Online PR and Web Content Marketing: Lessons from the SEO Side

POSTED BY: Roger Warner   /  CATEGORIES: Content Optimisation, Keywords, SEO
POSTED ON: 18 Feb 2009
TAGS: Content Optimisation, Content Optimization, Keywords, SEO

Whenever I need a dose of reality in Online PR and Social Media debates, I turn to SEOBook and SEOMoz. SEOs understand the way that Google works, and hence how traffic acquisition best works through search. Their approach is usually numbers-based and very much grounded in terms of cost-efficiencies.

So this post from SEOBook on the profitability of online content got me going. It states that a solid SEO strategy can be the difference between a thriving online publishing house and a dying one – irrespective of the quality of their content.

This is intriguing because it turns accepted wisdom on its head. Surely the cream of the content rises to the top?

The issue is best summed up by Robert Thomson, the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal: “Google is great for Google, but it’s terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions….”

Now, like SEOBook, I’m not sure if this statement is 100% accurate because rankings are based on backlinkage too (a very definite measure of ‘crowdsourced’ qualitative approval), but Google certainly errs on the side of quantitative. Meaning that – potentially – I can write about Amy Winehouse and still rank above The Times if I’m Google-smart enough.

Now, if you look at almost every major successful online content provider I think this speaks to a new style of publishing…. To quantitatively boost i) content and ii) keywords, The Guardian and others are all massively open to – and somewhat reliant on – user generated content (just as Amazon is) to consolidate their positions in Google… They all publish an article (or a product page) and encourage users to write reviews / comments / responses / etc. In essence, they’re outsourcing an additional layer of content production on top of their core content – and this is the icing that really helps consolidate their spots on Google.

The lesson? Get your users/readers with the program and help them to help you by contributing some content.

POSTED BY: Roger Warner   /  CATEGORIES: Content Optimisation, Keywords, SEO
POSTED ON: 18 Feb 2009
TAGS: Content Optimisation, Content Optimization, Keywords, SEO