| LED Digest 1791: What to Pay for SEO Services? |
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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 adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ April 27, 2004 Issue #1791 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> --== SEO - What to Pay? ==-- ~ Gomez "What I'm after are some guidelines as to what I can expect to pay for this kind of service..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Reciprocal Linking: Dead or Alive? ==-- ~ Ken Evoy "...if you keep it real, you can easily get a decent link-pop that will just tend to grow on its own over time." --== HTML Editors? ==-- ~ Mark Whitman "...don't be afraid of HTML, it's easy to learn and use." ~ Richard Dudley "[FrontPage] bots have been very valuable in corporate intranet development..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Site Stats for Non-techies? ==-- ~ Terry Riley --== Patent Attorney Needed ==-- ~ Ian Dickson --== Monkey Encoding Emails ==-- ~ Rosemarie Wise ~ Mekhong Kurt <Moderator Comment> ======= NEW ===================================== <Moderator Comment> For full disclosure, please note that the following poster has asked to remain anonymous. The fear is that s/he will be barraged with plugs and pitches, when all that is really wanted is some concrete and objective knowledge on SEO pricing (okay, and maybe a little "chest puffing"). Always good to have a frame of reference to go by when plunging into this market, and the intentions behind this poster are true; which is why I've allowed the anonymity in this case. Thanks- Adam ---------------------- From: Gomez Subject: Choosing a SEO... and what should I expect to pay? I'm the in-house design and marketing guy responsible for our 4 company web sites, catalogs and brochures, product labels, magazine advertising etc... The company I work for has asked me to put together a plan to bid on, and manage, key term buys at Google and Overture. "Sure" I say, just as soon as I finish developing retail POP for a national product launch and outfit a couple new trade show booths. Okay, so my point is, I DON'T HAVE TIME!!! I can do all the work on my end as far as setting meta tags, exchanging links and all that other optimization stuff. I'm not looking to be flooded with emails from every SEO on the planet (because I know you're all reading LED-digest). What I'm after is some guidelines as to what I can expect to pay for this kind of service and maybe some chest puffing from those of you who really know this business. Of course there would need to be performance reports that we can use to calculate ROI, etc. The goal of this project is to build brand awareness for a retail product and to pick up inquiries from potential dealers (hardware stores). At this point we would like to keep distribution to the west coats (US) so KTBs need to be regional. We have dipped a toe in this pond but lack of experience is keeping us on the beach. Gomez ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Ken Evoy Subject: Reciprocal linking Hi to all, And a big thank you to Dirk for some great content and concepts about link-exchanging [issue 1790]. I don't agree with everything, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the man with the puppet-strings pulled this snippet of Dirk's... > This simple and long-standing practice represents > nothing more than an opportunity, plain and simple. .. just to get a rise out of us. ;-) Like Dirk said, when Google made link-pop more valuable, the practice of building links became more cost-effective. Properly done, it's still highly work intensive, though. So naturally, the GRQ folks spring up to convince everyone that it can be done in a second, through the nasty practice of link-farm -- yes, I'd agree that this is opportunism. And the GRQ strategies, if they work in the short-term, are killed by the engines as soon as they hit any level of popularity. Why? Because they defeat the needs of the engines -- they fool the engines, just like keyword-stuffing did. And the engines get very upset about that, because you're damaging their core product (funny how businesses get when you do that!). However, if you keep it real, you can easily get a decent link-pop that will just tend to grow on its own over time. Key bases to cover of course are... 1) the major directories (Yahoo, OPD, Zeal before you go "commercial") 2) major theme-related directories (ex., my daughter's site on Anguilla, anguilla-beaches.com, lists in the major travel directories) 3) if you provide good content, you will just naturally get some nice incoming links (not even asking for exchanges) 4) naturally, in the course of research you'll find some sites that you like, fit your theme, and don't compete. Ask them for a link. Again, my daughter simply asks, not offering to reciprocate. She gets the occasional generous "yes" and others reply by offering to exchange. 