The Slow Food movement is about fostering appreciation for seasonal produce and increasing community awareness about sustainable farming practices in the light of modern agricultural solutions. It’s the antithesis of fast food. It’s an idea, with a larger motive to change the world through community appreciation for the land, animals, things we eat, and people we share meals with. In this modern world of fast food, overstocked supermarkets, and TV dinners it’s a way to press pause and focus on friends, family, and our connections with each other and the earth.
So how is this related to SEO?
Not long ago, you could buy a package of 5000 backlinks for $20, and shoot up the rankings in Google. You could spin a crappy article into unreadable junk and submit it to a hundred article directories, swap links with other low quality websites, and generally build a lot of worthless backlinks and low-grade content in order to rank for certain keywords. Much has changed though, and Google’s Panda/Penguin updates have placed sites that practice these “black hat” strategies in the spotlight. Now there’s a lot more emphasis on original content, quality relationships, and authorship that comes into play for ranking well. Many SEOs have shyed away from looking at keyword rankings as a primary way to measure success and instead focus on creating content that’s actually beneficial, interesting, and worth sharing – because one quality article is worth a thousand unreadable ones. What a concept!
Owning your content
Just like farming your own vegetables, creating your own quality content takes time and patience. You can’t expect to write a world-class article in ten minutes or harvest carrots in ten days. Each takes a certain amount of effort, but once finished, brings a reward that’s much greater. Google places a lot more value on authorship, and uses your Google+ profile as a connection to your website to validate you as a real person, and further, to attribute originality to your content.
Quality over quantity
It’s easy to spin an article, load it into an automated program, and blast it to thousands of websites. But will anyone actually read those? When is the last time you went to 1000articles.com and found anything worthwhile? It’s far better to spend time creating one quality article and publishing that on your own website or as a guest author on another popular site than it is to spread virtual garbage around the web in the form of thousands of spun articles. The Slow Food movement also values the quality of produce, dinners, and time with friends over mass-produced foods and quick meals with no conversation.
Creating lasting relationships and community awareness
SEO extends well beyond simply building links and ranking for keywords and should be treated as an extension of marketing. It’s a way to build an audience, open communication channels, and improve relationships by gaining visibility for whatever niche you’re a part of – just like the Slow Food movement is build around ideas of community gatherings, education and awareness, and deeper connections.
Core principles of SEO and Slow Food include:
- Bringing value to the table
- Creating a sense of community
- Fostering education and understanding
- Increasing accountability
So next time you’re looking for some SEO help, consider what the long-term effects and value of those efforts. Will your create something worth having around for years to come, or will your efforts leave virtual dust bunnies around the interwebs?
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