The Universe of Content

Content is more than what is on a web page. Each document aggregates Images, sound, video, words, and links. But what makes a page content vs. a collection of displayed markup is the value to the end user. A links page created in Front Page listing and rating all the Italian restaurants in Pittsburgh would be valuable content to a Pittsburgh couple planning a date at 7pm on a Friday night. This same content is almost certainly worthless to a citizen of Eden Prairie. Thus, the universe of the web waxes and wanes with a continual and fluid flow of markup language that may or may not be valuable to an end user at any particular point in time. Aligning properly crafted content with availability to the user when and where they are seeking it creates the value web marketers seek.

The Algorithm is now Ubiquitous

The algorithm is here to stay. It's nothing more than a formula, a method of weighing and measuring a myriad collection of data points. Google is the current dominant algorithm, and online marketers cannot ignore it. When the web was new, and small, humans could pick the best of each category and save users time. However, that system could not 'scale', that is to say the quantity of human inputs quickly grew too large as to be cost or time effective. Thus was born the first search algorithms. These search algorithms have evolved over time, and are now ubiquitous in our business and personal lives.

The Web as a Marketing Medium

In marketing terms, the most valuable contribution of the web has been to disintermediate inefficiencies in marketing channels. Never in history has a company, of any size, had such an array of options for interacting directly with their prospects. Unshackled by the bounds of demographic parsing, the costs and lead times of mass media, and the restrictions of print to paper, the modern marketing vehicle of the web presents its own challenges.

Communication

Web sites need to be bi-lingual. They need to appeal and communicate with the human viewer when they arrive. Compelling presentation that endears trust and drives the user towards the marketers desired action. Conversely, a web site must be able to speak to the 'machine', aka the algorithm, and communicate what the content is about.

Once the site is fluent in both languages (i.e. it converts, and the purpose of the page is communicated to the search engine), the algorithm needs to be convinced of trust and authority. The genesis of all modern algorithms springs from the crucible of academia. In that environment, trust and authority are regulated by the concept of citation. A citation is a formal acknowledgments of "intellectual debt" to a source of information.

All modern search engines, including Google, use the quantity and quality of citations to determine the trust and authority of a web document. Once the web page is bi-lingual,and obtains the necessary trust and authority, then the algorithm will then present it to the user.

Universal Algorithm Marketing: The Iterative Four-Step Process

1. Inspection of the existing web presence to determine:

Structural & Technical integrity
Existing status according to the algorithms
Potential for improvement within the select industry
Goals & Conversions

2. Adjustments made to the existing structure & presence:

May require extensive re-design
May require only select edits
Possibly okay as-is

3. Citation oriented services in Universal Algorithm Marketing:

Citation Management
Content Syndication
Social Media
General & Niche Directories
Multi-use Video

4. Evaluate results

Recommenced changes in focus
Add/Adjust/Delete content
Drawdown/Refocus/Increase citation management efforts