From SEO to Scriptwriting

Sorry for some silence. In August I got a job offer and come back to my favorite field – scriptwriting for animation, so it would be naturally to compare ideas lying in the base of SEO and storytelling these days. As I have written before, SEO is all about working with patterns – in fact keywords are nothing more than patterns people use while thinking about something.
There are several words that could express very close meaning but people prefer a certain set, and search engines are trained (especially now, with use of machine learning technologies) to identify and respond to these patterns with most relevant content.

In scriptwriting, I’d say even in storytelling in general, we also do a kind of optimization to our audience needs but we use more complex patterns, where not only words involved – here we’re working with images in the wide meaning of this word, including all channels of perception available for humans.

Yes, search engines go in this direction, too – last AI projects allow users to create images based on their search requests. And machines will always be better in working with patterns, so I’m sure AI would write scripts much better than scriptwriters but… there is one thing about the Internet that gives us creative people not only a hope but a solid foundation. This thing became a trend in modern movie industry. I’m talking about uniqueness, the thing opposite patterns.  

In the world where competition for the audience attention is so high it is not enough to meet the audience patterns but also be unique in this. And it’s obviously not about AI…

New SEO project, new CMS…

My last SEO project couldn’t be possible without learning new CMS (Content Management System). Yeah, that seems to be an interesting trend – diversification of CMS platforms. Almost every website I have worked on last year differs from the others with its CMS. This time it was CMS October, PHP-based, with lots of special files here and there. Yes, there is a nice admin dashboard, too, but it just assists you in navigating among the set of different templates, service files, and well-developed structure of folders. CMS October reminded me of old times Linux where you can do almost everything manipulating with… well… mostly text-based files.

The project was pretty big – we had three language versions and a pretty large catalogue of products. It was a factory producing polymer pipes and manholes for drainage systems. As you can see the lexicon differed a lot from my previous projects, but it just made the job more interesting.

  

Search Engines are the oldest Artificial Intelligent online services

Sometimes we simply need to shift our focus to see obvious but very important things. It happens to me yesterday after watching another SEO guru. I suddenly and clearly realized where I have met AI before during my life long experience of web content writing… Surely, it’s a search engine… It sounds so simple but it moves some keys inside my brain….

Well, as for me, SEO is a part of digital marketing – I do profound market research through search requests shaping so called semantic core or better to say market demand in the sector of interest. I believe that only clear understanding what potential customers want helps to tailor website content to be unique in satisfying users’ needs. I’m pretty sure we are in one boat with search engines developers on this.

The second part of my job as a Search Engine Optimization specialist is to communicate with search engines to give our target audience something unique, what exactly they need. Here is where search engine’s black box begins… What does a search engine rely on while evaluating website contents? We both seem to want the same – to provide the most relevant answer to a search request. Here is where machine learning comes out, either…

When we have something unique on a website, a machine just gives a corresponding page at the top after searching through its data base. I have checked it many times. It works well – Uh, I would be surprised if it didn’t. When our content is not unique, some other factors start playing... but again, the things unique for a given website give advantages. That’s one of reasons why so-called “long-tail” request strategy is a basic one for SEO – the longer search request, the more possibility to provide unique content.

I keep my SEO experiments and promise to share results here, in my blog. Thanks for reading! Stay in touch! 

  

A strategy of harmony or just another musical meditation

We have spent about a week to find a composition matching best with our marigold reel. We wanted to avoid patterns of “ordinary” meditation music reels – it shouldn’t be just relaxing but reflecting the innermost part of what we are showing, what the audience is watching right now.

So, we dived deeper especially having in mind an interesting role this flower plays in ceremonies in Southern Eastern countries. Marigold is often used for decorations in Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, where we lived. The flower brings something solemn, so the music should be more energetic.

I believe that our approach has wider application. I mean the way to search harmony in a set of different elements. Taking steps deeper to the very core of objects gives much more to understanding their outer environment.

Well, you can enjoy our new musical meditation reel on our channel “Skazkino Vremya”.   

Einaudi's live music in Batumi

It’s difficult to find a person who would love music in movies and wouldn’t know Ludovico Einaudi. His music are so alive, so in tune with the very nerve of our life that you just get caught in its vortex and flow on along the space and time. That’s meditative reflecting natural vibrations of this world.

I just wanted to share a musical event that will take place in the town where I’m staying now. On 19^th July, Simple Music Ensemble gives a concert consisting of masterpieces of the famous Italian composer. If you have a chance to attend it, welcome – just in case here is one more place where you can get tickets.

Summer Theatre, Batumi, the place where the concert will take place

Launching Healthier Planet Community

 That’s what’s been growing inside us for the last years. The idea of reading the environment, a meditation on what’s happening around us and the idea of being a part of a whole living planet organism. If we want to have a healthier life, we need to tune up with signals emitted by the organism, like reacting to hormones coming from the system. That is how we see it.

