| LED Digest 2386: Designing for a Target Audience |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.GetWebContent.com/LED : the LED's Key Sponsor The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. April 10, 2007 Issue no. 2386 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Designing for a Target Audience ==-- ~ Liz Ross "I'm really having difficulty finding good solid information." --== Traffic Referral Data ==-- ~ Douglas E. Bates "[How can] a site with no links to my site show up in my stats as a referring URL?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Google Ranking Factors ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "All inbound links are considered to be topically relevant by search engines..." ~ Beth Ann Earle "...have other LED'ers had much success in explaining the importance of inbound links...? <Moderator Comment> ~ Geoffrey Day "I remember when a young chap by the name of Danny Sullivan was hanging out..." <Moderator Comment> ~ Tom Schmitz "...it does mention content and architecture." --== Befuddled by Bad SEO Companies ==-- ~ Adam Boettiger "Sorry. I must call bullshit here. Name me two firms who are willing to be paid performance-only..." ~ Cayley Vos "...expect to pay $1000 /month and up for a quality middle tier SEO firm." ========== NEW =================================== From: Liz Ross Subject: Designing for a Target Audience Hi Adam, I'm starting to do research on how to select the proper web colors, font, size etc., to match specific target audiences. A mid 30's female target audience requires different criteria than a 20's male or a retired 50's gender neutral. I'm really having difficulty finding good solid information. I can find what makes a good web site (easy navigation, non-blinking text, etc), but nothing audience specific. If you can point me in the right direction or post to the LED list for some direction, I would greatly appreciate the help. Thanks, Liz Ross Comment? -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Douglas E. Bates Subject: Referring URLS? Hello LEDers, I have been a reader of LED for a number of years and appreciate all of the good advice I have found here. I know I still have a lot to learn. I am wondering if any LEDers can explain how a site with no links to my site can show up in my stats as a referring URL? While checking my stats yesterday on the "Referring URLS" page I found an entry for gnoztik.com/index.php, with 9 referrals. When I went to the site I found no links to my site, only internal links to their pages. I have noticed this a few times before from other sites, a referring URL that seems to only promote itself with no links to my site. How do these sites show up in my "Referring URLS" stats without having a link to my site? I use "Traffic Facts" that is provided by my hosting service at Go Daddy. Douglas E. Bates Handgun Repair Shop www.handgunrepairshop.com Comment? ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Michael Martinez Subject: Ranking factors > The good folks at SEOmoz have put together an interesting > document that culls knowledge from many of the top search > marketers... Dubbed, "Google Ranking Factors," what we > have here is a speculative document representing a > sampling of best practices for SEO. - Adam Audette, LED Digest 2385 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1788/55/ The survey is only an expression of collective opinion. It is by no means an authoritative statement of fact or proof that one methodology is better than another. There is, in fact, quite a bit of misleading information in the survey results. ------------------- Top 10 Positive Ranking Factors 1) Keyword Use in Title Tag 2) Global Link Popularity of Site 3) Anchor Text of Inbound Link 4) Link Popularity within Internal Link Structure 5) Age of Site 6) Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site 7) Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community 8) Keyword Use in Body Text 9) Global Link Popularity of Linking Site 10) Rate of New Inbound Links to Site ------------------- As an example, look at the above list. It's a sure bet that people in the SEO industry and outsiders looking for authoritative resources will be touting this top ten list of ideas as the best ways to get a site to rank. However, "Age of site" is one of those pernacious SEO myths that just won't die even though there is considerable evidence to show it has absolutely no bearing on a site's chances of ranking for any particular keywords. Ask any successful link baiter if they can get a new domain to rank in 2-3 months. They'll usually tell you "yes". "Topical relevance of inbound links to Site" is just gibberish. All inbound links are considered to be topically relevant by search engines (such as Ask, Google, Live Search, and Yahoo!) that allow links to pass anchor text. "Rate of new inbound links to site" is also invalid. Regardless of whether you get them quickly or slowly, worthless links won't help a site at all. And the reverse is just as true: regardless of what rate you acquire them, highly trusted, frequently crawled, value-passing links simply help in any quantity. Ask any link baiter if they'll take 1,000 links today or would prefer to have them spread across the next 12 months. "Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community" basically describes part of Ask's ExpertRank methodology, which is based on the IBM-proposed CLEVER/HITS algorithms. There is no indication that Google, Live Search, or Yahoo! employ anything like ExpertRank. "Global Link Popularity of Linking Site" really doesn't mean much of anything. There is no such thing as "Global PageRank", for example, as PageRank is applied only to individual pages. And link anchor text is also only passed to individual pages. So "global" just doesn't work in today's search engine environment -- not with the concepts that have been provided by search engine designers. ------------------- Top 5 Negative Ranking Factors 1. Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots 2. Content Very Similar or Duplicate 3. External Links to Low Quality Sites 4. Duplicate Title / Meta Data 5. Participation in Link Schemes or Selling Links ------------------- "Content very similar or duplicate" doesn't hurt rankings in search results. At worst, it gives a page a chance of being filtered if other similar pages are returned for a given query. "External links to low quality sites" is mis-stated (I think). Since the document doesn't explain what these terms mean or whether definitions were provided to the survey respondents, we must guess at the meaning. I think that they mean "links on your site pointing to other sites of low quality" may hurt your rankings. Well, according to Matt Cutts of Google, such links may get your site penalized (so that it cannot pass value) or banned. But if you're not penalized or banned, there is no indication your RANKINGS will be adversely impacted. "Duplicate title / meta data" is also questionable. To date, no one has shown any credible (or even incredible) evidence I am aware of that rankings will be affected by duplication in title and meta data. Pages may be filtered in site: searches for having duplicated titles and meta data -- or not. But any page that is more relevant to a query than others will still rank highly for that query regardless of how many irrelevant pages share a title and meta data with it. > When looking at the top positive factors, here's what jumps out > to me: 7 of 10 factors are related to linking, either internal or > external; There's no mention of content, only keyword use... Keywords in text and title (number 8 and number 1) ARE mentions of content. Your content is only relevant to whatever words its contains. All words in your content are therefore keywords. Obviously, the survey assumes that some words are preferred above others. > No mention of site structure (ie architecture); I think number number 4 ("Link Popularity within Internal Link Structure") qualifies as dealing with site structure. In terms of representing what a majority of people involved in the SEO community believe to be helpful or hurtful, the document is unquestionably the most recent research performed on the subject. Whether it reflects anything useful is another matter altogether. The lack of definitions is certainly a major flaw in the article. But the clearly demonstrable effects of a number of factors that are given little to no weight show that the responses are based on personal methodologies and not on a rational evaluation of all methodologies. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Beth Ann Earle Subject: Ranking factors > When looking at the top positive factors [in the SEOmoz > article], here's what jumps out to me: 7 of 10 factors are > related to linking, either internal or external; There's no > mention of content, only keyword use; No mention of > site structure (ie architecture); - Adam Audette, LED Digest 2385 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1788/55/ Perhaps there was an underlying assumption that the page already contained decent content? Or perhaps the questions pertained to what factors make content in general rank well ... although it still seems odd. Speaking of the number of criteria that deal with linking, have other LED'ers had much success in explaining the importance of quality inbound links to their SEO customers? It's been somewhat of a struggle for us, really, to the point where one client wanted to know how other sites could link to him without his permission, but he had to ask new sites to post links to his own web site. Why couldn't he just post his links on their web sites? As an old newspaper reporter, I've been testing out a newspaper analogy (the newspaper can write about you whenever it wants, but you have to submit a letter to the editor and wait for them to publish it), among other things, but it would be interesting to hear if others are trying to educate their clients on the importance of good inbound links and how their efforts are going. PS: My boss posted a commentary on the ranking-factors on her blog just today. It's a good take on the meaning of the report and how site owners should view the info: http://kiss-seo-wd.blogspot.com/2007/04/its-about-links-stupid.html Regards, Beth Earle www.pilotfishseo.com Comment? <Moderator Comment> Thanks for the post and the link, Beth. Here's a snip from the article your boss Angela Charles wrote: ------------------- "The secret to Google's ranking formula is basic in understanding. The search engine is prioritizing sites based on how important they seem to a particular topic. To Google, a site's importance is demonstrated by how many other important web sites link to a given page on your web site." ------------------- Anyone have thoughts about these comments? -Adam -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Geoffrey Day Subject: Ranking factors > By the way, where's Shari Thurow on > the list? And Detlev Johnson? - Adam Audette, LED Digest 2385 Adam, Methinks Sherri and Detlev are too busy making $ to hang out on discussion lists, even the great ones... I remember when a young chap by the name of Danny Sullivan was hanging out with the ancestors of this list. And Brett and any of the mods of his crew are serious authorities, also busy racking in the simolians. Has there been a guest posting from John A. lately? Geoffrey Day The Consulting Exchange http://www.cx.com Comment? <Moderator Comment> I realized after writing the comment about Shari and