I remember being 8 years old and waking up on cold winter mornings, excited to watch football. I would sit on the floor of our mountain home near the wood burning stove on the burnt-orange, long shag carpet. After all, my Dad was too cheap to run the electric baseboard heat so the warmth of the stove was the prime spot.
Most Sundays I wouldn’t have to wait too long to see the best running back in the NFL play. Chicago was usually the 11 am MT football game and everyone I knew had their eyes on the TV watching Walter Payton “Sweetness” do things that only he could do.
At that time, in 1977, Walter Payton was shattering records on a weekly basis and practically carrying the Chicago Bears on his back. While it wouldn’t be until 1985 when the team was finally assembled to win the Super Bowl with what may be considered by many as the best football team of all time.
However, until that time, Walter Payton was the reason to watch the Bears and in my humble opinion, the true star of the show.
Walter Payton’s ability to affect the game in that way has been synonymous with SEO and digital marketing effectiveness. Just like Walter Payton, having a good SEO practice was a winning strategy from the mid 1990s through 2020.
The game has now changed. With new technology, training, nutrition and the true perfection of the game, football has become a very complex science. The teams that we will see in the championship this year will have a multi-faceted, dynamic team structure. I will avoid mentioning the team that has that Travis guy; we don’t need to give Taylor what’s-her-name any more SEO power than she already has. But, if you look at the Eagles with Hurtz, Barkley, AJ Brown, and the best defense in football and the Ravens with Lamar, Henry, Flowers and the more recently highly ranked defense, it is clear that a team with just a great running back would not be of high interest.
Much is the same for digital marketing. The concept of SEO strength is no longer simply getting rankings through quality scores through paid search and web visits. Digital marketing power is now a complex blend of at least four key areas, each requiring a specialist akin to a coordinator in each specialty in football.
Just like in the past, the structured content where you are directing your visitor to when they are performing a search must “pay-off” the search words they are using. For example, if your user is searching for “hair coloring for men”, your site needs to incorporate a portion of this string within a natural context. Sites that are trying to sell toupee’s and only use the words to direct the user of the “hair coloring for men” will be sniffed out by the bots and will actually work against the website.
For this practice, having an expert in content writing that understands the concept of syntax and the use of natural optimized words within the content and copy of the website is critical.
Creating content that is unique, valuable and informative will be recognized within the search engines. Since the search engines are the actual delivery vehicle for AI generated content, this type of content will be identified as such. That does not mean that it is not useful or effective to build and distribute AI content, but adding some level of human input through stories, technical value or unique opinions will be helpful in making the content unique and more valuable.
Essentially, the more “human” content can be the better. Just like calling into a call center – if we feel that we are just getting an automated response that is programmed to answer the top 75% of questions, we as the caller do not feel unique, heard or important. Making our readers feel that their time is important and their needs heard is still paramount.
Analogous to football; if the running back is the content quality, the offensive line is most definitely the technical elements. We all have heard the adage “blocking and tackling” – this is the technical website elements of digital marketing.
I could give a long list of technical terms that I don’t really understand which may be impressive to you and make me look like an SEO wizard, but trust me I wouldn’t understand the terms.
That said, just like an automobile or a computer, website construction is an intricate set of codes and technical elements that require an SEO expert; and if you are looking for one let me know and I can give you a couple of names – or you can just call Dustin Fatch ( Dustin Fatch | LinkedIn ) at Marketing Done Right.
The more content and solid references your keywords have, the more likely your website is to be referenced. Increasing reach of content and copy to as many places as possible will increase your chance of getting clicks and impressions on your site.
For context, there is a ton of information on the web regarding PESO marketing. PESO includes: Paid (Google and Bing Ad words and local ads), Earned (content that you shared and distributed through networks outside of social – eg PR marketing) Social (Utilization of your social channels and expansion through others social networks) and Owned (Content that you own, meaning all content you create, present on your site or author through ALL channels).
The more content that is reputable and referenceable that you create and distribute will increase your SEO value and ultimately your likeliness for your website and brand to be found.
The web and search engines continue to evolve just like our beloved NFL. And just as you wouldn’t continue to think that a team with a star running back only (such as the Giants with Saquon) could win the Super Bowl, companies that feel that the SEO they have been running for years will continue to yield result will end the same; sitting around on Sunday night lamenting “There’s always next year”.
