SEO 2.0

Brisbane 1959 - image by pizzodisevo.

Who wants to read yesterday’s news? This might sound like a rhetoric question but it’s not: Google users or searchers want to read old news. They actually seek out your old, even archaic content right now. What do they find? Outdated information and dead links.

I just checked a blog of mine which turns 5 this year and noticed a short post which had 20 visitors from Google this month for being #1 for a specific but still not that seldom used term. It contained 4 external links and 3 of them were dead.

Do you think people who end up on your blog and click your links to find 404 error messages or worse domain grabbers cheap ad infested sites will want to come back?

Well I guess this is really a rhetorical question. So what to do? Clean up months or years of archived posts? No, this is obviously too much work also not really rewarding work.

Instead view it as a positive opportunity to get fresh content without actually writing it anew, just update one old post at a time.

Also you can earn additional credibility doing this as people appreciate well kept websites as valuable resources. Just mark the post as updated with the classic line from static websites in pre-blog times “Update [date]” and also describe what it was exactly that you updated. Many open source projects do it this way with their software. This method works fine and tells the visitors: This project is alive and kicking.

Now with blogging you could argue that the visitor will see that it’s alive looking at the latest posts or visiting the front page, but most people won’t, they will exit your site on the broken page they entered.

In the above mentioned case it took me less than 10 minutes to research the new links, some were on a different page within the same site, one disappeared altogether but I found a very similar one elsewhere within minutes. Then I changed the date in WordPress to the current one and added an

“Published at [date]. Last updated at [date]”

line at the bottom as well as an update notice above stating that the links have been fixed. That post now appears as “new” on my front page.

• So I did not have to write a new one today.
• Also a post from 2005 has most probably been not yet read by the current blog readers.
• Even if they either forgot it or the additional value of new links makes sense for them too.
  

So with a few minutes of work you can both get content and earn credibility for your blog with old news. Do not forget, your archive is your goldmine, when it’s full of rocks and dust readers won’t discover the gold though.

Can’t Fail Cafe - image by pbo31.

Recently I wrote a guest post that took me a long time to write and was well crafted timely pillar content which nonetheless failed miserably on social media, even the site I targeted directly. OK, I may be biased, maybe it was just “great content”, or rather a great article as I do not like the fuzzy term “content”. It was a how to that grew to be a small tutorial in fact. As this was a guest post and it targeted my favorite community Mixx I was really disappointed. After I overcame the ensuing suicidal tendencies I started analyzing what happened and comparing it to other posts both successful and not.

Now I present you the outcome, the top 10 reasons why great content fails on social media:


The Headline
The headline is crucial, without a proper, intriguing, kick-ass headline the best content will fail. Take a look at this post at SEO ROI which also failed miserably: “The Biggest, Baddest, Resource Bonanza Bar None!“
What the heck is it about? Nobody knew and thus it failed even on Sphinn where otherwise it would have ruled the homepage. I was silly enough to submit it without changing the headline. I should have called it something like “111+ Most Important Online Marketing Resources of All Time” instead.
Basically the original title just does not give you a clue what the post is about and why anybody should care for it.


The Submitter
Now this is something most social media mavens already know and most bloggers hate, being submitted by a nobody. It’s often as bad when someone submits who will describe your post as “good post about blogging” where all other posts are outstanding, amazing or must-read, a post that is just “good” will fail. So if you’re a blogger and you just provided the best list post of you blogging career make sure someones submits it who can get it the attention it deserves.


The Target Audience
You should know beforehand who you target with a post. Bloggers? Webmasters? The social media crowd? Which social media site? Just today I noticed someone who submitted a post to Digg that used a title targeting web developers. Now the submission to Digg included the word “SEO” instead which equals to self-annihilation on Digg. No story that contains “SEO” in its title makes the Digg front page. So study your audience at least a little. You won’t enter the Indian market selling beef either! Each site has specific topical preferences you must take into account.


The Time Submitted
This one is really important. If you write in English, and you should if you want to succeed on social media, you basically write for the US. I have more than 50% US traffic, 10% Canada etc. although my English is far from perfect. So you have to take time zones into consideration and not submit at night but in the morning or during day time.

Also a post submitted on the weekend might get overlooked by many, especially if it’s dealing with business stuff. Most other business people also have business hours Just recently a great post of mine failed miserably after it was submitted on Friday evening to Sphinn. It had 21 votes on Monday when the 3 day “upcoming” phase ended.


The Appearance
Most people decide whether they leave your site in seconds or rather milliseconds. So you have to grip them by their throat. You really need an eye-catcher. Lidija of Blog Well understood it very well when she posted her legendary b00bs/resources post. My guest post which failed had it’s images downsized so drastically that they were unintelligible. You couldn’t discern anything. They were meant as illustration of the tutorial. A tutorial with useless images is no tutorial.

Of course if the only thing above the fold/scroll are Google or banner ads I will leave immediately. Last but not least: If the page copy is one huge piece of text I won’t torture my strained eyes either.


