"..... a little wine in the morning, a little breakfast at night ~ !! Woo oh boy I'm beginning to see the light !!!"
Lou Reed, and the Velvet Underground 1969
After this weeks walkout at the Ann Arbor IT Zone, (see Roundtable Discussion - click here) I can really only handle just a wee bit more of traditional black slapping and self congratulation related palaver. But the bottom line here is that a lot of people are out there looking for answers. Because of this recent influx of web development it is highly probable that most companies do not know what kind of questions to ask.
In fact, I am almost sure they don't.
The articles that I come across range from the very simplistic, (as in a recent USA Today article) to the more daring, (Web Builder Magazine). There are tools and techniques that fall between the cracks, (geek speak) and beginner books. You need a full comprehensive glimpse at all of the above before you can begin to get a good handle on what is out there.
Here is a recent article published in USA Today
Getting Noticed on the Web
“I've had my website up for a year, and as far as I know, I haven't found one new client from the Internet," says Balsam, 50. "I want that to change."
http://smallbusiness.aol.com/grow/marketing/article-partner/_a/how-to-get-google-to-notice-you/20070119182709990001
"Keywords direct the search engines to how to find you," Winfield says. "And links are the holy grail. If a lot of sites link to you, that means you have authority and should be placed higher than others.”
Balsam's front page was virtually devoid of text, beyond tabs for inside pages and contact information. Winfield says this is a huge no-no. Google's spider crawls the Internet compiling website information, looking to keywords on the page for how to reference the site.
You get the picture.....
Now, you know its the keywords that help your site get REAL star quality. This article merely illustrates a point and a common element that is missing from many campaigns. RELEVANCY. For the average geek, ( no matter what depth of your web expertise ) these types of articles come off as a bit clumsy and hard to stomach..... in short, its common sense.
To take it another level ANYONE could have wrote this piece. The web site company and the customer are mere variables in the equation of good communication skills. I find that articles like this only tell a fraction of the story. What you are looking at is merely the onion skin - the outer later - the outer peeling -- and what lies beneath the skin is a more tantalizing story. It is the real story that needs to be told.
This article is wimpy. It goes back to the tired and easy ABC way of describing the online phenomenon.....
"Attracting links may seem daunting at first, but it's easier than you might think. Most local chambers of commerce and trade associations have websites and will link to member websites."
ouch......
Joining a group like your local chamber all for the intention of trading links? My goodness, I think we are rolling through the stone age. I am getting that uncomfortable feeling at the pit of my stomach again.
This article even talks about how to create a simple blog.... Notice, its just ONE blog, it doesn't offer a strategy or even how to construct one with all the options. This is like a Chicago pizzaria tooting its own horn with only one topping, pepperoni, and then calling yourself THE BEST PIZZA ON PLANET EARTH..... Its this type of thinking that influences our CEO's in this country. Not because it is the more promising out of all the amazing technques that exist. It only gets attention because it is the loudest... for the time being.
If you want to see what a real blog network looks like then you should check these out.....
These examples contain the following....
* Links going in
* Links carrying information out
* Web video
* Harnassing Podcasting bandwidth and technology
* Using video vodcasting bandwidth and tools
* Google Analytics, (you can't see them but they are in the pages, tracking traffic)
* and a whole lot more.....
For more information check this out....
http://seostamford.blogspot.com/
Ted Cantu posted this on May 25, 2007 and can be found at http://www.1seomichigan.com
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