| LED Digest 2417: Targeting Content to Unique Searches |
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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 .............................................. May 24, 2007 Issue no. 2417 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Emails Bounced as Spam ==-- ~ Reid Neubert "Can anyone help with this?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Javascript Rollovers & SEO ==-- ~ Greg Thibodeaux "...it looks to me like you've got a solid design that will work for visitors and search engines..." ~ Bruce Garrett "We used javascript rollovers on our site, once." ~ Steve Pronger "There is no reason for a site to be penalised for using JavaScript navigation." --== Getting Traffic ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "...there's just way too much needed to outline it in a post..." ~ Reg Charie "FOCUS your keywords." --== SEO and Content ==-- ~ William Ernest Waites "...this freelance copywriter much prefers to quote and work on a project basis..." ~ Anonymous "[Here's] one perspective that isn't going to be selling you something..." ========== NEW =================================== From: Reid Neubert Subject: Email Bounced as Spam Can anyone help with this? Five or six time a year I write articles on branding and marketing, and email them to a list I have built over the years as part of my own self-promotion as a strategic branding and marketing consultant. I just sent out my latest one, and it bounced from a few recipients with a response error message that the email is either spam or contained a virus. The vast majority went through fine. I know there is no virus, and I can't imagine what in the content would trigger a spam blocker. I was wondering if any readers know about this and could advise me. The article is posted at http://www.neubertweb.com/article.html. If you would like to see the entire original email, I'll be happy to send it to you. Thanks a lot! Reid Neubert www.neubertweb.com Comment? ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Greg Thibodeaux Subject: Javascript rollovers > We are considering a new design that includes > a JavaScript navigation roll-over with rotating text... > There seems to be a controversy over whether > that page will be penalized for this feature or not - Dale DeHart, LED Digest 2416 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1820/55/ First of all Dave, that is a nice design... Secondly, a quick look at the code shows that all of links and text on the page that are affected by the javascript are in the body of the source and fully indexable. At first glance I thought your second level pages were in trouble with the Flash based navigation in the right column but I can see that you're covering that by having all of those links in-content (although I would still never put navigation into Flash, even what you are doing there could be accomplished with CSS). Overall, it looks to me like you've got a solid design that will work for visitors and search engines... Greg Thibodeaux Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Bruce Garrett Subject: Javascript rollovers We used javascript rollovers on our site, once. Our ranking plummeted after using the javascript for navigation. After replacing the javascript with regular links the site ranking came back up again, although slowly. A compromise would be to use both. I like the rollover look but in my experience there is a loss in ranking by doing so. As for details, both sites, with and without javascript, were essentially the same. The only major change was in the navigation buttons with and without javascript. Thanks, Bruce W. Garrett ARCHIVE-CD, LLC Paperless Archiving Solutions www.archive-cd.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Javascript rollovers There is no reason for a site to be penalised for using JavaScript navigation. The issue has always been whether the search engine bots can follow your links and index your pages. Traditionally, the search engines had trouble with JS links. Whether that is still the case with all engines, or not, you can get around the issue by simply ensuring you have plain HTML links to all your pages in your footer. Or if that is not possible, a link to a sitemap page which has plain links to every page. However, before you go ahead with your JS navigation I'd ask yourself is it something your users really need to get around your site, or just something the designers think would be really "cool." Remember it's possible for users to turn off JS in their browsers. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.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: Michael Linehan Subject: Traffic > How can I get a better ranking on the major search > engines? We are a student loan advertiser > college-studentloans.com - Jonathan Askew, LED Digest 2416 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1820/55/ I'm sorry to say, Jonathan, there is no short answer - because your site needs everything. Consider the "big three" ranking factors of content, linking and optimization. For content, you need more. You don't have that many pages and many of them have too few words to matter. For linking, you need many, many more: you currently have close to zero. And for optimization - well... 130 keywords has not worked for years, and the key locations of title, description, headings and so on have not been optimized effectively. In addition, the overall coding of the site could be improved. In LED, we like to help each other out. We like to give answers. But I think there's just way too much needed to outline it in a post - or many posts. You don't do some tweaking on this site: I'd call it drastic renovation. I'd recommend that you use a professional (probably a two or three, actually, to cover everything), or start a serious, long-term program of study. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Reg Charie Subject: Traffic How to get better rankings? Consider who you are writing the page for and what you want to say. In the main body area you start with: ----------------- "College Financing News: Student debt emerged as this year's most pressing focus for reform. Colleges, consumer groups, lawmakers, lenders and even Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings called for solutions to debt relief. "Tuition at both public and private institutions continued to climb at a pace that outstripped inflation for the 2005-2006 academic year. Congress authorized two new awards for undergrads who qualify for federal Pell grants..." ----------------- If your main keyword phrase is "Consolidate Federal Student Loans" then the phrase should be in your main page area at the beginning. Move your news to a sidebar, and start with something like "Looking to consolidate your federal student loans?" and then a short paragraph on why using your service makes it easy. FOCUS your keywords. In your keyword tag you have 233 words and a good number of these are repetitions. Loan / loans is used 36 times. IMO the search engines will view this as meta tag spam. Do not include keywords that are not used on the page and only include ones that are the primary focus of the page. I would concentrate my main page on ONE phrase - "Consolidate Federal Student Loans" and subsequent pages on keywords applicable to those. I would rewrite my title, keywords, and description to be "Consolidate Federal Student Loans" Reg Charie www.dotcom-productions.com Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: William Ernest Waites Subject: Copywriting Rates > There's a huge difference between a copywriter > who's experienced, and who charges rates which > fit that experience, and a "copywriter" who charges > $20 an hour and then bills the client for 15 hours." - Angela Booth, LED Digest 2416 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1820/55/ Which is why this freelance copywriter much prefers to quote and work on a project basis. If the client defines the general scope of the project, I will estimate for myself how many hours of talented time will be required. I then quote that as a fee for services. If I can get to great results fast, I benefit. If it takes me longer, I absorb the difference and the client is not penalized for my slower performance. And the client knows what the project will cost in any case. Of course, significant changes in direction / strategy require the project to be re-quoted. But minor revisions are included in the project quote. Nevertheless, some clients have trouble getting past their hourly rate conditioning. Normally, if I remind them of the benefits of the project approach, they understand. Sincerely, William Ernest Waites - Free Lance Copy/Concepts Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Anonymous Subject: Content and SEO Content -- you asked about content provided by SEO consultants... but you didn't tell us anything about what your website is about or like. A lot of people want to make SEO complicated, mysterious, or scary... it does not have to be. In very generic terms, SEO can be thought of in the context of three factors: 1) Title of your webpage 2) Anchor Text of links linking to your webpage 3) Content on your webpage All three play various roles in how a webpage will rank -- depending upon how competitive a keyword or keyword phrase is... If you think about how few words can fit into your title, and to a lesser extent how few words can fit into the anchor text of links pointing at your site (and to a certain extent how little control you have over these links)... while content may not be the single most important factor, it quickly becomes one of the most easily addressed improvements that can be made to your website. The statistics vary, but whatever the actual number is, it is alleged that 70% of the search terms on a search engine are unique... i.e. that statistically they are only searched about once a month... it's in this vast majority of searches, that content on your site really begins to shine and become valuable, because the search engines will try to match these unique keyword phrases to content on webpages. The quality and quantity of content you have simply provides you more possibilities to have the combination of words on a page to match a search query. The generic answer to your question really just does not have to be any more complicated than that. I don't do any work for other people, 100% of my work is for my own websites. I don't use outside SEO consultants, but I often feel that 50% of what I do is SEO optimization and SEO design... I use a lot of outsourced content -- good, well written, authoritative content. However, I often re-write or create about 25% of every website because the existing content just does not adequately meet my SEO goals for the website. Each webpage is designed to achieve a specific goal for pulling organic traffic... in my case, that means that the title of the page is designed to pull a core keyword, I build links to that page using about a dozen variations of that core keyword, and the content on the page is written to incorporate the core keyword, alternative words with the same meaning, variations of the keyword, and related keywords and keyphrases. So when your SEO consultant tells you that you need more content... they are basically saying that we need to flesh out the quantity of the content on your website so you are using more variations of the keywords targeted for that phrase and alternative works that have the same meaning. I try to not be in the fulfillment business -- so I try to avoid physical products unless I can outsource the fulfillment functions -- i.e. I don't want to have to pack and ship orders... but when I do a catalog website... I set a goal of having three pages of content for each catalog product item. The first product page is more similar to a catalog page that has one product picture on it, and a half page of text describing it... most online stores have little more than a product picture and a product name -- unfortunately, if that is all you have, it is essentially impossible to get that page ranked in the search engines. I then have two additional pages for each product... one page that describes the product in great technical detail -- typically 450-900 words... and a second page that describes how the product is used and descriptive text about the lifestyle and activities it allows -- also 450-900 words... these two pages allow me to capture the long keyword phrases for those that are searching for technical specs and the long keyword phrases for people that are searching for lifestyle utility... typically about 75% of my traffic will enter the website from these last two pages. Since we don't know what kind of website you have... since we don't know how much content you do or do not have... specific relevant replies to your question are pretty hard to develop... and I wanted to take a moment to offer one perspective that wasn't going to be selling you something and wasn't simply a regurgitation of second hand knowledge without any real world experience. Best of luck, Anonymous 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Clouds over the moon, a storm over blossoms" (Tsuki ni muragumo, hana ni arashi) - Japanese Proverb |
