| LED Digest 2349: Marketing a New Site |
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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 .............................................. February 16, 2007 Issue no. 2349 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== <Moderator Comment> ~ Learning to Market a New Site ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Firm 'Rebagging' Original Work ==-- ~ Amy D. Moore "...most design houses assume they can put their name and link on their client's site." --== Web Log Analysis Software ==-- ~ Marty R. Milette "Webmasters who are familiar with SQL may find Microsoft's Log Parser useful." --== Harvester-Proof Email ==-- ~ Will Bontrager "I would like to ask LEDers who [use AOL] to please [try the email system]..." ~ Veronica Yuill "Clicking on the link from my gmail inbox simply produced a blank page..." --== SEO File Naming Techniques ==-- ~ Tom Aman "...the bigger consideration in both domain and file naming is the human aspect..." ==== BULLETIN BOARD ============= --== UK Firm Looking for Talent ==-- ~ Barry S Mills ========== NEW =================================== <Moderator Comment> Very slow day Thursday, partly due to the majority of the US under blankets of snow. Weird, actually, to see things so inactive - even my usual spam load decreased! The following post ran in another list I subscribe to (Online Ads http://www.o-a.com, and I took some time to reply. I think the reason this post struck a chord with me is because it's reflective of how confused most business owners are about marketing websites. The post mentions banner ads as a potential strategy. While we might laugh that off, it's probably something people unfamiliar with Web marketing think of immediately. I'll publish his question and my response. What other resources do you recommend for Jim? Where does one start learning about Internet marketing? ----------------------- > I was wondering what would be the best way to launch > a brand new site halfoffdeals.com, would you recommend > press releases, banner ads. Do you know of a good > online resource for outsourcing the marketing of the site? - Jim Varga, Online Ads Jim, Before you contract a marketing firm be sure to do some research. Familiarize yourself w/ typical marketing strategies and techniques by using the following resources. I recommend these as a starting point, but there are many more to explore. ====== Forums ====== - Highrankings - http://www.highrankings.com/forum/ - one of the best places to get started marketing your site, with a heavy dose of SEO/M. Friendly and ethical place to get answers, run by Jill Whalen who's old school and well regarded. - LED Digest - http://www.led-digest.com/ - a very active discussion list published by myself, so this is self-promotional. But it's very pertinent to your situation because the LED is newbie-friendly and contains a wide diversity of subscribers, from experts in the industry to agencies, clients, edu's and mom & pops. - Webmaster World - this is a large forum, very professional and helpful. Tends to be for more advanced webmasters but these specific areas are great places to start: New to Web development: http://www.webmasterworld.com/new_web_development/ General SEO & Marketing: http://www.webmasterworld.com/search_engine_promotion/ - DigitalPoint - http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ - a huge forum where you can get lost quickly, but useful to browse for common questions and solutions. This forum can also be used as a sort of weather vane when indexing changes are rolled out from the major search engines. ===== Blogs ===== - SEOBook - http://www.seobook.com - run by Aaron Wall, a highly regarded SEO and marketer. Great information for search marketing and his ebook contains a wealth of knowledge. I recommend purchasing it and going over it thoroughly, even before hiring a marketer. - SEOmoz - http://www.seomoz.org - great blog and community site for search and marketing related news and ideas. - SEO Roundtable - http://www.seoroundtable.com - you can see a theme developing here... yup, marketing online is very much about search. This blog does a great job of culling key knowledge and news from popular forums. I could go on and on listing resources, but this will get you going. As far as what specific techniques to begin with, I suggest submitting your site to Google http://www.google.com/addurl/ , creating a sitemap for their Webmaster Tools suite https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html , and focusing on getting some good links. A great place to start for the latter are directories, but use care which ones you choose. Good ones are the Yahoo! Directory, Business.com, Best Of The Web, Gimpsy, Joeant, and ODP. You might start participating in forums and commenting on related blogs w/ your URL; most of the links on these pages will be nofollowed (there are exceptions) but this will put you in or near the discussions and people you're targeting. Also, there's some debate as to whether nofollowed links are spidered or not, and some marketers swear by this technique to quickly get sites indexed. Finally, a great option to send some traffic your way quick is PPC. AdWords is where you want to begin: https://adwords.google.com/ Best of luck, Adam ----------------------- By the way, Online