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Scooping up visibility on the Web

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 28, 2007 in Content Theory

Fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs can rejoice. At long last his Carson Napier stories are being brought to the silver screen. Angelic Pictures has acquired the film rights to all five of Burrough’s Pirates of Venus books. The first movie, The Pirates of Venus, is due to be released to theaters in 2010.

Now, for those of you who haven’t yet turned away from this post in disgust, here is how that news relates to search engine optimization theory.

Xenite.Org has created a special Pirates of Venus movie fan site. We link to the studio and their movie site, we promote our own fan site across our network, and we’ve started a Pirates of Venus movie discussion in our Pulp Authors Forum on SF-Fandom.

Other than the fact that I’m a science fiction fan and a studio asked me for a link, why did I go to all this effort, including mentioning the movie on an SEO blog?

Because they gave me content.

They don’t have to link to my sites. I’ll take care of the links I need. But in exchange for a little of their time and one press release Angelic Pictures has won an ally on the Web. I’m going to help them announce and promote their movie in ways they are not equipped to.

Why?

Because they gave me content.

And the more content they give me, the more I will help them. By granting me exclusive interviews, by sharing their media announcements with me, hopefully by sharing cool artwork and freebies when that stuff becomes available in the future, they’ll empower me to be their advocate on the Web. Anyone who has been through this process with other SciFi film franchises (”The Lord of the Rings”, “The Chronicles of Narnia”, “Harry Potter”, and “Star Wars” to name four) understands what is at stake.

If the five planned Pirates of Venus movies take off the Web sites that gain the most attention for being involved with their fandom will draw hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of visitors through the years. These fan Web sites help drive millions of dollars in advertising revenues and sales. By sharing production notes and interviews and media announcements with fan sites, film studios are able to leverage their content into vast free marketing campaigns.

And the entertainment industry is not the only industry that can harness the power of amateur Web sites for promotional campaigns. While you may not be able to build that awesome visibility for your crafts Web site, you can certainly design a Web marketing program that enhances your brand visibility, adds value to other Web sites, and helps build a loyal community around your products and services.

If your industry provides tools or products that are popular among home enthusiasts, if there are trade shows, competitions, or other events where your products are prominently featured, you may have opportunities to reach out to amateur Web sites to help them develop content that promotes your business (and your Web site). You may get some referrals from their Web sites or not. You may get some links that help your search engine results or not. You may get some additional business or not.

Until you make the effort to share unique, useful information with select Web sites, you’ll never know what opportunities you’ll be passing up. I have helped more than one company improve its cheese dip revenues just by writing about where people can find cheese dip on my Web sites. Considering the traffic my new huckleberry site gets, I may be helping some huckleberry sellers, too.

You should be doing some research to learn whether there are blogs or hobbyist Web sites that help people use your industries’ goods and services. You should be looking for Web sites where people share their memories and ideas about how to use your goods and services in their lives. You should be composing 3-4 Web media content camapigns every year to build your visibility and improve your relations with the enthusiasts who so love your goods and services that they create Web sites to celebrate the good feelings they have.

There are amateur recipe Web sites, amateur car restoration sites, amateur home building and repairing sites, amateur castle building sites, sites about knitting, raising horses, caring for sick animals, sites where people support each other through grave illnesses and aggravating chronic conditions, sites where people reminisce about how they used to do things in the old days, sites where people trade information about good places to eat, good tourist destinations to visit, good tools, good consumer brand products, etc.

There are Web sites out there about local festivals dedicated to crabs, berries, corn, and pumpkins. There are trade shows for toys, automobiles, and music. People write about their plans to attend these festivals and shows. People post pictures, write reviews, and otherwise share their experiences on the Web.

If your industry doesn’t have any of these types of events, you should still be able to find something where you can be a sponsor, set up a contest, offer prizes, roll out a new product or service plan in such a way that someone will want to write about it on their Web site. For the gift of a press release, a few photos, maybe an audio-visual presentation you may be able to capture an ally’s loyal links and readers for months or years to come.

The more valuable the content you help other people create, the greater the payoff will be for your visibility. If you share information freely, people will help you share it directly with their audiences. You may get lucky and find that help by asking for links, but you’re more likely to realize success if you put together a plan, create a list of Web sites to work with, and start contacting them.

Look for sites that are visible, have a decent amount of traffic, and that build unique communities. I hate it when companies reach out to Xenite when they are reaching out to a dozen other science fiction and fantasy sites. The same people often visit our communities and the site that gets the new content up first will be the site that creates the most visibility. I’m not incilned to get up at 3:00 AM in the morning just to beat someone else with a scoop.

Some Web enthusiasts — like me — actively seek out cool stuff to write about because we want to be the first or among the first people to help popularize a topic. I may never become as influential as TechCrunch but there are hundreds, thousands of mini-Crunchers like me out there building visibility one small scoop at a time.

If there is presently no community out there that would rally aroun your company, you may still be able to find a handful of competent enthusiasts who will gladly be your advocates on the Web. If you create the news they will spread it. If you honor your word they will honor you. If you tell them something will happen in 30 days, make it happen even if only 5 people participate in the event. Learn to build your visibility one scoop at a time.

If the best you can do with your business is enter the local chili cookoff competition, do it. Plug your entry on as many local enthusiast sites as possible. Make friends even if you cannot buy votes at judging time. Help people have fun with whatever you are doing. Feed their passions.

If you are struggling to obtain the search visibility you feel you need, try building your visibility outside of search. You may find that helping other people create content for their sites not only earns you a few links, it teaches you something about the difference between boilerplate content and useful, unique, interesting content.

You can take that experience directly into your next search engine optimization campaign. And that is why you should care that a “Pirates of Venus” movie is scheduled to be released in 2010.