Detlev that it should have been phrased this way: "By the way, where's [insert known or unknown SEO master here] on the list?" There are countless people doing sophisticated things related to SEO every day, some known and most unknown. I remember posts from Danny, too, back when he was still building SearchEngineWatch. As for Shari and Detlev, they're both busy with clients and on the conference circuit, but still post here on occasion. A guest post from John Audette? Don't think so... my Dad is pretty uninterested in this stuff now. Mostly he works on his old cars http://audettecollection.com and tries not to think too much about Internet marketing. (As an indicator of his level of interest in the Web, notice that his pages have no title tags! He's the anti-SEO.) I recently published his article on business principles: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1286/174/ "The Sweet 16: Principles for Building a Successful Internet Business" There are a bunch of comments at the bottom of the piece, including one from John himself. -Adam Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Tom Schmitz Subject: Google Ranking Factors Adam, while the document does not spell out how to do it -- because it's not a how-to-do-it article -- it does mention content and architecture. ------------------- Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis) - Topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords - High Importance Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure - Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page - Exceptional Importance ------------------- Obviously these are highly distilled, but there they be. I found the comments to be clarifying as well. Tom Schmitz www.seocritique.com Comment? ============ Sponsor Message =========== Want a fresh pizza delivered? Call Domino's. Want some fresh web content? Visit GetWebContent.com. We deliver fresh, we deliver fast and, unlike Domino's, every pizza copy we bake is different. We custom write it to fill your order and then burn the recipe. After that it's all yours to use on one site or 1,000 sites. www.GetWebContent.com/LED fresh, fast and only for you. ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Adam Boettiger Subject: SEO befuddled > Instead, merchants should insist on paying based on > the value received, which should be a share of the improved > profits from "optimizing" the PPC campaigns. - Mark Welch, LED Digest 2384 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1787/55/ Mark, businesses have been trying for years to get any vendor to agree to be compensated based on whether or not the client's business generates a profit. Just because you insist doesn't mean you won't hear dead silence. You likely mentioned it because that's the model that you work under for PPC services you yourself provide. However I'd bet money that you cherry pick your clients and say no to more than you say yes to on that compensation model. You'd be foolish not to. To suggest that every business is going to be able engage a PPC or SEO management vendor on a performance comp model based on an increase in the business' profits is ... wrong at best. First of all, let's at least acknowledge that we're talking about two different services here, one being PPC and the other being SEO (that often takes 3-6 months to see results from). Both take time to manage. You're suggesting that if the PPC or SEO management vendor / strategist / expert / agency is not able to help a client's business generate a profit that they should not be compensated for the time that the team spent? What if they deliver an increase in ranking but it does not result in an increase in profits? Is that somehow the SEO firm's fault? Sorry. I must call bullshit here. Name me two firms - other than you - who are willing to provide PPC and SEO management and are willing to be paid performance-only and only if an increase in profit occurs with the client's business. Just two, Mark, and they can't be offshore. US-based. You can't name two because there aren't two. You can advise people all day long to insist for these terms from vendors. But you should also caution them not to be offended when they hear laughter on the other end of the phone. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a vendor who is so busy with clients there is a 3 to 6 month wait just to work with them (most of the good SEO firms are like this). I don't want a vendor who is so desperate for clients that they have to go to a performance- only comp model just to convince a client to do business with them. Adam Boettiger, President http://www.marketingseeker.com Fast, Objective, Marketing Services Vendor Procurement Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Cayley Vos Subject: Befuddled Lorien - we've all heard this before. It's amazing how many careless SEO's exist. > Quite honestly, I have been burned before > by an SE company so I'm extremely leery. The most important thing to have is a reasonable list of expectations. On your end, expect to pay $1000 /month and up for a quality middle tier SEO firm. Of course there are many variables such as your business type, number of keywords, competitiveness, amount of content generation you can do, etc. Other good resources: www.seoconsultants.com http://www.sempo.org/directories/ http://www.sherpastore.com/Buyers-Guides-SEO-PPC.html a good forum to ask questions on: http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/ Cayley Vos, Principal SEO website development http://www.netpaths.net Comment? ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. Free no-obligation proposal: http://GetWebContent.com/LED 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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