Case study: SEO, What an Expert Have To Say

seoCommunication is again entering a new era; the days where we get the news and the information we want from print is long gone. The advent of websites has paved the way for the emergence of online communication, and this is something we will be dealing with permanently. Now, most would think professors and journalism experts would lament to the slow appeal of printed media and other types of publication. Well, a former reporter and professor of journalism suggests otherwise.

Leon Alligood, an assistant professor of journalism at the Middle Tennessee State University and a former journalist and war correspondent has a different view. He explains that the emergence of the internet and other mediums for communication is not a threat for communication jobs in the future as most people might think. The shift of consumer demand from printed media to digital media on the internet was thought to cut off the significant need for communication professionals. This is because content for online media can be written by non-communications professionals. However, the assistant professor explains that it is only the mode by which people communicate that changes and not the demand for the information. That demand for information is what primarily sustains the job demands. People are hungry for information, and this craving grows ever bigger as time passes. It’s not only the information people are after, the quality is also of the essence, and this is what people are looking for.

Case Study: SEO in Focus

SEO is the process of improving a website’s visibility in search engines using natural search results. It is a practice where online writers write articles in a way that can be easily found by search engines such as Google and Bing. The goal of this practice in writing is to put the article in the first page of the results where it can get more views or clicks. Most people might think this is an entirely new practice in writing or communication but it’s not, SEO is simply a new tool used to apply an old skill. In communication science, professionals must learn an inverted pyramid model. Writing articles to follow this model, the articles must begin with the most important detail, and as the article progresses, it should broaden to include other details as well.

SEO also follows the same principle, only here it is the keywords that become the focus, or the most important detail, and the ones that must be placed higher up in the article. Inserting keywords early on doesn’t mean the article would be disorganized or clunky, if the inverted pyramid model is followed, the article can express the idea based on its purpose..

Let’s take a look at the case of Twitter bloggers or writers, for example. Twitter only offers a maximum of 140 characters, so what writers can do is to offer a “Teaser Tweet”, where the keywords are on the teaser and the rest of the articles are provided in a link or a sort of headliner, as they would call it.

SEO is a new tool or mode to communicate, but still it follows what we already know about communication. The game may have changed, but the play is still the same.

 

About the Author – This article on SEO on communication is written by Michelle Wilkins, author of numerous web based articles on search engine optimization, content analysis and communication. He believes that SEO is the process of improving a website’s visibility in search engines using natural search results.