Ads is a great list specific to media buyers, advertising agencies, and the like. It's rather small (just a couple thousand I think) and pretty inactive, but every now and then discussions pick up. I'm interested to hear your thoughts and recommendations. Have a great weekend, Adam ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Amy D. Moore Subject: Rebagging > Company Z took my design, tweaked it, added a few new > visual elements, then rehost on their host it and put a > "Designed by Z" on it an removed all credit to me... How > should I feel about someone "rebagging my original work? - Mark Bishop, LED Digest 2348 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1746/55/ Personally, I have always felt imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! Legally and client-wise, I think it depends on the arrangement you had with your client. Four years ago, I would only put my company's name and link on my design work if I got their permission. I would also offer a client a discount if they allowed me to put my name and link on their pages. In that case, I would expect to be compensated my discount if my design was generally kept and my name removed - even four years later. I find most design houses assume they can put their name and link on their client's site. I have been doing this myself for a while now too, but find the practice unique to the web. Print designers and print houses don't put their names on their clients' work (unless it is negotiated). My company works on the "work for hire" concept of intellectual property. That means when a client pays me in full for my work it is theirs to do with as they please. They can break it, ruin it, make money with it, or rebadge it unless I put restrictions on the future use of my work. I also know I have taken over sites at a client's request and one thing I do is ask the client what they would like me to do with the credit to their last developer if we are keeping the design. 90% of the time the relationship had gone bad and they want it removed or changed to me. This site is an example for me: http://www.newdirectionsconsulting.com/ They had been my client. I had designed them a site they loved and incorporated into the CMS they had along with some custom CMS updates. Then they got this SEO idea into their head and hired a spammer / SEO company - who proceeded to create them a newly designed static site for which they paid a chunk of money. When things like their shopping cart didn't work, they came crawling back to me - because the spammer / SEO admitted he actually didn't know any PHP or how to integrate with the CMS. I was nice but firm with them about their choices when I took them back. I didn't take credit for design because it isn't my design. But I did give myself credit for what I did do with their site. Frankly, I believe the new design and copy is worse for SEO and explained why - but they liked its looks better. I think you might want to make a friendly sales call on your ex-client to find out why they went with this other company and to "just check in" and let them know what you can do for them. When the money they spent on this new place doesn't give them the return they expected, you might find they become one of your most loyal clients. As for the company that's taking credit for your work - its just like high school. If they stole your design because they can't design, then that credit does them no good. They should have left your design credit and appended text about their SEO. I'd leave them be. They can't possibly be worth your time. Amy D. Moore http://internetsupportservice.com Internet, Database, Multimedia since 1996 -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Marty Milette Subject: Log Analysis for Techies > Can anyone recommend web log analysis software, > to analyse my raw server log files. At the moment the > software needs to be free... - Niall Kennedy, LED Digest 2347 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1744/55/ Webmasters who are familiar with SQL may find Microsoft's Log Parser useful. It allows you to create SQL-like queries that process most standard log files. I use it to query the logs and produce a CSV file that can be imported into Excel where I can further process it and generate graphs. It is also quite useful for translating data between different formats based on queries. For example, querying the log files and pumping the data into an SQL Database for further analysis. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/tools/logparser/default.mspx If SQL and scripting isn't your game, there are a lot of free 'statistics' packages others will recommend. Marty R. Milette -- hotel-club.net -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Will Bontrager Subject: Harvest proof email > You have not tested this thoroughly enough. I went to your > site and clicked on the link to try it out. America Online > immediately evaporated. - David Spahr, LED Digest 2348 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1746/55/ David, thanks! Observations like yours are what let me improve the software. Because I don't use AOL's software, I would like to ask LEDers who do to please see if your experience is similar to Mr. Spahr's. If you would, please try the "Contact Us" link at http://flow-to.com/ and also the email link below my signature