| LED Digest 2041: Best Site Search Tools? |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest post, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. October 25, 2005 Issue #2041 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Site Search ==-- ~ Nancy Schettler "There are a number of 'site search' products, and I'm not sure exactly how they all work. " ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Anti-Marketing ==-- ~ Willie Crawford "When I read an ebook, I look for only 1 or 2 things that I can put to immediate use." ~ Claudiu Spulber "[The Rich Jerk's] attempt is different than others I've seen..." --== SEO is Dead ==-- ~ Dan Ho "I just want to make a few comments..." ~ Rohit Sinha "Visitor-centric content will replace SEO." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== All About DMOZ ==-- ~ William Ernest Waites ======= NEW ===================================== From: Nancy Schettler Subject: New Post - Site Search I was wondering if any of the LED Digest readers might have some information and/or suggestions for me. Business is good and growing, as is the number of products I have listed on my website. I've tried to categorize them and provide navigation that allows my customers to find what they're looking for, but... I think it's time to add a "site search" facility to the site. There are a number of "site search" products to choose from, and I'm not sure exactly how they all work. So I wonder if someone who has already gone this route might be able to comment on what they chose, and why... For what it's worth, my site is hosted on www.homestead.com and is built using their site builder. So I need something that I can incorporate into my site by cutting-and-pasting html snippets onto my pages. Thank you, readers, for your help! Nancy Schettler Favorite Fabrics www.favoritefabrics.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Willie Crawford Subject: The Rich Jerk Our moderator wrote, > Then there's this guy: http://www.therichjerk.com ... this > is some pretty clever "anti-marketing"... I'm curious if > his e-book contains anything work a salt. Anybody read it? I read it. In fact I read it several times... with market in hand. The bit about coming across as a jerk, obviously was a marketing ploy, but there were new ideas I had not been exposed to on using pay per clicks and even affiliate marketing. I've been online since 1996, and know a lot about PPC's and affiliate marketing. So I didn't expect to pick up a lot, but I considered the ebook well worth the money. When I read an ebook, I look for only 1 or 2 things that I can put to immediate use. I found that in The Rich Jerk :-) Willie Crawford http://www.plexuswireless.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Claudiu Spulber Subject: The Rich Jerk I don't think he paid for the links on the "million dollar homepage", because those have an affiliate id at the end "?hop=affbiz22". I admit too that his attempt is different than others I've seen, but (personal opinion) I don't think his ideas will bring you millions. They make money by convincing other people that the ideas will make them rich, and then those other people start convincing others... and so on. I would call this method "the ring effect". Tell them that if they watch a tape will die and in order to survive they have to make someone else watch it, and that tape will be the most popular one. People buy these things because they are intrigued, curious and so on. And once they're in the ring they play along. Also, if you search well you can find bad reviews too. Regarding the million dollar homepage, it's a perfect example of how people are willing to pay for an idea they like, not necessary one that they can benefit from; add viral marketing to this idea and the result is a popular website. Regards, Claudiu Spulber http://www.backup4all.com// ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Dan Ho Subject: SEO is dead As far as I'm concerned, Michael Martinez's latest post [issue 2040] is just as poor as his previous ones on this thread. I'm glad Steve [Steve Pronger, issue 2039] has a more charitable view than I do. I just want to make a few comments that Michael makes that are too egregious and insidious to let slide. > I prefer a program like AllPosters because it offers a real > product that people want to buy for itself, not a program > that relies on signing up more people to sell the program. Michael here is implying that Site Sell does not offer a "real product that people want to buy for itself." And please don't claim I am putting words in your mouth, Michael, because you are most definitely implying it. Somehow, in Michael's world, a poster is a "real product," but Site Build It, which allows one to skip the entire learning curve of SEO and building effective websites without having to know extensive HTML is "fake." The latter part of Michael's statement above, of course, implies that THE