Long before the days of
researching phrases with the helpful online resources of
today, the art of keyword/phrase selection was often left just
to guesswork. However, guesswork by today's highly competitive
standards is just not good enough. So how is it possible to
select a powerful traffic-pulling phrase in this fashion
without researching it in real time? Better yet, is it
possible to choose such a phrase and get positioned before
it becomes popular?
Well of course it requires some
research, but in a slightly different way. Every single day,
we have a world of information
that happens all around us. With all of the focus on the
Internet these days, we need to also consider giving our
attention to other medias as well. We have television
programs, we have the news and the radio which all bring us
current and upcoming events. With the news itself, there are
often many ideas that can help the SEO to really think and
plan ahead for some truly unique optimization strategies. I am
talking about the potential of developing part of your client
strategy around an upcoming newsworthy event. Of course it
needs to be relevant and useful to the target audience. It
also needs to genuinely "relate".
If at first, it does not sound that exciting, let's think
about it and give you an example.
Here is a simple example.
If I were promoting a video store
online right now, one of the things that I might be doing
would, would be to optimize a page for the single search
phrase "Johnny Eck." Perhaps an information or a
tribute page would work.
But wait....Who was Johnny Eck,
you ask?
A way back in 1932, there was a movie by Todd Browning called
"Freaks" starring a man named Johnny Eck. The film
"Freaks" was about the fictionalized lives of
physically and mentally challenged people who, in them days,
were exploited in what were commonly called "freak
shows". Johnny Eck just so happen to be born into this
world without the lower half of his body and was just one of
the "main actors" exploited in this rather unusual
film which marked the end of Todd Browning's career as a
Director.
Although you may have never heard
of Johnny Eck, in over 60 years you can count on the fact that
everyone will soon know who he is. The film "Freaks"
(1932) already has a tremendous cult film following around the
world.
So why optimize a page for a film
which is over 70 years old?
What many people may not be aware
of, is that a brand new movie based on the lives of Johnny
Eckhardt is currently being produced. The new movie has a
big budget, good script, and you can be certain that many,
many people are going to plan to see this film on it's
release. There's no way to predict for certain, but it'll
probably be quite a blockbuster.
Simple Strategy: Optimize
well and relate to the audience
As part of the strategy, you could
prepare this optimized page offering to sell the old movie,
which is now available on video. On the same page, I would
talk about the film. I would write about my remembrances of
seeing it for the very first time. As strange as the film is,
it makes quite a statement about the how so called
"normal looking" people can be very cruel.
You could talk about the film,
review it. Talk about how it made you feel. Really try to
relate to the audience. In creating the content, you would
write for voice, just like you were talking to an old friend.
At the same time, offer some trivia or anecdotes about how the
film was made. I would prepare the page and get it ranked
firstly for the phrase "Johnny Eck" and perhaps
secondly around the name of the old film.
The Traffic Payoff:
Usually when a new "big name" movie is released,
there is always a tremendous flurry of activity on the
Internet by movie goers who enjoy looking up information about
it. When they start searching for info on the new film and
your pages come up in the top ten, they'll also be reminded
about the old film and quite possibly want to purchase it.
In this type of promotion, don't take the page down after the
movie comes out because you may get double waves of heavy
traffic. Actually, if you're lucky the whole routine is going
to happen all over again when it's released on video usually
six to eight months later. Might there be a third wave when it
finally makes it to DVD?
Fine Tune Your Thinking:
Think along these lines, now ask yourself if there may be
value to optimizing a page around other big events that are
definitely scheduled to happen. The use of a new movie release
is only one idea, amongst hundreds of others. If you practice
thinking this way, you can develop strategies for retail,
professional clients or even business-to-business Web sites.
Newsworthy events happen all the time.
- Do you think "the
Olympics" might benefit a sporting goods store which
offers an overview of the various participants.
- Do you think that a
scheduled tour of a famous rock group might influence
traffic to a music site offering a contest for free
tickets?
- How might that upcoming
children's film influence traffic to a toy store?
These are only a few quick
examples but learn to think
laterally about news events. Take full advantage of the media
in its entirety to bring maximum benefit to your clients. It's
just a matter of paying close attention to those big scheduled
events and creatively examining how these might benefit a your
strategy.
In the scenario I explained
above, it would be ideal for a video store who is selling old
classic films to (if they have any films available starring
Johnny Eck) to take advantage of the public interest that
might be generated by a new movie.
By the time the film is released, (assuming it is created at
all) I expect there will be a flurry of interest about this
actor's life and any old films he may have appeared in.
About John Alexander:
John has taught onsite search engine marketing sessions to
people from over 80 different countries, and he's worked as a
professional in the search engine industry for years. John
operates a Web site for professional search engine optimizers,
Beyond-SEO. John
Alexander and Robin Nobles teamed up together in 2002 to
create the Ultimate SEO Mastery Workshop. For more information
about their live, personal, hands-on workshops, please visit Search
Engine Workshops.