The Source
Now this might not be obvious, but some sites will never succeed on some social media. SEO 2.0 will never ever get to the front page of Digg as the Digg bury brigade does not read SEO posts (posts about SEO) at all, they hit “bury” right away when spotting the term “SEO”. The same post might succeed being published elsewhere but not here.

Also some people are persona non grata on some sites, like Jason “SEO is bullshit” Calacanis e.g. on Sphinn. An a-list blogger might succeed even with rather poor content. An unknown blogger must be twice as good to be successful.


The Me Too Factor
Some topics are hot as long as they haven’t been covered by dozens of others days, weeks or months earlier. When people are tired of some kind of content it can be the best but it will fail anyways. So not write another me too post when the topic has been already covered to excess.


The Genre
In literature we have poetry and prose and everything inbetween. We also have drama, comedy and horror movies. At the box office or on social media weird experimental mixes won’t succeed as people will be confused. So decide if you write a list or a tutorial. If you write an analysis do not make it opinionated etc.


The Categorization
I see this mistake every day on StumbleUpon. SU is very dependent on it’s categories/tags. Without adding the right categories nobody potentially interested will even see your post. Just recently my “Flagship Blogging” post has been submitted in the “Internet” category to SU. This is a very broad category which deals with many topics, but just because blogs are part of the Internet does not make this category the right one. StumbleUpon has the weblogs/blogs category for this, also writing is fitting in this case. This is just one of dozens examples of miscategorization at StumbleUpon.


The Initial Push
The initial push means making your friends and peers online aware of your post. Did someone submit your post? Now you have to contact people of your social network on the Web to ask them to vote for you. Without the initial push of a 12 votes by your peers you won’t even get noticed at most social sites. You will end up as a bleep among thousands. So rally for your post if you truly believe it’s worth it.


So by now you may already sense that it’s not just about content is king on social media. It depends. A king is nothing without a kingdom or an army. The good news is: You can overcome most of these 10 reasons why great content fails on social media. So try not to make these mistakes next time.

Ironically I published this post on a Friday night so any submission will fail

Nonetheless, do not wait, submit it, it’s my bad this time. Also I need some proof for my theories.

Classics in Lego by Balakov.

Starting and maintaining a flagship blog is not really easy. You need perseverance and the will to keep on blogging no matter what happens. You need passion.

You need to fall in love with blogging!

I have it, so I don’t need extra motivation or something. What I need though, like other bloggers, is a strategy or simply put adjustment to the 3 phases of blog growth.

You just can’t blog the same way for a completely new blog as for a blog which already has a significant audience or an established blog.

What is a flagship blog? A flagship blog is a blog created upon the premise of unique content of high value able to boost your online reputation. A flagship blog is a resource people will link to, subscribe and recommend to others on social media.

I want to outline the 3 main phases of flagship blog growth and how to deal with them in terms of

• content creation
• posting frequency
• topical relevancy
• social media engagement
• guest blogging

What are the 3 main phases of blog growth? These 3 are embedded in a holistic SEO 2.0 strategy including true blue social media participation.

1. Initial Frenzy
The initial frenzy is a hilarious phase of blogging. It’s like a new love affair. You’re agitated all of the time and can’t sleep well.

• You blog daily or at least as often as you can.
• You write guest posts for more popular blogs
  
• You try everything, several social media, widgets, Plugins and maybe even WordPress Themes.
• You create highly relevant topical content geared towards the social media of your choice audience
  
• You link out generously and you praise other established as well as new bloggers like you who you admire.
• You watch your first social media submissions eagerly
• and you are are glad about the first 100 visitors daily, then the first 100 subscribers
  

2. Establishing Mode
The establishing mode phase is a cool down phase. Like in a love affair you now discover whether you truly love blogging. You take a step back and analyze. You take a look at your audience and the workload of blogging. Now you need a focus and some lasting benefit of blogging.

After the initial frenzy ends there comes the establishing mode. It may be after 3 months or after 6 but it will come. You will notice it by the fact that you are posting less without really knowing why. You will more often take a look at your watch to find out how much time you spend with blogging.

• You blog less often but write longer posts
• You elaborate on topics you already covered
• You concentrate on your existing audience, you may have 300-1000 feed subscribers
• Your social media traffic either tends to become lower or you stop caring that much
• You think twice before you guest blog, some people might offer you money already for guest blogging
• You already have a significant network of like minded peers across several social media and people know your name or recognize your avatar
• You think more often about making money with your blog to justify the time spent on it
• People you never heard link to you in best of lists or as a source (”via”)

3. Final Boost
The final boost is in a love affair the equivalent of marriage. Now you decide whether you abandon your beloved one or if you’re really in it whatever it takes. You can do it you just need to want it. If your heart jumps each time you start typing a blog post you can really become one of those exceptionallysuccessful bloggers.

