In junior high, there were cliques — we all remember this. While you were in grade school, the cliques were there too, just not as pronounced as in junior high. In high school, everyone knew his roll and his clique. Just when you thought you were outta school, these fantastic games aren’t over!

Google knows your role, Google knows your clique — so you had better believe they’ll enforce it.

At this point, you might be crying to the Gods, “What does it all mean?!?!”

Never fear my friends; I’ll clue you in to the big G’s devious machinations consider SEO.

The Google Machine, like all good yard aides in junior high, likes to know what to expect out of groups. Yard aides liked to know that the stoners would hang out by the kickball fence, the jocks would hang out by the gym, the nerds would be by the library and the ‘cool’ kids were by the cafeteria. This way, if ever there was any indiscretion, they would know exactly where to look depending on the problem.

Google is the same way, it wants to know where to look. This is why if you run a website talking about football, you should link to other football sites. Run a site that talks politics? Link to other politicos!

Many people are afraid of linking out from their site because they’ll give away their precious, precious link juice. Come on people! Didn’t you learn anything in kindergarten? Sharing is good.

Link out to your clique, make some friends and then the Google Machine will know where you put you in searches.

The hotly contested Pennsylvania primary was finally held yesterday! For those of you who are big political followers (I’m a fan), I know this excited you as much as it did me.

However, while watching the polls last night and reading everything I could get my eyes on, it got me thinking about how the Pennsylvania primary relates to SEO.

When you’re optimizing your pages, you’re looking for the most exposure right? You’re looking to get your message out to as many people as possible — with a catch. These people need to be interested in what you have to say, which is exactly what good SEO delivers.

Both Obama and Clinton were doing this exact same thing! Their goal was simple: get the message out that each one is the best candidate for the job. If you were a non-voter or a republican, then if you heard what they had to say, fine, but they weren’t targeting you.

So, what optimization strategies did they use for their respective campaigns?

Each of them got solid grassroots help, they utilized their management structure and they kept their message clear and on point.

Or, in other words, they used solid content (grassroots), utilized good subheads (their management teams) and added clarity with good title tags (their message).

See? SEO is everywhere people! It’s just a matter of knowing where to look.

What exactly is a digital destination? It’s really more of a concept and an ideal than a specific set of ideals — at least at this point.

That’s what makes digital destinations so ephemeral, you know when you’re on one, but you’re not exactly sure what makes them so memorable.

A Brief History of  Interactivity

With a digital destination, there is interaction. Websites are not traditional documents. This is the culmination of mass communication and documentation.

Take it way back and there were cave drawings, which served their purpose — though there was a slight issue with portability.

Fast forward, you have handwritten scrolls. These were definitely more portable, but there was now an ever so small issue with reproduction.

Fast forward, you have the printing press. Now there are documents for the masses, but they are in bound books, not really interactive. Not only that, but these books weren’t cheap, so people didn’t want to ruin them.

Fast forward, you now have affordable printing. People can now slightly interact with their documents — at least to the extent that they can draw on them.

Fast forward, you now have the Internet. Finally, we’re at the stage where people can interact with documents, can influence their design and can truly experience the content. That’s just it, for people to learn, they don’t need to just sit there and quietly absorb it — they need to experience it!

This level of interaction sets the basis for a digital destination — more on what exactly that means later.

Are you passionate about what you’re doing? Seriously, are you? Whether you’re working online (go team!), working at home or just working because you need to work, you should be happy about what you’re doing.

Right about now I figure you’re probably asking yourself, “And this has what exactly do to with SEO?” Well, as Yoda said in Star Wars, “everything.”

Alright, well, I’m not exactly sure if Yoda said that, but as far as I can remember he did — so just go with me here.

Do you like your site? Are you proud of it? Do you want to tell everyone you know about it? If you’ve answered all of these a resounding yes, then you’re well on your way to a good SEO campaign. Seriously, that’s exactly what SEO is: it’s telling everyone about what you do.

When someone heads to your site and is impressed with what you have on there, do you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to tell other people about it and recommend them to visit your site.

You’ll then have more visitors, who then tell more people…oh yes, the numbers will multiply.

Do you know what The Google Machine will then do? It’ll take notice and start ranking you higher. This will happen because it sees lots of people visiting your site, and if lots of people are visiting, then sure enough other would want to as well.

Oh yes, it all comes down to passion. So if you’re not passionate about your current work, maybe it’s time for a little evaluation. You see, online, you can be whatever you want to be.

These days, everyone seems to be talking about SEO standards — that is to say, whether there should be any standards. This, to me at least, is an adorably cute question.

Regardless of if we want standards, “need” standards (as prescribed by some outside entity) or care one way or the other about them, they’ll never be enforceable.

Seriously, who or what could police the Internet? The most sophisticated Net users are typically those who break the rules, the hackers. It’s not that I don’t think a hacker wouldn’t get a kick out of policing SEO practices, it’s just that I think they have better things to do.

Not only that, but let’s, for argument’s sake, say that we were to attempt to develop a set of SEO standards. Who, pray tell, would come up with these? A government entity? A conglomeration of SEO professionals?

Come on now, have any of you been watching the John Adams mini-series? Notice how well the delegates to the Continental Congress worked together? Yeah, they didn’t — and that was kinda a life and death situation, this isn’t.

I imagine the squabbling that would go on between SEOs would look something like the amazing politicking that happened between the pirate leaders in the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Lots of shouting, little of anything getting accomplished, but certainly a fun time.

Moral of the story: if we ever attempt to do anything as silly as get some “official” SEO standards, sign me up for the conference, because I’m sure it’ll be a wild and crazy, but ultimately unproductive (as far as the standards go) time!