| LED Digest 1816: Not Just Traffic |
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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 ................................................ June 7, 2004 Issue #1816 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Controlling Forum Moaners ==-- ~ Ian Dickson "...using current platforms requires significant moderation investment..." ~ Kurt T. Francis "...you could also post something yourself on the board..." --== Credible SEOs and SEMs ==-- ~ Steve Pronger "...anyone can optimise a site and build links if they know how, but it takes time..." ~ Chris Nielsen "...the key here is 'qualified visitors' and not just traffic." --== Affiliate Sales Reps ==-- ~ Brad Waller "You left off one last thing...." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Outbound Links Increasing Rankings ==-- ~ William Ernest Waites ~ Michael Martinez ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Ian Dickson Subject: Moaners > Like many sites I have a discussion and ideas board where people > can post comments... the idea being to create a community where > people can help each other out. But what do you do about the small > group of eternal pessimists who keep on dragging boards down? - Richard Graham, LED 1813 You have run straight into that old favourite "we're all doomed, doomed, I tell ye", where the kind of person who likes to be negative AND high profile discovers an audience. (Remember the irritating teacher baiting trouble maker from school, who was fine on his own, but couldn't behave when there was a captive audience). The existence of this sort of person (and others whose conduct is unsuited to the community - language, monomaniacs etc) is the reason why using current platforms requires significant moderation investment (if maintaining a certain feel is important). Dealing with such people is essentially a matter of designing technologies that limit their audience to the people in that conversation. This is a criteria NOT met by forums, boards, mailing lists or groups. (That said, some current systems have strengths and weaknesses re controls. For example if you can allow READ ONLY access then you can bar people from writing but not throw them out of the community. If you then check new "can I write please" requests against existing members data you might be able to spot duplicate email addresses and just say "No". Or perhaps there are keen good people who could be trusted with Moderation duties to spread the load. Moving to one of these might help.) What is really needed is platform design that serves to remove the psychological driver for this behaviour in the first police, by right sizing conversations. (This doesn't get rid entirely, but does greatly reduce). Cheers Ian Dickson www.commkit.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: K Francis Subject: Moaners Hello Adam and LED'ers: In LED 1813, Richard Graham asked about moaners who, he rightly fears, detract from discussion boards. I don't know of any sure-fire technical solutions. While I haven't experienced this problem as a web master, I do sometimes visit some local boards here in Bangkok to keep up on general news of interest to the large expatriate community here. The web masters of those boards regularly have to remove objectionable posts. The people operating the three boards I visit the most do excellent jobs of staying pretty much on top of things -- very time-consuming jobs, I might add. If to monitor posts manually is beyond your time budget, you could do what one board here does: accept volunteer assistants. On that particular board, I have limited supervisory ability in the general area for which I took on some of the responsibility. I remember reading in another newsletter sometime ago that a person who was in your situation resorted to sending a private e-mail to any offending individual, a polite note gently reminding the offender of the board's TOS. I suppose you could also post something yourself on the board, but I would be careful not to name offenders publicly unless you're absolutely certain appropriate laws would protect you from a libel suit. I know that once I was flamed on a board by an individual who accused me, by name, of several repeated instances of committing what are felonies under the laws of Thailand -- and I didn't know the accuser, nor had she ever been present in the public venues where she alleged my criminal activity was taking place, at least not any time I was there (and not at all, as far as I could determine). Despite fairly strong libel laws here, my lawyer consulted with another attorney who specializes in such mattera, who read over the offending post and suggested the best I could do is ask the moderator to contact the accuser offline about it and to remove the offending post. The accuser was in turn flamed by other board members -- not at my instigation -- and the lawyers commented that despite the post against me, the accuser likely had an actionable complaints against those who engaged in the flaming -- and against the owners of the board! I fear this sort of problem is akin to spam: not likely to go away anytime soon. Not much here easily usable, I know, but I am very sympathetic with your problem. Maybe another LED'er can come up with something better. Sincerely, Kurt T. Francis Bangkok, Thailand ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Credible SEOs > Have you ever considered any dufus can register the site > with ten godzillion FFA's, etc. - increase the traffic - which > will do nothing to increase the site owner's profits? - Bill Davison, LED 1815 That dufus will soon realise that ten godzillion FFAs will not deliver ANY extra traffic, but that's NOT what SEO is all about, is it folks? I know Bill's had some bad experiences with companies that "claimed" to be SEO (he's corresponded directly with me on this thread) but Bill you continue to miss the point. SEO, whether you do it yourself or pay someone else, will deliver TARGETED traffic to your site when done CORRECTLY. And that traffic is just one component in the profitability of your site. It's an important component yes, but still just part of the picture. When it comes to SEO companies I see their role as simply assisting in that part of the equation. Sure, anyone can optimise a site and build links if they know how, but it takes time, and many small business owners don't have that time to spare. A very good SEO company, according to recent posts on this forum, will deliver more than targeted traffic, they will actually undertake to convert that traffic to sales i.e. more PROFIT. That's great, but I see that as a "value-added" service and beyond mere SEO (maybe we need a new acronym). We all know there are hucksters and scam artists out there. It's the old story of "buyer beware". An SEO campaign done correctly will deliver you keyword targeted traffic. What you do with that traffic is up to you. You can increase traffic to your site with an AdWords campaign (yes, I know that's SEM not SEO) but you are still paying for keyword targeted traffic. And we don't hold Google responsible for not converting that traffic to sales, do we? Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: Credible SEOs No, as I mentioned in my personal message to you Bill, the key here is "qualified visitors" and not just traffic. If the site owner will grant the SEO the ability to change site design, product pricing, customer service response, company policies, business practices, then I might agree with you. But since so many other things are out of the control of the SEO, your expectations are like expecting the placing of advertising in print, radio, or television to increase your profits. Most of us know we will get no promises from anyone selling advertising. But if a SEO promises only traffic and the customer is expecting sales, then I think you can see it's poor communication or perhaps deception. What the SEO should be promising is traffic that has a high likely hood of converting, and in my opinion, they should speak up if they think the site or the offer has problems that will affect conversions. Thank you, Chris Nielsen www.best-free-search-engine-list.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Brad Waller Subject: Affiliate reps > I'd like some advice on how to deal with my affiliates. > I'd like to treat them as independent sales representatives, > and need help with the following... - Martha Retallick, LED 1812 Sorry for the late reply, I've been busy and have not read the LED in a bit. Martha asked some great questions on running an affiliate program. Since her program is going to be very small and tightly managed, these answers are appropriate for her situation. Every program is different, so my answers to her may not even be what I do! 1. What sort of legal contract I should have with them You need an agreement. You can look at various other programs for tips, and even steal clauses from those who allow you to (take any of mine), such as the one here: http://snipurl.com/6wh3 [ep.com] You need to set your terms, who you will accept, who you will not, how and when you pay, etc. Think of this as a full disclosure document with some standard contract clauses added in (disclaimers, warranty, etc.). If you tell them everything, then even if you do something that they don't like, at least they had the ability to read about it first. It is not really your fault if they fail to read your terms. Terms protect you and the affiliate this way. The ones who read the terms will know what they are getting into and understand what you will be doing and their rights. 2. How to train them. Email, Forums, phone calls, and more. If you have few enough of them, you can handle much of this one to one. As the numbers grow, I have found forums and weekly chat sessions to be helpful. Set up an area of your site dedicated just to training and affiliate best practices. If you know what works best, show them, If an affiliate has a great idea and they are willing to share it, spread the word and give them credit and a link. 3. How to monitor their performance This depends on your solution. I would hope that you have some way to look at the stats, but until the program starts to run you will not know what is normal. Usually click rates and sell rates help you determine if someone is doing something out of the ordinary (usually the problems stand out) 4. How to help them become better sellers This assumes you know more than them. You may find that some of your affiliates can be great and do things you never thought of. Use monthly newsletters to give them tips and lessons, but use your affiliate training area of your website for all the material you have, including archives of your monthly updates and articles. 5. How to screen applicants Look at the applications as they come in. Track their IP address to see if they are really in the country they say they are in. Check email addresses and perhaps reject any from free email providers. It is a clue when a Hotmail address signs up with their site listed as LLBean.com! You left off one last thing. How to become a better manager and learn from others. For this, join the forum at AffiliateManager.net (and also check out the articles and resources) and you will see many of these issues discussed from a great group of active program managers. This is a professional forum with real people and no flame wars. One of the best forums I read. Brad Waller, VP Affiliate & Business Development Make more money from your site banner inventory www.adjungle.com waller, ep.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: William Ernest Waites Subject: Outbound links > ... leading search engines rank pages with more links much > higher than pages with fewer links! Once again, it appears that > the SEOs touting the "PR Leak" theory are simply wrong. If their > theory held any weight at all, we should see the exact opposite. - Jon Ricerca, LED 1815 [via Karl Baldwin] Is it possible that the number of outbound links are related to the number of inbound links? For example, a Web site with an aggressive link building program logically would have a lot of outbound links in reciprocation for a large number of inbound links. Was any effort undertaken to do back link tracking on the Web sites that were evaluated? This would be an interesting thing to know in evaluating the results of your survey. William Ernest Waites Eyewriter ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Outbound links > If [web site success] means linking to other websites... > then link away. If someone approaches you from a valuable > resource and offers a mutually beneficial link trade... then why not? - Simon McArdle, LED 1815 Because, where Google is concerned, there is no longer anything such as "a mutually beneficial link trade". My sites continue to get top rankings in their search results without the link reciprocation. I have offered plenty of example searches through the years which show how my sites come up. The toolbar PageRank (the 1..10 thingee people talk about) is irrelevant to search results rankings. Link popularity is not very important, either. What IS important is page design, freshness of content, and how well linked your multi-page site is internally. Do you need outside links? Yes. Do you need many? No. It is as simple as that. I stand to gain or lose nothing by sharing the methods of my success in this forum. Emotion doesn't enter into the process. You have to be unemotional when dealing with Google. All that is required is a little effort and some patience. Recently, when my server was down for a couple of days, Google tried to crawl one of my most popular sites and it couldn't. The site dropped out of the search results for a week. The URL was shown at the bottom of the first page of results, but no detail and we'd lost a great placement. I knew it would come back after Google tried to crawl it again. And it did. We're back to normal. I didn't run out and try to grab links from other sites. There was no need to. Google knew the site would have fresh content, so it came back. That is all it takes. Michael Martinez, Author Understanding Middle-earth, Parma Endorion, and Visualizing Middle-earth http://www.michael-martinez.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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle." - G. K. Chesterton |
