| LED Digest 2275: Broadening our Discussions |
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What we need here are some fresh ideas, new topics, and new subject matter. Lately it's been all about search. I feel we are excluding a whole range of marketing skills lately with the constant emphasis upon search. ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration 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 .............................................. October 26, 2006 Issue no. 2275 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== <Moderator Comment> ~ Broadening our Discussions "I feel we are excluding a whole range of marketing skills lately with the constant emphasis upon search." --== Cultivating the Human Touch ==-- ~ Paul Magee "To me, the internet was always about the people... People looking to connect with other people." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Spamhaus Litigation ==-- ~ James Miller "Never underestimate the vindictiveness of US lawyers. He with the most money wins." --== Favorite SEO Tools ==-- ~ Nathan Holley "...there are a few 'classics' that you'll have to use regularly." <Moderator Comment> ========== NEW =================================== <Moderator Comment> What we need here are some fresh ideas, new topics, and new subject matter. Lately it's been SEO, SEM, search, search search! That is crucial stuff, definitely, to any and all Web businesses... but it's not everything. The LED has always been about exploring a variety of approaches and methods, not focusing on narrow specifics. I feel we are excluding a whole range of marketing skills lately with the constant emphasis upon search. Of course it's happening with good reason. The LED community reflects the larger Web of which it's a part. Search has risen to a prominent place in Web marketing, design, usability, ecommerce, etc. It's a cornerstone. But it's only 1 cornerstone, and you need more than that to raise a foundation. So let's explore the other corners of that foundation. What are they? What problems have you been wrestling with? Let us know, share your thoughts, and let's get some really useful discussions going. I'll start things off. While I'm building out the led-digest.com site, I'm getting the opportunity to re-read all the fabulous issues from the past. Now working on 2004, it was interesting to discover a fascinating thread called, "The Human Touch." This post and the responses explore how changes in marketing must evolve to reflect changes in communications. Especially significant is the reference to the Cluetrain Manifesto. However, as you'll find by reading the responses tomorrow, there may be a fallacy if you're looking for the Cluetrain to be a marketing beacon... The post is directly below. You can read the responses here: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1275/55/ I'll publish the follow-ups on Friday. Fascinating stuff. Adam Audette http://www.led-digest.com Celebrating 10 years in Jan. '07 ----------------------- From: Paul Magee Subject: Cultivating the Human Touch - feedback please Dear LED readers, after some time away, I'm investigating a return to working in the online arena and I'm looking for some honest feedback. Does anyone remember the Cluetrain Manifesto? www.cluetrain.com If you do, then you may well remember some of the 95 points that got so many people talking a few years ago. If you never read it, here are just a few to whet your appetite... 1. Markets are conversations. 2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. 3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice. 4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. 5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice. 6. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman. These beliefs are as good a way as any of illustrating what I still believe to be true and want to help other companies realise through their websites. It wasn't long after the popularity of thinking like the cluetrain manifesto started to take hold that everything went pear shaped in the online world. The focus shifted to survival, budgets were cut, you know what happened.... The question is, has the market stabilised enough for us to start focusing on the 'people' again. Thriving not just surviving? To me, the internet was always about the people, it's growth was a natural organic thing. People looking to connect with other people. Sharing their thoughts, their loves and their lives through conversations, arguments and personal websites. I believe the natural honest expression you find in real, enthusiastic homepages, is the very formula necessary to build trust in the commercial world. I'm not into absolutes. Technology is important, aesthetics are important, branding is important, but if there is an area that has been neglected, I believe that it is compensating for the limits of what is essentially a remote medium - the human touch. The market isn't full of people any more. In the beginning you did business with the farmer, you could look into his eyes, chat, banter and test his wares. Then there was the store, the intermediary who didn't have first hand knowledge of the product and only vaguely cared (sometimes), the brand started to become more important, something to place your trust in. Now there is the screen, the technological transaction, not a human in sight and even the brand isn't