Blogging Chocolate Purses, Counterfeit Handbags & Purse
Riots for SEO
by Mike Banks
Published on this site: December 7th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
Chocolate purses? Did I read that correctly? Back alley bags?
Terrorism funding with fake couture? Designer purse riots?
They can't be true! But wait, the news is true, it absolutely
is! And what is this? A diamond thief snatches a designer
handbag from a sexy starlet! And then comes a story about
designer cell phones to carry in that fashionable handbag!
This is what I love about web marketing and my work as a search
engine optimization specialist - the fun and novelty
of research.
Let's take a step back here and clarify. Why would a web
site owner seeking increased search engine visibility care
about news related to their products? In a word, Content.
I always recommend to new clients that they start a blog discussing
their industry and their products and post to it several times
a week. Post what? Anything and everything about their product
or service belongs in their blog. Content is king and blogs
are a great place to routinely add relevant,
interesting, search engine friendly content.
But my clients wonder where I come up with this stuff - It's
in the news.
The day I signed on to increase the search visibility of
an online retailer of designer handbags and fashion accessories,
I went to Google news http://news.google.com
and typed "Designer Handbags" into the search box.
As I scrolled down the page of resulting stories, I saw a
link to a press release discussing the new pink Juicy Couture
Sidekick phone and PDA from T-Mobile. Bingo! First blog entry
at the client blog http://Valuebags.com
(recommended to the client that day) where I recapped the
story and posted a photo.
Then I scrolled to the bottom of that Google News page to
look for the link that says, " New! Track new stories
about designer handbags Ð create an email alert"
I clicked the link under "create an email alert"
and entered my email address
for this "Designer Handbags" news search, just like
I do with each new client and their product. Every day I receive
a list of news stories that turned up in a news search for
"Designer Handbags" to discuss on the client blog.
Within a few days I got my daily email alert from Google
News that talked about, I kid you not, Chocolate Designer
Handbags! So I clicked the link in the email to land on a
news story about a high end chocolatier that makes tiny little
replicas of designer purses in rich, flavored chocolate, complete
with tiny bows and straps! There's the next post to the client
designer handbag blog. What fun! But
this can't go on, really - how much news can there be about
trendy, high priced purses?
Next comes an email news alert about sexy starlet Tara Reid,
who was robbed in a Spain airport of her Balenciaga designer
handbag filled with over $180,000 in jewels! The news seems
filled with stories about haute couture bags, but really,
can this continue at this rate? Yes, indeed it can. Next day
brings news of a shop proprietor on the lamb after he is caught
running a fake designer handbag boutique in Brownsville, Texas.
He disappeared after his wife died, on the run to avoid prison
time.
Just incredible, there really can't be more, can there? Yes,
it seemingly never ends, as I got a news alert in the email
the next morning about a RIOT by ravenous customers hungry
for limited numbers of designer handbags on steep discount
at a Maryland boutique! Police had to stop as many as 1000
women
fighting over the bags when the boutique owner couldn't stop
them from wrecking the store.
There's more! Here's a story about the size of the fake couture
market, currently estimated to be approximately $450 Billion
yearly! That is some sizable change carried by a lot of fake
purses. It is estimated that in New York alone, losses run
$500 million a year to designer knockoffs. This booty attracts
organized crime and it is suspected that substantial terrorism
funding is raised by designer handbag counterfeiting.
Clearly I've made my point here. If you seek higher search
engine ranking for your products and services and are willing
to post some comments regularly to your company blog on news
in your industry, there are no shortage of topics to discuss.
A headline like "$1.4 Million Designer Handbag Counterfeit
Scam - Four Arrested" doesn't appear every single day
does it? That one ran recently at Boston.com and was in an
email alert.
But what if it's a slow news day and there are no headlines
on your product today to discuss on your blog? OK, it does
happen, especially if you are in the software industry or
industrial supply or if you deal in some other esoteric minutia.
Then what to blog about? Your clients, vendors, suppliers
or customers make for excellent content and in some cases
may happily provide you with their latest news release to
post on your blog. You can detail business or sales trips,
discuss jobs in your industry, or even put up copies of your
own latest email promotions, press releases, or even your
office decorating plans.
Sale promotions, coupon codes, and specials for blog readers
only - all contribute to a popular and visible blog in your
industry. If you post often, use keyword phrases liberally
in your text and hyperlink that keyword text to relevant
information or sales pages of your products from the blog,
you will increase the search engine ranking of your main site
over time.
As a male with little interest in designer purses and handbags,
I knew I could effectively market this client simply by signing
up for "Designer Handbags" Google News alerts and
gathering those news headlines and commenting on
the client blog. I never thought that Gucci, Prada, Hermes,
Vuitton, Furla, Fendi and Ferragamo handbags would become
an item of interest to me - and they're still not - so Google
News alerts comes to the rescue.
Clients however, often find that they become extremely interested
in those news alerts, have no trouble commenting about them
on their blog, and soon come to enjoy the process and happily
take it on as a regular task in their web marketing. They
are already experts on their product and hearing more about
their industry in daily news stories and commenting about
it in their blog becomes a pleasant daily task.
Did you know you could buy designer handbags at Walmart's
Sam's Club stores? "Regional Manager Matt Lindsey said
"They don't come into Sam's Club looking for affordable
luxuries, but once they see it and they can afford it, they're
happy
with it." Coach, Prada, Kate Spade, and Fendi handbags
are available in (Sam's Club) stores."
From Rochester, NY TV news station WHAM channel 13 web site.
Truth is stranger than fiction. You couldn't make this stuff
up!
Mike Banks Valentine is a search engine optimization
specialist increasing the visibility of http://www.efashionhouse.com
through article marketing, press
releases and blogging. He also runs http://WebSite101.com
Small Business Ecommerece Tutorial - Contact Mike at
http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm
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