Solstice Coil's first video. Written by Shir Deutch and directed by Amir Armel in the summer of 2006, it recaptures the story of the protagonist of the graphic novel that appears on the album, only from a slightly different angle.
Solstice Coil
SEO and Israeli Prog Update
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 - 11:07
Those of you who have been following my latest post about SEO and Israeli Progressive Rock would be glad to find out that our site currently appears on the first page of results on Google for Israeli Progressive Rock! Now isn't that cool?
It took Google about a week to index the post and make the new calculations for our site. That means that we should start updating the the site more often, so that next time Google will index it faster. For the sake of comparison, I wrote this short blog on our MySpace page, which links back to the post. It was indexed by Google only a few minutes after I posted it!
Notice that our site now appears fifth on the results for Israeli Progressive Rock, not the actual post. But - the description that appears on Google is derived from the post. I'll have to consult with our development team to see if that can be changed.
We are defeated only by Wikipedia's value for Music in Israel, a site called UK70sprog rock that has an article about prog in Israel, and two articles by the guru of Israeli Prog-Rock, Uri Breitman. Btw, his site dominates Google in Hebrew results for prog rock with many key phrases, from Genesis and King Crimson to Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree.
All in all, I think this has been a success. Though one has to wonder... was it just a bit too easy? Maybe in a week's time, we will lost our precious ranking. Or maybe the reason it was that easy is the fact that nobody really uses Google to search for the phrase Israeli Progressive Rock. There are tools to check if that's true, but I guess we'll never know!
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SEO and Israeli Progressive Rock
Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 21:20
What do SEO and Israeli Progressive Rock have to do with one another, you ask? Well, on the surface, nothing really. The only link between the two is that I play in Solstice Coil, an Israeli Progressive Rock band, and I also work at Daronet, a company that provides web development and SEO services.
I started working at Daronet about four months ago, and so far I've learned quite a bit. SEO, if you're not familiar with the term, is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. But what does any of this have to do with Solstice Coil or Israeli Progressive Rock?
The Connection Between SEO and Israel Progressive Rock – After This Commercial Break!
One of my roles as a content writer at Daronet is to write articles for websites that promote certain keywords, which are relevant to the subject of said website. The principles of SEO writing dictate that an SEO article has to include a certain keyword density in order to make Google and other search engines realize that the page is relevant to the keywords and improve the page's search engine results.
There are different schools to this notion: some say that 3% is enough, others say that 6% is quite alright and some. Some say that an article should include approximately 250 words in order for it to be effective, and others say that it doesn't matter at all.
You May Fool a Robot, But you can't Fool Me!
Now let's say I want to associate this site, the official Solstice Coil website, with the key phrase Israeli Progressive Rock. That would mean I'd have to include the phrase Israeli Progressive rock in almost every paragraph (according to the more generous school of thought).
So what's the problem, really? How come everybody isn't doing it?
Because while scattering keywords in an article is quite easy, making the article readable and enjoyable for the users is something else entirely. For example, if I were to write an article that speaks about Solstice Coil and Israeli Progressive Rock and how Solstice Coil is a great Israeli Progressive Rock band that plays Progressive Rock from Israel… I think you get the point. It becomes tedious after a few sentences.
Links Make the Web Go Around
Another important principle of SEO is links. Google defines a website's relevance according to the number of links it receives from other websites, which makes the site more relevant. This principle sometimes even beats SEO writing, and here's one of the most famous examples:
When you search Google for Click Here, the first result is a page for downloading Adobe Reader. The phrase "Click Here" doesn't appear on the page even once, but because millions of sites link to Adobe when they want the users to download a PDF file, it makes Google think that Adobe Reader is the most relevant site for the phrase Click Here. Facebook, btw, appears second.
So if a great deal of websites had a hyperlink that said Israeli Progressive Rock and linked to the Solstice Coil website, like this: Israeli Progressive Rock, it would probably boost our search page ranking a great deal.
It is also important to link back to other pages in your own website. For example: read about Solstice Coil, listen to our music and check out our comic strip!
Does it actually Work?
We'll just have to wait and see. Search Google for Israeli Progressive rock in a few days from now and see where we pan out in the results.
Btw, we've had some unintentional SEO success in the past. For quite some time, Opher's post about unlocking maps on some mobile phone was the most popular page on our site. Which kind of pissed me off, actually, so I started a guerrilla campaign on Facebook to promoted this page: http://www.solstice.co.il/music instead.
Also, our site once crashed due to unsustainable rumors of a connection between us and Bar Refaeli. Though as far as rumors go, that one's pretty awesome.
New job!
Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 21:13
Yes, it is true. After nearly two years of working at Ifat as a translator, I've ended this chapter in my life and moved on to the next. My new place of employment is called Shark, an information group that provides market research and content management services for enterprises in Israel.
I won't bore you with the details, but my position is defined as a "content manager", which means I write, rewrite and translate various materials. It's pretty fun, I'm learning a lot about the world of marketing content as well as the world of diamonds, how to maintain a washing machine (don't ask) and even some SEO.
I don't usually get official credit for my work, but I do get credit on the Israel Diamond Industry Portal. So if you happen to be looking for me on Google, don't be surprised when you find results like this.
Got a gig with my solo side project band on Saturday at the Mike's Place, free entrance if you're up to it. It's starting to pick up nicely, and I'm soon going to start recording again and finishing this god damn album already. Also make sure you save the date of September 10 – we're playing a very special concert with Behind the Sun!