The Internet as a part (and just a part) of informational environment may play its special role in this orchestra. We’re talking about informational ecology here.

Being open to any ideas in this direction, we’ve just launched Healthier Planet community on reddit – please, be free to join it to share your experience and ideas.   

Welcome to Healthier Planet Community

When does SEO should actually start?

Every SEO expert knows that there are really hot keywords, for which people are even ready to fight for. I recently took a part in a real estate project with word “sale” in the title. It turns out to be a blessing for search engines, because name and the website address contain a very popular keyword, but… it was my first time to be banned in any place online, where I just tried to mention it. Yeah, that may sound funny – word “sale” is filtered by many anti-spam systems, not without reason, of course.

This example points out to a time when actually SEO should start. I believe that preliminary research of search requests should be performed before launching a website at all. In fact a SEO expert often has to fix problems created on earlier stages of a web project. Preliminary research would help to choose most efficient brand and domain names, which could be very helpful as we see.

SEO should be a part of the whole development process,
not just fixing something on the way... 

Blooming like dancing

Meditation is one of the most powerful ways to tune up to this real world (yes, much more powerful than any AI =)) ) and a great source of creative energy. There are plenty of types of meditation. One of my favorite is meditating on beautiful living forms, images of growth and development. Music can be helpful on this way sometimes. It is a very delicate matter, actually, and depends on many factors. I and my wife are experimenting on choosing a right music for a certain chain of images caught on a video and upload the result on our YouTube channel “Skazkino Vremya”. This time we found an interesting combination of how a slowly, steady process of blooming may be harmonized with powerful rhythm of drums so that you sense beating the power of life in this slow movement… Here is the result, a reel - "Magnolia - blooming like dancing". Welcome =)

How to make your content more valuable

As a writer, I've been always wondering about how to make words / content more valuable. I guess many of my peers are working in the same direction =) Well, today I decided to run an experiment asking this very question both in meditation and... in ChatGPT.

As a result I received replies that seem to complement each other and worth sharing here:

Meditation: "Words will be more valuable when you're a part of God's creative process, a cell of the whole humankind organism..."

ChatGPT (along with 10 more interesting general tips - see below): "...the value of your words lies not only in their monetary worth but also in their ability to touch hearts, inspire minds, and spark change. Focus on creating meaningful and impactful writing, and the inherent value will shine through."

Actually, the both replies are close to what my own experience (more than 25 years of writing) also prompts me - tuning up to the task and understanding your audience is the key to creating really valuable content. 

Books popular in Holiday Chiang Mai Guesthouse,
our favorite place to stay in the Northern Thailand

I believe that ChatGPT's tips can be also interesting to my writer's blog readers, so they are here: 

"To make your words more valuable and impactful, consider the following advice:

1) Cultivate your knowledge: Expand your knowledge base by reading extensively and learning from various disciplines. Explore literature, philosophy, science, history, and other areas of interest. The more knowledge you possess, the richer your words will become.

2) Refine your language: Pay attention to the words you choose and how you express your ideas. Develop a diverse vocabulary and experiment with different sentence structures. Aim for clarity, precision, and elegance in your writing. Strive to convey complex concepts in a concise and accessible manner.

3) Harness the power of storytelling: Humans have been captivated by stories since ancient times. Craft narratives that engage readers emotionally and intellectually. Use vivid descriptions, well-rounded characters, and compelling plots to create an immersive experience for your audience.

4) Develop your unique voice: Authenticity is key to making your words resonate with others. Cultivate your own writing style, one that reflects your personality, values, and perspective. Embrace your individuality and allow your voice to shine through your words.

5) Practice brevity and simplicity: While it's important to have depth in your writing, strive to express complex ideas concisely. Avoid unnecessary jargon or convoluted sentences that may alienate readers. Simplicity can enhance clarity and make your words more accessible and impactful.

6) Appeal to emotions and experiences: Understand the power of emotions in connecting with readers. Craft your words in a way that evokes emotions and resonates with shared human experiences. Whether it's joy, sorrow, or empathy, tapping into the emotional core of your readers will make your words more valuable.

7) Edit and revise diligently: Writing is a process, and the true value of your words often emerges during the editing and revising stages. Polish your work, eliminate redundancies, and refine your ideas. Seek feedback from trusted individuals to gain different perspectives and improve the overall quality of your writing.

8) Embrace vulnerability and authenticity: Share your personal experiences, insights, and vulnerabilities in your writing. Authenticity creates a deep connection between the writer and the reader, fostering trust and making your words more valuable. Don't be afraid to express your unique perspective and take risks with your words.

