Category: search

Will AI kill keyword gurus in 2020?

Sarat Pratapchandran1 Comment

letter oneThe Internet grew. New terms like search engine optimization (SEO) created thought leaders, book publishers, keyword specialists, and gurus of search.

Our vocabulary created many enterprising business models in the last decade.

We promised the corner cupcake store owner higher rankings on search engines. She got data on traffic, visits, referrals, direct hits, and examples of organic growth, half of which she never understood.

We became experts in search making money on similes, metaphors, and the unused thesaurus. But one thing remained clear: websites that created authentic, fresh, valuable content gave search engines a run for their money.

Today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes coffee for you, runs your inventory, manages your supply chain, and delivers profits. AI will easily drive your web traffic to the top spot of search engines.

You don’t need a digital marketing agency, a search engine specialist or a keyword expert. The middleman will vanish.

Firms like WordLift, Woorank and Alli AI are helping businesses get higher search engine rankings without an intermediary. If you have reached maturity in online marketing you will rely more on AI this decade rather than search engine experts.

But folks like me will depend on books like Word Power Made Easy, by Norman Lewis. There is a difference between original and artificial in our vocabulary and that will never go away.

Writing for page views: Tips from Steve Rubel

Sarat PratapchandranLeave a comment

As a young copy editor working for New Delhi-based Patriot two decades ago, I never imagined a day when machines would take over the unique powers of a copy editor. We ruled over reporters, decided content and our headlines woke readers up every morning.

Fast forward twenty years- journalists write for machines that give overrides to word choices and remind them that some words get better page views. These translate into  greater job security and a better bottomline.  Machines select  headlines, insert slugs and feed searches that attract readers. Writers are told to use the word fashion instead of style as search engines rank fashion higher.

Amid this changing media landscape, hearing  Steve Rubel last week was refreshing. Rubel is EVP, Global Strategy for Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR company. He was speaking at my alma mater, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communications.

According to Rubel, thankfully, three things still exist:

  1. Our time and attention are finite
  2. We love good stories- stories bind us as a culture
  3. Content is king

Rubel introduced Edelman’s new concept named “Transmedia Storytelling: The Media Cloverleaf” that will help PR practitioners keep stories alive for a longer time.  This is an inter-connected model that involves traditional media, hybrid, social media and company-owned media. According to Rubel, it is now an Anglo model being used in the U.S. and some parts of Europe. However,  some of its concepts are applicable in other geographies too. 

Rubel asks practitioners to create content that is visual and worth sharing and video, infographics and slideshows are very important. Writing needs a lot of advanced planning these days. So, before crafting a story, find out how, where and when the story should be told. Here’s a PowerPoint that describes key points from Rubel’s talk.