Cincinnati, OH – Several local trucking and hauling companies fell victim to faulty misdirection during recent online searches for ‘Dump Trucks for Sale Cincinnati’ in the hopes of strengthening their respective fleets.
According to Dave Morris of Queen City Hauling, “I went on Google and typed ‘Dump Trucks for Sale Cincinnati’ and I found myself directed first to our local waste-water treatment facility, then to a manure processing plant about eighteen miles southeast of the city.”
Harley Snow of Red’s Sand & Gravel had a similar experience, albeit with very different results. “Do you remember Sisqo? That guy who sang ‘The Thong Song’ like twenty years ago? Google tried to get me to click on his official fan club page.”
Jean Creighton, a Fleet Coordinator for Bridge Transport echoes the above after being directed to a third-party service that claims to “make break-ups easy” by stepping in and facilitating the severance of a relationship for any party interested, but otherwise unwilling to take the leap.
But why?
In the high-stakes world of search engine optimization, one can never place too much importance on the role played by keyword research. And if that sentence sounded like gibberish to you, you’re probably one of the billions of consumers worldwide who exist in a state of blissful ignorance, believing that you actually make up your own mind regarding the products and services you’ve become interested in, and the purchases that you make.
Have you ever scrolled through your social media newsfeed while watching television and, during a commercial break, ads begin to pop up on your smartphone for the very same products that are being advertised on your television screen? Have you ever mentioned a desire to see a movie, an interest in traveling somewhere, or a need to buy something as mundane as cat food, only to see ads and articles manifest themselves in your newsfeed?
Well, that’s what happens when you sync your devices, invite Alexa into your home or enable Facebook Messenger to access your phone’s microphone. You are always being recorded, and that information is being used to build a database of your interests, and place products in front of you, hoping to trigger your consumerist impulses. And sure, the government is also spying on you and your personal information is being sold off in bulk to the highest bidder on the dark web; but let’s be honest, most of you have very little money in your savings and live very simple, boring lives.
But those consumer insights are also being used to inform the efforts of digital marketers everywhere. Their goal is to position their employer and/or clients among (if not atop) the top-ranking Google results for a particular search. One of the things such companies do is to create high-quality written content based on a specific topic (or ‘keywords’) that will be helpful to customers if they do an online search for it. By luring more visitors to that content (and enticing them for lengthier stays) search engine ranking positions can be improved upon.
Example: if you want to compare the 2019 Ford F-150 vs. 2019 Chevy Silverado, you might hop over to Google and type ‘2019 Ford F-150 vs. 2019 Chevy Silverado’. The top rankings are likely to be built around those keywords and might include insights from the respective manufacturers, unbiased third-party reviews of paid marketing insights. But someone has to come up with those keywords…
Unfortunately for Cincinnati truckers in search of Dump Trucks, they’re based in the same city as Ephew Digital Marketing. Formed in 2013, ‘Ephew’ was once revered for their innovative strategies, but with time they’ve slowly devolved. With more and more embittered internet trolls hired into their ranks, Ephew has been accused of lazy S.E.O by industry insiders. But with little competition in the greater-Cincinnati area, they might just be the only shop in town.
One neck-bearded insider, who wished to remain anonymous offered the following look behind the curtains at Ephew, “Yeah. I was the dump truck keyword guy. Our client was a dealership that wanted to sell more dump trucks and chassis builds. But how the hell was I supposed to make that interesting, let alone sexy, across multiple articles? I always start by repeating the keywords to myself and then breaking them apart to find the core of the keyword. ‘Dump trucks for sale Cincinnati’ boils down to dump trucks. So right off the bat, I’m thinking of ‘dump’ in the context of taking one. You know…sh*tting. But what else? We dump people when we break up with them. Next thing I know I start singing ‘Thong Song’ to myself, you know how it goes, ‘She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck. Thighs like what, what, what.’ So I start tying articles back into those sort of things, just to find an angle. Unfortunately, we hired a new batch of web publishers who built in some misleading links and next thing you know we’ve created some of the best results in Cincinnati for fecal processing, break-ups, and the former lead singer of 90’s R&B group Dru Hill. On the other hand, thong sales are up. I don’t know if that’s because of us, or not, but hey. You’re welcome.”
Truth be told, we don’t even know where to go with this story from here. Even worse, we can’t stop singing the damn Thong Song.