reason people buy Site Sell products, or SBI in particular, is to participate in an MLM scheme so they, in turn, can hawk more of it. Sorry, Micheal, but that's not why I -- nor thousands of others -- bought SBI, so stop putting words into MY mouth as a customer of Ken Evoy. I will unequivocally state that I bought the product for the product, and it's the most "real product" I've EVER bought for building my online business -- and I've purchased a LOT of them. Moving along, Michael says > It costs me nothing to participate in AllPosters' program. > I just cash the checks. That is the kind of affiliate program > I want to be in. Umm, sorry to break the news to you Michael, but it costs nothing for people to join the Site Sell affiliate program as well. And many of Site Sell affiliate's just "cash the checks" too. So I suppose for those people "That is the kind of affiliate program..." they "...want to be in." You make the aforementioned revelation as if it exposes the Site Sell program as a fraud, when all it does is expose you as a hypocrite for extolling one program -- Allposters -- while harshly criticizing another -- Site Sell's -- that is exactly the same in that sense. Now, for your last ridiculous comment that really shows you have close to zero understanding of Site Sell, and SBI in particular: > In every gold rush, the people who make the most money > are the ones who sell the picks, shovels, and pans to the > miners. I'm not buying picks, shovels, and pans. Michael here is implying Ken Evoy is some sort of snakeoil salesmen, hawking off a product (Site Build It) that leads to broken dreams and ruined lives, like the pick and shovel makers of old did to gold prospectors. Only one slight problem with your analogy, Michael: back in the pioneer days the chances of actually striking any significant gold WAS truly insignificant, and perhaps the people buying those tools were deluded -- or at least deluding themselves, in any case. Site Build It has a proven track record of success as the results page testifies. In short, Site Build It owners "strike gold" over and over again. In fact, I've been sitting by that river with a pan sifting for especially large nuggets for a couple of years now. No fool's gold here! http://results.sitesell.com/ That's all I will say on this matter. It's important that I speak up from an ethical point of view, because, as one who has squandered tens of thousands of dollars on products that did not deliver over the last 4 years, it would be a real crying shame as far as I'm concerned if someone reading this thread passed up on Site Build It because they took Michael's erroneous and misinformed advice as the truth. Dan Ho ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Rohit Sinha Subject: SEO is dead > Really, anyone associating SEO with "keyword density" > and link-building just don't know much about search > engine optimization. - Michael Martinez, LED 2040 Michael, I don't claim to know more about SEO than you or anyone else. I also don't know more about Cricket (the game, not the insect) than a lot of people. And I don't mind. Because I don't want to play Cricket. I also don't want to do SEO. Because I plan to get better returns on the time, energy and money that I spend. For the algorithm chasing SEO geeks, it was about keyword density and keyword prominence day before yesterday, and link popularity yesterday. Today it may be about theme based sites or <<assume I Googled and found the term you are thinking of>>. Tomorrow it will be about something else. Remember what I said in my last post about tactics and strategies? Thank you for making my point, Michael, by informing everybody that things get outdated pretty quickly in the SEO game. I appreciate your support a lot. Really. You don't bat for the other team, you bat for this one. ;-) Yes, I know you said good SEO includes visitor-centric content. And I believe you. But when you say that, you still have the SEs in mind. Why do the SEs bring the most traffic to your site? Because people want information, and don't know where it is. So they search. And there are a LOT of such people, as we know. But more and more people are getting connected to each other everyday. You have blogs, online forums, chat rooms, mailing lists, and other communities. You have RSS. So when I want to know about something, I can just go to a forum that I frequent and ask if anyone has used product X before, or what they suggest if I want to do Y, etc. And I will trust the answers people give me. Or when I want to know something about affiliate marketing, maybe I'll go straight to Allan Gardyne's site and search HIS site to see if he has written an article about it. I respect him as an authority on the subject. Why Google for it, if I trust Allan's word? What can the other sites, even if they rank higher than Allan's site for my query, tell me that Allan can't? I use Newsgator to keep a tab on