[Discuss] BLU's SEO

[jguarino at evolutionaryit.com (Joseph Guarino)]

Hello Everyone,

Thanks to all of you who attended my talk.  =) I have to agree with
Tom's assessment of our current BLU web efforts.  Tom's intelligence and
insights are something I look forward to on this list.  He has
highlighted what I explored in our presentation and added in some
important facets.  Optimization with all content should ALWAYS be done
with a purpose and be congruent to what the group wants as an outcome. 
Personally I think it is important to attract new members and proper
optimization the content we have would help us do that.  Our current
membership is strong but we should always be on the look out to expand
our membership.  Proper SEO efforts are all about content and making it
findable/indexable.  Nothing I spoke to the other day or am addressing
involves misleading or misdirecting as is the case in Blackhat SEO. 
Need a refresher on the difference see ~>
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html
 What I referred to in my talk was using WHITEHAT techniques to optimize
findablity nothing else.   

Tom's analysis on the purpose of our group deserves some consideration:

> So if BLU is an advocacy group, what form does that advocacy take, aside
> from the installfests? It seems to me that the more prominent form of
> advocacy BLU provides is peer support for Linux/UNIX.
> 
> That this happens to be "2nd tier" help desk, instead of "front-line"
> help desk level support is merely a side effect of the age of the
> organization and the type of members it has attracted.
> 
> It's perfectly fine to make the case that we'd rather remain being a
> more "elite" organization, than a resource for newbies, but it seems
> inaccurate to say we are nothing like a help desk. (If this was purely
> an advocacy group, the list discussion would be entirely about planning
> installfests and other educational outreach events.)
> 
> If we did want to take on the mission of improving BLU's SEO, the first
> step would be coming to an agreement as to what BLU's purpose is and
> what sort of members it wants to attract.
> 
> The web site defines the group as:
> http://blu.org/about_blu/
> 
>   Boston Linux & Unix (BLU) is a non-profit trade organization; our
>   mission is to educate about and advocate for Open Source, Open
>   Systems, and Free Software ("free speech" not "free beer"), such as
>   Linux, Unix, and freely-redistributable software.
> 
> Does that still make sense?


We are living in a world where closed computing encroaches further upon
all of our lives EVERY DAY.  Unfortunately, the future looks far worse
than our past IMHO.  We can either stand up and tell people of the
benefits of FOSS or become a historical footnote.  SEO isn't the only
thing we need to improve in order to spread the news of free and open
but it certainly can't hurt our cause.  We need to work together to
bring this news not just to engineers but to a community at large.  Our
installfests are a wonderful example of us doing this but we can expand
this sharing to our CONTENT as well.  I'm not saying we HAVE to do
ethical/whitehat SEO but it IS something that would help our efforts.  

