7 replies to this topic

[send2paul]

I have a blog. I write all kinds of nonsense in there from time to time. Back in 2008 I wrote a blog piece about going to Ikea one Saturday morning, only to find out it was Ikea's 21st birthday in the UK - and the store/car park was heaving etc. It was a very short blog piece - nothing spectacular: http://www.blogbypas...21-years-in-uk/

However, due to the automatic nature of my SEO mind, I do tend to always write a blog post with the intention of it being found by search engines.... so there's always a bit of "keyword thought" going on in the back of my mind. But as this was a very small blog post, with no great financial gain to be made from it and only the amusement of seeing the search engine stats later on.... I didn't think anything more of it.

Well, over the years it does rank quite highly for certain short phrases. And today somebody decided to tell me so:

"This is the top Google search for Ikea UK launch date (or something similar). So you should contrain a bit more info then your boring Saturday morning routine in Essex. Was the Essex store the first one? How many stores were open at the launch? How many more are open today than in 1987? Many questions remain unanswered and you have a duty of care to Google searchers.
So get with the program and expand this entry or get out of here (and take your cheap shelf with you)".

- yeah for me! I guess it must be frustrating for someone to search for something and find something else. In many cases, where I may have been writing a sponsored blog post or wanting to drive traffic to a webpage through natural search I may have used "intentional keyword thought" in the structuring of the page(s). But in this instance - it was merely a daft blog piece about going to Ikea and finding the place full!

I shan't be publishing the comment on the blog as I don't think it adds any value to the discussion, and I wouldn't want to enter into a conversation with the person who wrote it.

So what do you think? Is the phenomena of "Accidental SEO" a real thing? Has it happened to you? Should we readjust blog posts/webpages if you are finding "unwanted" search results in our stats - even if you think the page may be written correctly for your purposes?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.....

Paul

[DonnaFontenot]

While you certainly don't need to rewrite it simply because it could fill a need better, you might want to do so anyway, with the goal of $$$ in mind. If you did include more info, could you make some ad bucks from the traffic? Or sell something? I dunno, might not be worth the effort, but that'd be my first thought.

Capitalize.

[EGOL]

could you make some ad bucks from the traffic?

I agree... I would slap some ads up there. A page about ikea should display some good ads.

I got a chuckle out of how this person believes that "and you have a duty of care to Google searchers."

Write your own website!

People write to me a lot about content. I can have 2000 words and ten photos about a subject and they write very critical messages that I have not covered a certain aspect of that subject. My work stands on it's own and what they want is someone else's website.

I have a page that mentions a cluster of islands that is a territorial dispute of South Korea and Japan, using the name that had been long used by the US government. I get tons of hate email about my use of that name - so much that I have multiple gmail filters to dispose of those messages. You can see how crazy people can be about such things.

[send2paul]

Donna/Egol - hi.

Yup. More montit...monerin... - get some ads in there! The big chunky eBay square in the middle of the blog piece doesn't really rake a lot of money in. And I have to say that I don't really use the blog to make money off, (the rather obvious Adsense in the side bar for example just make it look pretty ) - but maybe I should.

And whilst there's a great deal of talk nowadays to suggest that keyword density doesn't mean much any more, (or never did?), I'm a firm believer that it is and always wil be. So if I introduce more words into the blog piece, I then, in my mind it will "water down" the keyword density of words like Ikea - and ultmately this may result in the search terms not being picked up as much.... which leads to less traffic..... and is therefore, as they say counterproductive?

p.s. I'd go with Dokdo as well - it's easier to say

[iamlost]

I have a page that mentions a cluster of islands that is a territorial dispute of South Korea and Japan, using the name that had been long used by the US government.

Names are important. Which is why numerous Canadian locations have been/are being renamed, i.e. Queen Charlotte Islands -> Haida Gwaii. Because of the power, cultural, historical, etc. of names.

That is why, whenever possible, I include all known variations with appropriate context. That it also is a natural SE longtail optimisation opportunity is a plus.

I look at comments such as Paul received - along with data such as query string, backlink anchor and surrounding text, as food for thought as to potential additional content and/or revenue opportunities. The nice thing about intense/critical readers is that while they may be few in number they can, on occasion, have significant influence.

And... really Paul, if you actually wrote a post mentioning Ikea (~40% of Europeans now living were conceived in an Ikea bed ) without thoughts of revenue streams dancing in your head... well shocked is the least of it, the least I say...

[jonbey]

"you have a duty of care to Google searchers"

lol, now that is funny

[send2paul]

IAMLOST - yes, there are times I astonish myself and I almost feel like a "newbie" just getting to grips with the cables on the back of a noisey 28k modem than a "21C Bloging Kinda Guy" at times .... but... it really was a throwaway innocent blog piece. I mean - really, really I was just blogging our trip to the shops lol.....

But on the monetizing side of things, a few years ago I did go back through my blog stats, found the most popular searches, and placed ads, (eBay widgety things), in the middle of them. My blog was never really set up for monetizing - that was really just my blog for posting "stuff" on - not for business

Jon - I know - "duty of care" (!)........... never would I have thought the weight of responsiblity for Google search results would be shared by me and the great Google corporation - perhaps there's a resident of Cheeseland on the forum here who I could claim some commission/expenses from for my Google work?

Edited by send2paul, 04 March 2012 - 02:35 AM.

[Loffy]

Great story, thx for sharing Paul.