> Well, the marketing strategy is intended
> to be audience-centric, but
> structured around the editions as a way
> of organizing the project.
> That's somewhat different from whether > the website is audience or
> edition-centric.

"Marketing strategy" sounds more formal and organized than what I am familiar with and aware of. Are there any pointers to specifics on this, outside of the website efforts? I am interested because a formalized strategy would help us make design decisions about collateral / materials we're asked to create on the design team.

> > We have a secondary
> > marketing strategy around more focused solutions: for example, the
> > Python Classroom Lab has the simple target of teachers and instructors.
> > Or the various desktop spins, which target enthusiasts of the
> > particular desktop technologies.
> Do we really actively market these though?

> Secondarily. :)

This thread is the first time I heard of the Python Classroom Lab. It sounds like an awesome project.

>
> >
> Search engine position is an easy number to get and compare over time,
> but is there convincing evidence that it's meaningful? Is it meaningful
> in either of these senses?:
>
> 1 - Good position in rankings will help make $THING more popular
> 2 - Good position in rankings reflects popularity of $THING

> I think #2 is _probably_ true. And #1 is
> probably true if advertising
> works at all, which it seems to.

A bunch of data I referenced was snipped wrt specific terms and results I saw; I am wondering if you can corroborate them w the tool you have?

I dont understand how #2 can be true if the #1 ranked dev desktop by far and #2 ranked desktop by quite a lot arent reflected in the results at all. How can it reflect whats going on when 75% of the dev desktop base (win 50 + os x 25) isnt reflected?

Of course advertising works, but SEO isnt advertising. None of this works without data. You need data to drive SEO. You need information about the audience youre targeting to even know what you're optimizing for so it's relevant and not unnaturally forced into your content. Do we have these marketing data resources?

I think cleaning up the metadata on our site and keeping content fresh etc - these are good things. There's a good oppty here to clean things up, make our message clearer, update things and maybe even institute better processes / initiatives for keeping them fresh. However, lacing our site with keywords and stuffing our page titles with buzzwords to vy for the attention of a bot whose algorithm changes daily is not ok. The core function of the website is to communicate a readable message to humans, right? Let's not compromise the consistent and coherent voice we've established....