| LED Digest 2355: Domain Appraisal Services |
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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 26, 2007 Issue no. 2355 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Domain Appraisal Services ==-- ~ Thom Reece "Am I being unfair of my opinion of the value of domain appraisal services?" --== Strategic Marketing [was: YouTube...] ==-- ~ Shel Horowitz "I remember when everyone was jumping all over FFA sites." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Marketing with YouTube ==-- ~ Jeff "Google has confirmed that YouTube videos are now placed higher in search listings..." ~ Ken Evoy "YouTube is just one part of using video to market and sell." --== Google Backlinks vs Yahoo! & MSN ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "...you need more value-passing links to move your pages into the Main Web Index." ~ Thomas M. Schmitz "...most web sites do not meet the minimum standards for basic SEO..." ~ Donald Nelson "...reciprocal linking has become a very irritating practice." ========== NEW =================================== From: Thom Reece Subject: Domain Name Appraisals / Valuations... Aloha... I am in the process of listing a number of domain names for sale. I have listed 20 domain names on Sedo.com and have heard mixed feedback with regard to listing there and the value of having appraisals on the domain names. By the way... these are not domains I purchased for speculation. They were bought for actual development. Some have been actively used for years. Others have been parked awaiting action on my part. I am selling the domain names only. I have never been a big believer in domain appraisals as they seem to be done by firms who are in the business of selling them and that in itself makes their value and legitimacy suspect. One case in particular has created some interesting dialogue between a potential buyer and myself. One of the domains I have listed has caught the interest of a buyer who is adamant about not buying unless he is provided a "legitimate" appraisal (from an unnamed source that he trusts) and expects me to pay for the appraisal. Since I do not believe anyone can properly value a domain name (it's not like the real estate business where you can get comparative recent sales in a neighborhood) I have explained to the buyer that it is, in my opinion, a waste of time and money. My price is firm regardless of any outside parties arbitrary "opinion" of value. In order to try and accommodate the buyers concerns I have made the offer to discount the price of the domain by the actual price of the appraisal should he choose to get one to satisfy himself of the domains value...but I would not be bound by the results of any appraisal and my price would remain the same regardless. I would like the opinion of those of you have gone through this process. Am I being unfair of my opinion of the value of domain appraisal services? Am I being too inflexible? Are there any real domain name appraisal services whose accuracy and legitimacy has been proven? Appreciate your feedback... Thom Reece www.e-comprofits.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Shel Horowitz Subject: Strategic Marketing [was: Marketing w/ YouTube...] > Another "ignore at your peril" area has been the social > networking phenomenon. Yes it's useful, even important > for some businesses. But for many others, it's totally irrelevant. > The answer to all these kinds of considerations > (and my second thought) is about being strategic. - Michael Linehan, LED Digest 2354 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1753/55/ I remember when everyone was jumping all over FFA sites. I couldn't see any real value to them, figuring the only people who would show up were those posting ads and those harvesting the addresses of the posters. But they were all the rage, for a while. Similarly with reciprocal links. I send requesters a form letter asking them to give me URLs on their site with real content. If they do (very few of them do), and if their content is good, we link. I never went chasing after links -- they come to me because of the quality of content we put up, and they go out from my sites primarily as articles from other writers with links back to their sites. And I don't obsess at all about Google's latest antics. I just create the best sites I can and watch my traffic go up. (I did, several years ago, work with an SEO person to optimize one page of one site.) From a strategic point of view, those tactics made no sense. So I didn't bother with them. Yes, I totally agree that you want to be strategic. While once in a while you might chose an opportunity that presents itself and is not part of your strategic plan, it should be compatible with it. Shel Horowitz Marketing Strategic Planning, Consulting, and Copywriting http://www.frugalmarketing.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Jeff Subject: Marketing with YouTube > I think at this point you ignore YouTube and it's > long term implications to web design and the > entire internet at your own peril. - David Spahr, LED Digest 2352 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1750/55/ David your comments about marketing via YouTube.com is right on target. Google has confirmed that YouTube videos are now placed higher in search listings as they scramble to monetize video advertising, so by adding keyword rich (via tags) videos, you can effectively generate tons of traffic back to your website or product. We are starting a free dating website called lonelybloggers.com. Quickly realizing that keyword advertising was way too expensive in our particular niche (I've read that other dating sites pay around $5 per customer via Google Adwords), we started