enough. And not enough of us are compensating. We've become used to the 'brand is king' motto, to the extent that we are petrified to reveal who we are, to let our customers look into our eyes for fear that we, or our employees won't live up to the purity of our invented brands. At amazon.com the brand and the personalisation technology is undoubtably important, but to me but the real key is the conversations it allows between human beings. Real people rating each product, and even more real people rating how useful the ratings are! When the farmers business gets too big for him to see all his customers, but he empowers his customers to talk with each other, I don't need to see his eyes, I know I can trust him! So, what is it that I want to do? In a sentence, I want to 'help people give their website a human voice' because quite simply it creates more trust and leads to more business. This isn't the place for specifics about how to acheive that, but the first step is to build a team who are more turned on when expressing the needs of human beings and starting conversations than the average web design company. The team I'm looking to build is less likely to contain techies and graphic designers but rather communications experts, journalists and photographers. People who can go in and work *with* an existing design team to add that human voice. Now, in the theory, the services I can offer are not in conflict with traditional web design teams, they are complimentary. But I suspect that selling this slightly less tangible service to those existing internal and external guardians of the corporate website will be my biggest challenge. What do you think? Is the time right to start re-focusing on these issues or is the market still recovering and dealing with what it perceives to be 'the basics'? Any feedback welcome. Paul Magee, Manchester, UK me, paulmagee.co.uk ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: James Miller Subject: Spamhaus > ... the legal answers this country comes up with are > not always logical, reasonable, sensible or even fair. - John Smart, LED Digest 2273 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1273/55/ Here in the UK, we are very frightened of US law. Our stupid government signed a deal with the US government which means that you can be extradited to the US without going to a Court in the UK. This means that say if you are in breach of a US court order, then you can be extradited without a by your leave, despite the fact that you have done nothing wrong under UK law. Take on-line gambling sites. These are legal here and several executives from gambling companies are now languishing in US jails. So I suspect that the outcome of the Spamhaus case will be that Spamhaus will be shut down, as they are only a small, but powerful, non-profit making organisation and can't afford to fight the case. So they'll just give up. Sad but true. Never underestimate the vindictiveness of US lawyers. He with the most money wins. James Miller Daisy Analysis www.daisy.co.uk -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Nathan Holley Subject: Favorite SEO tools > I'm currently newly hired to a firm as an intern (don't laugh) > and trying to learn as much as I can quickly... I'm wondering > what tools you SEO / SEM's are using. Desktop, Web-based > apps that can quickly find the crucial data for client sites... - Natalie Sheer, LED Digest 2273 Natalie, Good question. I think you'll find that there is a wide variety of tools and approaches extant. That said, there are a few "classics" that you'll have to use regularly. These include... AdWords Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal This outputs potential keywords. Good for Google statistics when researching -- including search performance and seasonal trends. Great to get an idea of popularity. For CPC estimates put $100 in the Max. Keyword Suggestion Tool: http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en At Google Labs. Type in your search query and watch the magic pop-up offer suggestions. Overture keywords: http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/ The classic tool. Domain Lookup: http://www.iwebtool.com/domain_lookup This site shows you PageRank, any DMOZ listings, Alexa info, etc. It's a good indicator of trends. BTW, all of these and many more can be found here: http://tools.seobook.com/ . This is a great place to start your SEO education. The site and blog is basically a marketing funnel for the author's ebook on SEO. Aaron Wall is the guy behind it, and he's posted here many times. Adam, here's an idea: how about starting an affiliate partnership with this resource? I'd like to help support the LED by buying through your link. Just a thought. Nathan Holley <Moderator Comment> Hey, great idea. I've done just that. For anyone interested, you can now purchase this ebook and support the LED at the same time. Here's the link: http://www.seobook.com/rf/idevaffiliate.php?id=1126 Look for a detailed review of this and many more resources over the next few months. I'm currently establishing partnerships w/ leading resources and services. These will be offered to the LED community to help support the list. If you're interested in exploring some type of partnership, let me know: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Thanks! Adam ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure." - Dwight D Eisenhower |
