Watching all the fun over on The Twitter Blacklist brings to mind one of the industry acronyms I hate the most: SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are ways of increasing PageRank and the like for a site in legitimate manners. Most SEO folks, however, are trying to “trick” search engines into higher rankings by using fake trackbacks, twitter links, facebook profiles, etc to get their site’s links and spammy content out as much as possible.
I see web sites in 3 distinct categories: sites with fresh, changing content; static sites; and assholes (spammers and domain squatters fall in this category). Sites in category 1 have no real problems getting excellent placement in search engines. If the content is even slightly compelling and updates on a fairly regular basis, a reader base will develop and drive banner ads, adsense, or whatever other monetization platform the site chooses. It’s not a fast way to make money on the web but it’s a start. (Hell, even this pathetic site has a small reader base that I don’t quite understand.)
Sites in category 2 and 3 have a problem. Once their site has been visited, there is no reason to come back. Let’s use an example out of the ’static site’ category just because spammers piss me off. Most web site design firms have a meager web presence. The site might have a portfolio, displaying their work on other sites. Generally, there’s a section that talks about their wonderful staff. That’s all well and good. If the company looks talented, I might bookmark the site in case I require their services later. When I’m done with that though, I’m never coming back. Why would I? I’ve seen it all.
How does a company like this generate fresh content and maybe drive a little publicity their way? My suggestion is to talk about your work. In our example of a web design firm, the company is obviously doing work on a regular basis. If they don’t have contracts or clients, they can’t survive. Set up a prominent section of the site that displays recent clients and projects. Get clearance from clients to talk about the technical and visual nature of the work. Most importantly, put RSS behind it. Give me a way to track your company without thinking.
I can hear you all mumbling: “Do people really track that sort of content?” Yes, they do. I know I do. I have a section in my RSS feed reader (NetNewsWire, for the record) dedicated to tracking companies I enjoy doing business with and companies whose progress I am interested in tracking. I follow the corporate blogs of unsanity, OmniGroup, linode, dreamhost, and quite a few others. I care when OmniGroup puts out a new revision of software I don’t even use because I can see the direction of the company and their new thoughts on UI. I care when dreamhost or twitter hire a new admin because that might impact my services.
Am I a giant freak, some sort of feed reading aberration? It’s possible. Here’s the thing, though. If you are in the second website category, with a nice pretty static site that no one seem to care about, do you want to spend lots of time figuring out shady ways to bump yourself up in search results or do you want to spend a little bit of time to build yourself a small community, fans willing to pimp your services and philosophy to their friends and family? Personally, I’d rather spend time on the latter. That might just be me, though. Just a thought….
[ And for the record, the technology necessary to add a bit of dynamic RSS mojo to your site is trivial these days. The amount of content management systems, running from barebones setups like vee and nanoblogger to massive professional setups like drupal, simply stagger the mind. ]
[ Oh, and sites in category 3? The assholes and spammers? You all can just die in a goddamn fire. ]