
Adding Millions To Your Valuation Using SEO - icey
http://mygengo.com/talk/blog/adding-millions-to-your-valuation-using-seo/
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patio11
I'm working at myGengo this week on creating a SEO strategy and teaching the
team about it. They have a fun company-wide institution called power blogging
hour: drop what you're doing and, for the next hour, write like mad, then we
post the results. Since I was there I got asked to participate, and this is
what I could come up with regarding SEO and startups in an hour.

Let me know if you have comments. I sincerely think the blind spot about SEO
and reflexive distaste for it is the biggest marketing opportunity startups
are routinely missing.

~~~
davidw
> I sincerely think the blind spot about SEO and reflexive distaste for it is
> the biggest marketing opportunity startups are routinely missing.

Maybe you should brand what you do differently then, as some kind of
'marketing'. What do marketing guys say about hanging on to sullied words?

Find the right words, and you could _really_ stand out from the crowd.

> SEO is called black magic

One reason it's called black magic is because it's a "platform" that appears
to be built on shifting sands: Google's algorithm. Or at least that's one way
of looking at it. The only people who know what goes on with Google are
working there and aren't sharing it. You come across, with your A/B testing
and general knowledge, as more of the 'real thing', but a lot of those guys
seem to be trying to resell the Google webmaster guidelines for high hourly
rates.

> Savvy use of techniques like scalable content generation

Can you go into this in more detail?

~~~
patio11
Given that it is 5:30 AM here I wouldn't trust a book-length elaboration right
now, but yes, I am always happy to talk scalable content generation. See
Greatest Hits section on my blog or upcoming projects that I'm not sure I can
talk about.

Short version: identify large source of related problems for customers. Solve
one problem via writing a web page about it, manually. Productize process of
writing that web page such that the only asset required to write a spiritually
similar page is money. Scale horizontally across large number of customer
needs via addition of money. Collect stats on what becomes popular or
profitable. Do it again, focusing on what worked or shows other obvious
opportunities.

Basically, it's the "I sell BCC because I out publish every educational
publisher in the world, combined, with regards to bingo cards", applied to
whatever actually matters for your particular niche. You can safely assume
that myGengo is interested in the problems experienced by people speaking
Japanese who are trying to sell cookies to people who speak English. There is
a very large set of similar needs. I'd bet money (OK, technically, they're
betting money) that those needs (or similar ones) can be addressed at scale.

~~~
davidw
> Scale horizontally across large number of customer needs via addition of
> money.

Hrm... that seems applicable to BCC, where you go after the "long tail" of
bingo cards. How about something, like, say, Amy Hoy's time tracking thing? Is
there a long tail of time tracking? "Time tracking for .... "? Or maybe I'm
not getting what you're saying.

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andy_boot
Simple stuff like getting title tags right takes 5 minutes and does makes a
difference.

Thanks for sharing.

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moultano
For people interested in SEO tips straight from Google, Matt Cutts has written
a lot about little things you can do to help Google figure out how to rank
you. Here's one post on the subject: <http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-for-
bloggers/>

Google tries to be smart. It can sometimes be stupid. Helping Google out is a
good thing to do.

HOWEVER, be sure that the things you do to your site to help it rank don't
make it a worse experience for the person using it (keyword stuffing, etc),
and don't make the web worse in general (link spamming.)

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antihero
So what do I do? I'm good with programming, I know nothing about SEO. Shoot.

~~~
scottkrager
I know nothing about programming. I'm good with SEO.

What should I do? : )

hint: the answer might be the same!

~~~
dpritchett
Assuming this is an earnest question... learn python.

I recommend you read "learn python the hard way". After you're done you will
know plenty about programming - enough to build your own tools and tests.
There have been two different posts on HN in the past 6 months to the tune of
"I taught myself django (it's python) and programming in six weeks, check out
my new site!"

You won't regret it.

Edit: I recommend python because it's designed to be easy to read, easy to
learn, and powerful. That and its growth trends in the past 18 months are
phenomenal. It's a perfect first language for today.

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javanix
I'm not sure the simple SEO steps described here will really add "millions" to
your valuation just like that, but this article really was more interesting
than the somewhat link-baity title might suggest.

~~~
patio11
This is more a why post than a how post. The five minute intervention will
not, by itself, add millions, just like your first commit to a version control
system won't. However, it is a necessary prerequisite to doing clearly,
incontestably valuable things.

I found a funded startup today whose title tag was $COMPANY_NAME. They're in a
space where SEO is a clear win and it is obvious no person has spent so much
as thirty seconds thinking about it. That's as bad as source control through
"I zip up a copy of the code and email it to you."

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robfitz
Like everyone here, I've read a lot of stuff about SEO.

I'm not sure exactly why, but this article got me to actually decide to change
the way I'm building my sites. All the others I just filed under: "Good to
know. I'll use that some day."

You've just made the dozens of hours I've spent reading about this stuff
actionable. Thank you.

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callmeed
Patrick, can you elaborate on what "scalable content generation" is?

