Search engine optimizers: editors of all media?

If I can help you with your SEO questions, let me know. I assume you can grab my email from the comment.

The High Rankings Forum has been the best resource for me - http://www.highrankings.com/forum. Jill Whalen is truly an expert and there are a number of others in the forum that are very knowlegeable and experienced, but mostly generous and helpful for people new to this area.

You're hitting on an undeniable truth -- SEO today is a much different beast than it was a few years ago. There's an art and a science to SEO which involves anticipating and balancing the machine needs vs. the human needs. And yes, the social/human element is a huge part of this going forward.

Not sure exactly what kind of sources you're looking for, but as a practicing SEO for about 10 years and the current Assignment Editor for Search Engine Land, I'd be glad to help if I can. Feel free to email me or @mattmcgee me. Good luck, Steve.

This is a great topic -- thank zou for opening it up!

First of all: I would like to know what you mean when you say "search engine".

IMO, hotels.com is a good search engine for commercial hotels; and cars.com is a good search engine for information about buying and selling cars.

However, many of the people who create search engine statistics (such as "market share" do not include every site (for example, I would also say that businessweek.com might be a good search engine for finding out what's happening this week in business).

I have asked people who create such statistics what their operational definition of a search engine is, but I have never gotten a response.

I think colloquially, people actually mean "google" when they say "search engine" -- but I feel I can get far better results on other sites. I rarely use google anymore -- except for what information scientists refer to as "known item searches" (basically, when you already know what you want -- such as "iphone 3GS").

:) nmw

Hi Steve,

I work as an SEO and think this is an interesting question, but I see it a little differently. What good SEOs do to bring relevant traffic to digital content isn't about anticipating the preferences of machines, because the machine's preference is to display the content that the public seeks, provided it uses the words or concepts that they query. Ethical SEOs succeed when they can anticipate cultural trends and provide relevant content, much as traditional editors do. The difference is probably in the tools and methods SEOs use to define relevance and anticipate trends. There are also other aspects of SEO that don't have much to do with an editor's job, like eliminating technical barriers to the content being indexed by the search engine, and promoting content once it's included and optimized. Likewise, I'm sure there are many aspects of an editor's job that too specialized to be relevant to what I do. At any rate, it's an interesting question to consider, as there are some clear parallels. Feel free to drop me a line via email or @brysonmeunier on Twitter if you want to discuss further.

Hi Stephen,

You are exactly right. SEO is getting more complicated. However, I don't think SEO's can or should be called the "editors of all content" since, unless they are an affiliate marketer, rarely create the content. The SEO's job is to essentially clean up the mess of the writers, information architects and developers who failed to integrate fundamentals to make it search friendly.
As you have identified, there are many new elements we can get rankings for and I call this your Digital Shelf Space - how much of the first results page can you occupy for a given idea. Using Business Week as an example, for a topic you could have your article ranking for the topic along with a YouTube video of a related interview. Additionally, references from various social media sites such as Digg and Stumbleupon followed by the journalist's blog – all collectively getting to top five positions thereby dominating the space above the fold on a given topic.
This is why many Search Marketers are in love with Social Media because it gives us a wider playing field to optimize many content types on many platforms but the cold hard reality is that no matter where it is created, if it is done right it all ends up in the vast databases of the search engines.
However, this can ONLY happen if someone has ensured all the elements of inclusion, relevance scoring and engagement are in place or you may just end up with one simple blue link. That is where the gifted SEO comes into play.
There are two parallel activities:
1. Searcher Relevance - As you indicate the role of the editor – is to anticipate the interest and cravings - we can leverage search volume data to help understand historically what people were interested in and a deeper dive into it can plot the “intent” of why they did such a search.

