| LED Digest 2358: It's Easy Being Rude on Email |
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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 .............................................. March 1, 2007 Issue no. 2358 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== <Moderator Comment> ~ On Rude Emails --== Fabricating Content for SEO: Part II ==-- ~ Dirk Johnson "...not many other sites will readily link to business-centric content." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Fabricating Content for SEO ==-- ~ Renee Kennedy "I think a real-estate agent can find a ton of things to write about that isn't 'fake' content." ~ Michael Martinez "...you have helped to promote a bad example of search engine optimization testing and analysis." ~ Nathan Holley "...there is limitless potential in almost any niche to come up with throw-away content..." ==== BULLETIN BOARD ============= --== A Cautionary Tale: Radius Group ==-- ~ James Miller ========== NEW =================================== <Moderator Comment> Here's a tale that I hope you can sympathize with. I'd love to hear your experiences in similar situations. Today was "one of those days." Busier than I care to be, with too many emails and too many voicemails and too many listings in my client task list in Act. You know the days when it feels like you're behind on everything? Well, I made a big mistake. I lost my temper and fired off an angry email. And the recipient actually called me, personally, to let me know how she felt about my rude message. The email that raised my ire was from a new subscriber. She'd just joined the list about 1 week ago. Her subject line was something like "GET ME OFF YOUR LIST!!" and a straight reply to the LED, with the entire issue sent back. She obviously didn't take the time to read the footer information and easy unsub instructions. My message was curt and basically told her she was clueless and couldn't follow simple instructions. When I heard her voicemail I realized I'd made a terrible mistake. I'd treated a real, living, breathing, thinking person rudely and inconsiderately. She sounded like a nice young woman, articulate and level-headed as she told me what she thought of that message. So I did the only thing I could think of - I called her back. Once I got her on the line, I explained that I was completely at fault, that I had made a mistake, and that it wasn't how I normally acted. She was responsive and explained to me why she wasn't able to unsubscribe. I hung up the phone feeling really good. Her taking the initiative to call me sent a clear message. And I hope me returning her call and apologizing sent a message back. I don't want to treat people badly, but sometimes email makes it so easy! In this case, I turned a negative into a positive, and I came away learning something. How have you dealt with this situation before? Best wishes, Adam -------------------- From: Dirk Johnson Subject: Creating Content for SEO Part II of II Real estate agents do need content, but not for the reasons usually cited by the SEO gurus. Your content needs to address your prospective client needs, and your own business needs. If people come to an agent's website, they do not want to wade through articles about how pretty the flowers are down at the town park, or who founded the town, or details about the local fruit festival. If they are searching for "Your Town ST Real Estate", then that means that they either want to buy some, or sell some. As an agent you need to convey that you are the person who can satisfy the visitor's need for an agent. You need to convey that they you know the local housing market, and that you have the experience to handle a pending transaction. That is the kind of optimized content that sells houses. And, it is proper content for a real estate agent. It is business-centric to the agents core purpose. It is not some fake prose or cooked-up data that has very little relationship with their true business. The trouble is, not many other sites will readily link to business-centric content. And that is the challenge facing with most businesses. The genuine content that sells their products and services is either already out there in hundreds of other places, or it is not all that remarkable, no matter what is done to put some lipstick on it. Yet it's genuine, as it relates directly to the business, and it is useful to people who are looking to buy and sell those products and services. It is legitimate content, just not all that remarkable. Which leaves the site owner with little choice but to get involved with their online community. That is, link to and from other sites in their realm of interest. Cooperate, to their mutual benefit. As long as the sites are genuine, related and useful, they don't need to be remarkable. Not every site is remarkable, and many never will be. Mutual cooperation is something that shrewd online business owners have been doing since long before any search engine existed. It is not gaming the engines. It is establishing your brand, within a related realm of interest. Gracious reciprocation between two-related sites is the original method of