| LED Digest 2422: Will SEO Become Obsolete? |
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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. www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. June 4, 2007 Issue no. 2422 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= <Moderator Comment> ~ Can SEO Become Obsolete? --== New Email Client Sought ==-- ~ DL Neil "The key to extended powers in [Thunderbird] is 'extensions' or Add-Ons." ~ Michael Linehan "An advantage of Mail...is its integration with a fantastic Mac CRM program..." --== Marketing Artwork Online ==-- ~ Mackenzie Andersen "The National Endowment for the Arts works with six regional groups." --== Losing Rankings to Scraper Sites ==-- ~ Steve Pronger "SEO isn't obsolete and never will be." ~ Michael Martinez "There are four things that affect search engine rankings..." --== SEO and Content ==-- ~ Biana Babinsky "You write for your web site visitors and search engines." ======== CONTINUING =============================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, Just a quick question for you today: Do you foresee a time when SEO will become obsolete? Why or why not? Comment? (See Steve Pronger's post below for more thoughts on this...) Have a great week, Adam PS - stay tuned... a special guest moderator is starting a week from today! --------------------- From: DL Neil Subject: Email clients > Mozilla's Thunderbird was recommended > and may be the way I go. - GJ Berg, LED Digest 2421 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1825/55/ GJ, I am a long-time Thunderbird user (albeit not on Apple computers). The key to extended powers in both it, and Firefox its companion web browser, is 'extensions' or Add-Ons. There are (too) many! To accomplish many of the tasks you have set, I have added the following to the basic facilities offered by my Thunderbird set up: SMTP Select: choose which way to send msgs out (assuming a choice) URL Link: enables construction of a link from text and various action-choices from context menu Virtual Identity: extends the idea of identities Additionally I have been begging the publishers of the Firefox Hyperwords extension to produce a variant for Thunderbird... (Hw is THE extension to use when in research-mode, to perform several of the functions you mention) Sorry I can't help you with 'stationery' etc - I'm a believer in 'content' over form in email, ie dull and boring!? Regards, DL Neil PS no connection to any of above, except early-adopter for Hyperwords PPS the easiest way to access the Extensions 'library' is Tools menu | Extensions (or Add-Ons, depending upon s/w version) and from that window use the Get-More-Extensions link. Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Email clients > Mac Mail -- doesn't support (easily) > multiple email addresses - GJ Berg, LED Digest 2420 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1824/55/ I don't know how many you need. In Mail, I have three. 2 are POP; 1 is IMAP. Each has a different incoming mail server. The two POP use the same outgoing server; the IMAP uses its own. Very easy to set up and use. I can't imagine why I couldn't just as easily set up many more, if I wanted. Yes, you can't separate the time interval for checking each, but is that a deal breaker? An advantage of Mail, worth considering, is its integration with a fantastic Mac CRM program, DayLite http://www.marketcircle.com. No affiliation except a very happy customer for many years.) Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com Comment? ============ Sponsor Message =========== Now you got 'em, what are you gonna do with 'em? Surfers, that is. They're at your site, but is your copy ready? Is it powerful enough to convert casual visitors into free-spending customers? At www.GetWebContent.com/LED we first write "sell" copy that makes you money and your website sticky. Then we SEO it to make sure it gets read. ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Mackenzie Andersen Subject: Marketing Artwork Online > Is marketing art any different from marketing any other product? > What are the best SEO practices to use in marketing art? - Stan Bowman, LED Digest 2420 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1824/55/ Regarding Marketing Art on line, there are many art listing sites, but as I recently discovered be very careful to read Terms of Service Agreements... The National Endowment for the Arts works with six regional groups. One of them is the New England Foundation for the Arts, that administeres and maintains a cultural data base. I was shocked when I read the Terms of Service agreement in which the New England Cultural Data grants itself unjustifiable "unlimited" rights over submitted content (including of the right to modify the content) and then requires that account holders "waive and never assert moral rights" over submitted content. There is some similarity in language to some language used inthe Google Terms of Agreement but the resulting meaning is radically different. Google stipulates the specific uses for which it needs certain rights, whereas The New England Cultural data base leaves the uses so wide open so that, in effect NEAD has given itself legal basis for reproducing the content submitted to its data base for any purpose what-so-ever and also grants itself the right to transfer the same rights to another party. What a fundraising bonaza for New England Cultural Data Base! and what a loss to the rights to the fruit of one's own labor to the artist! Most Non-profit arts organizations and some businesses, in my local community, have signed up for accounts in NEAD, like lemmings going over a cliff. It is not certain to what degree such organizations have compromised themselves and any content that they publish on their own websites. The NEAD Terms of Aervice Agreement defines it as "irrevocable and for perpetuity." The Maine Arts Commission, which is in partnership with the New England Foundation for the Arts, offers many services for artists with no Terms of Service agreement. There is a link for the designer of the data base, giving The New England Cultural Database as the only example. What is next the other six regions of the country recieving Grants form the National Endowment for the arts? As I was writing this I tried to access The New England Arts Cultural Data base so that I could cite the actual name of the firm that designed the data base, but all links that I tried led to a non-existent page. I don't know what that is about. They all worked the other day. I have written about this on my Blog, Andersen Studio Days and Nights, found on my website at www.andersenstudio.com/ASBOLGz.html. The blog includes links to the