A few years ago I worked with very skeptical writers for a major health portal showing them the keyword variations of "Lasik Surgery." The feature writer piped up and said "Wow, I now have the next three follow up articles." By looking at the various ways and volumes of how people searched for this phrase she now understood what her audience wanted to know bout the topic.
When the editor and writer understand the queries a potential reader might search for to find that sort of information they will be at an advantage. Now, we don't want to slant or stuff the story but a fundamental understanding of why one might look for that content can be helpful.
2. Findability – having a brilliant article is worthless to a searcher if they cannot find it. The most common reason they can’t find it is that it was never indexed in the first place. There has to be a pipeline to the search engine repositories. In most cases the great content is behind the registration wall so the spiders can't get to it. Other times it is the complexities of the site with session ID's or other complex URL or navigation structures. If this were sorted to ensure updates via blog pings, XML site maps and outreach via social media to increase direct links to the articles then the spiders can get the content and index it quickly.

As you can see from just these two activities it needs to be a collaboration between the editorial team generating great content and a technical team that understand how to get it found, scored, ranked and clicked for the ecosystem to work brilliantly.
The lowly SEO is simply there to toil in the gold mine of great content trying to find ways to get it to the surface where it can intersect with people who are looking for it. Feel free to contact me with questions.

Regards,

Bill Hunt
Co-Author Search Engine Marketing Inc.

Hi Steve,

I like the direction you're going here, especially that every brand's home page is Google.

I've been working with a few clients recently focusing on not only making sure their sites rank well but putting a lot of focus on keywords surrounding their brand and grooming those results to build the best "google image" possible for them.

I think this train of thought would add an interesting angle to your piece and I'd be happy to chat if you're interested.

-Jeff
@jeff419

Steve,

You are touching on a point that I feel is shining through and through with most SEOs that are working for larger publications. Personally, for myself, I find my day to day to be more about recommending content, spotting trends, doing predictive analysis, etc. to increase visibilty.

Looking forward to your findings and always feel free to contact me via email or twitter with any questions. :)

Cheers!
Tony Adam
@tonyadam

Dear Steve,

What a great topic you are opening up for discussion, something both SEO experts and editors/content creators should be grappling with. Here are some thoughts to help you and please get in touch if you'd like to discuss further:

It's good to see an article profiling SEOs in a positive light, but I think you've oversimplified the matter. There is a lot to consider when trying to promote a site and content writing is only a portion of it. What about linking and architecture?

The key here is not to get tunnel vision on one specific audience. You should always consider both the users and the search engines while writing. This does not require that an SEO or a Web editor write all of your content, but that whoever does write the content understand both audiences. There are certain things Web editors do better and certain things SEOs do better, but fusing them together makes for the best articles. In this way, you are considering the user and search engine equally.

Google is like an 8 year old in reading comprehension. If you write only for 20+ year olds, then you're missing out on a very key audience. What really makes this interesting is that everyday Google gets smarter. If you write only for Google and its current state, not only will it put off users, but Google itself will age past the writing and no longer find it interesting. If you write for all ages then you can guarantee that all audiences are covered.

It's wise to keep in mind that all search engines are doing is trying to find the best page for a search term. This is based on assessing the content from a machine viewpoint. The search engines do not understand 'it' and referring to your topic as 'it' over and over does very little to help the search engines determine what the article is about even though your readers may have no trouble at all. Conversely, writing an article with the sole purpose being search engine traffic, results in an article that does not really provide the information the user was looking for in the first place. This causes high bounce rates and unsatisfied readers.

There is a happy medium in the center that everyone should be striving for. It's not a question of who really owns the Web content (SEOs or editors), but who understands their two main audiences the best.

I will be happy to answer any questions and work in an agency where SEO, marketing and digital PR are merging together into one, so we are exploring many of these same questions on behalf of our clients.

