Benjamin Braddock learns about plastics in ‘The Graduate’. And you learn about search engine optimization and long tail marketing
If The Graduate was made today, ‘Plastics, Benjamin, Plastics’ wouldn’t matter. Today, the best advice a middle-aged guy can offer a recent graduate is “long tail marketing and search engine optimization, son, long tail marketing and search engine optimization”.
Of course, that wouldn’t make a very good line in a movie.
I have an SEO secret for you today. It will change and supercharge your Search Engine Optimization in a huge way. For real. I discovered it this morning, and it’s absolutely incontrovertible at least until Google changes the game. Here it is:
You need pictures.
See? “Plastics, Benjamin, plastics”. An incredibly simple statement. Useful to almost anyone, really useful if you “get it”, or get involved with someone who does.
It would be, I’m afraid, irresponsible of me to provide all the detail behind how I figured this out. Suffice it to say that as I was looking at data for Answer Guy Central and what Google thinks of us I realized that when pictures are used correctly on a web site the impact on that site’s search engine optimization is dramatic to the point of being nearly unbelievable.
How dramatic? Last week I revealed that by practicing long tail marketing we had gotten to the point that Google “sees” Answer Guy Central as search-worthy for over 9,000 search phrases. This morning I noticed that fully three-quarters of that influence comes from pictures.
As much as I love this cute kitten, I’ve long wondered why we get any traffic on the phrase “cute kittens”. I wonder less now. Barbara Eden and I Dream of Jeannie are pulling search traffic here. Chris Crocker and his home girl Britney are ranking, too. And now I know why.
Plastics, Benjamin. And now, pictures.
Video really does draw traffic, and if you read the Chris Crocker pieceyou’ll see how important I feel that is. But the picture data … just shocking … and useful. Think Influency* ™.
I’d love to talk about this. If you don’t feel like doing that publicly in comments, you can contact me here, directly.
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