As I've been adding content to my blog, I've also been looking into methods and mechanisms of promoting it .
Over the last few years, I've been receiving JIll Whalen's High Rankings Advisor Newsletter. She devotes her time to
educating her readers in the subject of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I've been reading
the newsletter ever since the time that meta-tags had significant meaning. Now they
represent only a portion of toolset needed to successfully promote a web site.
Web site promotion is really all about 'findability'. Peter Morville presents this topic
in a very readable book called 'Ambient Findability' available from O'Reilly Press. The
sub-title of his book is 'What We Find Changes Who We Become', which I think is very apt,
based upon the research he presents within the pages of his book.
We as Blog authors and web page developers provide content so that we can share it with
others, and perhaps make some money from it, if not for other altruistic reasons. As they
say, content is king. But if no one knows about the content, what good does it do? So the
key question is: how does one get others to visit?
Obviously, other's can't visit if they don't know where to visit. One concept that comes
immediately to mind is a one called viral marketing. Marketing
Terms defines it as a 'marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to
pass along a marketing message'. If you can get a snowball of a message rolling, people
will come.
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On the other hand, in order to build a base of respectability and long term associations,
any number of ideas and philosophies need to be considered. No one promotion gimmick will
yield results. Around 175 pages of book can be boiled down to this meaning laden quote:
Semantic Web tools and standards create a powerful, enduring foundation. Taxonomies and
ontologies provide a solid semantic network that connects interface to infrastructure.
And
the fast-moving, fashionable folksomonies sit on top: flexible, adaptable, and responsive
to user feedback.
The book is much more readable than what is found in that exerpt, but hopefully the
exerpt provides a desire to find out more of what it takes to build a successful web site. Search
Engine Optimization is part and parcel of semantic content. Tag building through such sites
as Flickr and Del.icio.us provide the folksomony, or user ratedness of a site. And search
engine classification schemes provide accessibility.
Many different topics related to finding things are presented within the book. It is an
excellent first book for those involved with the multi-role task of making web sites
findable, as well as usable.