I met my buddy Adam Viener for breakfast on Friday morning at the Reston, Virginia, Silver Diner. This is something we do seasonally. Adam’s an affiliate and an AdWords guru, par excellence, by profession; however, he also stays on top of organic search religiously just as part of creating content sublime enough to compel all the folks who click through from sponsored search, contextual ads, and display ads.
Hummingbird’s Secret
I asked him what he thought of Hummingbird, Google’s latest search algorithm, and he said:
“Aside from just making sure you have all of the share and +1 buttons sorted out on your sites and committing to Google Authorship, the only thing that’s left is simple: creating content that gives value to Google.”
Give Value to Google
The reason why so many companies, brands, and sites need to spend so much time and money on advertising and SEO consultants is because they’re also spending too much money on minimalist web designers who chop, cut, deforest, raze, and hilltop-remove “wordy” first- and second-generation website content down to simple, minimal, stock-photograph-splashed slideshow emblazoned front pages that have become so light on copy and textual content in service of being modern and designerly that there’s no there there for Google.
Google Needs Copy and Content More than Inbound Links
Yes, Google does care about Google Authorship; inbound links and keyword terms; the proper use of headline, bold, emphasis, italics, and bullet points to describe content; meta tags and alt tags to help describe the foundational architectural metadata of the site; share me buttons, especially Google +1; and Google Analytic script embeds. All that is mechanics, is back room, is what goes on in the boiler and utility rooms and not in the front office, the lobby, the reading room.
No matter how well-lit, well-appointed, well heated, and inviting your library is, it’s really not a library unless there are books to read, content to consume and comprehend, be it multimedia, textual, spoken word, visual, etc.
Google Still Believes that Books Make the Library
Google needs the content of your library much more than it ever needed your library building; unfortunately, we all spend more of our time choosing the perfect platform (WordPress, Drupal, Squarespace?), the perfect template (Responsive, HTML5, swipeable?), and the perfect plugins (AddThis, W3 Total Cache, Yoast‘sWordPress SEO?) than we do writing all the copy, storytelling, background… insight, history, biographies, case studies, origin story, and educational content that actually gives Google everything it needs to most accurately predict whether it’s your content, your site, your page on that site, that shows up first on Google for any give
Don’t Get Mired Down with High Geekiness Just Start Adding Value to Google Today
It’s pretty simple. Don’t mess up your very expensive, cutting edge, beautifully-designed entrance-way — maybe even wrap your sofa in clear plastic if you must; however, make sure you’ve got a romper room and a library full of objects and content that Google can understand. Google’s a toddler in your home and you need to do as good a job as possible to make sure you feed Google every day. Over time, Google will grow attached and you’ll become a team: you create an educational and enriching environment, a happy home, and Google will bring home prospects, contacts, relationships, investors, supporters, donators, contributes, customers, fans, and even friends.
Value for value — that’s all Google demands.
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Gabriel Catalano® 