All Hail the Antihero!

As rogues and misfits gain an increasing share of the entertainment pie, TV shows like “Person of Interest” and “Dexter,” along with movies like the “Dark Knight” trilogy and “The Hunger Games,” are riding a wave of popularity that lands antiheroes at the top of the pop culture heap. Dark humor and complicated moral motives rule the day as these offerings push the boundaries of what audiences are willing to buy into – and who they are willing to root for. Now entering its final run of eight episodes, “Breaking Bad” stands as perhaps the purest portrayal of an antihero we’ve ever seen in mainstream media. The show follows protagonist Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston) as he turns from an unfulfilling career as a high school chemistry teacher to a life of crime, peril and big money, evolving into a ruthless drug lord over the course of the series. Everyone watching has a stake in what happens to White, whether they’re rooting for him to come to his senses and put his family first, to emerge as an invincible American meth kingpin or simply to reap what he has sown. So what is it about these unconventional protagonists that makes them so compelling? And how can we as marketers tap into the power of characters that we love-to-hate and hate-to-love to create campaigns with that can’t-look-away quality? Here are six great examples of antiheroes that have been the face of some of our culture’s most unforgettable advertising campaigns:

Allstate: Mayhem Guy

Allstate is getting a lot of viral mileage out of this character. For a guy who we’re supposed to avoid at all costs, Mr. Mayhem seems like he’d be a pretty good hang. It would almost be worth a costly disaster if we could just tell as cool a story about it as this guy does.

Dunkin Donuts: “Time to make the donuts”

What was it about this man that was supposed to sell donuts? His bland enthusiasm? His lack of clarity and alertness on the job? His doughy physique as testimony to the tastiness of his output? And, yet, you can’t get him out of your mind, can you?

Burger King: “Wake up with the king”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Antihero, anti-appetite and anti-breakfast, if you ask most people after the first time they saw this spot. Yet, oddly compelling…must…eat…egg biscuit…

Reebok: Terry Tate, Office Linebacker

Undeniably funny – even for the Joe Cube-Dweller among us for whom Terry Tate recalls his most traumatic memories from junior high gym class.

Bud Light: “Mr. Way-Too-Much-Cologne-Wearer

With this series, Budweiser may have succeeded in making fun of every single person to ever hoist one of its beverages. Yet so many of us keep coming back for more, in denial that we could ever be too zealous in our touch football play or that we might ever bring too ponderous a cooler to the backyard barbecue.

Isuzu: Joe Isuzu

This long-running series kept the untrustworthy pitchman in front of TV audiences for more than 20 spots. Nobody would buy a car from this guy. But they might laugh and then go buy a car from the company that hired this guy. It just might be crazy enough to be crazy.

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From Panda to Penguin: How to Practice Safe SEO Today

Anyone who has had some exposure to the internet knows the importance of Google. After all, as the world's single most important search engine in terms of user base and popularity, Google wields considerable power to make (or break) any website.

Time and again, Google makes changes to its SEO algorithm, in order to improve its search functionality and usability. Thus, while earlier it was an attack on paid links, last year Google came up with the Panda update that effectively tackled websites which were mere content scrapers or low-level affiliates.

While the impact and implications of Google Panda have been discussed all across the internet multiple times, certain newer changes in SEO algorithm are still relatively lesser known. In this article, we focus on the newest change – the Over Optimization Penalty, and how to tackle it.

What is it about?

To quote Google's Matt Cutts, certain websites are often built keeping search engines in mind, and thus many SEO folks have sites that are “over optimized”, or in other words, “overly SEO-ed”. In short, the axis mundi of Over Optimization Penalty is to target and punish websites that focus more on SEO and less on content quality.

Yes, that's right. With search engines controlling a good deal of incoming traffic for almost any website, many site owners publish content keeping Google and Bing in mind, not their website visitors. In other words, SEO becomes the King, while content takes back-seat. It is this very practice that Google's recent Over Optimization Penalty patch aims to hit at. The motive is to “level the playing field” and crawl websites that offer quality content, not quality SEO.

How does it affect me?

Before going any further, let me present you with (my version of) a handy guide to Search Engine Optimization.

At the most basic level, SEO deals with analysis of data related to your website, so that you can assess what interests your website's visitors the most, what makes them visit your site, which topics are popular (and which aren't), and so on. Once you have such data, you can optimize or tweak your website to provide your visitors with information that they prefer, and avoid information that they don't like.

For instance, say, you are running a website about coffee. Now, you notice that most visitors to your website come by searching for terms such as “how to make awesome coffee”, and not “utensils for coffee”. Thus, you can focus more on preparation guides for coffee, rather than offering advice about purchasing coffee mugs. Similarly, you realize that your visitors are keen on knowing about the production of coffee all across the globe, and you can further provide such informational articles.

This is where over optimization comes into play. In your bid to get more and more visitors, instead of simply providing awesome coffee-related articles, you may also resort to repeatedly offer technically similar or 'SEO-friendly' articles about the history of caffeine, which may or may not be totally useful.

Good SEO is about content, proper coding standards and information hierarchy, and definitely not just about extra keywords.

So what should I do?

Avoid excessive usage of keywords.

The crux of the Over Optimization Penalty is to promote websites that do not play a handicap match by relying on keywords more than the actual content itself. Of course, keywords still matter – but you should not stuff them or fall prey to the 'keyword density' gimmick.

Avoid unnecessary "networked" links.

Let's say you have 10 websites, and you've created a 'network' out of them. Now, if only you can cross link within this network of websites, your traffic will increase – after all, users visiting the first site will be like, “Hey there's more to this network. I gotta visit 'em all!” Right? Sadly, not anymore. Google has been going tough on websites that are abusing interlinking.

Avoid backlinks from uncanny locations.

In other words, avoid link spam, period.

Avoid spending days and nights to 'comprehend the algorithm'.

Do not create content that satisfies Google's search algorithm – instead, spend time creating content which meets the expectations of your users. Google will automatically follow suit and take notice of your hard work. Surely, many SEO experts can claim to give you instant traffic boost and content promotion – but rarely do such tricks work in the long run.

Update your old posts and articles.

If your website has older articles and posts which have a good rank in terms of SEO, it is worth updating them – not necessarily a re-write, but check for broken links, outdated information, etc.

Build links the proper way.

Yes, properly employed link-building techniques can be effective in promoting your website. Certain measures such as writing guest posts and posting relevant comments on websites that are similar in genre to yours can be fruitful.

Implement a healthy on-site strategy.

It goes without saying that simple and clean code, along with validated HTML and CSS promotes better crawling of your web pages. Also, it makes sense to employ plugins and methods to make your pages load faster. Good load times almost invariably lead to better traffic. Similarly, HTML5 and responsive web design are the way to go, like it or not!

Employ social networking.

Websites such as Twitter and Facebook are ideal for viral campaigns – this is a well known fact. Further more, just in case you haven't noticed, Google is now keeping social networks in mind when assessing the importance of a website – in any search page, you can see the +1 buttons under each result, thereby allowing users to like or dislike a website in one go. Naturally, you'd not want to miss out on the social networking front.

Keep track.

Google itself offers a plethora of tools to aid you in your quest to promote your website – for instance, you can consider using Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to your advantage.

Follow the golden rule of good SEO

So, what's the final word? Well, it's pretty simple, actually – Google is trying to offer search results that are clean of subpar content. Your best bet is to create content for humans, not search engines, so make sure you always write for people, not crawlers.

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