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How to stop worrying and love The Goog
(or Dr. GoogleLove)

Recently, I've spent a lot of my time researching into website optimization. You may have noticed of the some new changes; switching to Firefox, tightening the layout, and most importantly, increasing the content.
There's a lot of information just sitting out there on the web, and it can make things incredibly hard to find. That's where places like Google come in- it's catchy, and it's effective.
There are actually teams of scientists (not basement-dwellers... California Scientists) working 'round the clock to beef up the Google machine. People pay companies real money to increase their ranks on Google, and Google spends countless time plotting ways to destroy those people. But Google can be your friend too- if you help it help you, so to speak.

Why the hell should I, an independent filmmaker, care about search-engines?

Simple. Who do you want to see your films? Just your friends and family, or the army of indie-film-fans out there?
You heard me. There's an army-of-an-audience out there, looking for the next big hit to add to their collection before the less savvy public is even aware your film exists (IF they ever find out). You want to customize your site to the needs of the people you think will like it, so if someone types "Macbeth comedy spoof movie" they get Macbeth 3000.
Then, assuming you can self-distribute the movie through e-commerce, you just made a sale, by matching a phrase with a website.

What I discovered, from my most excellent journey through "knowledge" was that getting a good critique (pagerank) from the master of the internet, Google, breaks down into 3 very simple rules:

1. Don't sit on the toilet if somebody just took a crap

Linking to sites that have bad page ranks, are low in content, and have no relevance to your own site will make Google very angry. Google sends out fleets of cyber-robots to follow links and record the information- but if you send them to boring places, they get bored of you. So the lesson is, send the robots to interesting places. Also, the places that link to your site affect the perception of the robots.

What defines an interesting place, for robots? Well- let me put it this way... you go out to a restaurant and order a plate of good old spaghetti and meatballs. Half an hour later the waiter arrives with the pot and dumps it all over the table, then proceeding to take a big dump on top of it all. You spend the next half hour determining what is a meatball, a utensil, a table ornament, and a lump of man-waste before you can finally digest the meal.

So, what do robots eat? They eat 1's and 0's in the form of code, words, texts, pictures, etc. So when you determine a quality of website, check all the ingredients thoroughly and remember, if a robot eats at your restaurant, make sure it finds everything it's looking for in a timely fashion, and sans-poop. Another way to look at it (using the food analogy) would be as if search engines are restaurant critics, and judge a restaurant (website) on everything from design, speed, organization and the general tastiness of your main dish.

2. "Niche" is not a place in France

What does Leonard Nimoy have in common with Easter Island?
Absolutely nothing, but that's OK.
And it's ok for your site not to have anything to do with "hot content" and use ghost-written articles to try and boost your site's rankings! Google understands why a website for Police Auctions can't be compared to, say, a website that warns you of the dangers of potatoes.

Google puts dozens of algorithms into their determinations for site-rankings. Even the experts who do search-engine optimization for a living don't know all the answers- but re-occurring patterns do emerge. Type anything into a search engine, and take notice of the top five. Those sites usually have specific content, lots of it, and most of the time, unique content. Let's face it, folks, most people know what they want to find when they type a word into Google. The point is not to be as broad as possible, unless of course, your website is about broads.

In relation to filmmaking, if your site is about your film, write up articles on the film; but that's not all- write about aspects of filmmaking that you used in your film. After you've compiled all of your own self-learned knowledge, you have something called "content", and Google tears that content apart, puts it through a hundred tests (algorithms) and then compares it to it's own knowledge on that subject.

So be specific with your site and content- write it yourself, and write it well. You want to attract a target audience, and you want specific keywords and content. Figure out exactly what your site is about, and stick to it.
We at Supergun, have no such quandaries about being a quandary. We will continue to provide the outlandish and the absurd, along with the hyper-accelerated tastiness.

3. Lies work best when you tell the truth

Has your boss ever asked why you called in sick every Sunday morning? Do you tell him it's because you keep catching the same damn cold?
Why not tell him you're an alcoholic? Because you are.

Perhaps a part-time alcoholic, but you don't have to go into details. Chances are, the boss will feel so bad about brining up the painful memory, he'll give you that well-needed leeway. It's the same with Google- if you lie to it, it'll bust your balls, but if you just come up with a great idea, exaggerate it within reason, and try and help, not trick the search engines, Google just might grow to like you.

Some site can be blacklisted from search-engines for employing "tricks" to make their site seem very important, but providing very little content. There have also been cases of websites getting sued for using trademarked keywords. The easiest way around all of this: Be original, be honest about your content (it's still ok to fib every once in a while though) and gear your website towards the needs of the audience, not the robots. Same thing for filmmaking- make the film to appease the story, not the budget. Budgets can always be re-worked, scaled-down, but truly good stories never die.

Once again, we at Supergun, are alcoholics.

Conclusion

So what do we do to ensure that we aren't wasting space on the web? We make sure our links are relevant and focused to appease the robots, keep our fresh and text-rich pages specific to the website's goals to appease Spock, and always, always, always be drunk when you create your webpage; it will keep you honest.

Macbeth 3000.

Sidenote: I personally think it should be spelt "GÜGLE" (if you can't see that, there's a "U" with an umlaut above it)

Also, take note of the Feature Submission box on the upper right corner of this page- helpful hint: writing an article on filmmaking with links back to your site, and submitting it to other sites is a good thing!

Article by: Denis Logan

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