Regards,

Michael Whelan

Barry and Matt are certainly expert sources for council, they come highly recommended. If you need additional input, feel free to reach out. I've been in the search industry for approximately 10 years, helping fortune 500 companies and smaller with their online marketing initiatives. If you consider SEO to pertain predominantly to on-site/page optimization, then SEO is mostly the same as it has been for a few years, what's changed is the über social aspect of domains like Twitter and Facebook that assist in the propagation of link building via buzz and now factor into content relevancy. Three basic things to remember when promoting a business online...

1)Perform on site/page optimization (SEO)

2)Transparently engage in link building strategies (answering services, social news, social bookmarking, press releases, etc)

3)Transparently engage with social sites, providing valuable and relevant content, news, or ideas that intertwines with your product or service

There's always more to it than this, but these are some basic guidelines to consider.

Hi, Mike Levin, the creator of HitTail here, and Director of SEO Strategy for a major New York digital marketing agency. I work with the editorial teams at major publishing houses all the time, including a stint as the in-house SEO at Hachette Filipacchi Media. This issue always comes up. Here's what I advise:

The idea is not to compromise editorially, but to still do what you need to for search. And it's really not that difficult.

When creating new content, forget about most of what's going on with the page, and focus right in on the headline. Due to competition in search, each page can only be an opportunity to target one AND ONLY ONE exact word combination well. So, the exact phrase you're targeting must be evaluated for traffic generating potential, but it need not dominate the entire headline. In only needs to be a few words within the headline. And even then, the content management system can actually be set up to use TWO headlines--one that is presented to the reader, and another less prevalent one on the page for hyper-literal search engines.

As an editor, just look for that magic word-fragment that matches what people are (or soon will be) searching on, and make sure it's part of your larger headline, and plugged into the field that controls the title tag and URL. I consult frequently on methods of peering into the crystal ball to see what topics can be expected to become popular. The content management system should step in and do the rest, creating internal link structure within your site, data feeds, and publication notifications known as "pings".

As more time goes on, Google and other search engines will get better at inferring meaning, and compromise will be less necessary.

Hi Stephen, let me know if you'd like to get some perspective or a quote from the search engine point of view.

http://www.seomoz.org and http://www.stuntdubl.com. You should also talk to Danny Sullivan http://searchengineland.com

Interesting topic Stephen. While effective SEO is an essential best practice, what moves the needle more than anything else these days is good content. Content is what motivates people to share via linking to a specific post, offer, video, etc. While site design and the architecture of your site are necessary for good SEO, these activities are by no means sufficient to achieve maximum exposure in natural search results.

What is needed more than anything else is many links on authoritative sites pointing back to your content. The most reliable and consistent way for that to happen is to produce informative and/or entertaining content that people share and link to. Making that happen isn't typically the job of SEOs. Rather, it's the job of reporters, writers, and artists to produce the kinds of information and content that is likely to be passed along. And it's the job of their readers/audience to distribute it via social sites, blogs, email, and IM.

What this says to me is that "the audience" is the editor of all media. They're the ones that are deciding what is worth sharing and linking to. Google's just following their lead.

Hey Steve,

Would be glad to help with any SEO work or questions that you might have.

Roopam
seoendeavors.blogspot.com

Hi Steve,

I have not been in SEO for long. Maybe just about 2 years. however, when i entered this field, my first question was "how the hell is SEO alone supposed to get your website on top". seo as i knew it was just fiddling with the keywords, links etc. and the i decided to do the entire content writing for my clients, understand their businesses, social networking, blogging, forums etc. only then, any of my seo efforts would give results.

initially, my clients would tell me."just to SEO on my website and ensure it is on top" and i used to say "fine, if you want your website on top just using SEO, add Sex to you entire content and put some pornographics..coz otherwise its not that easy!! and then after trying other vendors, they would come back and agree to content writing as well!!

i guess my point is, that seo without online marketing and content writing would not be able to give any results and i am sure seo experts have already started implementing it! they are editors who are online 24 hrs a day and know wats in and wats not.

do let me know in case i can help you with anything.

roopam
seoendeavors.blogspot.com