Team Rubber BlogTeam Rubber talks on the Internet in a blog

We all blog in Team Rubber, and one thing we need to understand is the value of our blogging from a commercial perspective.  Blogging isn’t just for fun, or for team knowledge-sharing, it should also be for “world sharing” – i.e. optimising the blogs / sites we post to so that the rest of the world can find them more easily – and we sell more stuff to the right people ; – )

So this blog post gives some quick tips and advice for SEO-newbies into how blogging can be used to optimise the SEO of your website, making sure it has the best chance to go viral (and be found).

Some SEO basics

• – Google loves content

• – Google loves relevant content

• – Google loves well-structured content

• – Google loves very focused content

• – Google loves content that is loved by other people (i.e. content that is linked to)

• – Google loves content that is loved by popular people

• – Google loves content that is connected to other popular people

What this means when you blog – 11 tips on optimising for SEO

• 1) Write content that is very focused and relevant.

• 2) Make sure your blog post has a tight focused title – always thinking “what terms / question / phrase would someone search for?”  For example, if you’re wanting to target keen bloggers, then they’re always interested in finding out “how to optimise the seo of my blog” – so give it as the title of your post!

• 3) Make sure that the link of the blog post (which is often auto-generated from the title of the blog post) contains the relevant search terms.

• 4) Make sure the opening paragraph repeats those key phrases – as the opening 30 or so words are the ones are judged as being particularly important.

• 5) Make sure you you link key words / phrases in your blog, to key pages in your site.  For example if you write “Viral seeding is an effective way to gain brand awareness“.  Link the words “Viral seeding” to the relevant page in your site you’re trying to optimise.

• 6) Keep repeating key phrases and terms throughout the blog post, and remember to do the relevant linking.  Don’t go over board though – as this may look like SPAM to Google’s bots.

• 7) Include other relevant content in your blog posting – so maybe include a relevant YouTube video, or post a relevant (and tagged) image.  This all adds to the richness and relevance of the blog.

• To show your blog post is connected and influential, drop is some links to other more influential sites.  e.g. You may link to the Brand Republic site, if you’re talking about advertising – to indicate that you’re connected to other sites.

• 9) Once you’ve written your blog, make sure it’s linked to by other sites.  N.B. the more influential the site linking to you, the better.  So for example, Digg the blog via Digg.com, or link to the blog from another blog – e.g. the Team Rubber blog.  To do this you might do a weekly blog round up of the best Team Rubber postings.  You should also obviously Tweet the post – to optimise the opportunity for the blog being picked up by others.

• 10) Finally – remember to write interestingly and well.  After all, much of the success of your blog post will be down to the how people enjoy and share your blog / content.  If people think it’s great, then they’ll do the link sharing for you!

• 11) Finally #2 – consider how someone might find your post out of context, and make sure it ends with the right kind of call to action – e.g. you might write an end line along the lines of “If you’re interested in this, then you may be interested in the Viral Ad Network, which provides great fun ads for the best blogs and sites.  Check it out our Viral Ad Network here!“

N.B. these tips were first posted on the Viral Ad Network blog, giving tips on how to optimise the SEO of your blog.

So this afternoon Paul Smith – the Labour Party prospective parliamentary candidate for  Bristol West – popped in to say hi, following our debate last week on “the internet and elections”.

Chatting to him got me thinking about how we should maybe run a Team Rubber election hustings in the run up to the forthcoming election.  A simple suggested format could be us running a 3-way virtual husting where we get each of the candidates to film a 90 second speech, put it on YouTube, and then maybe link it into Twitter with hashtags, and get the local community to ask questions.  We might even include a vote – though maybe the voting might overtake from the more important aspects of the discussion.

Anyway – there’s a thought.  We could even roll the idea out as a wider-platform, and run hustings around the country???

Paul Smith @ Team Rubber HQ

My dad doesn’t really understand what I do.  He’s 64 (nearly 65) and no matter how many times explain the nuances of viral marketing, he still struggles.  Or so I thought, until he shocked me by creating his very own viral ad for his company the Alarm Monitoring Company – a company that specialises in “monitored burglar alarms”.

Check out his viral efforts here – viral genius, or viral suck?

I think I can say for certain that it’s really not very good, and kinda backs up my theory that he doesn’t get what viral is (or rather doesn’t listen to me – a life-long gripe).  Here’s my quick analysis of his efforts:

- OK, so the generally creative conceit isn’t too dreadful.  The idea of promoting an alarm by showing it in action (burglars breaking in etc.) makes sense. (that’s the positives over and done)

- But, then we come to the narrative.  I mean – sorry – what narrative???  Two blokes jump through a window, rummage around a bit, set the alarm off and run off with the beautifully scripted words “F*ck me, I’m off!.”  Come on – I’ve seen better in episodes of Prisoner Cell Block H Sunset Beach.

