| LED Digest 2446: Universal Search & Holistic SEO |
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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 .............................................. July 11, 2007 Issue no. 2446 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ===== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> ~ Universal Search & Holistic SEO --== SEO Scammers & DIPs ==-- ~ Scotty West "Their whole strategy involved what they called Directory Information Pages..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Blogs or Articles? ==-- ~ Ken Evoy "I just realized...I've never printed a blog post." ~ Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian "These are reasons I would prefer a blog format for any content website..." --== Offline Action: Print Catalogs? ==-- ~ Beth Earle "...am I missing something?" ~ Al Toman "I take personal interest in this discussion..." --== Image Protection "Curtain" ==-- ~ Lori Smart "And now Window Vista makes it even easier with a cool little toy..." ~ Bruce A. Flinn "The link that follows gives a clear concise solution for hot-linking of images." ~ Al Toman "You guys are tough~!" ==== BILLBOARD =================== - Flash Developer Wanted - ======== NEW ====================================== <Moderator Comment> Lee Odden has a great post about unifying SEO and Internet marketing with other channels of communication, such as traditional branding techniques. Lee's calling this post Holistic Search Engine Optimization: http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/07/holistic-search-engine-optimization I think it's an important post for several reasons. With Google moving towards Universal Search, a larger variety of file types and media formats will be appearing in SERPs, along with content from various verticals. We're already seeing this happen with local listings and video after the YouTube purchase. The opportunity is there for traditional marketing agencies to bring their offline talents to the web: professional videos that can be archived and optimized online, radio bytes that can be used for podcasting, unifying messaging across campaigns to maximize branding and institute important keywords, and many more examples. This is the future I feel. The days of optimizing text documents are fading. It's going to be important in 2008 and beyond to think of SEO in terms of strategically optimizing valuable site content, whatever that content is. My friend Jeremy Sanchez from Global Strategies (another SEO firm here in Bend, we've got several) encapsulated all this very well recently. He told me the way he's thinking about SEO now is about "tagging a site's assets so they're searchable and relevant." In the coming years it will matter less and less what the format of that content is, if Universal Search truly delivers what it promises. (Don't get me wrong -- we'll still be optimizing text documents, forever probably. But you get the gist.) By the way, Global Strategies was recently purchased by a huge offline marketing agency, Ogilvy. Check out this detailed look at universal search by Danny Sullivan: Google 2.0: Universal Search http://searchengineland.com/070516-143312.php -Adam Comment? ---------------- From: Scotty West Subject: SEO Firm Scammers? At one point we hired an SEO firm to help us. They're called Internet Advancement and you can find them at internetadvancement.com. Their sales rep caught me at the right time and we decided to try them. I have since found that they don't have such a great reputation. Their whole strategy involved what they called Directory Information Pages (which I have since learned is just a fancy name for doorway pages) and precisely timed Submissions to engines and directories. Our particular contract involved the creation of 40 of these so-called DIPs. We didn't pay them a lot of money but it was significant. During that period, our rankings did improve (it was during that period that we advanced to page 11 for guitar lessons) but I was never sure whether it was due to their efforts or to my own continued promotion. They were rather secretive about the DIPs. They wouldn't allow me to see them... said they were proprietary and would just look like gibberish to me anyway. They never did get us to where they indicated they could, so we dropped them back in like February. I kept an eye on our rankings to see if we lost any ground after that and we seemed to hold pretty consistent. Now all of a sudden we've dropped. My question is... To what degree do you think our rankings were effected by their strategy (DIPs and Submissions) and do you think that our current loss in ranking could in any way be a result of us dropping them? If so, why did it take these several months? I guess a related question would be... How significant is the whole concept of submissions these day? We've been online for 6 years now. The spiders have found us... right? Would it be a good idea for us to get back to that or hire someone to do it for us... or is it just a waste of time and money? All the best, Scotty West http://www.absolutelyunderstandguitar.com/ Comment? ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Ken Evoy Subject: Blogs vs articles > Jon Langley's question on RSS reminded me to > share Ken Evoy's latest blog post. He argues that, > in general, the noise on blogs drowns out the signal. - Adam Audette, LED Digest 2445 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1851/190/ Hey Adam, Glad you enjoyed the ARTICLE (I hate calling them posts) in my blog. It was fun to see your Dad back at LED for a while, makes an old guy like me feel 10 years younger. ;-) Seriously, though, it caused me to search for and reprint "The Sweet 16." I forgot to mention in that article how your dad dripped them out in i-Sales every few weeks. I awaited each one with great anticipation. And I printed each one out, every one being solid gold. But I lost them at some point (likely during a move), and then I was unable to re-find them on the Web (likely during YOUR move on the Web?). I had read them on paper at least 3 or 4 times. And this time, I found them again... http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1286/204/ I printed and read them again. And I savored them all over again. They have been written so well, the principles so evergreen, that they stand the test of time admirably. Writing like that comes only at the price of blood, sweat and tears. You just don't see that type of effort on today's blogs. I just realized... I've never printed a blog post. 'Nuff said. All the best, Ken Evoy webmaster.sitesell.