| LED Digest 2042: SEO for Beginners |
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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 .............................................. November 1, 2005 Issue #2042 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== SEO for Beginners ==-- ~ Peter D'Aprix "You have many readers...who might like a concise description of SEO." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Site Search ==-- ~ Steven Rothberg "We use FreeFind..." ~ Steve Pronger "...give FreeFind a try..." --== Anti-Marketing ==-- ~ James Miller "...the Million Dollar Page has generated a lot of traffic and the search engines are responding." ~ Reg Charie "...the content in the real jerk seems accurate." --== SEO is Dead ==-- ~ Dave Roberts "I'm glad to see that the era of "tricks" is ending." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== The Google Sandbox ==-- ~ Noah Masterson ======= NEW ===================================== From: Peter D'Aprix Subject: SEO for Begginers Dear Adam You have had a highly interesting battle of ideas going regarding SEO. Very sophisticated and fascinating for those who have a pretty good idea of what SEO is all about. But I also know that it took me months of reading LED to figure out what the initials stood for, then more to understand what they actually meant. You have many readers new to your newsletter and/or the web who might like a concise description of SEO. At http://www.ipower.com/enewsletter/issue18_02.html a hosting company has published a single page synopsis of SEO that is really well worded for those just entering the fray if you want to publish the link. All my best (and I have nothing to do with the hosting company other than to receive their newsletter). Peter D'Aprix http://peterdaprix.com <Moderator Comment> The link Peter gave is no longer pulling up the page. However, Google's cache was helpful. Here's a rundown of at least part of the page's description of SEO: ----------------------- "The most important reason to have your Web site is to effectively provide the information you want to the visitors on your site. However, maximizing your site to allow search engines to list it is important, too. The way to do this is through search engine optimization (SEO). "Most people know that SEO is important to their Web site's success. However, SEO can be pretty confusing, too. Not everyone is exactly sure what SEO is or how SEO works. "So, if you are confused by SEO, then read on. We will de-mystify it for you with some basic information. "Let's start with the definition of SEO: SEO is the art and science of making your web pages attractive to search engines so that they may pick up your site as a listing when people search for terms related to your site. "The best way to begin the search engine optimization process is to get your Web site ready for optimization. Let's start with your homepage. Look at it carefully and write down the words and phrases that best define your site. Try to form two or three-word key phrases, since it is easier to get higher placement in search engines for phrases than single words. "The next step is to incorporate some of your top keyphrases into your home page. This is important because search engines scan the text on your home page for these keyphrases. The title should come first - then the name of your company. The title of your home page must include your main keyphrases, because this is what search engines display as text when your link is posted. Also, in the description of your company, use at least one keyphrase and keep it under 30 words. Be careful that you do not put too many keyphrases on your homepage, however, because search engines may consider this spamming. When it comes to homepage text, you should have a balance between keywords and regular text. "Also, some search engines use metatags to describe where they should list web pages in their database. Metatags are non-displayed text written in HTML intended to describe a Web page for the purpose of allowing search engines to catalog the content of a Web page. In order to optimize metatags, incorporate your kephrases into these metatags and place them into the HTML on your web page [...] "Also, make sure that your pages are under 50KB, have minimal HTML coding and little or no Flash design, and that you have a site map / index for your site. All of these things help the search engines read your site. "Most of the most modern search engines have scanners or "spiders" that will go out and find the information on your site to index it within search engine pages. However, we do recommend that you go to the major search engine Web sites yourself and find out the best ways you can submit your site directly to the search engines." http://www.ipower.com ----------------------- Hope this helps, Adam ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Steven Rothberg Subject: Site search > 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... - Nancy Schettler, LED 2041 We use FreeFind http://www.freefind.com. There is a free version, as the name implies, and a paid version. We started using the free version until we were satisfied that it was returning the results that we wanted and otherwise operated properly. When you use the free version, text ads are inserted at the top of your search results. If you're running Google AdSense or other such program on your site, then the addition of those links likely won't be troubling. We upgraded to the paid version in large part to retain more control over the advertising that appears on our site. While there were never any inappropriate ads on our site as a result of using the free version, the addition of the text ads made the search results page a little too ad heavy. Customer service and support have been good. Their web site is easy to use and fast. Updating your page is a snap. You just create a template for your site on your computer, go to their site, select the type of search results that you want to display, use their "browse" feature to select the template file from your hard drive, and then submit. They host your search results page so any changes to their program are automatically reflected on your