It’s All About The Data

By Philip James, CEO - Snooth Inc.

Welcome to another edition of the WineMarketer.com newsletter.

If you go and look for an iPod online, you’ll notice how all the images look great and how it’s always described in precisely the same way. For example, Best Buy describes the iPod Nano like this: “New super-slim design has room to rock up to 2,000 songs, in fact.” However, Bid or Buy, the South African online marketplace has this to say about the same item “A super-slim design says you always have room for music - up to 2,000 songs, in fact.” Pretty similar, although I guess Rock music isn’t as popular in South Africa…

Apart from the genre choice, these descriptions are exactly the same, and its not by accident. Apple makes sure that it’s easy for a retailer to find and grab images, descriptions, and content from their site. They know that even though it may be out of their direct control, the job of branding isn’t limited to their own site. How this factual data is displayed, discussed and positioned throughout the public sphere all has an impact on their bottom line.

The same applies even more acutely to wine. As much as anyone can make the argument that the iPod is a luxury device, a statement of fashion an iconic product, you can make an even stronger argument across the same dimensions for wine. People don’t drink wine for its nutritional value, they drink it for its romance, for the feelings that it evocates, and with that said, here are five tips for getting your data to begin working for you:

1) Don’t use a flash site. I’m not saying you can’t use any flash graphics; Snooth uses it extensively, for example. But never hide text or images that people might want to access inside flash. Search engines can not index flash, and bloggers or reporters or other potential promoters of your product cannot copy/paste the data they need from it.

2) Never take down old data. Data, especially text like harvest and release notes, or tasting notes, is seen is highly authoritive by the search engines, and the more authoritive data, quite simply, the more traffic you will receive. If you imagine that your website is like a lighthouse in the dark and stormy night that is the internet, taking down a page is like removing a bulb from your lamp.

3) Do make it easy for people to use your data. It should be easy to find, copy and download. If I’m a writer and I’ve a deadline looming, if I cant find that beautiful photo of your vineyards under the early morning light, then its not going in the article. Like a microwave meal, you want to make it easy for these people to use the text that you want the end users to read.

4) Pay attention to Search Engine Optimization. You don’t need to go crazy over this, but make sure that the basics are done. After the initial outlay, search engine traffic is free traffic. It’s also some of your most highly qualified.
5) Make sure the data is accurate on your own site. As you help make it easy for search engines and supporters to leverage your data, it will proliferate across the web. If the original was factually incorrect, the second its syndicated, you’ve lost the ability to correct it. You can always fix it on your site, but it will never get corrected throughout the web at this point.

What you want is a snowball. You go and seed your site with accurate, original and interesting data, make it easy for both search engines and people to access and leverage your data. Then, as the snowball picks up momentum, your supporters can be your brand ambassadors, spreading the word about what you do. Pretty soon, mentions of your wines will be popping up all over the web, on sites you’d never heard of. That sounds scary, but every time this happens it’s like a tiny little beam of light pointing back to your solitary lighthouse, you get enough of those, and pretty soon the sky doesn’t look so dark any more.

Cheers!

Philip James, CEO - Snooth Inc.

Philip James is the founder of Snooth, the world’s largest and most comprehensive wine database, featuring millions of reviews and hundreds of thousands of wines. Snooth has over 250,000 monthly users and makes it easy for wine lovers to find better wine, seamlessly purchase wine, and enjoy a community.

This entry was posted by admin on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Data, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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