SEO – Content, Content, Content - Jakes Works - A Living Portfolio

Those who know me know that I’ve shied from the kind of personal limelight many seek with the ardor of a moth a flame; this isn’t because I’m shy; it’s because I veered into working with startup companies, environments where the brand is more important than the person. A huge part of what I’ve been tasked with through the years has been marketing in all its various forms and incarnations, and famous this has not made me; the fact is most of what I do is about exciting as explaining bonsai horticulture to a group of hockey fans – it doesn’t make for exciting dinner conversation. Though I’ve been rather low-key in my credit-seeking, I have helped many – many – sites to rank in search and grow immensely, and I’ve used one simple, some would say brutally simple strategy – relevant content.

"the fact is most of what I do is about exciting as explaining bonsai horticulture to a group of hockey fans"

"Savvy consultants (and smart salespeople) know that a content-centric campaign isn't high in sex appeal; what's sexy are lots of diverse methodologies blended together into a kind of salad bowl of fancy-sounding gobbledegook"

Most SEO consultants will sit a client down and yak endlessly about the latest on-page optimization trend, plugin, keyword tool, yadda – yadda – yadda. Do you know what I hear? The fizzling of burning magnesium inside of an antique flash bulb, or perhaps the sound of the money counting machine in scarface as it added up all those ill-gotten gains as cigar smoke wafted through the air. Why? Well, these trends all ignore the single basal reality that powers the entire internet – relevance. Search engines have to deliver relevant results; the second that this basic truism is violated, it starts the clock to failure ticking down. Now, we live in pretty interesting (monopolistic) times, but this does not change the fact that relevance is still at the core of why we go to search engines to look stuff up in the first place. Savvy consultants (and smart salespeople) know that a content-centric campaign isn’t high in sex appeal; what’s sexy are lots of diverse methodologies blended together into a kind of salad bowl of fancy-sounding gobbledegook that causes the professional prospect to go glassy-eyed the way people often do when a mechanic begins to explain the drive train of a vehicle – they don’t know what was said, but it sounded impressive – and worth it! – Oh, joy.

The truth is most SEO strategies try to short-circuit the basic feedback loop of the relevance-driven search terra-firma. This isn’t some crooked conspiracy; it’s simply logical; the rules of the game change quite often, and high-end agencies (and the legions of wanna-be high-end agencies and lesser shops) duke it out for market share by running highly complex technical campaigns that try to bob and weave with the vagaries of the algorithmic landscape, this fast-paced Jedi-Kung-foo-code approach makes for some high stakes keyboard gymnastics, but ultimately it doesn’t lend itself to durable rankings for end-clients. This brings to mind the old adage of that which burns twice as bright burns half as long; it isn’t quite an apt analogy, but it’s close enough, the money being shelled out for all those hours of time logged doing link building, on-page optimizing, plugin integrations, setups, et al. – it adds up, and it costs, but ultimately it’s doomed to become internet litter the second it ages and is no longer maintained – that’s inherent to the nature of these kinds of campaigns, they are trend surfers, fighting the tide of the search engines whose permanent mission is to deliver relevant results – which are based on what? Relevant content.

The basis of any (and I would say all) good SEO campaigns should take absolutely no shortcuts; they should cut right to the chase and field relevant, useful, good, credible content – content, content, content!.

"this fast-paced Jedi-Kung-foo-code approach makes for some high stakes keyboard gymnastics, but ultimately it doesn't lend itself to durable rankings for end-clients."

"when someone searching for a root canal procedure happens upon an article that looks like it was written by a drunken robot obsessed with drilling holes in human jawbones."

Now, these days the word ‘content’ is itself becoming a dirty word with the likes of Van Gogh and Vermeer competing with AI-generated artwork and spintax competing with actual writers, so let me define content my own way for the purpose of this post – I mean written, video, presentations and imagery (information) that is relevant to the topic at hand and the audience in question. If I were working on helping a dentist craft a long-term search strategy for her practice in Miami Florida I would want to develop content that speaks to those considering the procedures she does at that practice in the geographic region in question and to make it as accessible as possible. I would however prioritize the quality of the content and it’s reputational impact upon my client over the direct impact it may or may not have on search rankings – what?! r u nuts? – no, I have common sense.

What many SEO campaigns do is they develop content that is keyword stuffed garbage that, if read by a normal human being sounds like what it is – a bunch of garbage. This doesn’t help my hypothetical dentist and in fact, long term, it might even hurt her when someone searching for a root canal procedure happens upon an article that looks like it was written by a drunken robot obsessed with drilling holes in human jawbones. The quality of the content matters – and my priority is to always place my client’s long-term interests front and center. This is a major departure from many consultants who want to deliver upward trending reports above all else to ensure the client stays on board; sometimes, this isn’t wise, but the truth isn’t always rosy in this industry of ours.

All this might sound like a no-brainer; you want to field content that’s relevant – so what?. Here’s the thing, it is a no-brainer, but if you were to take the average campaign proposal out there on the street and turn it into a pie graph, the odds are less than 30% would go towards generating content – the lion’s share would go towards a litany of expenses syndicating that content – guest blogging, social posting, link building, etc. – I reject this wholesale. I want my campaign to go 80% towards quality, well-researched, well-written, relevant, and high-value content – the kind of stuff that will be read ten years from now and still hold water, the kind of content my client will be proud to have their name associated with.

Will it take longer for my campaigns to heat up and deliver? Yep, it will. SEO is a long-term proposition; there are no quick fixes, but if you want to rank and do so, don’t look at SEO as a band-aid; SEM is a band-aid, but we’ll leave that for another posting and another time.

If you’re an entrepreneur and/or professional shelling out half a dozen beamer payments a month’s worth of money to get your company to rank, don’t you want something substantive for your money? If so, you want content – gobs of it, and even if the campaign ultimately fails to deliver on the promise of getting you to rank within a speculative timeframe, you still have something worthwhile – good content never goes obsolete, but sketchy dubious mind-bending strategies nearly always do.

To be continued…

"If you're an entrepreneur and/or professional shelling out half a dozen beamer payments a month's worth of money to get your company to rank, don't you want something substantive for your money? If so, you want content - gobs of it"

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