WebConnoisseur

Sometimes being so entrenched in the search industry, it is easy to forget how skewed people’s thoughts are regarding search engines. Even people who work for Web companies that rely on SEO & word-of-mouth for all their new traffic. Here’s a great example from my work the other day when discussing article titles:

“There is also a difference between writing for a search engine crawler and a real person. What is attractive to the search engine may not be the same thing as what is engaging to a person.”

I have a feeling she is not alone. Some people think of the search engine as literally an engine or a robot or an appliance. They have trouble understanding why we spend so much time worrying about it and probably hate this non-human thing that rules so many decisions.

Here’s what I told her:

• In my 10+ years of doing SEO, I’ve never written an article for a search crawler.
• Don’t think of a search engine as an appliance or device. Think of it as real people. For example, if you called me on the phone, I wouldn’t think of that conversation as a conversation with a telephone wire – it was a conversation with you!
• There’s no better indicator of what people want, then what they search for and the words they use.

It’s true that SEOs will format a page or architect a site a certain way to aid in search crawlability, but when writing an article, good SEO’s think more about the user, the ways users think about and search for the content (keywords), and then various factors that play into ranking algorithms (which includes engagement more and more each day).

People scan headlines or titles. Titles should include the keywords, concisely tell the user what they are about to read and be attractive enough to draw them in. You can sometimes get away with creative headlines (especially when teamed with images), but in order for an article to have legs (last beyond the one-time editorial push) they should be SEO-friendly and click-through friendly.

The title of this post is a bit silly. Search engines aren’t human. But they do represent humans. Hundreds of millions of them. There’s no better indicator of how humans think or what they are looking for then the searches executed on these “engines.”

Those who watched TV in the early 80’s might remember a show that aired for three years called the “Greatest American Hero.” The show’s theme song, “Believe it or Not” remains one of the most popular theme songs to this day, having been prominently featured in the Seinfeld TV show and even one of my favorite movies of 2005, 40 Year Old Virgin.

Who’s walking on air now? Stephen Colbert, of course. His mass popularity among bloggers has prompted a linking campaign, naming him the Greatest Living American.

Let’s take a moment to decide whether or not this is true. In 2005, the Discovery Channel ran a feature series called “Greatest American“. Going through their list one-by-one, I searched for the top-rated living American:
1) Ronald Reagan (dead)
2) Abraham Lincoln (dead)
3) Martin Luther King, Jr. (dead)
4) George Washington (dead)
5) Ben Franklin (dead)
6) George W. Bush
..
What? Dubya? You gotta be kidding me. Stephen Colbert makes a much better Greatest Living American. Only Colbert knows how to drop bombs (Google Bombs) while maintaining the popular vote (links) among web savvy Americans. If Dubya really used “The Google“, he’d understand what makes him a “miserable failure” and why is being named the “Greatest Living American.”

Note: Just a couple days after the linking began, Colbert ranked #1 in Google for Greatest Living American. Google’s link bombing algorithm has failed to catch this one so far. Two more Colbert bombs to watch are Giant Brass Balls and Truthiness.

Okay, I took the bait and entered Andy Beal’s SEM scholarship contest. I decided to have fun with it and wrote this entry:

The 10 Biggest Master Baiters in the Search Industry

Inside you will find who in the search industry I find to be the master link baiters. These are the people who are so good at this craft, even expert link baiters themselves can’t help but link to them. It was difficult to pick just ten, especially when there are more prominent figures that attract links by the thousands. Those who break news (think Danny Sullivan and Barry Schwartz) or are in prominent positions (think Matt Cutts or Jeremy Zawodny) are at an unfair advantage. I’m sure they would admit linkbaiting isn’t their primary skill (though I bet they are still experts in this area) and are probably happy to escape the list of having their name attached with “master baiter.”

So, please visit my entry and join the conversation. Who are the biggest master baiters? Also feel free to link to my entry and give the guys on the list a bad time:
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/04/10-biggest-master-baiters-in-the-search-industry.html