| LED Digest 2331: The Issue of Trust |
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================================================== 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 .............................................. January 23, 2007 Issue no. 2331 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Presenting a Trustworthy Image ==-- ~ Tom Anson "Do you think the BBB Online seal is important?" --== PayPal Changing Things w/o Notice ==-- ~ Susie Redfern "Does anyone have suggestions on an alternative to PayPal?" --== Browser Compatibility Help ==-- ~ Kim Yeager "There is great difficulty in getting our Web site to work in all browsers..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Competitors Bidding on Trademarks ==-- ~ Nathan Holley "[Users] may consider paid results as more relevant than organic listings." ~ James Miller "...a searcher is more likely to choose a link from the main search items..." --== Incoming Links from Virtual Domains ==-- ~ Andreas Huttenrauch "...we could eliminate our competitors from the SERPs with very little effort..." --== The Revisit-After Meta Tag ==-- ~ John Smart "Maybe it would have helped if I had given the full picture..." --== Image Spam the Future? ==-- ~ Rich Dudley "There are two ways to have images appear in an e-mail message." --== A SEO Guide - is it Possible? ==-- ~ Dirk Johnson "What is often lost in the SEO world is the perspective of the business owner/manager." ========== NEW =================================== From: Tom Anson Subject: BBB Online Hi gang, I have a question about presenting a trustworthy image online. When I was first getting started, a few sources told me that it's VERY important to assure your site visitors that you are someone who can be trusted. One way suggested was to have a BBB Online seal on the site. And so, from the beginning, I've always paid the price to BBB Online. But, I've never had that many site visitors actually check out my listing with the BBB. I realize that most people who would be impressed with the seal are impressed with the SEAL -- they never check to see if I'm really a crook. But, with the BBB's price increase this year and the relatively small volume my site gets, I'm questioning the ROI of this symbol of trustworthiness. I'd very much appreciate the opinons of my fellow LEDers on this. Do you think the BBB Online seal is important? Is it worth the price -- especially for a small business? Are there other, better, more cost-effective services out there that would inspire confidence in my would-be customers? For the record, I've never had a complaint. I've seldom had a return. Thanks much for your help. Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials http://www.therapeutic-grade.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Susie Redfern Subject: PayPal I have a business account with PayPal whereby I can accept payments for my products (publications) on my website. Recently (for the second time in two years), PayPal has apparently changed the code needed for my payment buttons to work without informing me, leading to an outdated links message to potential customers. A call to PayPal about this has so far not resulted in the promised email with instructions on fixing this. The volume of my business doesn't justify a merchant account where I'd have to pay a monthly service fee (probably amounting to more than I get in sales). Does anyone have suggestions on an alternative to PayPal? Thanks. Susie Redfern ParentLink Info Services www.metroprofiles.com familyguides, yahoo.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Kim Yeager Subject: Web site won't work in all browsers I was wondering if someone could help us with a recurring problem on our website. There is great difficulty in getting our Web site to work in all browsers, resolution settings, and types of monitors. What happens is, in one browser it will be fine and then in another one the right side column goes to the bottom of the window or everything goes out of alignment. We've had so much trouble with this! We are exhausted from trying to work around all of these variables that we wonder if there is a feature that we can add to the site to make it compatible for everything. Does any one have any help to offer us on this? Our site URL is: www.dentalquarters.com Kim Yeager dentalquarters.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Nathan Holley Subject: Bidding on PPC trademarks > I have a competitor... doing PPC bidding on > my domain and my business name, both on > Google and Yahoo!. - Sandy Keller, LED Digest 2330 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1718/55/ My understanding is that while it is technically illegal to bid on trademarked terms, it's totally common and accepted in the US. Other countries will be less lenient (for instance France), but as you've found out Google and Yahoo don't care at all and won't pursue any infringements. This is one of the reasons why it's important to "own" your brand today. Not directed at you, Sandy, but for businesses who may just be coming online but selling products available on the Internet, PPC affiliate marketers will always be using their trademarks to sell. That means less control for you (you don't know what techniques they're using, don't control the quality of their landing pages, don't have access to their customer service standards, etc), and possibly, damage to your brand. Judging by the results of this eye tracking study http://www.enquiro.com/eyetrackingreport.asp , users of Google and other SEs may consider paid results as more relevant than organic listings. This is probably more true of less-savvy audiences, but it's important to note. There's more good information on the eye tracking survey done above at Aaron Wall's site: http://www.seobook.com/archives/001996.shtml Bottom line, unfortunately Sandy, is that there's nothing you can do but bid against them. Nathan Holley -------- new post - same topic -------- From: James Miller Subject: PPC trademarks I'm been married to a lawyer for thirty-eight years and if that has taught me one thing, it is DON'T LITIGATE. Send off the odd firm letter, but deal with lawyers as a seller. I'm told some are even soft enough to get married. Spend the money elsewhere. I just typed Advantage Bridal into Google and you were number one. The only advert I got was from www.naymz.com which was actually one of yours. So far so good. Your strapline is "Bridal attire and accessories, wedding and reception supplies, and invitations". The first thing I'd do is change that slightly so that it says you are the real site. Perhaps add "from those who give you a real advantage". This would mean that if the offending advert comes alongside, people would be more likely to choose you. But am I right in saying that a searcher is more likely to choose a link from the main search items, than from a paid advert. That's just the way we are. I certainly am very suspicious of adverts. You should put all your energies and money into staying number one in the search. As someone who is now planning their ruby wedding in Venice for 2008, are you doing enough for this market? James Miller Daisy Analysis www.daisy.co.uk -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Andreas Huttenrauch Subject: Incoming links I've been following the thread on incoming links, and can see 2 separate conversations going on. The new conversation is about