actual contract (also at this time leading to a "page cannot be displayed message"). I wrote a letter that I submitted to local newspapers which is published with links on my blog, and I wrote the The National Foundation for the Arts suggesting that if The New England Cultural Data Base does not revoke their Terms of Service Agreement, that their funding should be revoked. So far I don't know if any newspapers have published my letter. I am the only person that I know of who is outraged shocked and concerned.. so maybe its the way of the future. Artist Beware! Mackenzie Andersen www.andersenstudio.com Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Lost rankings > I do belive that those who advertise much > with Google, Yahoo and MSN, do have > better ranking. - Baruch Avraham, LED Digest 2419 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1823/55/ You might believe that Baruch, but it's not the case. If only it was that simple. Spend a lot on PPC and your natural rankings improve accordingly. Give it try if you'd like to prove your theory, but you'll see it doesn't work. > The internet is not free anymore, and SEO is obsolete. SEO isn't obsolete and never will be. A lot does depend on the level of competition in your market though. Jewellery is hugely competitive, but your competitors don't outrank you because they spend more on AdWords. They've simply done a better job at optimising their site for the keywords they are targeting. Sure, occasionally you'll get scraper sites and other unworthy sites push you down, but it's rarely long term. Let me give you an example of a site I built years ago (and shows it, long overdue for a re-design): http://www.birdharnesses.com I haven't touched it for years, but when I built it I applied some basic on-page SEO and established a few good links. It sells bird harnesses. Potential customers search for bird harnesses. And on Google, it's the second ranked site for "bird harnesses." The owner's never spent a dime on PPC, so if your theory is correct her competitors could outrank her by simply "paying more." But of course "bird harnesses" is a lot less competitive than "titanium rings." Wordtracker reports 2 searches for "aviation bird harnesses" but 305 for "titanium rings" as well up to 110 searches for 99 other search expressions containing "titanium rings." For example, try targeting "unique titanium rings." A lot less competition, but still plenty of demand. The other thing I'd suggest you look at is whether you've over-optimised. Try reducing your keyword density, particularly for "titanium." It appears 3 times in the title, 5 times in the description, countless times in the meta keywords, just about every alt tag, and of the 5 external inbound links I found, 4 had titanium in the anchor. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Lost rankings > I looked at your backlink profile... you have a very > modest number of unique domains pointing to > you (301 by my count using LinkSurvey). - Dirk Johnson, LED Digest 2421 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1825/55/ Google reports over 1,000 external references to Peggy's URL: http://snipurl.com/1n18p [google.com/search] As other people have pointed out, the sites presently ranking above Peggy's domain are anything but "scrapers" or spam sites. A quick look at the search results subtracting out sites depending on anchor text indicates that Peggy's site doesn't do a very good job of asserting relevance through content: http://snipurl.com/1n18t [google.com/search] The Kitchen Artworks site only uses "kitchen designer" a handful of times, so it's hardly competing on the basis of content (and therefore hasn't succumbed to any so-called myths). To Peggy: You don't need magical reciprocal links, 1-way links, etc., nor advice from people who sell specific services. There are four things that affect search engine rankings: 1) What you do with your site 2) What other people do with their sites 3) What the search engines do with their data 4) What people search for Your site has minimal content that barely mentions "kitchen designer" and most of your inbound links are from Supplemental Results pages that don't pass value. Sorry, Peggy, but you really haven't done everything right as you supposed. Unfortunately, you haven't received very good analysis or advice from this list, either. Before you do any more link building, write more copy that uses the keywords you want to rank for and EMPHASIZE those keywords with BOLD, ITALICS, "quotes", underscores -- whatever gets the point across to people that your site is relevant to kitchen design. Change your internal link navigation to use those keywords as well. Add the keywords to the titles of your "how to" articles. Use your Web site to tell people that you are a kitchen designer. Don't rely on other Web sites to do the job for you. Google, especially, has been working hard to reduce the impact that linkage has on search results, much to the dismay and chagrin of many thousands of Web site operators who have been playing the link game for years. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Biana Babinsky Subject: Creating Online Content Hi, everyone Effective online copy writing is extremely important for a web site. Lots of things depend on your web copy - your copy will make a difference between making a sale or not making a sale. It can also help you get more search engine traffic. You write for your web site visitors and search engines. This means that your copy has to be effective and interesting for your readers AND it has to help your web site to be found by search engines. Since copy writing can help you with search engine optimization, I can see why an SEO consultant would also be helping with the web copy. When I consult on SEO I don't offer copy writing, but I do critique the customer's copy. > Should copywriting be outsourced > overseas? It should be outsouced to whoever can write you copy that will be written for both your customers and search engines. > What's a fair price to pay for > copywriting services? Rates vary greatly, so there isn't really a good answer here. Some people charge per hour and give you a rough estimate of the amount of time they will need to finish a project. I usually do this when I critique / coach someone on online copywriting. Others charge on a per project basis (a certain amount to write a sales letter, etc). Biana Babinsky Free Report, "Top Strategies To Get Clients Online" http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/free_report.html Comment? ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by: GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. 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