The Tao of Search Engine Marketing: Dualism in SEO

The Tao of Search Engine Marketing: Dualism in SEO What do I mean by "Tao"?

Tao represents the basic concept of Taoism. In general, this term belongs to the spiritual atmosphere of ancient China and can be translated "way", "mean", "art", "skill".

Tao means the idea of skill, talent for a certain thing, of ability, not only related to the ancient sovereigns of the East. A fragment shows that it was understood that even ordinary people could demonstrate something of this Tao, from Chuang-tzu book of the homonymous author.

The followers of the robber Kih asked him, saying, 'Has the robber also any method or principle [i.e. Tao] (in his proceedings)?' He replied, 'What profession is there which has not its principles? That the robber in his recklessness comes to the conclusion that there are valuable deposits in an apartment shows his sageness; that he is the first to enter it shows his bravery; that he is the last to quit it shows his righteousness; that he knows whether (the robbery) may be attempted or not shows his wisdom; and that he makes an equal division of the plunder shows his benevolence. Without all these five qualities no one in the world has ever attained to become a great robber.' Looking at the subject in this w ay, we see that good men do not arise without having the principles of the sages, and that Kih could not have pursued his course without the same principles. (Chuang-tzu, Chap. 10, "Cutting open Satchels")

Whether it is appropriate to think of a professional thief actually exhibiting virtues like righteousness, wisdom and benevolence depends on whether you agree with Aristotle's understanding of the "unity of the virtues" as a philosopher, or the 10 Commandments, or basic common sense morality. I happen to think it is inappropriate to assign those virtues to such a career criminal on all three counts, but I digress. Despite the specifics of the example here, I think Chuang-tzu has something very important to say. Skill, talent and excellence in one's field do require certain principles, principles that ordinary people should value and emulate: sageness, courage, righteousness, wisdom, and benevolence. If you want to excel in your own field of business, you must understand and master the principles of your trade; you will find these virtues invaluable as well. In addition to improving your life overall, they will help you to perfect the art and skill of your trade.

Search engine optimization is definitely both an art and a skill. To excel in both aspects, to stand out from others in the trade, you must understand the principle of dualism that underlies and permeates the craft as a whole and in parts (this requires sageness and wisdom). (Your clients and colleagues will appreciate your demonstration of any of the virtues mentioned above in your dealings with them as well.)

What do I mean by "Dualism"?

Dualism: in philosophy, the use of two irreducible, heterogeneous principles (somet imes in conflict, sometimes complementary) to analyze the knowing process (epistemological dualism) or to explain all of reality or some broad aspect of it (metaphysical dualism). Examples of epistemological dualism are being and thought, subject and object, and sense datum and thing.

"Dualism." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2003. Encyclopedia Britannica Premium Service. 09 Jul, 2003 (www.britannica.com

Instances of dualism in search engine optimization are numerous. Here are a few. The fact that you must write content that persuades both your human audience (the right psychological effect) and that pleases the search engines (the right keywords and context) is an example of dualism important to the SEO process. The fact that you must understand both certain Internet technologies and principles of marketing is also an example of this. The fact that every web page is akin to "two sides of a coin", the code underneath vs. the visual appearance in the browser, is another very important example of dualism important to the SEO process. There is a dualism related to SEO inherent to every web page. One side of the coin is important to search engines, the other side is important to your site visitor.

How do we understand and exploit the dualism of web pages toward better SEO?

Are you going to tell us how we can give the search engines one thing and the human site visitor something else? Yes! But can we do it without getting penalized by the search engines? Yes! So, what are saying; we can have full-proof cloaking?! No, what I'm saying is that when you're ready, you won't have to! You can do this without cloaking!

I'm going to talk about giving your content to the search engines in any order you see fit to enhance your optimization strategy and increase you rankings while at the same time giving the human visitor an exceptional user experience: graphics, great design layout, complicated table structures, flash, whatever you want. The information you give the search engine and the site visitor will be exactly the same - no "bait and switch" or "invisible text" involved, which means no reason for the search engine to penalize you. What you change is the structure of that information.

When you understand the basic principle that the browser reads and visually translates the source code of your web page to produce what the site visitor sees, that the search engine crawler only reads the source code, and that the web developer can control or direct the visual translation process of the browser , you know you have the power to structure the code however you want for the search engine crawler and have it appear in the browser however you want for the visitor. JavaScript (in an external .js file of course), CSS (in an external .css file), and cro ss-browser compatible DHTML is all you need to have the power to "cloak" without cloaking and profit without penalty from the dualism inherent in all web pages.

How do we do it?

Implementing this technique actually varies from situation to situation. Remember its sageness and wisdom we're talking about here, understanding and applying principles, not cookie-cutter, hard coded solutions. However, I can outline for you the general strategy:

1. Create your web page with the layout design you want.

2. Include your keyword and context optimized copy in the page as you want the visitor to see it.

3. After your layout design is done and your content is written, 1. "Extract" the text important to you for search engines from its present location in the code, leaving [br] tags to preserve spacing where needed; 2. Take the "extracted" text and place them in separate [div] tags for each unit or block of text.

4. Create CSS code to assign any formatting or attributes to the [div] layers which now wrap your "extracted" text so that any attributes they would have inherited from their previous environments (e.g. class ids, table cell attributes, font colors, and so on) are preserved when displayed in the browser.

5. Create JavaScript code that sets the correct position of the new layers upon loading of the page and resets the position appropriately upon resizing of the browser window according to their visual coordinates and appearance at their original positions before "extraction". Test the appearance and behavior of the page in different browsers and adjust CSS, JavaScript, or [br] spacing as needed.

Note: The Power to "Cloak" Without Cloaking and Profit Without Penalty Okay, I didn't say it was going to be easy! But it is search engine friendly, powerful, and penalty free! It can be a fairly complex process but sometimes it's easier than it looks. You don't have to do it all yourself however. Do the optimization yourself, let your web designer create the design, layout, graphics; and have a web programmer create the JavaScript code for you and test it. Or for the JavaScript code, contact me and I'll see how I can help if you can't find someone else.

The Tao of Search Engine Marketing: Dualism in SEO - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Marshall's Website.

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