in this post. (The reason for both is to test the link from within an email reader and also from within a web page.) If you would, then, let me know what you experienced, and the version of AOL you're using. Also, know whether or not you have experienced any problems in the past when clicking on a regular mailto: link. In case it's needed, I put the URL of a contact form below my signature. Thank you very much for your help! > ... the user remained on the same page, after the > click-thru, instead of a blank page. That feature > would be the icing on the cake. - Joe Halbrook, LED Digest 2348 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1746/55/ I wish I could, Joe. The web page that opens when the email link is clicked needs to have certain PHP code to launch the email program. There have been several inquiries about the ability to provide a custom URL for that web page, and I'm considering making that available, probably for a small fee. First, I want to see if it can be done with JavaScript, in lieu of PHP, for those who might not have PHP enabled for their web sites. In either case, the code will be copy 'n paste, no customizations necessary. Let me take this opportunity to publicly thank all LEDers who took the time to write to me with suggestions and kudos. They were much appreciated. Please make use of the email link below my sig for any questions or suggestions. Will Bontrager Form: http://willmaster.com/contact.shtml Email: http://flow-to.com/email/w.u1171228517w.mth -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Veronica Yuill Subject: Harvest-proof email I have to concur with David Spahr that this system needs more testing. Clicking on the link from my gmail inbox simply produced a blank page that never finished loading, and no opportunity to send an email. Imagine if I'd been a customer desperate to contact you! Hiding the email in this way gives me no other option. I can't even cut and paste the email into my email client. If you really want to hide your email address, I think a spam-proofed contact form is a better option. Veronica Yuill -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Page names > Do the search engines apply any ranking differences > based on web page naming format? - B.S., LED Digest 2343 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1740/55/ > Endeavour to secure both the hyphenated and > unhyphenated version of the domain name. - John Smart, LED Digest 2345 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1742/55/ This discussion seems to be mixing two different naming aspects. The original question was with regard to page naming (i.e. the file names used for naming pages) but much of the discussion has been about domain naming, a totally different aspect. I doubt that Google or any other search engine cares too much about the naming of either since anyone who gives the matter some thought would realize that the choice of domain name is sometimes dictated by what may be available, oft times leaving one with their second or third choice, and the choice of file name is sometimes dictated by internal naming conventions used within a company or various other factors. For example, a site created with Windows 3.1 would have used the DOS 8.3 file name format (index.htm) and been indexed way back then but still ranks well (since the content is still updated regularly). These original 8.3 format names are still being retained rather that taking the chance of losing rankings because of a simple change of name for these files. I would think the bigger consideration in both domain and file naming (including the full path or directory structure) is the human aspect - the easier the name is to remember name in both cases, the better. Consider how often you see a Web site reference that you would like to follow up, find you have no way of writing it down at the time, so have to make a mental note to check it out later. If the name isn't obvious, chances are you will never get to the site since you will not remember the name. Tom Aman Aman Software ==== BULLETIN BOARD =============================== [please note: this post ran yesterday but we're re-publishing it here in an edited version to maximize the exposure. -ed] ----------------- From: Barry Mills Subject: Looking for Talent I'm looking for a senior search marketing professional, to head up a new search marketing division with an established client base, offering SEO and PPC. There are confidential (and rather more exciting) elements to the role but if anyone would like to know more please drop me an e-mail off-list. Ideally we're looking for someone to operate from our offices near Leeds in the North of England (that's the end of the country with the scenery and superior beer). But I'm not uninterested in hearing from freelancers or sub-contractors who can help in these areas, or people interested in tele-working. I'm also looking for new media project / account managers, and at least one developer, but they would have to be based in Yorkshire. I've no idea how many of the 40k LEDers are within driving distance of where I am, so this is a shot in the dark. I'll let you know what happens, thanks for humouring me. Barry S Mills, Chairman Netstep http://www.netstep.co.uk barry, netstep.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer." - Douglas Adams |
