It’s very nearly time for the ‘year in review’ articles and special supplements and I have come across an early one: the top 10 Internet searches of the year according to Yahoo. You can see the full list at http://yearinreview.yahoo.com/2010/us_top_10_searches#Top%2010%20Searches
but here are the top 3: BP Oil Spill, World Cup and Miley Cyrus. Also in the Top 10 are 5 more celebrities, a ‘celebrity’-making show and the iPhone. So my question to you is: do you want to be right up there in such elevated company? In case you are wondering, the search data for 2010 for Google is not yet available, but Bing also has predominantly celebrities on its top searches list. My own unscientific sample shows that the most popular of my blog posts is the one entitled ‘Avatar and Anthropology’ – and I bet you can tell which of the two words has got people enthralled, can’t you?!
So here’s the rub. Entrepreneurs and consultants, retailers and, in short, all those who need to have an online presence are told to do search engine optimisation, think carefully about keywords, write exciting copy, attend this-and-that sales or marketing course… All with the ultimate purpose of being easily found by as many people as possible. But what if people are not really searching for your serious-minded business anyway? Do you stick to your small audience or do you jump on the bandwagon of popularity and use those trigger words creatively? For instance, in my case, should I say something like: ‘Justin Bieber is a good example of globalisation and intercultural communication’ (and tag it under ‘Justin Bieber’ rather than ‘globalisation’ – which has a far smaller audience and a different spelling anyway in other parts of the world)?
The temptation is always there to broaden our appeal. We even find ways to justify it to ourselves (and others) by saying that ‘research needs to come out of its ivory tower’. Or ‘management gurus need to speak plain language instead of jargon’. And I completely agree with both of these statements. But it’s a question of how we do it. I can think of a handful of people who do it well, but many more who don’t. Can you?
Culture Broker's Musings 
Hi Sanda,
I have been delighted reading your post and yet nothing in your title refers to the top 10 hotest topics and even worse there is no gadget words !
Why did I clicked ?
#1 I recognize myself as being part of the same community as yours
#2 we have established connections previously trough comments
#3 you captured my attention because you are not in the SEO business
#4 You mentioned that “Avatar and Anthropology” was the most read article and so what ? What if your readers were mainly 13 years old Avatar’s fanatics? I don’t even want to read it.
So Sanda, keep doing the good job and providing useful information about culture and if you mention Justin in your blog : I’ll quit 🙂
Anne
Thanks, Anne, you made me laugh! Promise I won’t mention Justin Bieber – and you may have noticed I deliberately did not tag him…!
I clicked in through for most of the same reasons as Anne.
I been on the net more than 12 years and have been tempted from time to time to do that- use ‘key words’ not really related to my blog. But the problem is that I find it is misleading. I mean, for me, if I put in such ‘celebrity names’ am I getting the traffic I really want? Probably not. It’s the age old debate of quantity vs. quality! Keep it up. I love your blog.