Digital Edition SEO – A Dose of Reality

OK – here’s the marketing spin (which happens to be true):

Traffic to digital editions via search engines is way up. Looking at the previous 30 days compared to the same period in 2006, we see an increase in 238% of traffic via search engines. As we’ve said before, this is a clear indication that search engines like our hybrid indexed flash technology and use it to index your content. 

That being said, if you’re a magazine publisher, there are more effective ways to build readership than through Google. Here’s just one reason why, as proven by a funny story making the rounds on the Internet.

Proper SEO requires designing your content in a certain way – a way that search engines love to read, but not in a way that most human beings love to read. In fact, it looks kind of ugly. Click here to see what Google would look like if it were designed for…. uh, Google.

This isn’t meant to downplay the importance of SEO and we expect that readership via search will continue to increase. But what it does mean is that if you decide to build a magazine for Google, you might have trouble finding anyone – besides Google – who wants to read it.