It’s hard to imagine, but sometimes we get lost in our own ego – our own thoughts of importance and knowledge that we write or say something and then we move on as if that’s the end. In our line of business, content and online marketing, that can no longer be the way. In fact, if you write something and let it go (yeah, I started singing it, too) whatever you put out there will most likely die a lonely death and your client or customer will say something on the order of “what am I paying you for?”

Your content has to be nurtured and curated like fine museum pieces – dusted off before the dust is noticeable, straightened before anyone sees it’s crooked, and my God, comment back to people on social media.

Stagnant content is annoying and can be detrimental to your site. It shows you’re either not paying attention or don’t care about your content or your site. Not commenting or participating in discussion on social media is downright rude. It’s social after all – a two-way conversation meant to evoke dialog, whether it’s “deep” or in emoticons. By never responding or discussing, you’re pretty much saying you don’t care about the people who take the time to care about you, you’re site and your cause.

Even if someone is just chapping your rear end and being an annoying smarty pants, play along if you must and use it as an opportunity to market something you offer in your voice or personality. It might take time and talent, but it gets easier and faster the more you do it, and it is definitely worth it.

Socially yours,
Larry

A lot has been going on around Sawfish Online lately, and it's a wonder for two reasons. The first reason being it's amazing to get anything done around here with two awesome kids who love adventure and fun at every turn and see their dad as a great big lumpy jungle gym (it doesn't help when he lays on the floor to watch football). The second, I just did an audit of our own site and found that none of the title tags we wrote months ago were showing up.

For those who don't know, title tags are quite possibly the most important piece for good search rankings. They send the largest signal to Google to quickly explain what a page's content is supposed to be about so Google can quickly judge if your page is relevant in a search query. It's more involved and complicated than that, but essentially the title tag is the overall theme to your page and the content on the rest of your page best match up to it or it's curtains for you!

The closer a title tag is to what a person is searching for, the more your page gets Google's attention. Then Google goes into its index and checks to see what content is on your page with that title tag and url. If Google then thinks you're more relevant than all others, you're ranked No. 1.

For some reason our title tags were reading "Content" and "SEO" and "Rum" (silly me). Well, that would certainly explain the drop in analytics we've been watching lately. The only people who type "Content" or "SEO" into a Google search are the same people who type 55378008 into a calculator and then turn it upside down.

OK, who just turned their laptops or tablets upside down?

Of course there's a lot more to good SERP rankings than title tags. There's something beyond 270 signals that we know of that Google looks for to determine who ranks where for what. What you can do to make sure your site ranks the best it can on Google or Bing is start with good -- NO -- great content that is unique to you and you only.

If you search for rum and Sawfish Online comes up, click on the link and drop by and say hello. That would be a real kick to know we rank for rum. Finally get something in return on my rum investments beyond a headache, ticked off wife and an empty wallet.

Perhaps I should get back to fixing the title tags.

Larry