In one of his more surreal moments, James Governor sent Thomas and I a note once that said it was "better to be interested than interesting". After an hour of bemusement I took his point, although Thomas remained(s?) slightly less convinced.
But I think I'm starting to get it. Joe and I had a really strange epiphany about eight months ago when we realised that the easiest way to find something we've written was to do a general Google search for the phrase, which would take us to our own blog articles. This, as you can imagine, was really exciting. But we didn't know why it happened so reliably - how certain articles we've written on Re*Move have really good page rankings. We don't have vast overall site traffic - peaking at perhaps five hundred unique visits per day. Dipping down to about 200 while I've had a broken arm and Joe's spent 2 months 'up the RCA' as we'd say, finishing his MPhil.
I got talking the other day with said Governor about this - and how I can't fathom out why we do well. They're all very specialist topics - but in a proper long tail way (sorry, geek term) we rank well on the things we really follow. Which is nice. I would feel uncomfortable ranking well on things I didn't know about. But it's nice to be high up when you know your stuff.
So here are two search phrases we rock on:
GOOGLE RANKING 4
"Zipcar Review"
Ever tried one of the groundbreaking car sharing systems that are being developed by the likes of ZipCar and UK-based StreetCar? Well a search on "Zipcar review" will see our article at number 4. Which is kinda satisfying I have to say. We're big fans but think they could develop their product and engage with their markets in much more direct, tailored ways. Let's just say more metro-marketing, less global br(l)and. Read our "ZipCar Review" and enjoy. Or hey, Google the phrase! See whether we go up or down.
GOOGLE RANKING 8
"Project Better Place"
Want to know the lowdown on Shai Agassi's $200 million effort to introduce electric car charging networks around the world? Well type "Project Better Place" into Google and today we're number 8. Shai's like a whirlwind of a mind and I can't decide whether he's about to change the world or become the next WebVan guy. Read my analysis that asks 'Is Project Better Place the Big Answer?'. Or Google the company name and see if we're still on the first page.
Kinda cool huh? In fact, so cool that I've decided to add both of these search performances to my Cool Wall.
Who knows how we'll perform in future. That's part of the excitement. I suspect the key is to try all the time to be interested rather than interesting. And writers always, as George Orwell pointed out, have a touch of egoism going on. So for that I apologise. A bit.
Mark Charmer is director of The Movement Design Bureau.