| LED Digest 2394: Online Publishing Gospel |
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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 23, 2007 Issue no. 2394 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Redirects on Windows Servers ==-- ~ Beth Earle "For sites that are hosted in a Windows environment, how do you make sure the URL changes?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Building Platform and Buzz ==-- ~ James Miller "Blogs seem to get read by the search engines much more often than ordinary web pages." ~ Tamra Heathershaw-Hart "...I have to comment on [the] opinion that podcasts are for geeks." ~ Shel Horowitz "This is the current gospel in the publishing industry..." --== SEO Standards ==-- ~ Veronica Yuill "...I said that using valid HTML is not *primarily about SEO*..." ~ Andreas Huttenrauch "How does non-valid HTML affect the company's public image?" --== New Trends in Checkouts ==-- ~ Jeremy Weiss "PayPal...allows me to generate a random, temporary credit card [number]..." ~ Robert Joy "So it shows, how different strokes are for different folks." ~ Ed Clark "I've had employees steal the numbers of a customer's card and commit fraud with them..." =========== NEW ================================== From: Beth Ann Earle Subject: Redirects on Windows [was: Search and Whois] > ... if domain1.com points to domain2.com make sure > the URL changes in the address bar to reflect that. - Nathan Holley, LED Digest 2393 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1796/55/ Nathan!! Thanks sooo much for bringing this issue up. I know it's been addressed in the LED in the past, but I haven't been able to locate the correct info again. For sites that are hosted in a Windows environment, HOW do you make sure the URL changes? If someone could just direct me to the right place in the LED Archives, I'll be glad to take it from there. Wishing LED'ers everywhere the very best, Beth Earle www.pilotfishseo.com Comment? ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: James Miller Subject: Building buzz > I have a client who is working to build 'platform' > for a new marriage book... This project has me > scratching my head. I've done the usual PPC > with product-based sites, but building buzz and > 'platform' is new to me. - Gordon Moe, LED Digest 2393 I've been doing something similar as an experiment with a web site. I won't give the name here as then everybody would go and look at it and that would ruin all the stats. Sorry, you'll just have to wait on that. Basically, I've created a WordPress blog, which I've expanded with extra pages to form a complete site exclusively in WordPress. I'm about to change the template, so that the site looks better, but I won't do that until I have a large amount of traffic, so that I can assess whether the new template makes a difference. Wordpress gives people all of the hooks they need to come back again and again and if the content is good, then they will. I've also found that the blog gets an average of about 1,000 page views a day, with a maximum of about 3,000. This means that in most searches it is in the top ten in Google. So I think we can say that it actually doesn't take much to get to the top in a non-competitive market, as it seems most web sites are lucky to get perhaps a hundred page views a day. Now what gets you looked at. 1. Blogs seem to get read by the search engines much more often than ordinary web pages. I commented about a BBC program in the blog and that appeared in Google the next day. I may have been lucky, but usually Google picks up the blog entry within a few days. 2. I go into forums, find topics and post messages. In one case I sent an e-mail to the moderator and he published an article on the blog and traffic tripled for a week. When it settled down it was fifty percent higher than before the post. 3. I generally post to this blog about five or six times a week. This keeps it fresh. 4. I also add posts, which are in essence not really connected to the blog. For instance, if your blog is about marriage, you might put in a story about swans being monogamous. Or even one about how the weather is really good today and you went out and had a lovely walk in the park. These off topic posts tend to bring in visitors, who aren't really looking for you, but when they see you are a serious site, they take a good look. 5. Remember marriage counselling is a distress purchase, so keep a light tone in some posts. I've known my wife for over forty years and sometimes we've gone through some stale patches, which have often been relieved by some silly and very erotic incidents. There was the incident in Berlin in a two star Michelin restaurant... 6. Answer all comments quickly and promptly. As in the previous post be upbeat and funny where it helps. 