| LED Digest 1804: Finding Credible SEOs and SEMs |
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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 ................................................ May 18, 2004 Issue #1804 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Credible SEOs and SEMs ==-- ~ Clint Whitsett "Where can I find an industry standard or required credentials that I can use to validate a potential SEO?" --== Latest Results from Google Alert ==-- ~ Lew Wurdeman "...many of the sites showing up in the Google top 30 are...pages almost devoid of content or value..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The Demise of Email? ==-- ~ Ian Dickson "I was accused of spamming because my URL appeared in an edition of the LED..." ~ Jim Gatton "I would imagine that telephone calls would certainly be even more effective." ~ Kathryn Martyn "...the majority of spam is...from those who purchase CDs..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Yahoo Site Match ==-- ~ Dave Roberts --== 'American' Style of Marketing? ==-- ~ Aaron Wall ======= NEW ===================================== From: Clint Whitsett Subject: Who you going to call? After reading mountains of brilliant comments from LED'ers over the past year it's plain to see that many of you are SEO or SEM type folks. I receive about a dozen solicitations a day from people who claim to be the top SEO in the land. All of this is well and good but who can I trust? In my industry, which is industrial grade paint and coatings, there are product certifications and applicator certifications and engineering certifications, etc, etc... all intended to ensure the customer that they are receiving products and services which meet an industry standard. The consumer knows that if a product or service they are being presented meets these standards they can be confident in the quality and performance of the end result. My question(s) is: Where can I find an industry standard or required credentials that I can use to validate a potential SEO? Is there a published list of "Who's Who" among credible SEO's who meet an industry standard? Is there a formal SEO organization who's responsibility it is to maintain the integrity of the industry and protect unwitting customers from fraudulent activities? Most other industries that provide a product or service operate within these type of confines. I know that as a potential customer I would feel a lot more confident knowing the person I'm about to hire has made some effort to prove their worth by meeting an industry standard. I guess if something like this doesn't exist it's because we're still in love with the "old west" mentality that the web is free range and there's virtually no restrictions or governing authority. There's nothing that says a person can't hang out their shingle and open up shop regardless of their ability. That's the beauty of the web right? If the goal is to get the attention of the BIG search engines who's criteria seem to be ever changing, maybe we should ask them to present a set of standards by which an SEO can be measured...? I'd be a lot more willing to talk to someone who's solicitation indicates that they are "Google certified number 92PKJ-4372GRE-309" and I can look up that number to verify. Google should also be able to benefit from this too by building a list of sites they know will provide the kind of quality content their users are looking for. MSN, Yahoo, AOL - are you listening? Thanks! Clint Whitsett ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Lew Wurdeman Subject: Latest results from Google Alert I use a service called Google Alert to notify me when sites have changed in the top 30 for certain keywords I have provided. It seems that many of the sites showing up in the Google top 30 are forum listings and other pages almost devoid of content or value to people searching for information on the topic. I was reviewing the latest updates to one of my keyword combinations and one jumped out at me due to redundant words. -------------------- 28. Christy's Portfolio - Fashion Modeling - Index ... fashion modeling, glamour models, glamour models, glamour models, glamour models, glamour models, glamour models, glamour models, portfolio, fashion models ... http://www.pcpages.com/christy/ - cached -------------------- Upon investigating the page I discovered that not only was the page devoid of anything of value but the webmaster had spammed several keyword combinations and did so by placing white text on a white background. We are told over and over not to "hide" text and not to repeat keyword combinations over and over. Is Google no longer caring about such obvious spamming techniques? I have been very disappointed by the pages Google is choosing to place in the top of their listings, at least for the keywords I work with. I thought the 28th listing was bad, check out the 30th listing: -------------------- 30. Artmodels online: models for fashion, glamour, fine-art ... On this site we will bring you model portfolios and announcements, especially from and for models who are interested in fine arts and available in Europe. ... http://user.online.be/realis/artmodels/ - cached -------------------- The entire page is white text on a white background. Maybe we need to begin designing "invisible" pages for a top ranking? Lew Wurdeman ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Ian Dickson Subject: Email demise > I used an anti-spam program for awhile that worked > on the simple idea that "It is spam if people say it is > spam"... [There was] one problem. People (and I include > myself at the top of this list) are stupid. - John Smart, LED 1803 Indeed. I was accused of spamming because my URL appeared in an edition of the LED, and some idiot (an LED subscriber) flagged it (LED) as spam and that I was the responsible person! The result - my ISP on the phone asking what the **** had I being doing to get accused of spamming. They were worried that it would impact on them. So me, my partner, my ISP and LED all got dragged into something that should never have happened. Enough.... ian dickson www.commkit.