5) SiteSell.com also provides a free service to all Webmasters... http://value-exchange.sitesell.com .. which takes the high road. How? By taking sitesell.com OUT of the process as soon as possible. By registering, one is not only seeking exchanges but willing to be sought. In other words, the tens of thousands of sites are not just "seeking love," they're willing to reciprocate. You also get to exchange with our SBI! sites, which generally have above-average Alexa and Google PR rankings. You're alerted every week if/when a site matches on one or more keywords that you have provided during registration. After that, you communicate. Simple, takes the work of searching for sites out of the picture and costs nothing. Why offer it? Because it also widens the pool of sites available for exchange many-fold for our SBI! owners - a closed pool of SBI! owners is a far less valuable network of sites from which to draw valuable links. SBIers do have additional management tools to make the management and monitoring of link exchanging (we prefer to call it "Value Exchanging" because that's what it really is) easy (ex., spidering of link exchanges to make sure they remain up and if up, not orphaned). But that is of no relevance to non-SBIers -- what is important to them is tremendous link pool of legitimate sites (the software also automatically weeds out weak sites). Dirk's concept of an "honest site" is an interesting one. There's no doubt that if link-exchanging was of zero or little importance, we'd not offer Value Exchange. We'd likely stick with the the major strategies that I've been suggesting since the first edition of MYSS!, and which are summarized above. And we still suggest to get all those major strategies in place first, and that they only need a few QUALITY links from Value Exchange, so only trade value -- be proud to offer that link. But we'd likely stop with that advice and not bother developing such a sophisticated tool. So... Does the use of Value Exchange (which remember, is a perfectly honest, legitimate tool that merely facilitates an exchanging of links between willing sites) make those sites honest or "dishonest?" It's an interesting concept because the entire tool has been created and is used for a specific "engine purpose." But the process is honest, and the net results are real and good. Would it be more honest if one hired a consultant and paid them thousands of dollars to do essentially the same thing? No. The ends, of course, do NOT justify the means. But if the means are honest and win-win-win for all three parties (i.e., including the Search Engines), then I'd suggest that the ends (a more search- effective Web site) are also honest. So, getting back to the quote at the beginning of this, it all depends if you look at it as an "opportunity, plain and simple" to manipulate the engines or is exchanging simply a willingness to mold your site, in an honest and real way (i.e., we are NOT talking about link farms, etc. here), that meets the needs of the engines (which is, of course, to provide good search results), which creates win-win-win for all? Good food for thought. All the best, Ken Evoy http://webmaster.sitesell.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Mark Whitman Subject: HTML editors > With reference to Mark Whitman's comments about HTML and CSS being > so easy to learn that he's amazed that people use HTML editors at > all, there are good reasons to use them, even if you know the code. - Tom Anson, LED 1789 Yes, I use inflammatory statements ("I'm amazed that...") out of habit :) however I'm not *really* amazed that people use HTML editors and Tom makes a good point. What I truly *am* amazed about is that this thread has lasted as long as it has :) The fact is, I learned HTML the same way Tom did, but that was because I thought HTML is harder than it is. My post was really just saying, don't be afraid of HTML, it's easy to learn and use. As Charles pointed out... > You should only be using a handful of tags (p, a, img, ul, ol, li, > div). Tables should only be used for tabular data, NOT for page > layout. - Charles Oertel, LED 1789 .. you just use the same few tags over and over. When you're used to doing that, constructing high precision, cleanly coded, easy to work with, websites is quick and easy (usually :). Tweaking code created by Dream Weaver can be time consuming and irritating and that's the reason I only used it for a few weeks. It wasn't saving me time but it *was* adding irritation to the development process. I fit the sites I design together like a jigsaw puzzle, everything must lay out perfectly. Did you ever notice what happens to a high precision layout when you add a <./form> tag? A nice big gap in your "jigsaw puzzle" that's what happens. Does Dream Weaver resolve the problem? Not from what I recall. In this case, simple style sheet code saves the day. So, we all obviously have to use what feels comfortable to us and works with our style but editors are not necessarily easier to use or time savers when compared to hand coding. At least that been my experience. Coincidentally, on