal as you do get a lot of help via the forums.
One of the reasons Headway was developed was so we did not have to know coding. Here is a link that shows it in action.
http://www.artofblog.com/headway-guide/
Dear Amadeus,
Now that’s what I call ‘connecting the dots’. When you finally ascend at a ripe old age, I can already hear the Doctor who does your autopsy when he opens your head and exclaims – “My God! It’s full of Stars”
Oh! And to add something that’s actually ‘on topic’…I use Thematics Wordpress Template – http://themeshaper.com/
Although I do my own coding it is only at the level of making the blog do the things I want the way I want…effectively editing the code. I do not consider myself a ‘coder/programmer’.
If I was establishing blogs for clients I would enlist the services of a professional. Why? I’m only running one blog. It’s proven to be highly reliable. That means every time I want to update or change something, because I’m not coding all the time, it usually takes me a bit longer because I have to relearn what I did before…not very economical when you begin to introduce such concepts as turn-over and deadlines
Cheers
Stephen G
Well, Susan, today certainly has been a day of learning!
Thanks to that link you supplied, I finally understand what you’re getting for your money.
I’m impressed by what Headway can do (and how easily). While it wouldn’t be my favourite task in the world, I reckon I could find my way around it if a client was dead keen for me to ‘pimp their ride’.
The trouble with being able to change everything, of course, is that you change everything. Having worked in a design studio, I think you’d need a fingerhold on the colour wheel to keep things looking nice.
In summary, I like my current, free blogs for their simplicity. But those standard, pale blue backgrounds are pain in the bum.
I really appreciate you opening my eyes to what can be done these days. Many thanks!
Thank you kindly Stephen. I always thought I detected a faint glow when donning my undergarments.
The more I read everyone’s comments, them more I think I should advise my clients to keep it real and simple until their content is substantial (and successful) enough to warrant (and afford) wheeling in a boffin.
In my view mate, that would be a good call.
But, I’m also old enough and ugly enough to know that when one argues with reality, perception wins in the short-term and reality has the last laugh
Most businesses, as you have stated in so many ways over the past months, are more interested in ‘the bottom line’ than just about anything else. In most cases this reduces blogs to a leveraging tool driven by SEO to improve the bottom line, as opposed to meaningful communication platforms driven by genuine human networks (i.e. word of mouth).
It remains difficult to articulate organic processes, let alone benefits on quarterly balance sheets.
Therefore, boffins to the fore for now.
The good news is that not all boffins are expensive, and many understand the benefits of organic processes, their interconnected and often unforeseen benefits and can accommodate/scale services to suit. One scathingly brilliant example of this that comes immediately to mind is our very own Stevie Hamilton 
Cheers
Stephen G
Ar.
Here be boffins!
Keywords are important
Keyword phrases are important
On Page SEO is important
Off Page SEO is important
But nothing compares to what you are accomplishing here. You’ve got return visitors, you’ve got interaction, and you have wonderful and helpful advice, comments and suggestions.
None of that would have happened without phenomenal content and topics directed to your audience (and “word people” friends).
Twitter has helped I’m sure, but your content and the injection of your “learned from the trenches” professionalism is what makes it happen. Right Stephen G.?
Kudos.
Cheryl
Cor, Cheryl!
I’m half dressed, a cab’s about to whisk me to the city, and all I want to do is stay here and re-read your MOST generous comment.
I must fly now, but thank you very much!
Dang tootin’ Cheryl C.
Cheers
Stephen G
What a great chat.
Few thoughts on SEO.
Excluding present company of course, there seems to be a stack of SEO Specialists running around yacking their heads off about how they are the only ones who really know how to optimise and everyone else is a shonk. I have come across enough of them over the past 6 months that I am now starting to cringe in advance when someone says they “do” SEO. The used car salesmen of the web development world?
When people fling about the term SEO I think that perhaps they are referring to a larger and more encompassing task – InBound Marketing (and we can certainly drop the term InBound – as doesn’t all marketing aim to bring the customers in?).
Re content – as do those above I believe that content in an interactive and targeted environment is king; which doesn’t preclude that content being found by effective SEO. I can’t imagine marketing without content….
Now – I know that it is not as trendy as WordPress, Joomla and similar…but I have come to building our web-sites on the Business Catalyst platform which has a lot of very easy point & click features for some of the basic SEO stuff (like alt & meta tags). Plus functionality for ecommerce, enewsletters, CRM, blogs, galleries….I just love it. No coding required.
