Speaking of Doug Cook (mentioned in yesterday’s post), I was lucky enough to be included on a panel with Doug and Alder Yarrow at the 2011 Pro Wine Writers Symposium discussing the importance of search and how to maximize the chances of having your wine writing noticed on-line. Alder founded the first wine blog on the Internet and deals extensively with SEO in his day job, Doug was former director of search at twitter (maybe you’ve heard of them?) and I … well, I was the guy lucky enough to be sitting next to them, adding commentary about how this stuff applies in the real world of wine writing on-line.
We based our discussion on a fantastic slide deck that Doug produced for a similar series of talks that he’s been giving, whch you can find below after the jump, as well as some video from the panel discussion. Anyone who is trying to get their wine writing found on-line needs to take this stuff seriously (within reason of course). The vid is long, it doesn’t include the full session, and the sound quality isn’t awesome… BUT… I think you’ll get some good info. out of it so, screw it, I’m including it anyway (just bear in mind this panel wasn’t designed to be filmed, ok?). Also, YouTube can totally go suck donkey bong for how painful it was to (unsuccessfully) upload the vid, which explains why it’s hosted on my own server instead…
Anyway… some highlights for the impatient:
- The best way to get your content noticed is to produce kick-ass content. This is uber-important and personally I break almost all of the rules in Doug’s presentation from time to time in pursuit of making content that hopefully humans (not search engines) actually want to read.
- Everybody finds everything on the Internet via search, and usually they’re searching for something very specific. Your website needs to be search-friendly and making it easy to find related content is important.
- How and to what content you link is important to how search engines view your website – probably way more important than you think.
- Thinking of trying to fool the search engines into giving your website prime search results real-estate? The Googles, Yahoos and Bings of the world have teams of MENSA-candidate eggheads whose jobs are to ensure that your tricks will fail. If that’s your strategy… good luck with that.
- If you use a blogging platform, most of the nitty-gritty stuff is handled for you, and the stuff that isn’t done automatically can be handled by (usually free) plug-ins. Don’t go too crazy with this stuff – like anything else, baby-stepping into the guts of how search engine optimization works is the best approach, and it should never supersede your real focus (producing the best content that you can so that people want to stick around when they do find you).
Enjoy!…
Cheers!
Comments
carroll
Would you know who distributes Bada Bing wines in NJ? Or if there is such a wine?
1WineDude
No idea, carroll – but there's this thing called Google that can help you with that…
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bada+bing+wine+new+jersey
;-)
@viniculture_pl
I think the same message is to wineries and organizations responsible for wine promotion – build a website with compelling content, usable for users and search engines and you'll be visible. stick to the rules as a first step and work hard to be successful.
1WineDude
viniculture – EXACTLY. Cheers!
tom
I write a "blog" in the widest sense of the word. I email it to my friends and some pass it on to their friends, and then ask them to pass it along. Been doing it for almost a year, and it has been remarkably unsuccessful, if you measure it by hits other than my email friends. But I persist, because I like to write, and wine just happens to be the topic. I get some unusual hits from foreign countries every now and then , and that's a real hoot. But not sure if "my voice" will prevail. Don't do tastings, for everyone is doing that. Just trying to write what I've discovered and what I feel new wine enthusiasts might find interesting.
1WineDude
Thanks, tom – a key element in all of this is defining your own criteria for success; otherwise it will drive you nuts!
Carabini
I just cant stop myself from regarding the world of wine through a literary lens. Blame it on that English degree. Wine has its own language its own set of terms and definitions from the most banal technical descriptors of wines physical characteristics colour tannin acidity weight to the highly subjective even poetic elocutions of taste and aroma..Writing is fundamental to wine it is the site of disambiguation and dissemination of information.