Thanks for your comment. I prefer content as the work horse. The effort put into spoofing relevance algorithms strikes me as a displacement exercise, not real work. My assistant will adore anyone. She lacks the ability to discriminate since her rescue by the addled geese here in Harrods Creek, Kentucky.

Stephen Arnold, December 1, 2008

You wrote, “My view is that if a Web site offers content, the Web indexing systems will find you.”

I agree.

The mystery is why there is so much resistance to the idea of putting informative content on one’s website.

The way it used to be, you know, in “pre-Internet” days, if you had a “brick-and-mortar” business, you paid for an ad and the result was more people coming into your store.

This worked “back then” because, at that time, advertisers and sales reps were the ones in control of the information about products and services.

But now, you see, that’s not the case.

Any teenager can get online these days and find out how to shave with acne … any nursing mother can find out how to stop breastfeeding … the unemployed can find jobs … and so on.

They don’t need advertisers and sales reps anymore!

Not to find out things, anyway.

They might need a little assistance at the very end of their search when they’re ready to actually order the product they’ve selected for themselves; but, other than that, they have no use for advertisers and sales reps.

They will ignore banner ads.

And they will further insulate themselves from all attempts to put advertising in front of them by building little bubbles around themselves and only inviting in those of like mind.

So if advertisers and sales reps want to increase web site traffic and — which is probably more to the point — make more sales, then they’re going to have to leave the old-time “location-location-location” mentality behind and embrace the new-age reality of “information-information-information.”

They are going to have to learn, in other words, how to create helpful, useful information about the *subject* not the *object* … about how to solve a problem people have, not just shove a product in their face.

This comes hard for advertisers and sales reps!

One SEO specialist over in Ireland, Henry Okpolokpo, came to these realizations several months ago and began building a theme-based, content-rich site having to do with lead generation.

http://www.lead-generation-tactics.com

It was originally intended as a demonstration to his SEO clients of how effective content can be in attracting web site traffic, but now it has taken on a life of its own and skyrocketed up the Alexa rankings to 654,209 !!! In just two short months !!!

Amazing.

But the real benefit comes in the form of all the different ways in which people are finding his site … all the different “keywords” they’re typing in which lead them straight to him, courtesy of Google, Yahoo, MSN and all the other search engines !!!

He’s got the most powerful “advertising agencies” in the world harnessed to his marketing chariot …

For free !!!

Now, Stephen, I don’t know what *you* call that, but *I* call it using your head. I call it facing up to the fact that “advertisers” are out and “content providers” are in, so let’s all get with the program and adjust our business models accordingly.

Best Regards …

Elizabeth

P.S.

I love your new technical analyst !!!