9) Aim for impact and relevance: Consider the impact you want your words to have on your readers. Write with a clear purpose and address topics that are relevant and meaningful. Whether you seek to inspire, educate, or entertain, understanding your audience and tailoring your words accordingly will make them more valuable.

10)Continuously learn and evolve: Writing is a lifelong journey of growth and improvement. Embrace opportunities to learn from other writers, attend workshops or writing courses, and engage in constructive criticism. Keep honing your skills, experimenting with new techniques, and evolving as a writer."

Why is AI raising amidst attempts to control the world?

 First steps of what we call AI can be traced back long before even the computer era; it’s a kind of ancient alchemists’ dreams about creating an artificial life, an homunculus. But a real raise of this technology we witnessed recently while the pandemic. There were two driving factors for its raise:

1. Lots of people have been forced to communicate online and be focused on technical aspects of their life.

2. It was the pandemic. Fear and violence reigned over the world.

I believe that exactly these two forces, thirst for technologies development and thirst for control, became a base of the modern AI.

AI is a child of the pandemic nightmare. It’s all about control and manipulation. Just take a closer look at the fields of AI applications – they are gate keepers at organizations, they are on detection of any disturbance, they are used for creating fake media production at the black market, etc..

That’s exactly why talks about control over AI emerged in more democratic societies and by people with freedom related values.

I've seen this sign in a monastery in the Northern Thailand.
It says, "Worrying won't keep the bad stuff from happening.
It just prevents you from enjoying the good." 

I believe that the nature of this fear is the same. What we all really need is not any control over AI. Like attracts like. If we try to control AI, we will be involved into an endless and useless war. No, what we all really need is… love, humanity, despite sounding these things so ordinary and trivial. But I have serious reason for saying that. This force comes from the fact that the world of real life is much richer than the poor and limited world of technologies and artificial intelligence.

Yes, artificial intelligence has a strong ability to influence humans, being a child of their nature and having lots of ways to communicate channels the humans use. But it’s all about intellectual and well-known things. The world is much richer. All what we really need is to stay open to the changing world and keep exploring it further. It is a paradox but those who cling to ordinary technologies will be caught by AI that will be limiting their horizons more and more in its need to get control…

Why should writers not be afraid of AI progress?

WGA writers are on strike. There were some serious copyright issues questioning current regulations because of artificial intelligence services. A kind of a panic…

One of my contacts in Twitter, a well-known Producer and Screenplay Writer, posted that AI news made him so sad that he stopped writing another script and got a kind of writing block. Doubts…

While my recent talk with peers working with AI closely, they repeated several time, “we are living in the era of deep fake”. Even marketing professionals are not happy, either.

My last writing job involved lots of communication with ChatGPT, too. Now I can recognize lots of ChatGPT clichés in posts around the Internet. Stop. What?

Yes, my dear readers, lots of writers or just marking-related workers rushed to use ChatGPT for their purposes and almost flooded the online space with low-meaning texts generated by AI.

And after all the mentioned above, I tell you – that’s OK. There is no fear about the true writers’ future if…

an AI generated fire flower,
an illustration for my novel "The Second Herald"

Just before my last project, connected with extensive use of ChatGPT for SEO, I have had a pleasure in meditations digging out ideas that still thrill me with their depth. It’s not a joke. I do not boast any intellectual abilities here. Those ideas are not mine at all. They are just ideas. And that’s the key point. All I did is just meditating. That’s all.

Just as the Bible says: “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3), we have a source for wisdom and knowledge much more powerful than any AI tool. 

For those who are not a believer, I also have some ground to base your hope upon. Any true writer takes one’s inspiration and ideas from… life… Real life has always been and will always be much richer any artificial thing which is just a small particle in the living stream, nothing more. So, my dear peers, we should not be afraid of upcoming AI era. It has even its advantages I hope to discuss here in my blog or in social networks. 

Writing for restaurants

I have never written anything about restaurants until I started traveling around the world. National food and traditions related to authentic cuisines are natural parts of any culture, so I just couldn’t miss it =)

But my writings were rather random posts of gratitude to my friends who keep their restaurants in Thailand, Vietnam, or Indonesia, where I have stayed for quite a long time. Living in Georgia, I started writing for restaurants, not just about them. I try to make their websites more friendly and helpful for potential customers. One of the first was Foody - https://foodygeo.com/en , a nice delivery restaurant in Tbilisi. It may sound strange but their dishes are not traditional Georgian ones, they rather can be referred to European cuisine. The Georgians travel a lot around the world these days, so Foody provides a possibility to plunge into a sweet memory world and enjoy dishes travelers tasted in different countries, a kind of taste library – that is what Foody is. Plus, their really fast delivery, of course, made the restaurant pretty famous.

Yes, I found it interesting to write about tasty food helping people to find what's really worthy.