Thanks and have a great day,
Joseph Guarino
A+,CISSP,LPIC,MCSE2000-03,PMP,Healthcare IT+
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Evolutionary IT - Best Practice IT(tm)
Website: www.evolutionaryit.com
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> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Discuss] BLU's SEO
> From: Tom Metro <tmetro+blu at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, October 18, 2013 3:24 pm
> To: L-blu <discuss at blu.org>
> Cc: Joseph Guarino <jguarino at evolutionaryit.com>
> 
> 
> Eric Chadbourne wrote:
> > I just opened a private window and googled "boston linux group" and blu
> > was #1.
> 
> Richard Pieri wrote:
> > Bing: BLU #1.
> > Baidu: BLU #2 -- after Boston Blender User Group at #1.
> 
> Greg Rundlett wrote:
> > If you search Google for "Install Linux Boston" - you get BLU in
> > the number one position.
> 
> That's great to see we are highly ranked for the obvious keywords.
> 
> 
> Richard Pieri wrote:
> > Can't do much better than top spot on Google and Bing.
> 
> Greg Rundlett wrote:
> > The purpose of doing some of the SEO tactics that Tom mentions
> > would be to increase BLU's visibility when people search for "redhat
> > configuration", "apache versus nginx" etc.  This would help build the 
> > user base of the group to those who might not directly seek out BLU.
> 
> Exactly.
> 
> 
> Dan Ritter wrote:
> > Generic people seeking help with Red Hat configuration (a) need to
> > better specify their question and (b) should look at the myriad
> > of Red Hat-specific sites.
> > 
> > And that's pretty much what's wrong with the idea of SEO in the
> > first place: it's nothing more than an attempt to fool search
> > engines into according an earlier place for the wrong results.
> 
> That's true in the case of these broad keywords Greg happened to chose
> for his example. It would be bad use of SEO to strive to get BLU highly
> ranked as a canonical source for those. Maybe less so if you add in some
> geographical qualifiers.
> 
> But it isn't bad SEO to unlock the knowledge in the list archives. There
> are plenty of far more specific and obscure queries for which the list
> archives have a really good answer.
> 
> Most of us are here because we see value in what the list provides. (If
> we only cared about the BLU talks, we'd just subscribe to the announce
> mailing list.) Figuring out a way to make this value more evident to
> others seeking the same sort of information should be the goal of SEO.
> 
> Once you've delivered value to the user, it's in the group's best
> interest (more on that below) that you make the viewer aware of where
> they can find more knowledge from the same source, and what other
> resources the organization has to offer, such as the talks.
> 
> 
> Eric Chadbourne wrote:
> > ...why does blu care about seo? 
> 
> Greg Rundlett wrote:
> > This would help build the user base of the group... 
> > (Is that a good thing?)
> 
> BLU should care about SEO if it wants to grow and if it wants to
> maximize its reach to the target audience (more on that below).
> 
> Whether growing is a good thing is a more subjective question. Growth
> means more people on the list. More shared knowledge. A larger
> population from which to draw speakers. A greater chance that when you
> ask an obscure question, someone on the list will know the answer. But
> more people also means more noise. At some point you reach diminishing
> returns.
> 
> 
> Richard Pieri wrote:
> > BLU isn't a front-line help desk. It's an advocacy group.
> 
> Greg Rundlett wrote:
> > I agree completely.  BLU is an advocacy group (not a linux help desk
> > although list members certainly help each other all the time with 
> > specific technical issues).
> 
> So if BLU is an advocacy group, what form does that advocacy take, aside
> from the installfests? It seems to me that the more prominent form of
> advocacy BLU provides is peer support for Linux/UNIX.
> 
> That this happens to be "2nd tier" help desk, instead of "front-line"
> help desk level support is merely a side effect of the age of the
> organization and the type of members it has attracted.
> 
> It's perfectly fine to make the case that we'd rather remain being a
> more "elite" organization, than a resource for newbies, but it seems
> inaccurate to say we are nothing like a help desk. (If this was purely
> an advocacy group, the list discussion would be entirely about planning
> installfests and other educational outreach events.)
> 
> If we did want to take on the mission of improving BLU's SEO, the first
> step would be coming to an agreement as to what BLU's purpose is and
> what sort of members it wants to attract.
> 
> The web site defines the group as:
> http://blu.org/about_blu/
> 
>   Boston Linux & Unix (BLU) is a non-profit trade organization; our
>   mission is to educate about and advocate for Open Source, Open
>   Systems, and Free Software ("free speech" not "free beer"), such as
>   Linux, Unix, and freely-redistributable software.
> 
> Does that still make sense? Are we primarily a support organization for
> senior-level technologists using UNIX/Linux, and the occasional
> adventurous newbie? Or are installfests and other advocacy aimed at new
> users the real mission, and the Discuss list just happens to be a side
> project where the senior members hang out and forms the pool from which
> volunteers are drawn to implement the advocacy activities?
> 
> You can't really do SEO until you know what it is you want to provide
> and who to.
> 
> 
> Dan Ritter wrote:
> > BLU is the right resource for people who want to talk about
> > Linux and UNIX with other users in New England. 
> 
> BLU's geographic focus is more an anachronism of its beginnings as a
> Boston Computer Society group, and the practical limitations of user
> groups at that time.
> 
> The mailing list has no enforced or even stated (only implied by the
> group's name) geographic restrictions (and there are a bunch of
> non-local subscribers). Even the reach of meetings will be expanding
> beyond local with live streaming and online video recordings.
> 
> In some ways the geographic criteria is just an arbitrary way to slice
> up the audience and create a smaller, possibly less noisy community.
> Though if BLU did more advocacy activities in addition to installfests
> that require a physical presence, then a regional focus still makes sense.
> 
> 
> Eric s wrote:
> > I have suggested blu to many other technologists and probably zero
> > have stayed on the discuss list long.  The complaint somebody told me
> > just last week was that the list was way over their head.
> 
> This either suggests that BLU should have some additional lists (or
> other form of online community) for users at a more novice level
> (perhaps a mailing list or online forum built around the Desktop Linux
> SIG?), or it just isn't a group optimized for novices, and we're OK with
> that.
> 
>  -Tom
> 
> -- 
> Tom Metro
> Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
> "Enterprise solutions through open source."
> Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/