“I wanna be Connected…”

I have recently been doing some research into the true nature of website optimisation for search engines on behalf of a client.  I knew a little bit about it but certainly wasn’t a guru at the start of the research.  What I was sure of was that a modern company needs a presence on the internet and the evil that is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a very ncessary one.

This posting isnt really about the business of SEO, its more an insight to how “connected” information and the systems that carry information have become.  Google’s technology for interrogating and ranking sites on importance, relevance and frequency.  The multiplying effect of chaining certain activities together has real impact with Google’s search technology but how many companies that really grasp that I’m not sure.

A tweet is just a tweet.  140 characters that occupy a space in time on a certain subject.  A tweet with a link – a little more important.  A tweet with a link to a document thats re-tweeted is now symbolising something to Google in terms of importance – even though it might just be about knitting (apologies to knitters across the world).  When a tweet with a link has been referenced and re-tweeted multiple times it gains an almost biblical ranking  within Google’s systems and if its re-tweeted a massive number of times its the word of god! (or any of his many incarnations).

Did we really set out to be so connected?  Did we really see that 140 characters of utter randomness could cause a revolution in another country.  The Arab Spring of 2011 showed that being this connected could bring people out onto the streets to create political change on an epic scale.   There is clearly a lot of synagy with the overused “butterfly effect” analogy; a small starting point causing a massive storm.

That analogy sits well for businesses.  A small amount of activity in the right kind of chain or sequence can cause a commercial storm for that company.  Multiple streams of tweeting, posting and blogging will speed the process up but speed is sometimes not the defining factor.  Organically growing the activity in certain relevant and key areas will create that groundswell that the business is looking for.  Time spent investigating the right use of SEO seems like time well spent for businesses.

On with the research …