If ever you wanted an example of how great content underpins great search engine optimisation, this is it.

If ever you wanted proof that optimising your site for human beings is the best way to optimise it for search engines, this is it.

The Woodlands Junior School (Tonbridge, Kent) website isn’t the prettiest thing to look at…

… but boy does Google like it.

A post on the Hitwise Intelligence blog makes this point extremely well. It shows that the Woodlands site picked up over a third of all clicks on the term ‘mother’s day’ for the 12 weeks ending 13th March 2010.

I read the post with professional interest, but with a vague personal bell ringing in my head.

It was only when I looked at the site that I realised why. It is the self same Woodlands Junior School site that my daughter’s primary school teacher had recommended to me for its interactive times table games at a parents’ evening only last week.

In fact the site is a treasure trove of useful interactive educational tools. Wall to wall utility.

No wonder it has a reputation amongst the teaching profession as a valuable classroom and parental resource.

A reputation that translates into search engine authority.

I was the seven hundred and seventy second person to save the Woodlands site to Delicious, and the popular tags suggested by Delicious when I saved it tell their own story.

The content has been developed by teachers for teachers, and this is reflected in the recommended tags – resources, school, interactive, curriculum, junior, games etc.

Once the teaching profession grapevine kicked in, so did the inbound links to the site. Indeed, at the time of writing, Yahoo Site Explorer shows 86,541 inbound links to the site.

With that kind of Google-friendly authority, it’s not surprising that a short term Mother’s Day piece on its homepage outranks all other sites for that search term.

An excellent case-study showing that consistent development of useful content for humans is the best way to appeal to robots.

The reflex reaction to being presented with good content is to share it. Generosity, mutuality and sharing are the engines of social media.

But yesterday an un-named Blonde colleague brought to our attention a good idea.

Our collective initial reaction was to spread the word. Tweet and retweet.

Then it dawned on us that this was actually a very, very good idea. An idea that we can adapt and apply to our own wicked ends. An idea whose potential would probably be spotted by others. And we’d hate to be beaten to it.

Too good to tweet in fact.

(Until later when we’ll obviously give credit where credit’s due).

Meanwhile we feel a bit like this.

Image borrowed from DutchImage.

Ever come across anything that was too good to tweet?

I was invited by TRC media to speak about Branded Content to a group of independent production companies last week. I was the last on of several speakers but decided to spend the day to listen to what the others had to say. I’m glad I did.

The other speakers were Mike Dicks of Bleedinedge, Adam Gee, cross-platform Commissioning Editor at Channel 4, Lisa Sargood, BBC Multiplatform Commissioner, and Charles Wace, Chief Executive of Twofour Group. Each was speaking about their experiences in the realms of multiplatform content, 360º commissioning and/or platform convergence.

As usually happens when you attend an event whose scope lies outside your usual areas of interest, it was disproportionately interesting. That said there were some useful parallels between the world of TV company commissioning and that in which we talk digital marketing with advertisers.

There was a general feeling that the multiplatform bit of multiplatform commissioning was growing in stature and influence – no longer the poor relation of the “main”, broadcast programme idea, no longer the bit that comes “after”.

Parallel 1 – Digital is no longer the poor relation to broadcast.

This is being driven by a growing catalogue of award winning case-studies and some amazing numbers being delivered by multiplatform properties.

Parallel 2 – TV companies are suckers for awards, just like us and our clients.

Many examples of multiplatform excellence were cited, one of the most compelling of which was that of the partnership between CNN and Facebook for the live streaming of the Obama inauguration speech. The numbers (quoted here on Mashable) were tremendous.

What made this especially interesting to commissioning editors is the way in which a mass online event became a “shared” viewing experience. You and your Facebook friends could share feelings and observations in real time, creating the virtual equivalent of the mass, shared broadcast experiences whose demise as a result of media fragmentation is lamented by traditional advertisers.

Taking this comparison further, Mike Dicks described Facebook as having “gone ITV”. In other words its user base has expanded well beyond the geeky early adopter phase and is now a genuinely populist channel, potentially affording populist opportunities to advertisers.

Parallel 3 – Commissioning Editors, like advertising clients, are turned on when digital channels deliver “broadcast” numbers.

Based on his experience of multi-platform projects, Mike presented an ideal multi-platform production process and timeline. Contrary to the instincts of most TV producers this has the digital components of the multi-platform property commencing before the video/film aspects of the project. This was music to my ears. Mike’s full presentation can be viewed here and the timeline is slide 14.

Parallel 4 – the digital aspect of a multi-channel project should be aforethought, not an afterthought.

Building on the CNN/Facebook case-study, Adam Gee waxed lyrical about Sexperience. The online element of this property delivered 1 million page views in a single night, and continues to deliver 5,000 elements of user-generated content per week, long after the series has gone off air. At its peak Sexperience was ranking number 3 on a Google search for “sex”. It is still appearing at number 6 at the time of writing.

He also cited the example of Embarrassing Teenage Bodies. 99,000 teenagers took online STD risk assessment tests in just 4 days.

Building on the theme of user-generated content, Adam described himself as not so much a commissioner for content, but a commissioner for the infrastructure for content. For instance the back-end technical engine for Sexperience online is being re-used for an Adoption project on which he’s working – a direct lift of the technical IP and a direct lift of the infrastructure. Multiplatform commissioning editors are waking up to the fact that there is long term value not just in content, but also in the technical IP that turns that content into a compelling user experience.

Parallel 5 – content IP and technical IP can be equally valuable.

Adam finished his talk with a list of significant differences between what he called “networked media” (they are no longer “new” media) and television. These differences  are the foundation for the challenges and opportunities with which multi-platform commissioners are presented.

And there’s our sixth and final parallel.

Parallel 6 – a TV mindset doesn’t cut it in a multiplatform world. This applies equally to commissioning editors and advertisers.

Amen.