the value of multiple incoming links from the same IP. It is arguable that from low-trust sites, there could be no value to these links at all, or at least not enough to warrant going out and trying to get these links. However, the original question was about incoming links from the same IP hurting rankings. In other words, having a negative effect. This can and will never happen. If Google black-listed sites for having too many links coming in from the same IP, we could eliminate our competitors from the SERP's with very little effort - just create 100 hosting accounts and link to your main competitor. Since this would not be in anyone's best interest except the culprit doing this, it would seem illogical for any SE to entertain such an approach in their algorithms. Andreas Huttenrauch Globi Web Solutions http://www.globi.ca "Engineering the Web to Bring People and Business Together!" -------- new post - new topic -------- From: John Smart Subject: Meta revisit > So maybe these [meta revisit-after] tags have more > value than we currently assign them. I did not get 1st > ranking because of that tag alone, but I lost 1st page > ranking because I changed it to 1 day, and got it back > by changing to 7 days. - John Smart, LED Digest 2329 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1717/55/ Maybe it would have helped if I had given the full picture: A while ago, we planned on working on our Google ranking, we saw that for "internet design" we were 1st page, but not 1st. About 2 months later, we were still there having done nothing. At this point I tweaked the page title and the revisit tag -- we plummeted. About a month later, we still could not be seen, I could not remember what I changed in the title tag (do you like my scientific approach???) but I did remember the revisit tag, so I changed it back -- a day or two later, our traffic went through the roof! We had #1 ranking. I appreciate that Google is big -- and who knows what else I am missing -- maybe all the ones ahead of us before have been dropped, but these were the only changes we made, and it was monitored over several months. Whilst there may be other factors involved, I am very confident that any other factors that are involved must be external -- no one else updates our site when I am not looking -- no blog, no message board, no guest book -- no dynamically growing anything. Which takes us back to the revisit tag. Daily appears to upset google, weekly (in this case) seems not to. Why? The site is updated so infrequently Google should want it set to monthly! Annually sometimes! -- but they appear to be happy with a weekly fix. John Smart InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Richard Dudley Subject: Image spam > BTW... I have my Outlook set to not download > pictures automatically in html emails, and that > works except on these image spam emails. > I don't know why... - Steve Birk, LED Digest 2329 There are two ways to have images appear in an e-mail message. The first way is to store the image on your webserver, and embed a standard IMG tag in the HTML. This is pretty standard, but is also abused by spammers who track who opens what ("webbugs"). This is the method Outlook blocks. The other way is to send the image as a embedded resource. The spammer doesn't get any confirmation you opened the message, but these are not blocked by Outlook. Rich Dudley www.rjdudley.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Dirk Johnson Subject: SEO guide [In response to the discussion on creating an SEO guide] LED Digest is distinct in that it attracts a lot of business owner / managers as readers, and not just SEO junkies, like a lot of the SEO forums. What is often lost in the SEO world is the perspective of the business owner / manager. Individuals who are immersed in SEO issues tend to have an SEO-centric view of the world, and they seem to expect their audience to feel the same. Instead, most website owners see SEO work as a necessary evil. They do not want to become "experts" on the subject, nor do they want to open their wallets with no end in sight. They just want the most affordable solution that works. Anything that is not in line with that is wasted time and money that would be better spent on other matters related to their business. From what I see coming from many corners of the SEO world, the advice being presented to the business owner is most definitely not presented in that vein. Instead, it is presented in terms of defending white hat vs. black hat, or it is misguided and based on false assumptions and quack theories, or the advice is purposely designed to be increasingly complex in the time required to analyze and act upon it. Describing the essential basics of good SEO advice can be summarized in about 30 pages of detailed explanation. To the newbie, it's about a one hour discussion. That condition leaves a lot of people in the SEO world with a need to write a lot of things that are marginally important, at best. It also leaves plenty of time to imagine scenarios that do not actually exist. Convincing others to "buy in" to that line of thought is validating to their ego, and it all makes the SEO forums go round and round in a swirl of blissful confusion and point / counter-point. Once again, except for the unique the needs of a data-driven site and a couple of other very limited technical situations, effective SEO work is not rocket science. Not even close. Nor is it complicated. Nor does it require endless hours of immersion the SEO world and an a need to fret about the latest SEO fads and theories. The optimization techniques used by most successful site owners are easily understood by anyone, and the linking building strategies that work for them tend to be extraordinarily straightforward, using the most affordable means possible. Complexity and excessive cost in SEO work are actually detrimental to good results. How do I come to believe this? By first hand experience with hundreds of successful websites, all owned by typical small business owners who simply pay attention and cover the basics well. Then they move on to other matters of managing their business, while watching their sites increase in rank. I see that approach working time and again, and there is virtually nothing mysterious about it. Is there room there for hiring a good SEO consultant in that environment? Most definitely, but their advice should be straightforward, and the cost should reflect the actual time spent on the tasks at hand, with some premium for skilled craftsmanship and experience. It should also be advice that acknowledges and addresses the other legitimate competition at hand, and the need to compete effectively. Some SEO advice is so constraining that it can't possibly work well in a competitive, real world situation. Except in specific, very technical situations, any SEO advice that attempts to over-complicate SEO work is advice that is probably wasting someone's time and money, if they follow it. Best regards, Dirk Johnson, Partner - Operations DomainDrivers LLC www.domaindrivers.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains The Archives: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/126/120/ Subscribe: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/52/77/ Unsubscribe, Change Email, or Hold / Resume Delivery: http://www.led-digest.com/content/category/4/17/86/ (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain |
