There are triangles and there are pyramids. Many writers utilize these shapes to help visualize their theories. You'll find them sprinkled across tons of PowerPoint presentations in boardrooms across the globe. Not too many folks take advantage of the tetrahedron, though. It's a lonely geometric shape that you don't see very often. To explain, a triangle has 3 sides. A pyramid is comprised of 4 sides (triangles) with a square base.
The difference between a pyramid and a tetrahedron is that a tetrahedron is just composed of 4 triangles. Standing on a base triangle, there are 3 sides. For a cool rotating sample, you can check a tetrahedron out on Wikipedia.
Tetrahedrons are pretty cool geometric shapes. It's sort of a three-dimensional triangle. That said, I'd like to apply it to Search Engine Optimization. Duncan Morris of SEOmoz wrote a recent article on the 3 cornerstones of SEO. It's an outstanding article and defines search engine optimization elegantly and distinctly into 3 categories:
1.Technical
2.Content
3.Trust
Technical speaks to a site and page construction. In other words, how optimized it is to search engine crawling and indexing. Content speaks to how content is written, paying attention to formatting and keyword or keyphrase density. Trust speaks to a sites reputation through backlinks. If sites with great reputations and strong followings link to your site, the search engines will place it better.
Limiting yourself to these 3 cornerstones can hamper your search engine marketing efforts, though. I believe there is another cornerstone, and that's time. Search engine optimization isn't a 'set it and forget it' operation. A well-executed search engine marketing plan requires monitoring and continuous improvement. There are millions of pages being added to the Internet on a daily basis; as a result, the sites that are comparable and competitive are changing continuously. This impacts your search engine optimization directly.
This is yet, another reason, why social media will play such a key part in your company's future. Continuously participating in online conversations via blogs, social networks and other sites is fast becoming a required tactic for marketers of any medium to large corporation. The benefit of this, outside of the obvious relationship building with your readers, is to feed the beast that is the search engine. You must have an ongoing strategy when it comes to search engines.
Douglas is the Vice President of Blogging Evangelism for Compendium Blogware in Indianapolis, a corporate blogging platform. You can read The Marketing Technology Blog or Social Media Domination. Douglas Karr has been in the Advertising and Marketing Technology space for over two decades. The clients that he's worked with directly are an impressive and diverse collection of companies throughout North America, Europe, and Australia.
