| LED Digest 1497: Getting Listed in Froogle |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest ................................................. January 16, 2003 Issue #1497 ................................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ===== NEW ======================= -=Froogle: Getting Listed=- ~ Wanda Husick ==== CONTINUING ================= -=Search Engine Optimization (SEO)=- ~ Dave Abernethy ~ Fabien Faceries ~ Shari Thurow -=Do's and Don'ts for Catalogs?=- ~ Stephen Mareches ~ Jim Novo ~ Kathy Wilson Anderson ==== BILLBOARD =================== -=Internet Casino Links?=- ~ Scott M. Stolz ~ Ivan J. Jimenez ====== NEW ====================================== From: Wanda Husick Subject: Froogle Does anyone know how to get Froogle to index your site? I have an Antiques / Collectible site. Google has always been great as a search engine for picking up my obscure items in their search and directing buyers to them. I thought Froogle would help even more, but they will not index my site. They want me to do a monthly feed. Unless I am completely misunderstanding what a feed will entail, it would be impossible for me to effectively compile a feed. I have over 1,000 different items for sale on my site and they change almost daily. Even though my site has been on the Google search engine almost since their beginning, my specific request for them to index my site was met with a "do a feed". Similar antiques and collectible sites are indexed (I have asked a few and they say they are indexed -- they did not need to do a feed). What am I missing here? Thanks. Wanda Husick ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Dave Abernethy Subject: SEO > While there are some SEO companies who > are reputable (and very, very expensive) most > are not... - Bill Davison, LED 1496 I suggest Bill Davison's views are a little jaundiced on the value of search engine optimisation. There are several ways of approaching this for a given business and product range. Certainly you can adopt a very intricate approach, producing sites or doorway pages for individual search engines. Of course you can pay a 'lot' of money for this, although some people will say they can do it pretty cheaply too. There is a strong school of thought within the SEO industry that says you don't need to play tricks to get a good profile for your site -- indeed we would argue tricks can backfire on you or your client if the search engines decide you are 'spamming' them. We recommend a fundamental approach which our small and medium size business clients report as very cost-effective -- i.e. it produces real results for them and they come back for more. This basically is : - Research and target the right keywords - Draft them properly into your text, page by page, and into the metatags too - Promote the site properly to key search engines. Don't worry about doorway pages / multiple sites. Keep it simple. - Use pay for click engines judiciously within your budget - Build up the number of relevant sites linking to you over time It works. Dave Abernethy, Managing Director Net Commerce Solutions Limited www.net-commerce-solutions.co.uk DaveA[AT]net-commerce-solutions[DOT]co.uk ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Fabien Faceries Subject: SEO Hi Bill, If I follow your suggestion: smaller one product or one service website owners should use off-line advertising instead of using search engine positioning because "you'll a lot more bang for your buck". It is probably right for a hairdresser that does have one shop in town but it is probably not true for a small vine grower that is trying to sell its wine. In the wine grower case I will recommend to use a SEO consultant and / or to use Google AdWords or Overture. There are "bad" SEO but there are also "good" SEO ;=) Fabien Faceries Search engine ranking software http://www.agentwebranking.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Shari Thurow Subject: SEO tactics Hi all-- This is in response to Bill Davison's post in LED 1496. His advice, IMHO, was not good. In LED 1496, Bill stated: > ... the better SEO companies build a unique separate > site before submitting it to each search engine. They > then tinker with their keyword analyzer until the ranking > reaches the top. A "better" SEO company builds unique separate sites? I don't think so. If an SEO firm is building a unique, separate site instead of optimizing your current site, you are probably dealing with a spammer who builds doorway pages, doorway web sites, cloaks, or all of the above. And you want to NOT hire that SEO firm. (For the record, I do not believe that cloaking in and of itself is bad. There are times when it is necessary, as with pharmaceutical companies. Using cloaking to spam the engines is a poor practice. But I would never cloak without getting permission from the search engines first. That's why they created trusted feed programs.) Just yesterday, we had a long conversation with a cloaking company that did not know we were his competitors. They purchase thousands of domain names and create a site full of crappy doorway pages to artificially boost link popularity of their clients. (We found them because they cloaked our company name. The company is in now in legal trouble.) And their unique selling proposition? They build separate sites. As for the other statement: > Use off-line advertising instead - you'll get a > lot more bang for your buck. With all due respect, you use the advertising, marketing, and PR methods that work for your type of business. If Mr. Davison gets better results from offline advertising, then more power to him. However, a graphic design firm that does both print and web advertising, I don't believe in making a blanket statement that SEO is a waste of time and offline