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Jim Gatton Subject: Email demise > I was surprised there were still so many people willing to pick up > the phone to complain, a very common practice until the late 90's. - Mark Whitman, LED 1803 I can second this approach as being worthy of consideration. While I've never telephoned anyone to complain, it was about a year ago when I shared with the readers of LED Digest my experience when I started to receive pop-up spam from some scum that infected my computer with their program. (And, by the way, since I don't use freeware I never did figure out how this infection was accomplished.) Some of the advertisers were naive enough to place a valid contact form or email address on their ad so I sent them a very personal email explaining why I would *NEVER* buy anything from them and that I would be praying for the imminent collapse of their business (or, something along these lines). If memory serves, I believe I received a couple of apologies and statements that they didn't know their ad dollars were being spent this way and that they were canceling their ads with the company in question. That felt pretty good. Spam is spam and personal emails to some of these smaller (naive?) companies does make a difference. I would imagine that telephone calls would certainly be even more effective. Jim Gatton www.castleblade.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Kathryn Martyn Subject: Email demise Hi Bob and All, I wonder if everyone realizes that the majority of spam is not from legitimate marketers at all but coming from those who purchase CDs with millions of e-mail addresses? These individuals are the hapless pawns in this fiasco as they simply bought the promise of easy money and pay US$29.95 for a CD of names, then start sending millions of e-mails. They will never make money, but that doesn't stop because easy money is our mantra. Only stopping those who sell the e-mail name CD's will help with that particular problem. Secondly, those offers where one could actually click and make a purchase? Why not attempt to trace back to the actual merchandiser? It is not those sending the e-mails, but those employing those sending the e-mails that should be penalized. This method of marketing is not okay, no one likes it, and it's costings millions of dollars in lost revenue for everyone, yet it continues because it's a cheap labor source for the merchandiser. Stop it at the source, i.e. get the pusher to lead you to the dealer. We want the dealer. Hey, maybe a 52-card Spammers Most Wanted with a nice reward? Bet those fools who've bought the CD's would be more than happy to start naming names? Rarely would be going after the actual sender of any spam provide relief, but if a few of those companies employing the legions of spammers could be stopped or at least "used as an example" it may stem the tide - or not. Some underhanded tactics are "worth it" in the real world, such as those currently practiced in the widely reported lawsuits for things such as underpaying workers, forcing overtime with no pay, hiring illegals, etc. such as WalMart is so fond. Experts say the cost of the lawsuits and penalties does not come close to the money big businesses save in the long run, so they continue with it. I'd say it's the same for the spam kings. It's worth it, risk or no. Legal remedies are not worth the time and money to draft them unless they target someone who cares - and these small fry spammers do not care. Notice the big relief the CanSpam Act brought? None. That's because legitimate marketers were never the problem - I can't remember when I've last received an e-mail from a real company with an offer, can you? Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP Ending Emotional Eating, One Bite at a Time http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Dave Roberts Subject: Yahoo Site Match: A Good Deal? Yahoo Site Match looks attractive. You can submit a page for just US$50 and then pay 15 cents per click. Yes, it's onerous to pay per click; but increasingly my clients are being stuck for very high per-click fees with Overture and Google. Has anyone tried Yahoo Site Match? Do you get a lot of traffic, and does that traffic deliver high value leads? Thanks Dave Roberts http://www.davedoesitall.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Aaron Wall Subject: American marketing > The client is concerned that search engines do not index > more than one or two level deep in a website. Is this true? > How can I convince her otherwise? - Muhammad Shabeer Ali, LED 1802 Doing a search like this site:www.seobook.com seo in Google will bring up all the pages of a site that is indexed. http://snipurl.com/6hqk [google.com] aaron wall http://www.seobook.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "There's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path." - Morpheus, The Matrix |
