Save Swingtown: An Experiment in Web & Search Engine Marketing a New Blog

Posted on 07. Sep, 2008 by Dave in EMedia, Google

On Saturday afternoon I was catching up on the final two first season episodes of Swingtown, a show on CBS that is pretty good but hasn’t really caught on — in part because of its somewhat scandalous and vivacious premise — but also because of being a summer series that is languishing from one time slot to another.

One of the lead actors, Jack Davenport, starred on BBC’s Coupling — which I also loved. It’s got a great cast and intriguing story lines about relationships — its not just a show about sleeping around. Anyway …

After the show ended, my girlfriend mentioned that she filled out an online petition to keep the show alive. CBS is currently deciding whether to renew the show for a full season and is also shopping it around to cable networks, where perhaps the already creative creators can have some more flexibility.

So I did a little Googling around and found a few fan sites, including some ‘Save Swingtown’ sites and articles but nothing really solid. So while the rains of Tropical Storm Hannah poured down, I figured, what the heck…I’ll make one. Time: Saturday, 2:30pm.

By 3pm, I’ve purchased the domain SaveSwingtown.com. Pretty good domain with the key words I’d need. (Of course, should the show be saved, I also purchased SwingtownFans.com for later use …)

Having just completed building a site in WordPress for my friend Matt (MattKoval.com), I was in a good site building mode so I found a good template (you’ll notice some simliarities to the new ItsFestive.com) and away I went. Time: By 4:30pm, the site was built.

I scoured the Web for the most recent updates to the renewal of the show. I posted a few blogs with links to the updates, and then a few unique blogs including one about the finale’s ratings. Time: 5:15pm.

Then I went about submitting the site to Google and Yahoo! I added the RSS feed to Pingomatic. Then I posted notes about the new site and its effort to keep Swingtown alive on about a dozen blogs that were already discussing it. I added a poll and some links to other related stuff around the Web. Time: 6:15pm.

Dinner time. After finding Uncle Julio’s Rio Grande in Bethesda packed, and then narrowly witnessing an accident with someone going down the wrong side of Old Georgetown Road, we had a great meal at Guapo’s on Wisconsin Avenue. GREAT food. First time there…..had a Jalisco plate and finished up with some fried ice cream. Not helping me lose my gut, but … anyway, I digress… back to the topic. A stop at Target and listening to the Terps get stomped by Middle Tennessee State. Time: Home by 9:15pm.

Much to my surprise, Google Analytics is already showing 300 visitors. Dozens have taken my little poll on where Swingtown should end up. Before I left for dinner the site is nowhere to be found in Google (naturally, the domain didn’t even exist at Noon). Now I’m at the bottom of page one of Google results when Googling ‘Save Swingtown’. Time: 10pm.

In the morning, my first two comments are in. The poll now tops 100 participants and rising. I now Google ‘Save Swingtown’ and I’m #1! Dozens of other combinations of keywords are driving traffic to the site from Google. Other sites are starting to link in. Time: Sunday, 10am.

The downside … despite paying $49 for ‘expedited’ listing, the site still isn’t appearing on Yahoo! Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why they have been blown away by Google.

I’ve really never fooled around with creating single sites based on a single topic, so this was somewhat of an experiment in that regard. And to match the success of this probably would take a really super targeted subject.

But it does prove that the tricks you hear about over and over to get ranked in Google work — getting linked, creating keyword-rich highly related content and a totally search engine friendly site (thanks to the All-in-One-SEO Wordpress plug-in partly), you can quickly go from a site that doesn’t exist to one that will get over 1,000 visits in just its first day.

To quote Larry David, ‘Pretty, Pretty Good.’

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