| LED Digest 1824: I-Sales, Alexa, PPC Agencies and Virtual IPs |
|
|
|
================================================== 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 21, 2004 Issue #1824 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ===================== --== PPC Agency Revenue Models ==-- ~ Neil Smith "My potential customers are...PPC management agencies or individuals in companies..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The End of I-Sales ==-- ~ Kathryn Martyn "There comes a time when the participation drops, and lurking becomes the norm..." ~ Ronni Rhodes "I, for one, am sad to see I-Sales and its cousins leave the scene." ~ Dan Thies "[I-Search] had become something of an editorial platform for the editor..." --== What are Alexa Rankings Worth? ==-- ~ Ken Evoy "...here I am arguing with Ms. Thurow's post, yet we agree entirely..." ~ Pat McCarthy "[Anyone know] of any friends or relatives who use Alexa that aren't in the web business?" ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Pros & Cons of Virtual IPs ==-- ~ Kory Hellmer --== Outbound Links ==-- ~ Bob Wakfer ======= NEW ===================================== From: Neil Smith Subject: PPC Agency Revenue Models My potential customers are users of Google Adwords and therefore PPC management agencies or individuals in companies that run their own campaigns. Such individuals are, most likely, paid a fixed salary, but I'm interested to understand the revenue models that PPC management agencies tend to follow. This information will help me decide whether it is better to market to them or the clients that they serve. Specifically, do they have incentives to deliver better results with less budget or do they tend to work off flat fees? Can the list help? Thanks, Neil Smith www.bubz.net ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Kathryn Martyn Subject: End of I-Sales > I'd really love to hear your thoughts - not just on the fate of > I-Sales [and the other I-Lists], but on the bigger picture here. - Adam, LED 1821 I don't think lists themselves are dying out; as you said, Adam, this list thrives and shines, IMO, due to the quality of the posts. I'd expect that is due largely in part to the fact that the list is moderated, so the ability to quash disagreements before they become all out slug fests is high. Who though, reading this list, doesn't also subscribe to many others? Where is the time to thoughtfully reply to more than a few messages a day and still earn a living? Who among us hasn't found themselves spending too many hours pouring through e-mail, and discovering we are sadly neglecting our other duties (or am I the only one?). There comes a time when the participation drops, and lurking becomes the norm, and then, after the posts start slipping off, simply deleting, yet not unsubscribing, because that is like losing a lifeline ... I've had to start and stop many lists but the LED-Digest is one of my favorites because it's always a good read. Worth my time, and often leads me to excellent resources. I read once (I believe in LED) of a mailing list that was subscription only, at a pretty steep rate too, and at the time I thought due to the high rate, it would be virtually guaranteed to have a high level of expertise contributing, so I thought I'd check it out in the future. I lost the source, so if anyone knows what that may have been based on that skimpy description, pray tell! So the LED shines due to the quality, your efforts Adam, and the good sense of those who contribute to stay civil and on topic, and make it fun! My eyes light up when I see the LED subject line, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP Ending Emotional Eating, One Bite at a Time http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Ronni Rhodes Subject: End of I-Sales > This list is thriving, my other clients' lists are > cranking away fine. However, that doesn't mean > we're not seeing early signs of failure, so I may > be wrong. - Adam, LED 1821 I don't think you're wrong at all, Adam. I belong to several lists - not as many as years ago, I confess - but those lists are active, filled with posts, and continually attracting new participants. When Adventive was sold, the new owners seemed to be more interested in developing their own business plan than in continuing the smooth operation of I-Sales, I-Search etc. This is obviously their right, but, in doing so, I think many list participants were "turned off" and began to lose their enthusiasm. The new owners also had some identity issues, as you mentioned, and didn't seem to know how to integrate the lists into their "new" company model. I'm sure it didn't help when they couldn't decide to charge for the lists, not charge, who to charge, what to charge etc. etc.:-) By the time they got their act somewhat together, people weren't even expecting to receive the lists anymore. I, for one, am sad to see I-Sales and its cousins leave the scene. I learned so much from them over the years, participated when I had something to contribute, and thoroughly enjoyed making some good friends and business associates. I think they'll be missed. Warm regards, Ronni Rhodes Ignite Your Site with Sound and Motion! http://www.wbcimaging.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Dan Thies Subject: End of I-Sales I don't see the death of the email discussion list format any time soon, but there's only room for so many, especially with online forums proliferating like they are. I forget who tipped me off to LED, it was a while ago. I have to admit that I've spent less time reading the other lists since I subscribed to LED. I don't want to dismiss i-Search as low quality because that's not accurate or fair, but it had become something of an editorial platform for the editor, more so than a discussion list. Partly in an effort to stimulate discussion, I'm sure. Dan Thies SEO Research Labs http://www.seoresearchlabs.