So, funny thing: this morning, I was looking to see if VTech had finally gotten around to releasing an update for its cordless VTech phones with respect to making them Vista compatible, so I googled “vtech skype vista support”, because I’m too lazy to sort through their own site. You might recall me ranting about why Vista enrages me, and using the lack of drivers / support one of my chief beefs. Anywhoo, I thought perhaps another site had found a solution, perhaps someone blogged about it. Funny thing was that my own rant ranked #7 on the google search
So I am showing you this not just to show off that this blog has ranking for some pretty obscure terms, but that blog post on my blog outranks VTech itself when it comes for what I think is a relevant search term. I am only casual observer for SEO topics, but looks like a clear example where VTech needs a hand — not just in terms of being the right one to rank for the appropriate topic, but from a public relations point of view, as well.
In fact, VTech has solved the problem as of a few weeks ago, as it did release a new software update so that its now Vista compatible, with the page in question over here.
[edit: or, over here where “VTech released a Vista compatible update for their Skype phones” — VTech, please thank Andy Beard by sending him something (like a free phone, maybe?) after the exchange I had with him below]
Where is does that page rank in the scheme of things? Well, nowhere to be honest. Why is this important? Only because about a year ago VTech made some noises about never releasing an update that would work with Vista machines, which have been (obviously) received quite negatively.
Chalk one up under “why SEO is important”, I think.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:00 pm | Permalink
Well it would help them if you linked to the appropriate page with some good anchor text ;)
Whilst can do a lot with on page optimization, links count for a lot
March 5th, 2008 at 4:28 pm | Permalink
@Andy — trolling for inbound links and appropriate anchor text is *their* job, not mine, mate. :)
March 5th, 2008 at 5:06 pm | Permalink
I strongly disagree with that - if as a blogger you can help other people find the right information by using appropriate anchor text on links, then you are doing a good job.
If everyone just used “click here” to link through to some medical research and you ended spending hours trying to find it, it would be silly.
Just think of the next person trying to find something.
This is one of the reasons I get annoyed with Google on the paid reviews thing - sure I was giving followed links with great anchor text, even going to the trouble of doing keyword research. Links help people find the information they are looking for, and the lnks I was giving for free to help people.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:16 pm | Permalink
@Andy — while I see where you’re coming from, i.e. we have a responsibility to “do the right thing”, my personal belief is that if companies / individuals want an appropriate bump in rankings, irrespective of how “right” it is, they need to be aware of, and play by the same rules that everyone else is (by everyone else, I mean their competitors, SEO firms, and so on; and by “rules”, I mean rules writ large by Google, of course, with their emphasis on links).
They shouldn’t be hoping on any given blogger to a) find this relevant page on any given day and b) know that the right thing to do, is in fact, link to it with the right anchor text.
Perhaps what I’m advocating for is that some folks (like VTech) having a better understanding, and a better “social media” relationship with the blogosphere / social internet-o-sphere at large — that a large part of this is letting interested parties / influentials (not to say that I am) know there has been an update, so that the word can be spread out.
[… but in deference of doing the right thing in this circumstance, I will change my anchor text :) ]
Cheers
t @ dji