page. You don't have to worry about downloading updates or otherwise maintaining or enhancing the program. Steven Rothberg CollegeRecruiter.com job board http://www.collegerecruiter.com ------- new post - same topic ------ From: Steve Pronger Subject: Site search Hi Nancy, You might want to give FreeFind a try - http://www.freefind.com. It's easily set up. You only have to paste a few lines of code to your home page and the freefind spider does the rest. There is a free version which includes advertiser links on the results page, or the paid version removes the ads and you can add your logo. There is a handy side benefit as well. You'll get links to every page on your site that are keyword targeted (as long as you included your keywords in your page titles) from a high PageRank page. You can see it in action here: http://www.bestbusinessbuyes.com.au/. Type something like "bakery' into the search box. Cheers Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com ------- new post - new topic ------ From: James Miller Subject: Anti-marketing A quick point on the Million Dollar Home Page. The link I put there has got entwined round the search engines already. I deliberately linked to an orphan page and didn't post it to the search engines, so it only has the like to MDHP. Obviously, the MDHP has generated a lot of traffic and the search engines are responding. Perhaps it's a cheap way of getting listed? James Miller Daisy Analysis: www.daisy.co.uk ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Reg Charie Subject: Anti-marketing > I don't think [The Rich Jerk] paid for the links on the "million > dollar homepage", because those have an affiliate id at the end - Claudiu Spulber, LED 2041 Perhaps not, but I always make a number of "tracker affiliates" to monitor referrals. It makes it easier to check incoming traffic for specific links by looking in the affiliate admin than to search them out in the regular logs. The affiliate admin shows me the totals for such links at one glance. > 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. Millions? Perhaps, but associates of mine have made hundreds of thousands using similar affiliate sales techniques. While it is true that convincing other people that the ideas will make them rich is the case in a lot of the get rich promotions, the content in the real jerk seems accurate. As with Willie Crawford, I have been in business online since 96 and *most* everything the jerk says rings true. I too have picked up a number of tips that I am putting into effect. I like the jerk's negative marketing concept. If you can get visitors interested immediately, you stand a better chance of making a conversion. Case in point: While looking for methods to develop our traffic, (and sales), for our www.metacryl.com website we signed up for 10,000 visitors from a company that promised "targeted" visitors. One sale will more than pay for the cost of the traffic. Closely monitoring stats we saw that 100% of the visitors were showing as 0 seconds stay duration. In an effort to capture their attention, (their system uses pop unders showing the designated page on our site), we first set up a normal advertising headline in 2nd coming font size that said "$1300 in free development tools." When it did not have the desired effect, we changed to a negative advertising headline saying: "ignore this and you lose $1300 in free development tools." Since the addition of the headline 2% have stayed longer than 0 seconds with a few coming back for another look. It seems that negative advertising does work. Thank You, Reg Charie www.metacryl.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Dave Roberts Subject: Irresponsible SEO is dead Clients who hire me sometimes think they are hiring someone to do SEO. I tell them that I do Web marketing, and will help them with as part of that effort. I tell clients that I work two problems: getting visitors to the site and turning those visitors into customers. Which means that I must deal with all parts of the problem -- search engine position, yes, but for terms that my measurements show cause visitors to spend a long time on the site. Similarly for pay per click, I carefully measure those results too, tracking them through the site log, to be sure the money goes into terms that bring customers, not just visitors. I've seen competitors who promise to "drive traffic". I don't promise anything, other than to work diligently to improve the business. It's been my view that this is what responsible SEO has been all along -- getting good positions on terms that are important. Which means you have to find out which terms are important. Happily, the search engines are getting smarter, so a good SEO job is becoming closer and closer to simply presenting a well-organized site that presents its information in a concise, easy-to-use fashion. Which is exactly what an effective site should be anyway. I'm glad to see that the era of "tricks" (which I have never used) is ending. Dave Roberts http://www.davedoesitall.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Noah Masterson Subject: Another Google Sandbox Question Hi LED-ers, My wife and I publish a website, DC Baby, offering daily information for parents in the Washington, DC area. Soon, we will also be selling a book via the website. Currently, Google accounts for the majority of our search traffic. However, paradoxically, it is actually difficult to find our website in Google. A search for "DC baby" or "DC parenting guide" yields nothing. (Meanwhile, Yahoo and MSN deliver decent results.) We seem to only get listed on Google's results pages when the search terms relate to specific content, such as "Jonah's Treehouse" (which links to a post about an area provider of classes for kids). We've only recently been removed from Google's sandbox, but since you can't find us when searching by name, it seems like we may still have one foot in the sand. Is this typical? Could it be we are being penalized for having all caps in the title? (This was a stylistic choice when we named the book.) Any thoughts? Noah Masterson www.dc-baby.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. 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