7.You mention RSS feeds. Most Wordpress templates incorporate these. The biggest advantage of this approach, is you spend all the times on the words. It was Lindbergh who when asked if he should take a navigator when he crossed the Atlantic, said that he'd take the fuel instead. You're better off in the first instance adding the words and then doing the style later. Hope all this helps. James Miller Daisy Analysis: www.daisy.co.uk Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Tamra Heathershaw-Hart Subject: Building buzz Regarding Gordon Moe's post about building buzz, I have to comment on his opinion that podcasts are for geeks. I'll have to tell my mother-in-law. She's retired, and we got her an iPod for Christmas loaded with podcasts to listen to when she takes her walks. She uses the iTunes gift certificates we get her to get additional podcasts -- she loves political podcasts and gardening podcasts. She uses a computer and sends us regular email, and I think she took a few computer classes back before she hit retirement age -- but if you ran into her at the grocery store you'd notice the dirt on her knees from weeding, and wouldn't find a single pocket protector. And whatever you do don't ask her to explain how anything on the computer works, because she'll just hand you our phone number. Now me, I'm a geek. So is my husband. We have the tee shirts and we speak the language. And I've never listened to a single podcast. I keep meaning to listen to one for illustrators / artists that a friend of mine does, but I never seem to get around to it. My husband has listened to 2 of them -- both while he was figuring out how to set up the iPod for his mother. Podcasts are just a radio show -- the only thing that makes them geeky is that they're on the computer instead of over the airwaves. Find a good topic, pitch it to the right audience, and advertise it well and you might get a few listeners. Don't leave Podcasting out of your media mix because it's too "geeky" -- leave it out because doing a good podcast is at least as much work as writing the book probably was. Just my $.02, of course. Tamra Heathershaw-Hart Crendo: brand-forward design www.crendo.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Shel Horowitz Subject: Building buzz I've got a lot to say on that one. This is the current gospel in the publishing industry. Big publishers no longer buy on merit; they buy on merit + platform (or even, sometimes, just on platform). Although the author does most of the work, including nearly all the marketing, the author gets paid a very small percentage of the book price. First of all, don't limit yourself only to building platform online. Consider, for example, radio guest appearances, press releases to print media, speaking (either paid or unpaid), and other offline tools. Some more online ideas you haven't mentioned -- that I've found extremely helpful in building my own platform: Participate in online discussion groups targeted to the book's audience, organize a blog tour, develop an affiliate network of other people who will sell the book when it comes out (even if only via amazon, if your publisher doesn't let your client sell the book him / herself and you can't negotiate that absurd clause), use excerpts of the book as stand-alone articles that you can circulate on numerous other sites, initiate other kinds of JVs, and yes, in spite of the delivery problems, start an e-mail newsletter as well as a content-rich website. All of the above *can* be done for zero dollar investment, only time. However, in the book industry especially, you will probably drastically increase both the likelihood of press pickup and the number of inquiries from prospects if you hire a professional to write the release (disclosure: as a professional copywriter and strategic marketing consultant for a mostly author / publisher clientele, I write a lot of author press releases and book marketing plans). DIY press releases about books are mostly very poorly done and pretty much guaranteed not to gain coverage. And of course, a DIY website is probably not the best way to go either. However, the rest just requires time and shoe leather / keyboard pushing. Note that even if the agent is not successful and the author decides to self-publish (another minefield I can help people walk through) -- creating a platform is an important step to take before publishing the book. Much easier to sell to your existing fans than to strangers. I might add that all my how-to books on marketing emphasize affordable, effective, and ethical ways to build a platform, and my most recent, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers http://www.grassrootsmarketingforauthors.com , is specifically designed to focus on the significant differences between marketing books and marketing other types of products or services, and to help authors make intelligent choices about how to publish, promote, and distribute. As one example, in the book I examine seven different models for doing a good book-promotion website. Shel Horowitz http://www.frugalmarketing.com Comment? ============ Sponsor Message =========== GetWebContent.com has a few words just for you. Relevant words, search-engine optimized words. Words that will impress both your customers and visiting search engine bots. Exclusive words custom written to meet your specs. Many other writing services recycle web content, at http://GetWebContent.com/LED we create it. ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Veronica Yuill Subject: SEO standards > But I have no objection whatever to you believing > that HTML validity is not a factor in SEO. And I'm > willing to look at your objective evidence (even if > entirely anecdotal) supporting that belief. - Jere Matlock, LED Digest 2392 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1795/55/ He is misinterpreting what I said. I didn't suggest that valid HTML wasn't a factor in SEO; I said that using valid HTML is not *primarily about SEO*, which is quite different. He seemed to be suggesting in his original post [see issue 2390 http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1793/55/ ] that Bruce Clay would only bother with validating his code because it was "important for SEO", implying that otherwise he would be happy to have bug-ridden code, which seemed an unfair and unjustified assumption to me. Regards Veronica Yuill www.larecettedujour.org Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Andreas Huttenrauch Subject: HTML Validation There seems to be a lot of discussion on the pros and cons of valid HTML, and a lot of people seem to be caught up in hype or form opinions based on circumstantial evidence. We have coding standards for many reasons, just like we have rules to the English language. If we start ignoring the rules of our language, we will definitely increase the likelihood of misunderstanding. When it comes to HTML code, the fact that some non-valid pages rank well, does not mean that all non-valid pages will be understood by Search Engines. Yes, modern browsers and Search Engines are pretty forgiving when it comes to HTML code and following standards, but having correct HTML code is the only way to guarantee that a page will be parsed correctly. There's no telling what Search Engines do when they hit an error they are not programmed to cater for. The risk is the site owner's. Then there's the whole other world of perception. How does non-valid HTML affect the company's public image? This should be factored in amongst the list of no-no's like broken links, spelling mistakes, etc. Andreas Huttenrauch Globi Web Solutions http://www.globi.ca Comment? -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Jeremy Weiss Subject: Checkout I agree with Tom [Aman] about Paypal being a fairly secure choice. PayPal has now come up with a 'virtual debit card' that I've been using recently. It allows me to generate a random, temporary credit card # to use on sites that don't accept PayPal. This way no one gets my real credit card number (except PayPal) and I can still purchase things like I normally would. Jeremy Weiss Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Robert Joy Subject: Checkout This comment about Checking Out brought a smile to my face and just shows how very different we all are. I live in Panama so obtaining goods that are impossible to buy here leaves me no option but to purchase elsewhere and generally from the good old USA. Now I have a problem yes I have a card here which I can use over the internet and I also have a card from a bank in the USA. For me I hunt for those stores that allow products to be shipped to another address other than the billing address, those that don't I say, a big bye. I either ship to a forwarding agent that then ships by ship or air into Panama or I send to a friend or relative and I pick it up on my next visit, bring it back without paying duty, hopefully. As far as for PayPal I call them PayEnemy Number One and my experiences albeit very painful is I run a mile away from any store that uses them. PayPal will not allow people in Panama to use there services. So it shows, how different strokes are for different folks. Robert Joy Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Ed Clark Subject: Checkout Fellow LED'ers, My thanks to Charles Oertel for telling it like it is on Credit Cards. He is (so) correct in saying that it is more of a risk giving your card to an employee at a restaurant or retail store... In fact, I've had employees steal the numbers of a customer's card and commit fraud with them and It is tough for the store's owner to do much about it. The customer gets their money back... and the merchant owner takes a loss on their end. Most likely the employee gets off with a free walk. While it may be true that one can have his or her card used with fraudulent intent... happens all the time... and some times it is a pain to get reversals from the card companies, just look at how many transactions per day occur both on the web and retail stores with perfect results. Look at the mess we would have today without plastic. So, while it is important to know where and how you use your credit cards, as Charles said, The merchant *has a record of your name and address and card number* using it online or in a retail store. I hope John has learned a thing or two from Charles.... now he can put his fear into more realistic thoughts of credit card fraud, like the online merchant not really being in business at all. Only one thing to look at when purchasing online. Ed Clark 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. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others, at whatever cost." - Arthur Ashe |