to look at video as a way to generate awareness for our website. So we spent $10,000 to get a series of viral videos produced: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=lonelybloggers We've released 9 out of about 20-25 videos so far on about 20 of the larger video sharing sites. So far pretty good.. It's hard to tell the difference between someone watching a video vs. just clicking away but our best bet is that our videos have been viewed over 30,000 times so far -- Not great, but not bad -- Our last 10 videos will introduce some of the things we've learned already (stronger call to action, url in plain view) since we posted our first video. There are now millions of people around the world that are discovering the world of online video. The best thing about video sharing websites is that it's completely free to upload your videos without any bandwidth concerns. With a growing audience of millions of people, this is effectively giving you multiple free distribution channels to market your product. Think about it - videos don't go away after people click on them, they can be shared, they are crawled by search engines, they can be even be posted on other people's blogs. You can even add your video clips on your actual website and make your homepage much more interactive for potential leads and clients. Video can be an excellent method to come across as a professional company that's hip to what's happening on the internet today and still be very inexpensive at the same time ... All you need is a webcam to make a video now and there are lots of free video editing tools out there, so no need for a big budget -- Use your imagination and get your company in the video age... Visit our blog as we openly talk about finding a company to film our videos and what's happened since we posted the first video. If you are thinking about adding video to your advertising arsenal, then this is definitely a good read: http://www.lonelybloggers.com/blog/ Video advertising potentially has amazing metrics. It's not easy to be a video superstar You need to test everything and you need to change / adapt along the way as the smallest details can make a difference. I still am learning more and more everyday still myself.. Jeff LonelyBlogger http://www.lonelybloggers.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Ken Evoy Subject: YouTube > I wonder how Ken Evoy and others feel about the > monetizing of YouTube... If Google implements > advideos, would you host the videos yourself? - John Barendrecht, LED Digest 2354 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1753/55/ John, I presume you are referring to the "I Love SBI!" YouTube videos that we display at... http://ilovesbi.sitesell.com/ First... Why do we show YouTube on that site? Not very professional? But these videos were created by SBIers, so it is an informal display. It's not a huge point, but we prefer it that way **FOR NOW**... Because you are absolutely right. No one knows exactly what the rules will be when YouTube "adds ads." We assume that there'll be some kind of opt-in. Imagine the howls if they forced ads onto everyone's videos? But let's assume the "forced" scenario. We have prepared a duplicate of each one, to be played through our own branded player. For example, take this video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr2wZrcezZU We'd relace it with this one... http://www.sitesell.com/vbi/Elad-Free.html We put these in a generic-type player to avoid looking "packaged." But we also offer affiliates video ads that we have created that play inside an SBI!-branded player... http://www.sitesell.com/vbi/ButterflyFiesta.html And our affiliates can embed ALL of our videos, with their affiliate links, into their sites. And here I'd like to mention a great little company... http://www.webvideozone.com -- I can't say enough about how great their product and founder / owner, Joe Chapuis, are. We use their tools to create all our Web-ready, embed-able, share-able videos, and their unique technology enables you to put those videos into the hands of your affiliates with their links. Joe is great, knows his stuff, and cares like crazy about OVERdelivering. But I digress... John, you bring up a great point. The ground is constantly shifting, and how this all shakes out, no one knows. YouTube is just one part of using video to market / sell. It will become more important, and less "viral-cool," as ads start to drive it. So it's important to be flexible and think ahead. Video is very young, barely out of the womb. While it grows meteorically, we'll have a ton of challenges to address, opportunities to capitalize upon. All the best, Ken Evoy, President SiteSell.com P.S. To Michel Fortin -- one heck of a white paper. I'm printing and looking forward to some interesting weekend reading. :-) -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Supplemental > ... this from Aaron Wall's excellent seobook.com: > If you're interested in viewing pages from your site > that are in Google's supplemental index, try this > command: > site:www.yoursite.com *** -sljktf - Moderator Comment, LED Digest 2354 Unfortunately, this is an invalid test. While it does show you Supplemental Results pages, some of those pages can also be in the main Web index. So you don't see an accurate picture of how much of your content is actually showing ONLY from the Supplemental Results Index. You also quoted Aaron here: -------------------------- "Just how cache date can be used to view the relative health of a page or site, the percent of the site stuck in supplemental results and the types of pages stuck in supplemental results can tell you a lot about information architecture related issues and link equity related issues." Source: