” Smile an everlasting smile, A smile can bring you near to meDon’t ever let me find you down, ‘Cause that would bring a tear to me..
The above lyrics are from the cult Bee Gees classic Words.
Now, try keying in Words into your search browser and see what gets thrown up. You will get everything but the song you are looking for. That’s because most of the key words( deliberately writing it as two words instead of one ‘keywords’) have already been taken.
SEO Strategy conventionally would have had us going for keywords that the search has the best potential to throw up high in the pecking order. But, that strategy is passe. You are not going to win that search. You are not even going to figure in page 30 of the search results. It seems as if most of us have lost the key to the keywords in the battle of the search.
Probably an ideal situation to pivot to doing something remarkable. How do we own our word? Do things that make people search for us by our name, our work, our projects. Showing up with the right work, at the right time, in the right places. Do the hard yards, the slow deliberate work hard of earning permission, building a tiny circle, the smallest viable audience. Over time, the tribe embraces you, the word (your word) becomes the shortcut to get more of what you offer.
The arithmetic is different here. The 5% is > the other 95%. A lot of our time, effort and attention is spent on trying to onboard the laggards and the lurkers, the 95%. Whereas, our focus, gratitude and energy should be on the people( the Minimum Viable Audience) who are showing up for you and shipping out.
How about substituting SEO(Search Engine Optimisation) with another acronym? FEO- Find Engine Optimisation. Because it’s more reliable to seek to be found by people who were looking for you all along.
The chasm will get bridged at its own pace. That’s fine. Let’s take our word for it!
ENDS