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Building a query space

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 23, 2007 in SEO Theory

In search reputation management you have to define and protect a “name space”, which is the portion of search results that are relevant (in your view) to the name you protect. Some people define their name space to be the first position across all search engines. Some people define the name space to be the first five positions, some people define it to be the first ten positions, etc.

In search engine optimization you can define a query space. It’s much easier to define a name space because the name space is an arbitrary assignment of boundaries. A query space is a shared or communal topic as expressed through queries and the search engine results they generate.

You cannot just wake up in the morning and say to yourself, “Today I am going to define a query space for — oh — crazy rabbits on horse skis!” You have to define the topic carefully, build content for the copy, and then build interest in the topic such that people go looking for the content.

Hey, we used to call that marketing!

And it still is basic marketing, but it’s marketing through search, and technically when you market through search you build a query space. You cannot get around the need to build a query space. There are no short cuts (that I know of) but there are different ways to build the query space and some ways work faster than others.

For example, let’s say you create a Whizbang Magidget. You know this thing will change the way of life for everyone with access to the Internet. So you build a Web site about your Whizbang Magidget and drop links in a few forums and do the DIGG thing, blah, blah, blah.

Does anyone search for your Whizbang Magidget? Nope. Your forum links were deleted, your DIGG wasn’t reinforced, blah, blah, blah, no one cares.

Now, let’s say you’re working for a multi-billion dollar company that is rolling out the Whizbang Magidget. What do you do? You invite the press down for wine and crackers. You hire a television production company to create cool TV commercials and a radio production company to create cool radio commercials and a magazine advertising firm to create cool magazine ads, etc. You get news coverage from CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, the New York Post. All the journalists love you.

Your first month of sales shoots through the roof. Tom Cruise, Jessica Alba, and Donald Trump are all photographed with the Whizbang Magidget in magazines like Us, People, and GQ. Your Whizbang Magidget hits the Lycos 50.

You’ve now built a query space and it only cost you about $15 million. Not bad, eh?

Okay, so you don’t have $15 million and Jessica Alba wouldn’t be caught dead with you. You can still build a query space. But it takes more than your content to build it. Other people have to build content, too. They have to want to compete with you, or at least share your topic with you. The more people who discuss a topic, the more people who will search for additional information on the topic. That’s how buzz is created.

You don’t do that through links, you do it through content. And one piece of advice I have provided through the years to people struggling with competitive queries is that you can always create your own queries and tell people to use them. By “tell people to use them” I don’t necessarily mean link to queries in your content although that is certainly one tool in the shed for you to use.

I mean that you have to show people the topic is important to you. You have to show it’s worth their time and their money, so that it becomes important to them. You don’t have to be the first person to discuss or mention the topic (for example, other people talked about SEO theory before this blog existed). You just have to be the person who shows people there is a reason to discuss the topic, to create content for the topic, to want to link to content about the topic.

That’s how you build a query space without $15 million and Jessica Alba.

A year ago I could not find any query space for “SEO theory”. A few people mentioned it on their blogs. A rare forum comment used the expression “I have an SEO theory” in larger contexts. But there were no discussions about “SEO theory” even though SEO theory has been discussed for years. We didn’t give a communal name to the concept of analyzing the ways we optimize search results.

I don’t know who first coined the expression “SEO theory” but I can tell you that it is presently the most popular query people use to find this blog (and they have used almost a thousand different query expressions to find the blog this month). “SEO theory” was also the most popular query used to find this blog in July (which brought in traffic through nearly a thousand expressions, but August has already surpassed July in that and other metrics).

The query traffic shows this blog has achieved some name recognition. But the search results are starting to show that other people are thinking and writing about SEO theory — all the link and references you, my readers, have made on your blogs, in your forums, and on other people’s Web sites have created interest in the topic of SEO theory.

Together, we have built a query space.

Maybe it won’t hold up, but I think it will. There is certainly a great deal more I can say about SEO theory here on SEO Theory and I am sure other voices will start to gain visibility. We are watching the birth of a community of what may become hard-core SEO theorists (technically, that group has existed for years, but we haven’t said much collectively).

In another year, it will be interesting to see who is participating in the “SEO theory” query space. I hope this blog holds the top position in the search results, but someone else may come along with something more entertaining, more informative, more interesting. Maybe a black hat will steal the space with a link network. You never know.

I now occasionally see paid ads against the “SEO theory” space. I don’t know if people get traffic from those ads. If there is money to be made from “SEO theory”, I’m sure someone will make it. To be honest, my staff has urged me repeatedly to put together an SEO theory book. The company owns this Web site and they would own the book, but we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, it’s gratifying to see that I am not alone. When I chose this topic I was trying to get away from the “Google Says…” blog I had created last year. People liked it but one Googler suggested there would be more for me to write about if I didn’t just focus on Google. That was, I think, a great suggestion (and despite appearances I do have a lot of respect for Google’s many accomplishments and the people who have achieved them).

I do look at other blogs that mention SEO theory (the concept, not this blog). I look forward to reading what other people have to say on the topic. I didn’t invent it. I learned from older hands, many of whom are now less active in the community. We learn from each other. That is what SEO theory is all about. Studying the methods and techniques that we use to influence search engine results.

We built it. Now let’s make it an interesting query space together.