The “Call It As I See It” content marketing update Google must adopt. Now.

Alternate title for SEO:  “Rants from a content marketer about content marketing”

Cartoon from andertoons.com

It was bound to happen. Content marketers (the good ones, that is) spent time and money creating quality content while content farms went laughing all the way to the bank. Then came Google (hero/villain depending on which side of the SEO fence you are in) and turned these content farms out of the playpen. All is well with content marketing.

But Google’s work is not done. Panda, Penguin and other wild animal updates have not touched the real issue in content marketing today. To cut a long rant short, is it just me, or are content marketers looking to make things as complex as possible? Have we ended up creating a hyper- demand for content, and thus become the victim of our own scam? Are we creating content for the sake of creating it?

So here is my update to content marketing that I insist everyone (including Google) need to adopt. Immediately. Presenting the “Call it as I see it” update. Drum rolls please…..

  • Content will no longer be classified as tweet, FB update, LI status, blog, case study etc. All content will be classified based on the purpose – to hoodwink, to sell, or to bore you to death.
  • If content is not original – that is, not rewritten from at least 3-5 different “expert” sources – please call it rehashed.
  • If content is really original and relevant, and cannot be copied, lifted, rehashed, or plagiarized, don’t bother. We marketers see no use for it. Go write a book. And win the Booker.
  • Move over Google. Bing and Yahoo too. We are tired of you dictating what we see. I want a new search engine that brings me only 1 result – exact answer to what I asked. If I ask “When is the next full moon day in January 2013”, why in heaven’s name do I need to see 350,86,456 results in .00002 seconds? Just give me the frigging date for God’s sake.
  • And no, when I ask this question, I DO NOT want to see ads to “Orgy at Newcastle on Full Moon day”. Nor do I want to see “How to create a new full moon?”, “Tired of the current full moon and want a change?” and a list of news, information, images, and events related to full moon. I know I am stretching here, but you get the point, don’t you?

What say, mate?

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