the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Jakob Neilson's article on weblog usability shot up to the highest place in the "Latest Buzz" in one day, and is still there. The number of incoming links for the second place is less than half of that for Jakob's article. The traffic it brought him wasn't because of SEO. All this happened because he is considered to be an authority on the topic of usability. My point is that as I get more and more "connected," I may end up using the search engines less and less. So even if SEO was the best way to bring me to your site in theory, it will not do so anymore. I'll reach your site because of other reasons. As I come across more and more experts on things I am interested in, I will rely on these experts to provide me information when I need it, not the SEs. In real life, when you want to buy something, you ask the opinion of your friends. You don't call up an "Ask Me" type of service. As the Internet becomes more and more an extension of your "real" life, this is what you will tend to do too, more and more. You will ask your friends - in the forums, or follow other people's blogs, visit the sites on the topic that you or someone you know considers an authority on the matter, etc. I am not saying this is going to happen anytime soon, or that it will be significant enough to change anyone's strategy in the near future. But if a significant portion of your traffic is non-SE, it's probably because a lot of people consider you an expert on something. THIS is what I mean when I say, "Visitor-centric content will replace SEO." And when you are considered an expert on something by PEOPLE, the SEs will consider you an authority on the subject too. It's just a matter of time. THIS is what I mean when I say, "Visitor-centric content will replace SEO." And as the SEs start favoring you over others on certain queries, more and more people will be exposed to your expertise, thus starting a chain reaction. THIS is what I mean when I say, "Visitor-centric content will replace SEO." How's that for saying something three times for dramatization? ;-) As for the "artificial distinction" between SEO and visitor-centric content, the lines are fuzzy and territories overlap. When I say, "Visitor centric content will replace SEO," and you say, "Good SEO has always included visitor centric content," both of us acknowledge the importance of content, but the focus is different. At the end of the day, all I want is targeted, motivated traffic to my website. Traffic is the bottom line, isn't it? And I want this traffic by spending the least amount of money, time and energy that I can get away with. And I want a strategy that I can rely on, and that will sustain the traffic. Straw man arguments? I do believe in what I am saying. And like I said in my very first post, "Sorry if it's too obvious to you pros." This will be my final post on the topic, as I don't think I have anything new to add to what I have already said. No point dragging something on and on. Cheers, Rohit Sinha ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: William Ernest Waites Subject: DMOZ uber alles > IMHO, a directory, and DMOZ epecially, has three main concerns: > 1. Is the listing on topic and good enough? > 2. Is it reputable? > 3. Will it STAY reputable? - Michael Motherwell, LED 2036 Not to make this the Michael/William Show, but may I address the three criteria listed? What is on topic? If you looked at the list of other sites returned, you would see that the topic is very broad indeed, ranging from recipes to real estate companies. There are a couple of guides, but they are regional, not specific to Sanibel. What is good enough? My site was written by someone who has worked on Sanibel for 16 years and knows the territory. What is good enough and who decides? What is reputable? The site has been up for more than two years. The editor could have clicked on one or more of the site links, which I regularly check and update, and s/he would have seen that the information is helpful, current and correct. How does one decide if it will stay "reputable?" It has been up and updated for two years. That is longer than some DMOZ editors have been in Web development, I'll bet. But, then again, that assumes there is an editor or, lacking one, that they want one. As for designing for DMOZ, that seems to be the anti-thesis of what is regularly recommended here -that we design for the reader/customer. At the end, though, I believe you may be right. DMOZ is the IRS of the Web. You can't challenge them. They only listen when you get pointed enough to irritate them, then they either smash you (by ignoring your request) or they remove any way to track site status. Sincerely, William Ernest Waites, Eyewriter "Words that make pictures." (c) ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "The reading of all good books is like a conversation with all the finest men of past centuries." - Rene Descartes |
