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I just want to be popular
January 24, 2010 | Rick Nashleanas
In high school, everybody wanted to be popular. In the business world, everybody wants to be the top natural search result in Google. Just like in high school, most business owners either can’t or aren’t willing to put the time into becoming popular.
Many companies have simple brochure sites outlining their products or services. These sites are relatively static. If you’re a dentist, how many ways can you list what medical services you offer?
Now, consider you’re Mr. Google. You make money selling advertising. People only come to your search engine because you give the “best” search results. Your #1 search result had better be very good.
What should you display as your #1 search result when someone types in “dentist”? You could display a site for any number of local dentists. Most of these sites say pretty much the same thing. Most of these sites have had the same information on them for months.
Now, what if you could display a dental site that has very recent content? That has a great deal of information? That many people participate in? That many other web sites point to? If you present this site as #1 when someone searches for “dentist”, there is a better chance that your visitor would be pleased with the results, right?
But it’s so much work. You’re right. It’s so much easier to put up a static, brochure web site and mistakenly think that it should drive business to you. If you’re a dentist, there’s a good chance that Google will display your web site if someone searches for your name. However, your brochure site won’t rank very high with a more general term like “dentist”.
In my high school popularity analogy, this dynamic dental web site would be the most popular kid in his class: quarterback of the football team, homecoming king and valedictorian!
Publish or perish. Ken Moon is a regional home improvement expert who writes weekly columns in newspapers across the front range of Colorado. Ken also has a Saturday morning radio program in Colorado and Wyoming. Ken publishes the information from both his radio show and his newspaper columns on his web site, Around The House.
Guess what? His site continually ranks well on a number of home improvement topics. His timely posts on the latest in the home improvement industry drive traffic to his site. Recently, Ken sagely said “Even if I didn’t have a newspaper column, I should still post all this information on my web site because it does so well on Google.”
People don’t like to write. Ken couldn’t be more correct. The more you share on the web, the more people value your site. The more people visit your site, the higher you appear in search engine results.
However, it can very difficult to write valuable content regularly. (My own blog entries aren’t as regular as they should be!) There is also a general age bias. I find that middle-aged business people have a more difficult time jumping on to their web site and adding content. They are very critical of their own writing. They get writers block. It’s difficult to start. There are so many other things to do.
Participating in other communities. Creating new content on your own site is only the beginning. You should really provide valuable contributions to other public sites on the web. If you get to be known as an expert, you will be valued (and become popular). I often suggest adding a signature line with your name and web site address so folks can easily find you.
Censored industries. I work with some professionals who are prevented from fully participating in web communities. Financial advisors must have all content reviewed by their compliance departments before it is published anywhere. You lose spontaneity and recency, especially if you’re writing about current events.
Although it is not as structured, other professionals, such as lawyers and doctors, must both self censure and must be technically accurate to the point of making web posts very painful.
It is not easy becoming the popular kid in high school or the popular business on the web. It doesn’t happen by accident. You have to work at it. And it’s just as hard retaining that popularity.
The role of advertising. Advertising is the best alternative for businesses who can’t or won’t invest their personal time and effort in contributing valuable content to the web. Business owners somehow think that advertising is expensive until they learn how much time it would require to become one of the popular kids.
Business owners tell me that they feel that the advertising listings aren’t perceived as valuable as the natural search results. They say that they overlook the ads. On one side of the argument, I can tell you that ads work. On the other side, the Beatles had it right when they sang “Money can’t buy you love”. The question is: are you willing to personally work to become popular?