the day I made the "I'm amazed that..." post a customer of mine who uses Front Page sent me this message: -------------------- "Obviously what happened was FP [Front Page] populated a bunch of sh** in there and I tried to undo it but no go. I see the file has a bunch of unneeded stuff in there and now of course the file is junk. "PLEASE TELL me you have a backup stored or there is a way to get this file and overwrite that mess I have made. PLEASE tell me there is a god because I see the mess and it's a bunch of the words quots instead of ; and the alts say alts not <. "PLEASE save me once again." -------------------- Mark Whitman ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Richard Dudley Subject: HTML editors > It's amazing to me that people use HTML editors at all, > *especially* FrontPage which bloats a page with nonsense > and restricts you to the FrontPage way of doing things. - Mark Whitman, LED 1786 Using FrontPage as an HTML editor in no way, shape or form "restricts you to the FrontPage way of doing things". If you use FP as a WYSIWYG editor, employing the proprietary FP Web bots, then yes, you are stuck with their way of doing things. But as an HTML editor, no it does not, and this is a very disingenuous statement from someone who probably does not use FP (I do and have since FP 98). Anybody's proprietary functions are open to criticism in the code they generate and the methods they use. The mantra of "FP junks up your code" is getting tiresome. FP's bots can be extremely useful, and drastically reduce application development. Much of the function of these bots is invisible to the end user or their browser (such as the Database Results Wizard or Database Interface Wizard). These two in particular make database updates and retrievals very easy and quick. All that code that's added by the bots is executed on the server side. These bots have been very valuable in corporate intranet development, where the needs are great, but the time and skills to meet that need are sometimes lacking. No one really cares about a few extra lines of code on a 100 Mb Ethernet network. In his post, Mark fails to make the distinction between HTML editor and WYSIWYG editing. The value of an HTML editor above a program such as Notepad is tremendous -- line numbering, code highlighting, in some cases code completion (such as IntelliSense in MS's Visual Studio series). Even a rudimentary HTML editor cuts development time and effort. A WYSIWYG editor can also greatly cut development time, and the basic features (such as table drawing) don't junk up your code. Richard Dudley www.bloomeryweddings.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Terry Riley Subject: Website Statistics I want to keep tabs on the visitors to about a half-dozen websites that I maintain, all but one of which are "virtual" domains running alongside my main domain on a hosted server. I use a free service now which is good (AddFreeStats), but it is getting too cumbersome and is too limited for me. So I am ready to step up and purchase a service or a program that will allow me to gather and view each of my site stats in a separate, neat, graphical format. The major programs or services available are too sophisticated and/or too expensive. And many of the services charge on a per domain basis, which again would be too costly. Can you recommend a quality, low-cost service or product that I can purchase that will fit the bill for me? Keep in mind that although I maintain my own websites (I use FrontPage), I am not a techie and don't know how -- and don't want to learn how -- to crawl around the files on the server of my hosting company (Interland). Thanks, Terry Riley Applied Psychology www.appliedpsychology.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Ian Dickson Subject: Patent attorney > ... you hit the nail on the head regarding the reason for my post. > I'm looking for an attorney who can structure things so that the > patent will hold water in a dispute, even with Goliath Inc. - Mark Whitman, LED 1789 In which case understand that the lawyer will be entirely in your hands re how good the underlying logic of the patent is. His role is essentially presentational only - taking your data / documents and turning them into what the legal system requires. But don't expect the lawyer to be able to take a view on the underlying strength of your work. Also you did imply that your patent would be for an area that is not your normal field. If so... Have you hired a consultant, an expert in the field that will be covered by the patent to look for prior art? What you need to do before you invest in lawyers is to invest time and energy trying to prove that you HAVEN'T done anything new. A lot of the time this might simply be a matter of terminology - if what you have done relates to an area with it's own specific jargon, and you lack that jargon, therefore your searches come up blank. But an expert would find them. Only if you really can't come up with anything do you then reach for the lawyers. But if you have got something, good luck:-) Cheers Ian Dickson PS - fighting infringement is much more than filing suit. That's the easy bit. The real cost is the time and money that it then absorbs if the alleged infringer decides to fight. ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Rosemarie Wise Subject: Monkey encoding Hello Adam, I get enough Spam coming through my filters as it is that a few more aren't going to make all that much difference. I think letting individuals decide on a "per email" basis would be the best solution - then those that want a clickable email address can have one, and those that don't don't need to be pestered by those that can't or won't jump a few hoops to make the contact. Many thanks, Rosemarie Wise Web Site Owner's Resource http://websiteowner.info/ rosie, tiggys.co.uk ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Mekhong Kurt Subject: Monkey encoding > I say forget about it and use the old @ sign. With various > filters and services to keep out unwanted email, I have no > problem leaving my email address exposed and available... - Brad Waller, LED 1788 Hi, Adam -- I tend to agree with Brad Waller's comments on this subject, and suggest you consider taking the steps he mentioned even further. That is, you provide us an invaluable -- even indispensable, for at least some of us -- fount of information not easily found elsewhere at *any* price, let alone for free. Brad himself is one example, as he shares his insights and knowledge with us regularly. Ditto Shari Thurow. And there are others, of course. And you go through the extensive work to make these insights and information available to us -- for free. We readers can shoulder the responsibility, work, and decision-making regarding publication of our e-mail addresses. If I include my e-mail address in normal fashion -- This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , or whatever -- then you can assume I implicitly consent to your including it should you decide to publish my contribution. Similarly, I can use your monkey encoding or my own, though if I elect to do the latter, it is of course incumbent upon me to explain how to "unmonkify" it. I imagine you would want to be sure all your readers are aware of it well in advance should you decide to follow this or a similar policy, so perhaps you could announce it a month in advance, say, of the date you plan to institute it; by then all of us likely already will be aware of it when it does come into effect. And it's pretty simple: "If you include your e-mail address without encoding it, that expressly indicates you for it to be published 'as is,' should I select your contribution for publication in the LED Digest. If you don't want it published in standard format but do want it included, encode it, and provide a brief explanation of how to decode it. If you don't want your e-mail address published at all, then don't put it anywhere in your e-mail." You undoubtedly will want to run any such policy past legal counsel to make sure your bases are covered and both you individually and the company as a whole are bulletproof. I don't recall ever having included my e-mail address when I've written LED Digest, but that's not because I want it kept secret. I always do include my site's URL -- and my e-mail address is displayed there (though I recently changed it to a graphic from a text format in an attempt to hide it from spammers' robot harvesters). Come to think of it, I would guess that to be true of most LED'ers. To my fellow LED'ers -- let's help Adam out on this one; it's practically work-free for each of us on an individual basis, and will relieve him of tons of boring, repetitive typing. And freeing him up from that onerous task will allow him to spend more time working on this digest we all value so much. Back to you, Adam. Whatever you decide, I hope it reduces your extraneous work. And as always -- thanks for a great digest! WIth warm regards, Mekhong Kurt, Web Master Bangkok's Voice On The Web http://bangkokatoz.com <Moderator Comment> Thanks Kurt, I truly appreciate your support! Some thoughts... I'm all for the idea of email addy's being 'voluntary' and will mull this over a bit more. As Rosemary also notes, it would be easy enough for everyone if the policy was simply to include an email address in your sig file if you desired it published. This latest 'monkey encoding' (name, domain.com -- which may be useless anyway as Brad Waller pointed out) is really quick and easy for me, so if encoding is important to you I'd choose that method. Just let me know your thoughts and we'll take the consensus. Right now it seems like most are in favor of including email addresses in sig files on a voluntary basis. Off-list communication is important and missing right now, and it would be great to give you the option to include an email with your post for networking with fellow LEDers. Just some thoughts... -adam ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." - Ornette Coleman |