branding on the web. Even today, this is exactly what most of the top-ranking local agent real estate sites are doing to get where they are in search. They build content that is directly related to their business of selling hoses in their community, then they simply link it within the home & real estate realm. The fact is, there are very few other options to them that are affordable, timely, and genuine. Just have a look at the top ranking agent sites in any major metro area. They are not wasting their time and money on the goofball, fabricated content and arcane one-way linking strategies that are all the rage in the SEO world. They merely use simple, optimized, business-centric content, combined with reciprocation. It's very mundane stuff, but it works. I see this in real estate, and a lot of other industries, as well. I think that's what drives so many SEO consultants to make so many derogatory statements about those common situations. It's just not sophisticated enough for them, and it needs to be criticized at every opportunity. If they even admit that it worked for those sites, it somehow won't work for yours. You need them and their complex theories, or else you'll get banned from Google. If you have to manufacture content that is only tangentially related to your business, in order for some SEO consultant to go out and earn you some imagined "authority" one-way links, then I'd just advise you to think long and hard about the practical alternatives that are a lot more straight forward and a lot less costly. And well-proven. I see SEO consultants sending people down this road of fabricated content all the time. It's the latest SEO fad. Maybe it even works in some cases. I don't see it. The SEO gurus call all of this "white hat" optimization, and they claim that this kind of smoke and mirrors content and linking is what Google wants. I'd beg to differ with that. It is certainly not genuine. It's being done only for SEO purposes, and most of it would never be done if search engines did not exist. The hat they are wearing while selling this to you is dark gray, primarily because it works best for the SEO consultant that is selling it. Best regards, Dirk Johnson www.domaindrivers.com www.linkstrategy.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Renee Kennedy Subject: Generating content > There are one million [real estate] agents in the US. > Just what "content" can a typical agent in Kansas City > generate that will [substantial] impact? Not much, if any. - Dirk Johnson, LED Digest 2357 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1756/55/ Dirk, I have to disagree with you. I think a real-estate agent can find a ton of things to write about that isn't "fake" content. What about writing articles about schools systems in the area. What about writing about attractions in the area, like museums, gardens, night life, boat rides, train trips, zoos, parks, culture, etc. etc. Your "fruit festival" isn't fake. If I am moving to a new area, I want to know about the community activities, I want to know about everything cool in the area, especially if I am moving from a far away place (I've done this twice and let me tell you, it's very difficult to find good information on a specific area - community sites very often stink.) I've developed hundreds of sites for small businesses. There is always something to write about and I don't think any of it is fake. What is difficult, what you are not saying, is that getting a good writer to write these articles is tough and may possibly be expensive. You need a writer that instinctively can write for SEO, as well. That is a skill developed over time. (I don't care what anyone says about how easy SEO is... the premise may be easy, but there is a skill to it. I taught an SEO writing class for a few years, and people grasp the concepts, but it takes practice to sit down and write a good article.) Renee Kennedy -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Super Digg (and Generating Content) > The strategy here is to take basic link bait on *any subject*, > as long as it has potential to be popular on social sites, and > throw it onto the client's site. Once a story gets spread across > the Web and the links start pouring in, a site gets a huge > bump in trust and authority from Google because of incoming links. - Moderator Comment, LED Digest 2357 This article is typical of the kind of sloppy testing and analysis that permeates the SEO community. The data presented in the article do not support the conclusions and it's unfortunate, Adam, that you have helped to promote a bad example of search engine optimization testing and analysis. It will only lead other people to attempt to duplicate the results without understanding what actually happened. What Daniel should have done was examine the distribution of the backlinks across the client's content and show that they were indeed only pointing to the Braindisease article. In fact, a quick glance at Google's results for references to the parent domain shows that he ran at least one other similar article and that both are now missing from the domain, so all those links are pointing to non-existing