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Ken Evoy Subject: What Alexa's Worth Hi to all, I've enjoyed reading Ms. Thurow's posts for quite a while, and I found her recent one on Alexa more than interesting, because it's a wonderful example of how we can read a post and simply see what is not there, according to the filtered lens through which it's read. Point by point... > According to Mr. Evoy, the number of visitors to a site is an > indication of its success. I do not agree with that assessment. - Shari Thurow, LED 1822 SiteSell was born on MYSS!'s three central concepts of... 1) Have a great product or service to sell. 2) Make a site that sells (i.e., has a high conversion rate -- that book was actually born out of a post to I-sales "forever ago." 3) Generate high volumes of targeted traffic. If you want to become BIG, I'd add "automation" and if you're a solo proprietor, I'd stress the importance of PREselling, too. Nothing in my post contradicts that. And nothing in my post contradicts Ms. Thurow. Actually nothing in my post even says that "the number of visitors to a site is an indication of its success." But I'm not sure how Ms. Thurow can disagree with that, in any event. I agree with all she said afterward -- all of them are indeed other important factors. But if you have no traffic, you'll get no page view, no subscribers, no sales, no sales leads. And to answer Ms. Thurow's question... > Does Alexa measure these conversions? No, it doesn't. Nor does a ruler tell me what time it is. THAT is not the point of Alexa. It is simply NOT about conversions. Nor is traffic the be-all and end-all. I would agree with Ms. Thurow if she claimed that I said, "the number of visitors to a site is THE ONLY indication of its success." But I did not. However, I do stand by the sentence that she attributes to me, but did not actually make... "The number of visitors to a site *IS* an indication of success." How can it NOT be? Yes, we've written extensively about targeted traffic, PREselling, Conversion Rates, etc., etc,. etc., over the past years. But none of those were germane to, nor were they part of, my discussion of Alexa. And I'm the first to agree on all the other points that Ms. Thurow makes in her post. I'm not sure what Ms. Thurow means by "indication." A great product is NOT an "indication" of success. Nor is a well-designed, persuasive site an "indication" of success. But I sure as heck *DO* want all three factors (product, site, traffic) working FOR me. Don't you? :-) So, let's get back to ACTUAL issue of Alexa for a moment... I was in fact very specific as to what the value of Alexa is, and is NOT. I thought I'd been pretty clear with statements such as... > "Trend" and "long-term" are important words when thinking > about Alexa. and... > Understand that it's not perfect, what the limitations are, > and how to interpret and use the results... and when to > ignore them as suspect-to-useless. We talked about it being a useful "big picture" tool and how the statistical scatter increases as the Alexa ranking increases. The discussion was that it was a useful indicator to measure how you are doing against competitors. And it specifically said... > Do NOT try to get something out of it that Alexa simply > does not deliver (ex., EXACT traffic correlation). Heck I even talked about NOT focusing on DRIVING Alexa scores.... -------------------- "What's the point? We know our traffic is strong (from our own internal visitor stats), customer surveys consistently show that customers are raving-happy, and THOSE are far more important metrics, of course... "So, if you keep the "Alexa perspective" in its place... "It's a tremendous tool, as long as you understand that it's not perfect, what the limitations are, and how to interpret and use the results... and when to ignore them as suspect-to-useless." -------------------- So... I find myself in a very awkward position, because here I am arguing with Ms. Thurow's post, yet we agree entirely, aside from her assertion that traffic is not "an" indication of success". So let's focus on that one "assertion" one last time, allowing for the fact that I did not make it but will accept it as on the table... Taken on its own, and EVERYTHING ELSE BEING EQUAL, of course a high-traffic site is a better indicator of success than a low-traffic site. But YES... there ARE other important factors to achieve success. Again, it's awkward, because I'm debating with "assertions" I never made, but which Ms. Thurow "disagrees with." All the best, Ken Evoy, President SiteSell.com http://webmaster.sitesell.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Pat McCarthy Subject: Alexa I agree with Mr. Evoy and the others saying that Alexa is useful as a wide-view snapshot of traffic data with the understanding that there is error and bias built into it. I can never take the data that seriously though because I've never met or talked to a single person who has the Alexa toolbar installed who's not running their own site or in the internet marketing / search / web business owner world. Of course, I don't want to take my own experience as gospel. So I'd like to ask if anyone else on this list knows of any friends or relatives who use Alexa that aren't in the web business? Since Alexa's stats are gathered from those using the toolbar, if many of you are like me and don't know of any people outside the web business, wouldn't that sort of show that Alexa is going to heavily favor sites that are visited by this industry group? Pat McCarthy Palo Alto Software http://www.paloalto.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Kory Hellmer Subject: Direct vs. virtual IP addresses One of my nonprofit clients is moving all of their web sites to one server. Each domain is for a distinct use and is separate by choice. The hosting company would prefer that all of the domains be "virtual" -- and that we only use one IP address. This worries me. I would think that there is an advantage in being located directly by an IP address, or a disadvantage in not having one, but I don't know what it could be. Search engine placement? Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for your help. Kory Hellmer ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Bob Wakfer Subject: Outbound links > Karl Baldwin had an interesting post [issue 1815] studying > whether outbound links help or hurt rankings in Google... it's > nice to see some statistics which show that outbound links > actually help rankings, as opposed to hurt them. > However, there's a problem with the conclusion in the > article Karl referenced... - Jill Whalen, LED 1820 I know that we are encouraged not to make personal comments in this digest, but as an often times critic of Jill Whalen I feel compelled to acknowledge the accuracy and excellence of this contribution. She is exactly right, the coorelation between OBLs and SERP placement has absolutely nothing to do do with PR leakage. PR values do not determine SERP placement. It is the relevancy of an inbound link as determined mainly from its anchor text that determine its impact on SERP placement. What the article does seem to establish is that other factors such as OBLs, and specifically the number of OBLs, is being used in determining SERP placement. Suffice it to say I thought Jill's insight and analysis was excellent. Regards, Bob Wakfer Computer Partners http://www.compar.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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- [Happy Father's Day, Dad!] "It is a wise father that knows his own child." - William Shakespeare |