Anyone else using it? Any troubles with Business Catalyst and SEO?
Thx
Hi Bambi
Geez! There’s absolutely nothing in there that I can pick on…it all makes absolutely perfect sense, and what’s more I find myself having to agree with all of it! Where’s the fun in that?
It’s good to see you.
Haven’t seen much of you on Twitter of late (not that I should talk on that note 
), but I’m hoping your less than usual appearance out there is due to a higher than usual business activity? 
Also, I wanted to reassure you that the Tax issue you commented on from my last blog is only a discussion point. I won’t be launching that upon an unsuspecting reality until the time is right and I have another planet to retreat to
Cheers
Stephen G
Ah! The unequaled exhilaration of being ‘right’
…It’s ok! I’ve got my helmet on 
A timely vindication for our happy little group of techo-appreciative humanitarians. Just got this Tweet via James Tuckerman from Australian Anthill Magazine:
“@jamestuckerman Why SEO is just sooooo 2009. Is social media the future of internet search?. http://tinyurl.com/ye76nha ”
Cheers
Stephen G
Paul – I don’t think you personally need to learn to code to necessarily have the ability to offer that level of service to clients (tweaking WP Themes isn’t a major undertaking).
Stephen G – Aw, shucks mate. You’re very kind.
Cheryl – Spot on; this kind of community and involvement is pure gold.
Bambi – do you have a link to Business Catalyst? I’d take a look.
Stephen H
I had it set up by: http://www.alwaysinteractive.com/ (Take The Tour). Was branded as Good Barry. Bought by Adobe in October. Thx.
Man, talk about set and forget! I come to from a night on the tiles and find yet more ideas have bubbled to our surface. AND we have a Bambi Gordon to boot (as well, I mean – not ‘boot’ in the literal sense). I shall check these links with great interest. Thanks everyone!
GREAT article, Stephen! Very timely, as you say. Many thanks!
Gee, Bambi, that alwaysinteractive slide show and video were absolutely fascinating. A whole new way of looking at everything! And so sleek and simple. I’m jolly glad you dropped by to add such a valuable perspective to our discussion. Thank you!
This article is nearly two years, old. Scary nonetheless:
‘Sanar thinks he can trace his problem to a search marketing consultant he had paid $35,000 to improve Skyfacet’s Google rankings. … But even after he reversed the consultant’s changes, he couldn’t get Skyfacet’s pages out of Google Hell, where they remain today.’
Full article: http://bit.ly/5SHAeh Watch out, kids!
G’day mate…:-) What? The article or the 2 years? ;-P
I reckon if nothing else it gives a perspective on SEO Years.
How does one calculate an SEO Year? Well, given that nobody really knows how long it takes for a spider to go around the world any more, because there are many learning databases that somehow manage to sniff our cologne through our computer screens, we’ll just do what the statisticians do…take a sample (which is a scholarly way of saying ‘make something up’
.
Then multiply that sample by the number of Google folks working on new ways to torture SEO folks by modifying absolutely everything they can about how SEO actually works (which isn’t difficult given their starting point – i.e. no one really knows
,..and of course this has a logarithmic quotient which takes that number of folks to the power of the rate of learning of multiple learning databases interacting in multiple clouds and feeding back into themselves in real-time and not-real-time simultaneously (in brackets), then multiply all of that by the rate of Google employee turn-over, to the power of free innovation gained via user feedback times Open Source Developers, times the couple of commercial developers from maybe one or two proprietary commercial relationships that Google may or may not have…run that baby through ya open source cloud cruncher and you can ‘Wave’ bye bye to anything possibly communicable to any corporeal entity extant in anything remotely resembling that gooey old fashioned stuff…what was it called again? Oh yeh! Time! How quaint! 
Oh! Then divide all of that using the same algorithm as above, applied to non-Google SEO folk (with a bracket for those that think having Google Ads qualifies them as Internet Marketers and SEO experts that can release your full potential for you, while your asleep in some else’s home – this would have a negative power-quotient)…and there you have it…all makes perfect sense.
So if anyone finds themselves in ‘Google Hell’, don’t worry, it’ll be over before you know it!
You know where soaking in it?
Cheers
Stephen G
Adam just pointed me to a highly informative article on SEO. One I could actually grasp. Thanks mate!
http://www.copyblogger.com/seo-copywriting-matter/