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Creating Subliminal Connections Between Your Site and Hot Trends
by Donna Fontenot.
What if you could associate your site, your niche, or your product with a hot new trend? What if the search results showed your site for that popular new gizmo or movie? What if I told you that you can create a subliminal connection between your site and any hot new gadget/movie/song/toy/etc. no matter what niche your site or product is in? And what if you stood a good chance of ranking well for that hot trend?
Good bloggers accomplish this very feat all the time. But the secret is that absolutely any site can do the same. It doesn't matter what your site niche is because this tactic is completely workable for any niche at all. With just a tiny bit of imagination on your part, your site can utilize this optimization tactic - really, it can!
Remember the old Connect The Dots puzzles you used to love when you were a kid? A series of dots were placed on a piece of paper, each one numbered, in some seemingly random order. But if you drew a line from dot to dot, progressing to each in numerical order, a complete image would emerge by the time you'd connected the last dot.
Now I ask you to consider those puzzles when you think about the common concept of Six Degrees of Separation. The definition of this concept is:
Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six "steps" away from each person on Earth.
Taking these two concepts together, with just a stretch of the imagination, you can connect your niche to anything else with very few leaps required. In this way, you can make a connection between your site and any popular topic, product, or current event. Once the dots are connected, an image is drawn in the minds of users between your site and an emerging trend. Take a look at the image below as you keep this thought in your head.
So how can you connect the dots between your niche and some hot trend? Metaphors and similes are perfect ways of connecting anything with something else. In case you've forgotten what you learned way back in grammar school, here are some reminders.
Metaphor : The comparison of one thing to another without the use of 'like' or 'as': "A man is but a weak reed"; "The road was a ribbon of moonlight."
Simile : A figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in "she is like a rose."
With some imagination and a little poetic license, you can draw a comparison between any two things. You may need to make a few subpoints in between to help connect the dots, but it can usually be accomplished fairly easily. So let's put this all together into a coherent plan of action.
Step One:
Choose a hot trend. It's best if you can predict a trend that is on the verge of becoming hot, but isn't yet, so that you are one step ahead of the crowd who will be competing for that word or phrase. For this example, I decided to pick a hot toy for this season. After a quick search, I decided to use the Eyeclops Night Vision Goggles.
Step Two:
Use your imagination to connect your site/product/niche to the hot trend you've chosen. Let's say your niche involves "thingamawogs". (It doesn't matter if thingamawogs are pipe cleaners or lawyers - anything applies). Now let's connect your thingamawog with the hot toy I chose above - Eyeclops Night Vision Goggles. Now all you have to do is find a way to compare your thingamawog to the Eyeclops. Try concepts such as:
FIVE WAYS THINGAMAWOGS ARE MORE FUN THAN EYECLOPS NIGHT VISION GOOGLES
SURE, EYECLOPS NIGHT VISION GOGGLES ARE FUN, BUT THINGAMAWOGS ARE SERIOUSLY COOL.
THINGAMAWOGS - AS HOT AS EYECLOPS NIGHT VISION GOGGLES!
Step Three:
Write an article or blog post, in which you connect the dots between your topic and the hot trend, using as few "dots" or "degrees of separation" as possible to help users make the connection in their minds.
Step Four:
Use social media to publicize the article.
Result?
Two things should happen if you've created a clever connection, and socialized it properly.
1. Search engines may rank your site well for the upcoming hot trend because you connected with it early on, and you created buzz around it right before the masses did.
2. Users will consciously or subconsiously be reminded of you every time they are bombarded with another reference to the hot topic - very much like subliminal advertising!
It may take a little practice to turn your imagination on - especially if you think of your niche as boring - but it can be done! If you get stuck and just can't find a connection no matter how hard you try, ask others to help. Creativity fuels more creativity, so brainstorm with a group if you need inspiration. Once you find that connection, you can capitalize on an up and coming hot new trend.
Just connect the dots…
As posted in Tips on December 8, 2008.
11 Responses so far: 10 comments and 1 trackbacks
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Excellent Donna! Some simple steps to big increases in traffic on one's website or blog.
This is great advice that has been around forever in marketing but often overlooked by internet marketers. thanks Donna.
Donna,
After reading ppc's, ptc's and all weird and wonderful things, your article has come like a refreshment. Sometimes we have to remember night vision goggles are not meant to be used in day light.
I think the concept is good but the examples need to be improved.
Let's look at recent trend, for example, Christmas. You own a blog about…SEO let's say (btw these ideas come to me intuitively I guess it's not that easy for people that need to work harder or what you say 'use your imagination):
1. 10 Things SEO and Christmas have in common
Then use your imagination for those 10 things
2. Christmas Tree SEO
you can make a pic of chritmas tree and at the top the most important seo benefit then at the bottom more and more…
You get the idea…
Just get one event. Get your blog topic. And find a way how to connect them that will create curiosity.
Awesome post Donna! The six degrees of seperation analogy as applied to this model is really cool. Hot trends are things that go viral easily.
Great article! That's a really interesting strategy, and I'll definitely be keeping this in mind.
I believe these concepts are good as well, but does need to be refined.
Great article Donna. A good way to relate your business content to the general public.
Thank you.
bd
Donna, this is lateral and creative thinking at its best, and certainly at its most interesting. The beauty of this is not even whether it works or not (has to be tried out), but the potential implications (conceptual, philosophical, as well as practical) if one develops these thoughts further. Perfect brain- storming or seminar material. Makes an "old" guy like me feel positively boring
Connecting the dots is a matter of the pschological process of association…it's the same thing being used when you see a half-naked woman and a pack of cigarettes.
If a message and a particular image are used together for a certain number of times the mind begins to automatically link the two together.
Now this may not be logical connections, but the mind does indeed associate. This is also how emotions exude great power upon us although our intellectual mind clearly sees the illogics of it all.