• You want to reach new heights each time you start a blog post, you want to write a short one but it does not work, you have so much to share
• You are the first or one of the first to cover or uncover topics others haven’t t thought of yet
• Your traffic is higher than in the initial phase even without being submitted to social media
• The no referer crowd becomes the biggest traffic factor in your stats on days you are not on social media
  
• Your blog posts get submitted to different social media just minutes or hours after you published them
• People you never heard of admire you or ask you questions
• Once you submit something to social media you get an initial boost of 10 - 20 people recognizing it’s you and checking out your submission because they trust your choices
• You get job offers via or because of your blog regularly
  

Now to reach the final boost phase or whil in it you can go pro for instance, and/or you create immensely valuable posts that will go bananas on del.icio.us, you can create an ebook or you just venture into other media like audio or video or even start a second flagship blog. You can start speaking at conferences. You will consider a professional custom blog redesign.

You want to keep inspiring people forever. You want to empower the people, you want o evangelize them and you even believe it because you made it so far. It’s wonderful!

Now I’m not yet at #3 or final boost, at least not entirely. I assume being in the final boost phase means having around 1000+ subscribers but I already experience the ramifications of it to some extent. I recognize the things others wrote about, like content creator Skellie, web designer Steven Snell or internet marketer Dosh Dosh.

Now will I get the final boost that will propel me to the next level? How will I do it? I’m not sure yet, I already see phase 3 unfolding. Maybe it’s not about doing anymore but watching it happen by now. Anyways, blogging is my true love!

CNN adds Mixx buttons, 5 of them! Couldn’t resist it Screenshot taken with Firefox 1.5

Join us at our SEO 2.0 group at Mixx before it’s too late.

Findability is a seemingly new term that has become a buzzword recently due to a book called Building Findable Websites by Aarron Walter (not to mix up with Aaron Wall, author of SEO Book). Now as a true SEO 2.0 I’m always on the lookout for new concepts and innovation. So I took a little time to find out more about findability, it’s meaning, roots, who coined the term and when.

The first thing I found out was that neither Aaron Walter nor renown usability expert Jakob Nielsen used the term findability first. It appears that the term findability and most notably ambient findability was coined in 2002 by Peter Morville who even published a book of the same title. First things first though, so let me explain what findability is about.

Website findability is the new and better SEO so to say or, on-site SEO without the bad rep of the SEO industry if you adopt the definition from Building Findable Websites.

Basically Aarron Walter says that building websites for findability encompasses not only SEO but a holistic approach with usability and web standards etc. in mind, a position I can fully support. One thing that Mr. Walter attempts to tell us though is:

SEO is bad, findability is good.

This is a good move from a marketing perspective as nobody likes SEO of course, the term is a stain in itself or at least is perceived by the majority as such.

When we go back to what Peter Morville wrote in 2002 we discover that findability and SEO are not contradictory but basically twin brothers. He acknowledges how

SEO contributes to a websites findability along with usability and other important aspects of information architecture.

Now that might be the problem of it not generating enough hype so that Aarron Walter took a more aggressive approach.

Also Walter reduced findability to websites build with web standards while Morville’s definition extends to the real world. Morville uses examples like looking for long term parking or restrooms on an airport which strike home very convincingly. Jakob Nielsen used the term in 2006 for the first time as far as I can see. Nielsen also limited it to website findability without denouncing SEO though.

Now am I angry at Aarron Walter for being explicit about SEO? No, I’m glad, glad someone makes a strong point on renaming the “whole problem”. In this sense I took the wrong approach with attempting to redefine SEO and having to deal with it’s reputation problem. Using another, better term is the by far more effective way of redefining something. Sadly it’s mostly used by political think tanks to manipulate the public usually. In this case the outcome of the manipulation is a positive one. People will acknowledge best practices and put them in use.

I don’t care how do you call it, SEO, findability or like myself probably SEO 2.0 as long as we have the same goals. Our goals match while the methods do just partly as findability refers in web development only to the on-site or on-page factors of SEO which is not enough to be found, especially in the Web 2.0 environment, but they match.

The single most positive aspect of website findability the teaching aspect:

Findability teaches designers, web developers and information architects what they condescendingly ignored for years, making websites findable.

Now as I am the garbage man of all these lazy designers, web developers and information architects and had to fix crap websites for years, I’m sick and tired of it. I want to do the real thing, the content, the SEO 2.0 the fun stuff.

So clean up your websites yourself guys and don’t rely on the poor Mexican migrant worker wit a sombrero to do it.

That said, I still prefer the approach of Peter Norville. So do not only read Aaron Walter book but also, or at first Norvilles “Ambient Findability”.

Btw.: Building Findable Websites only covers the on-site SEO basics, adding some microfomats and the likes, if you really want to do web design for findability you need to read the Web Design for ROI, a book that will change your professional life forever.


Findablity resources:

• The Age of Findability - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design
• Ambient Findability
• Digital Web Magazine - Ambient Findability
• O’Reilly Media | Ambient Findability
• findability.org - by Peter Morville
• DonnaM » Blog Archive » Usability testing for findability
• A List Apart: Articles: Ambient Findability: Findability Hacks
• Use Old Words When Writing for Findability (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
• A List Apart: Articles: Findability, Orphan of the Web Design Industry
• Building Findable Websites: Web Standards, SEO, and Beyond
• Findability Bliss Through Web Standards | An Event Apart New Orleans April 2008
• SEO and Findability blog: LJ Banks — findability expert

From now on please refer to me as findability expert, maybe this way I can outsmart the SEO haters