advertising is better. I've seen plenty of offline advertising deliver less ROI than online advertising. It depends on the business. It depends on the available budget. Too many variables to make a blanket statement. Take care, Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director ~ Search Engine Visibility book now available http://www.searchenginesbook.com/ ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Stephen Mareches Subject: Catalogs > Many customers have requested a catalog... My > question is: Are there any absolute do's and don'ts > for a catalog? As we are strictly online, this is a > different outlet for us... - Yuwanda Black, Daily 1492 Yuwanda: Avoid the mail and printing costs by putting your catalog online. Your site visitors can print the portions they wish, and it will be much easier for you to maintain. We did our first online catalog about two years ago and it was a real hair puller. We looked at all kinds software, and ended up buying one that took days of goofing around trying to get things to work. In the end I developed what we eventually used on three of our sites and it's been receiving improvements ever since. One of the nicer ones we did for an online music store www.sophiasolutions.net/484music. It works beautifully, using an Access database, is easy for the owners to maintain, and yes took awhile to tweak into shape, but of course now that it's complete can be transported to other sites as well. One thing we discovered: search engines like text hyperlinks that query a catalog. It appears they can run those links right to the page that serves up the info, which I thought was rather cool. So be sure to put some query hyperlinks on your homepage. Also, you'll want to limit the number of products that come up per page so they don't take forever to load. Stephen Mareches, Web Consultant Sophia Solutions www.sophiasolutions.net ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Jim Novo Subject: Catalogs I find it interesting nobody has explored *why* so many customers want a catalog. What do you suppose the driving force behind this is? Web pages take too long to load? Navigation is too confusing? Shopping cart too difficult to use? Want to give them to people who won't or can't shop online, say people over 65? The decision to buy takes more than one person and it's easier "shop together" with a catalog on a table than standing around a computer monitor? I'm not saying any one of these things is true -- the site looks great to me -- but I think you should explore this further with those customers. Why exactly do they want a catalog? That way, you will give them the "right" catalog, not just a copy of the site, which may not be what it is they really want. And along the way, you may just discover how to make your site more appealing to a wider group of visitors. Jim Novo, Author Turning Customer Data into Profits http://www.jimnovo.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Kathy Wilson Anderson Subject: Catalogs > If you're strictly an online store, and your requests > for catalogs are coming via your website, my question > is: why bother with the print catalog? - Mark Van Patten, LED 1494 I agree 100% with Mark Van Patten. I had an online store for three years until I sold the business a few years ago. In the beginning I had a catalog and spent lots of $$$ having it printed and mailing it out to people who requested it, many AFTER having been on my website. Almost all of my business (76%) was coming from online sales through my shopping cart. The remainder was coming from the shows I did where I had a booth and sold my product. I finally got smart and stopped offering the catalog, since I wasn't receiving any orders from it. When people would email me and ask for a catalog I'd reply saying "I used to offer a catalog, but the information that was on it was exactly the same as the information on my website. With a catalog I'm not able to update it with the newest products and sale items, which I can do with the website." A few people were disgruntled, but I doubt that my sales suffered much because of them. In the years I was in business, I received less than 5 orders that used the order form that was in the catalog. Kathy Wilson Anderson http://www.under-one-roof.net ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Scott M. Stolz Subject: Casino links > ... I have a links page for increasing traffic and > building link popularity... What's the overall opinion > on internet casinos, are they widely accepted or > should you stay away from them? - Toon Eppink, LED 1495 Dear Toon Eppink: Some people will be turned off, and some won't. It will largely depend on your target audience. One thing you have to keep in mind (that most people ignore or don't know) is that in many states it is illegal to promote unlicensed gambling. For example, here in Texas an ISP was shut down by the state because they were promoting gambling sites on their website without a license from the state. They didn't even own the casino, they were just advertising it and they got shut down. So be careful in that regard. Scott M. Stolz WisTex Solutions www.wistex.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Ivan J. Jimenez Subject: Casino Link Here's my two cents. Well actually, six... 1. Identify your target market 2. Find out what THEY want to see on your website 3. Get rid of every link not reflecting your customers' wants 4. Use more generic headings then organize your links 5. Based on visitors' wants, post intelligently (i.e.: use Mikasa rather than Randy's Cheap Chinaware) 6. For consistency, either use banners or don't ivan j. jimenez cosmicbreath.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1995-2003 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. -- Woody Allen |