URLs. The majority of the reported links also come from DIGG and you'll see from this cached page that a LOT of those links are pointing to other content on the site: http://snipurl.com/1bnjp [Google cache search] And this particular user, "usedcarwestpalm", looks suspiciously like it may be connected to the site. What Daniel should have done was capture Google's reported external links through Webmaster Central's tools PRIOR to releasing the 2 or more link bait articles and then capture the external links AFTER seeing the changes in rankings. He should also be measuring the backlink profile several months after the traffic spike. Now that he has removed the 2 or more link bait articles, and he is apparently not 301-redirecting the dead URLs, he needs to measure the long-term impact (if any) of creating such linkage. It's unfortunate that these kinds of flawed analyses become so popular in Web promotion discussion groups. They really don't help people understand what is going on because invariably they don't disclose all the facts. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Nathan Holley Subject: Linkbait, Super Digg, and Disposable Content The disposable content craze is in full effect! Thanks, Adam, for the fascinating article. I hadn't seen that one, I'm glad I did. It basically reinforces (actually discloses to the public) a strategy that SEOs have been using for some time. The thing that sets my approach apart (and I'm not alone here), is that I don't publish *any content* fit for social media just to get link bait spreading, I publish *relevant content.* It takes a bit more creativity, but honestly there is limitless potential in almost any niche to come up with throw-away content that has potential to be popular. For example, I had a local client who sold paint. They were one of the largest paint suppliers for the area and had a website developed. They wanted to get some wider reach and expand their operations into a nearby city. By starting with a website and gaining traffic, they could rank for relevant terms like "county name paint" or whatever. We used social media and linkbait articles to attract incoming links. Some article ideas we threw around (but didn't use): Top Paint Killers: Not Just Lead! Coolest Colors for Kids Rooms Colors that Make You Horny How to Paint Anything Tips to get Discounted House Painting etc... You get the idea. Not at all classy, I know, and I'm semi-ashamed... :-o But you know what - this works. It gets links, traffic spikes, and helps rankings. Until Google refines their algorithm, brute force backlinking via social sites is the norm. We ran a collection of articles for the client and generated several hundred links fairly quickly. Their site saw a boost in rankings for relevant keywords... Thanks, Nathan Holley holleymoney, gmail.com ==== BULLETIN BOARD =============================== From: James Miller Subject: A Cautionary Tale - Radius Group This is a cautionary tale that every company should know how to handle. There is a perfectly legitimate company called Radius Investments LLC in Santa Barbara, California. They have two web sites at: http://www.radiusgroup.com/index.cfm http://www.radiusinvestments.com Which are related. I have looked at them on the internet and the company seems very reputable, in that are a typical locally based American real estate company. For the last few months, I've been getting a whole series of spam e-mails from a company called Impex. They are one of these advance fee fraud people, who mention Western Union and getting ten percent for just transferring money. On Monday, I noticed that the Impex frauds were declining and they stopped yesterday. Usually when one of these stops, it means that it's run it's course and they will be starting another. So I searched all the spam I was getting and found that another one had been started based on a web site at: http://www.radiusgr.net This web site has been cloned from the legitimate Radius Investments and takes these sort of frauds to a new level, in that it has no spelling mistakes, has been put together in a professional way and all the people in it are legitimate. It gives a Tokyo address, although the site was registered on the 20th January this year in New Jersey. The street address given seems to be legitimate. Needless to say it is certainly spam, as it contains the usual rubbish to fool spam filters and a graphic. I have e-mailed Radius Group and they have put a private investigator on the case. Now to me this is serious fraud and it could have serious consequences for the company, if they do not handle it properly. If it happened to my company, I would come clean and bring in the media and show what a good company we are and show up the fraudsters for what they are. After all how many opportunities do you get to get on National TV and Radio? Not many! And as they say "all publicity is good publicity". The original author was Brendan Behan, but he really said "All publicity is good publicity except your own obituary". James Miller Daisy Analysis www.daisy.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "For knowledge itself is power." -Francis Bacon |
