Content is King. But She holds the keys.

No doubt you’ve heard the maxim “Content is King.”  This holds true today just as much as it ever has.

Using that same analogy, let’s look at it another way.  Content is King, yes, but Search is Queen.  And, as is the case more often than any man ever wants to admit, it is the woman in the relationship that holds the power – be it time, money, access, you name it.  If you want to get to the King, you have to go through the Queen.

Now I know this example may be a bit far-fetched.  But how many times have you heard someone talk about how they’ve got all kinds of fantastic content on their website, but no one is visiting.  They’ve got no traffic to show for all the time, money and effort that went into the site.  In these cases, I’d imagine that search was not a consideration when the content was developed.  And it should have been.

Search, and search engine optimization, should be interwoven into all aspects of online activity, whether that’s on your own site, your blog, or your presence on a social networking site such as LinkedIn, MySpace or Facebook.

Take the Idaho Ad Agencies blog, for example.  From day one, whenever I’ve made reference to the blog, I’ve always made a point to use the full Idaho Ad Agencies title.  Same goes when I’ve left comments on other websites or blogs.  I’ll also include links to the site, whether as a part of a comment on another site or the main blog site itself.  This allows multiple, natural instances of those keywords and phrases to appear on a variety of sites that are being indexed by search engines.  It also gives those who may be consuming the blog’s content through a feed reader such as Google Reader a one-click method to visit the main blog site.

This best practice, so to speak, is something that has been developed and refined through many years of both professional and personal online activity.  It is a central component of many of the tactics and activities for Almost Live Productions.  If you’d like to know more, please feel free to let me know.