http://www.seobook.com/archives/002047.shtml -------------------------- That's just wrong. Cache dates won't tell you anything about why pages go into the Supplemental Index. There are a lot of people trying to figure out what Google is doing with the Supplemental Results right now. All we can be sure of at this point is that pages in the Supplemental Index are not being parsed and indexed and they are not passing value. I have yet to see any queries, tests, or whatever that help people get a handle on their Supplemental Page issues. The only "fix" that Google has confirmed is that you need more value-passing links to move your pages into the Main Web Index. A quick note also on Dirk Johnson's "backlink check". That's just a different variation on the traditional URL query (which even Google has advised people to use to find links). However, if you don't subtract out pages from your own domain, you will see larger numbers than you should. So the queries should formatted as: "example.com/" -site:example.com OR ".example.com" -site:example.com At best, this only gives you an approximate upper limit on backlinks, as some domains are referred to outside of links. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ and http://michael-martinez.blogspot.com/ <Moderator Comment> I don't think Aaron was talking about cache date as an indicator for why pages go supplemental, Michael. To be fair to Aaron Wall and his published quote in issue 2354, I removed 2 links from that passage: Cache Date as the New Google PageRank http://www.seobook.com/archives/001985.shtml Get Your Blog Out of Google's Supplemental Result Hell http://www.seobook.com/archives/002030.shtml Sorry if that was misleading or if it muddied the quote. I was trying to keep things clean and relatively link-free for readability. -Adam -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Thomas M. Schmitz Subject: Backlinks and competitive analysis > One of the primary purposes of backlink analysis > is to expose trends... if you look at the link profiles > of 100 of the top ranking local real estate agent sites, > in at least a dozen competitive metro areas... you > will get a very good feel for what works in real estate, > consistently.... - Dirk Johnson, LED Digest 2353 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1752/55/ Maybe not. Competitive analysis -- when done correctly -- can be a powerful tool. However, with local real estate in particular I have found that most web sites do not meet the minimum standards for basic SEO (or basic marketing for that matter). The biggest offense on local real estate web sites is the lack of original content. As a former marketing director for a Sotheby's International Realty office I can tell you this goes back to long before agents had email addresses. Most Realtors work for franchises of large companies like Coldwell Banker, Prudential and Century 21. Those parent companies give their franchises marketing handbooks, guides and other tools. The language from that material gets copied verbatim into Realtors' brochures, newsletters and web sites. It's not unusual to see on Realtor web sites the exact same language I saw in brochures ten years ago. Just last week I reviewed a local Realtor site. I put whole sentences, quoted, into Google and the site wasn't even in the top 10 results because so many Realtors were using the same text. If you are in local real estate the best thing you can do is to roll-up your sleeves and begin writing original authoritative content about your community and about local market conditions. If you write one article each week by the end of the year you will have 52 great content pieces that will separate your website from the other Realtors in your market. (And by the third article you will be forced to write real original content.) Bundle that content with some basic SEO and you will be well on your way. Thomas M. Schmitz, President SEOcritique.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Donald Nelson Subject: Backlinks Dear All, Dirk Johnson in LED Digest 2353, has again written a long post in which he attacks some of the anti-reciprocal linking talk that is common today. I believe that linking is his "bread and butter" product and can understand how he feels about it. Everyone agrees that backlinks are important for ranking, it is just a question of what is the best strategy for getting quality backlinks. I am not sure if reciprocal linking is harmful in any way, and will let others debate the pros and cons of this type of linking. But what I do know is that reciprocal linking has become a very irritating practice. Most of the requests for links come via automated software and are for sites that have huge link directories. In addition most requests are basically from low quality sites that don't provide much of a resource to my users. In addition the links are placed on pages which human eyes may never view, so they can't generate any traffic. I delete almost all such requests. I even installed link directory software on several sites to make it easier to exchange links, but even this software is innundated by these low quality link requests, and I have to delete 95% of all requests. I think many webmasters are also deleting the requests and this in turn makes it difficult to conduct a legitimate reciprocal linking campaign. My opinion is that reciprocal linking is not as effective as it once was and I prefer to get links for my site and client sites through article marketing, press release distribution, quality directory submission, and, infrequently, with judicious use of reciprocal linking. Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.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. 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