- And then there’s the direction.  I’m not quite sure how many takes it took to shoot (I hope one), but if you’re gonna allow two of your employees (sorry – actors) to spend time jumping through your home window in a not so convincing I’m-a-burglar-breaking-into-a house-way you may as well shoot it properly – otherwise you’re wasting everyone’s time – including the people who have to watch your sorry ad (me).

- And to cap it off, there’s the music.  A bossa-nova keyboard version of Queen’s “Another one bites the dust”.  This for me is the final nail in the viral coffin.  I mean, why didn’t you go for the pan-pipe version???  Everyone knows Queen sound better in pan-pipe than bossa nova.

So there you go.  As a founder of a viral marketing agency I’m ashamed of my father.   PLEASE NEXT TIME LISTEN TO ME DAD AND DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME MAKING SUCH PAP IT MAKES ME ANGRY AND MAKES ME WANT TO TYPE IN CAPITALS.

Rant over.  Back to work.

And so the time has come (at last!). Tonight we (Delib) host a debate in Parliament on the subject: “The Internet: Saviour or Corruptor of Democracy?” For those of you who are not able to attend, you can follow the whole debate live on Twitter via hash tag #idebate or via our Delib twitter account.

Hosted by Danny Alexander MP, the panel is: Nick Robinson (BBC), Michael White (Guardian), Peter Kellner (YouGov), Grant Shapps MP (Shadow Minister for Housing), Paul Staines (Guido Fawkes’ blog).

Follow the debate (it’s running from 6.30pm today) and send in your questions and comments to the panel – before or during the debate – and they’ll reply (if you’re lucky!)

I randomly came across this lecture by Beth Noveck for the Stamford University Human Computer Interaction Seminar entitled “Technologies for collaborative democracy”.

Once she’d got over the introductory bits of her presentation of various e-democracy projects from around the world (which covered the usual Downing Street e-Petition stuff), she went on to make some really interesting points.

Here’s a random selection of some of the things I learnt from Beth Noveck’s video (N.B. I only last til 40 mins, when I got hungry!):

- Her main interest is in how to break out of the current nature of ad-hoc democratic processes – e.g. one off consultation events of things like Flash mobs – and create ongoing collaborative governance.

- Vermont is trying to become the “digital Delaware”, setting up a legal framework for creating “virtual companies” i.e. legalising online collaborative partnerships

- Libya’s Policywiki – bizarrely, Libya has embraced e-democracy, and has set up a Policywiki,  enabling citizens to take part in collaborative policy making.  The projects been funded by the Qadhafi foundation.

- I liked her description of the Peer-to-patent’s project as creating a “Human database”.  It was also interesting to hear how the peer-to-patent project uses highly structured participative process, aimed at experts.

- I LOVED her anecdote about Thomas Jefferson being the founder of participative governance.

- Her point about collaborative governance being about effectiveness not equality was something that I’ve been thinking about for a while.

- Visual deliberation – I thought this was her most interesting point.  She described a research project’s findings that found that when we see ourselves in the screen we change our behaviour.  And gave the example of how if you morph your face into the face of a President you’re more likely to vote for them.  Further she made that described how President Bush colourised his face darked in ads targeted at black and hispanic neighbourhoods.

- Group brain – this is the point that if you explicitly identify a group as a group, then they’re more likely to act as a group, and be more effective at solving a problem collaboratively.

- Social Translucence – following on from the Group Brain point, is the question of what happens when you see yourself as a group in a screen?  And also, how do you design interfaces that create this?  She firmly believes that this idea would  bring about change.

She then got on to a point about “Green Chicago”, at which point my hunger took over and I had to go!

The good news is that Delib’s democracy and the internet debate has proved massively popular – with huge amounts of people wanting to attend.

The bad news is that there’s now no spaces left, so if you haven’t signed up then you’ll have to follow the debate virtually.  There’s a number of ways you can do this:

- Twitter - we’ll be running a live Twitter debate alongside the real debate, allowing people to interact and ask questions to the panel remotely.  Follow the debate by signing up to our Delibconsults Twitter feed

- Podcast – we’ll be releasing an audio podcast of the event the day after the event.

- TV – BBC Parliament will be filming the debate, so you’ll be able to catch the debate on TV some time (I don’t know when!)

Adam and I have been helping out (largely by eating Pic n Mix) on the new Woolies relaunch.  I’m a particular fan of their new spin on Pic n Mix, which has been cheekily dubbed Click n Mix.  Genius!  Here’s my Click n Mix tour below . . . mmmm, sweets . . .

The most exciting new place to sell aMaps is Ampleforth College and Monastery (my old school).  The “Does God exist?” aMap title was mostly inspired by my Theology lessons with Fr Timothy, so am super pleased that the Ampleforth shop is now stocking them.

When I was up in Yorkshire this weekend I popped into Ampleforth and managed to get this photo of Fr Hugh posing next to the fresh stock of aMaps!

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