Everything is SEO
As I sit (literally as I type this) on my flight back from SES 2010 (Search Engines Strategies) I feel stronger than ever before in something I’ve always believed and been pretty confident of for a long time. And now I believe that it’s only getting stronger, and that this belief will be truer and more important in 6 months than it is now; and more important in a year than it will be in 6 months, and so on and so forth.
The web has evolved.
This isn’t my revelation, we all know this. I think we all also know that it keeps evolving – faster and faster all the time. But one thing remains stunningly constant. It’s about people, it’s about people connecting. The internet started so libraries of information could connect – why? So people had better access to information. Then it was literally libraries connecting – why? So people had better access to more information than ever before. User groups were nothing more than people sharing ideas. They involved into forums (aka message boards) – which incidentally, as I go on a slight tangent (but one that relates very closely to my point) – remains one of my favorite things about the internet. If you have a question about just about anything in the world, ranging from innately stupid to as complicated as you can make it – just ask. Find a message board (aka a forum) with people who share the passion for the subject. And most of the time, often within hours or even minutes, someone who is somewhere you’ll never go, someone you’ll never meet will share their knowledge with you and give you the answer you’re looking for. The power of that is astonishing. Think about. If you’re at least 10 years younger than I am you might have trouble grasping how amazing this concept really is – once again – ask a question, post that question and get an answer from a completely random person. Why? I don’t know!
Perhaps it’s because most people truly are good people (that’s another question all together), maybe people just like to look smart, more likely it’s because when you have a passion you want to share that passion. But the bottom line may be even simpler: because we can!
We can share. We can share information, knowledge, ideas, and anything else we can think to share.
So skipping ahead quite a bit in the evolution of the internet to today; Facebook and Twitter are the current best examples of this concept of sharing.
So what does all this have to do with SEO? Search engines have always wanted to give their users (you doing a search) the best possible results. They’ve always struggled (and are constantly tweaking) to figure out the optimal way to determine the VERY subjective decision of “best”. What they have figured out is that they certainly aren’t the only one who should decide this answer, and maybe not even the best to decide. We are. And since we can’t tell Google directly what we like best – at least not every single one of us can, all at once; Google has figured out a way to get that answer without us telling them. How? By learning what we share. What we find enough value in that we’re willing to risk our reputation as a trusted friend, colleague or family member to say – I like this, you may like it too. Most of us don’t take this lightly.
What do we link to? What do we post on Facebook? What do we Tweet about? What do we comment about on other’s blogs? What blogs do we subscribe to?
So have I lost you again? What does this have to do with SEO?
Everything.
As I sat in session after session on a variety of topics of best practices, tips and guidelines for better search marketing it was ultimately all SEO. It was all to improve SEO. Even if most people don’t recognize that.
Why do we work so hard to create great content? So people will like it. Why do we want them to like it? So they’ll share it.
Why do we tweet about our products, latest news and sales? So people will know about it. What will people do if they find something they like? They’ll share it.
Why do we update our Facebook status – sometimes entirely too often? Because we want to share with people.
Why do we do press releases? So people will know about our latest news. What do reporters do when they have noteworthy news – they share it – it’s their job.
Why do we do PPC? So more people will come to our site – the more people that come to our site the more chances someone will share our site with someone else.
Why do we put Like, Tweet, Digg and Share This buttons on every page of our website? Well, if you don’t know by now I’m done.
So for the last time: What does this have to do with SEO? I think you’ve figured out. If everything we do on our websites (even off our websites) is so people will share it and a hugely important factor (although obviously not everything – there is no SEO magic bullet) for search rankings is how popular we are, and that popularity is determined in large part by how often others share us, the math is simple. It’s all about SEO.
