Shakespeare and SEOWhat did Shakespeare teach us? He taught us that for sustainable and long term success we need to write well. We need to write what people want to read. We need to create content that they do not see everywhere else.
We need to write regularly and with an effort to create variety and depth of content while entertaining and providing new stimuli.
Words, Words, Words
What is a Shakespeare play made of?
Hamlet gives us the answer – When Polonius asks Hamlet what he is reading Hamlet answers “Words, words, words.”. A Shakespeare play is made of words. Much of our content will also be made of words. We may lace in a graphic or a photo or even a video but much of what we create will be content composed of words.
Words work! Words work well! Words have worked well for centuries. Can we be inspired by Shakespeare to elevate our wording when we create our content?
Shakespeare’s Content Sources
Shakespeare wrote 38 plays and only two are thought of as being original stories created by Shakespeare himself. Where did the bulk of Shakespeare’s stories come from?
Shakespeare used a multitude of resources as the base materials for his content – his plays. You need to have an abundance of resources to build your content for your content marketing efforts.
Let’s examine this in more detail.
Management and Leadership
A business manager would do well to read or reread Shakespeare. Many of us were forced to read Shakespeare when we were young. To read Shakespeare today with the extra wisdom you now have as a mature and seasoned business manager will add value in multiple areas. To pick up these classics again with a new eye of examination will be a worthy and fruitful effort.
As managers, what can we learn?
Content and Multi-Purposing
What was Shakespeare trying to achieve? What was he trying to deliver?
Shakespeare desired to deliver a unique and memorable experience. He wanted to deliver a story. He wanted to deliver a well crafted story that could reach into the emotional zone of the audience.
As marketers this is also what we want to accomplish.
A Branding Lesson from ShakespeareWhat are the makings of a brand? It is a good question for any business to ask. Your branding relates to all interactions that your business has with it customers and potential customers.
I want to examine the “brand of Shakespeare” as a way to help us understand the making of a brand. Shakespeare remains in our minds today due to the strength of the brand. As a way to demonstrate this a want to compare Shakespeare’s search volume to some other established brands related to people (people as brands) using Google Trends. We will do this just to get some sense of where Shakespeare may lie on a people-as-brands awareness spectrum.