How Handcrafted Content is the new Search Engine Optimization
The stars are starting to fade over the range for poor quality SEO. The rise of "set and forget" site creation and SEO techniques through the correct placement of text, balancing of alt-image text, and a smattering of industry jargon proved to be a dependable model of results for getting a site a reasonable position in search, even if the ethics of use spans between good ("White Hat") or bad ("Black Hat") description of technique.
Those days, it seems, have reached a distinct end. The digital landscape has changed.
On August 11th Google announced a new change to their alogrithm and function of their search. Codenamed "Caffeine" Google's intention is to streamline the search process by cutting down search times, providing clearer and more accurate results, and -most importantly- places distinct value in social media pages over items like news articles and press releases, judging their "freshness" by a timestamp at the bottom of the result.
This subtle shift in focus by google will equate to a wave of change as the search engine optimization rulebook is once again rewritten. Social media is notoriously heavy on developing, disseminating, and discussion of new content and with the now constant checks by google's caffeine a new world is beginning to blossom for a timeless occupation.
A copywriter -an individual whose words are used to promote a person, business, opinion, or idea- have been a crucial pillar of marketing communication for a very long time. Highly adaptable, content and copy writers have found themselves the creators of persuasive messages for television and radio commercials, jingle lyrics, and newspaper ads. Over the years they have moved their craft towards web page content creation, carefully choosing words and phrases that would net them the best result. Elance currently has 5,507 proffesionals offering services for copy writing. Their expertise categories range between advertising, sales, and marketing terminology.
With the addition of Caffeine, however, copywriters should prepare to add "social media optimization" as a feather in their cap, as businesses begin to see their twitter and facebook pages take precedent over the press releases and blog posts they had previously placed their stock in.
"Fresh Content Marketing" a term created by Bryan Casson is defined as "New content put into a site on a regular basis to get a site to the top position on Google." His strategy, developed in response to Google's Caffeine on his Blog is clear on what's to come:
"SEO companies will have to take on the Fresh Content Marketing strategy, they will need to keep their clients updated and help them to become active members in the social media world. SEO companies that sit around and collect money every month without any work will see the effects when their clients positions drop like flies."
This is good news for content developers, as this means an abundance of work for them, and for ApogeeInvent, who just so happens to have a copy writing department. Typically, the department is dedicated towards the creation of documents and content for our clients, whether it is content for our landing pages, audience targeted text in an email creative or direct marketing campaign, but with the effectiveness of fresh and new content on the rise it's quite possible that we'll see an increased dependence on our copy writers to make marketing pushes- a role, it seems, they were born to play.