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian Subject: Blogs vs articles I'll go at this in a tangential way. Regardless of whether or not a blog 'pushes your thinking forward' or remains 'commodity content', there are 2 significant advantages of publishing your content as a blog. #1 - Ease of publishing, even for non-techies who don't know (or want to mess with) coding, however easy or quick it may be with WYSIWYG editors #2 - Built in SEO advantages that would take a lot of time and effort to incorporate by oneself on a conventional 'website' These are reasons I would prefer a blog format for any content website, over other CMS. The ability to integrate a blog with an autoresponder (via email), deliver to desktop via RSS feeds, and integrate into a forum to spark off discussion (if one prefers it to the 'comments' feature) are all significant pluses. As for 'comments' not being enough to set off a discussion and build community, it depends on how it's implemented. Guy Kawasaki's blog, "How To Change The World" - http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ - is a good example of how comments can nurture relationships and community, while growing your content hands-off. Interesting topic for discussion, though, Adam. All success Dr.Mani http://www.HowToCrossTheRoad.com Comment? ============ Sponsor Message =========== Have you sat down and read your website lately? What your site says is crucial in converting surfers into customers and meeting search engine mandates for fresh, unique copy. Our all-pro writers have Fortune 500 experience. For top-quality, customized, cost-effective copy, visit GetWebContent.com today. http://GetWebContent.com/LED ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Beth Ann Earle Subject: Print catalogs Dirk made a lot of really great points in his print-catalog explainer -- many of which I never would have thought of, but I've got a quick question on one statement: > You can't have one set of prices for online > customers and another in print. - Dirk Johnson, LED Digest 2445 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1851/190/ Why not? If I had a print catalog and an e-commerce store, I would gladly provide lower prices to the customers who were willing to shop on-line, since those sales usually occur at a lower cost to the shop owner. Or am I missing something? (Be kind, now!) Wishing LED'ers everywhere all the very best, Beth Earle www.pilotfishseo.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Al Toman Subject: Print catalogs There has been a lot of digesting about printed catalogs lately. I take personal interest in this discussion, primarily, because I view it as a waste of natural resources as well as other things. At a young age, I was dreaming that computers would eliminate paper (waste). Was I ever wrong! No, I am not talking about some type of micro computer replacing toilet paper, I'm speaking about the wad of paper I find in my mailbox almost everyday. It all started with my introducing (and buying) my wife a computer. She always took shots at me for spending so much time in front of the computer. So I cured that~! Hers was at the time the hottest system in the house. Shopping. Shopping!?! I used to be the big time online spender until my wife learned the avenues to online shopping. So, what does this all have to do with the wad of paper in my mailbox? I assess that somehow the online shopping invoked a stream of wanna be marketers catalogs into my mailbox, whether requested or not. Here are the numbers: Average of 10 catalogs per day of which at least 4 sport the exact same products. All tout a www-dot-com address. Average 1 day a week of 30 catalogs which the post person binds within a couple of Michelin size rubber bands. With 6 days of service, that's 80 catalogs a week, 320 a month, or 3,840 catalogs a year. I'm not even counting those newspaper catalogs that you find in the bottom of the package that you ordered online. I don't know about you, however, it would take me 5 years to read, look-through all of these. So, I guess my job is to lug them all to the transfer station where they are recycled and once again appear in my mailbox. Especially the ones that say that this is your very last issue since you didn't buy anything from us ... for the next 10 issues received~! Neither my wife nor I have purchased anything via catalog for some years now since we've done the online thing. So, if you as a marketer want to spend your hard earned money and time on catalogs, go ahead. However, it may be best for all to confirm that the recipient really, really wants your catalog! Naturally, a good way to create your catalog is to create a pdf or cd and let the recipient use their own paper and ink to print it. print away, Al Toman studio9 web design Comment? -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Lori Smart Subject: Image protection > ... we found the best way was to put > our URL on the scans... - Roy Williams, LED Digest 2445 Roy, your idea is truly the only way to deal with image theft. All the very innovative ideas provided to block right click, etc. are a wasted effort since all it ever took before was a simple tap of the 'Print Screen' key & cropping in any art package. And now Window Vista makes it even easier with a cool little toy called the 'Snipping Tool'. This nifty bit of software allows you to simply drag the cursor over any area of the screen and copy, edit & save the image. Watermarking your images in places that can't be cropped out is really the only option. Let them steal and advertise your website! Lori Smart InternetDesign.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Bruce A. Flinn Subject: Image protection Roy, we were having the same problem with people hot-linking our Resort images in their ebay auctions. The images are in our media kit area and we tried the URL in the image but this defeated the purpose of the images. We don't mind if people want to use the photos we just wish that they would copy them from our media kit and host them on their servers. So I recently did some digging and found a site that gave us a useable solution. The link that follows gives a clear concise solution for hot-linking of images. http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess10.shtml I must say I am not affiliated with this site in any way. I have implemented the suggested .htaccess code and it works well. Hope this helps. Bruce A. Flinn www.FernwoodHotel.com Comment? -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Al Toman Subject: Image protection You guys are tough~! As was written, my disclaimer stated that anything digitized can be had. Well, all y'all had it and proved my disclaimer. This link takes you to the flash swf file image curtain. Personally, I'm thinking, why post the image in the first place? However, I wanted to demonstrate the swf file technique which is very easy to do. And yes, it is digitized, therefore, a swf ripper can take the image. the link: http://studio9.ws/scripts/mypictureflash.html Go ahead. Take the image. I did ... from Google Images. Ah hum, all credits belong to whose ever image this is. Al Toman studio9 web design Comment? ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== [I got this inquiry from an LEDer -- I'm running it as a billboard because my usual contacts are all too busy at the moment. If anyone is interested in this job, please email me at the link below and I'll get you connected. -adam] ------------------ Flash Developer I'm looking for a pretty high-end Flash developer. Can you recommend anyone? They need to have some animation skills - good 3-D, something resembling Second Life. My client is writing a help guide for the various virtual world and wants an intro that's NOT interactive but looks like it came from one of the virtual worlds. Thanks ------------------ Interested? Please contact me ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by: GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. Free no-obligation proposal: http://GetWebContent.com/LED SEOToolSet.com Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification Join the certified SEO directory: www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ The Archives: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/126/189/ Subscribe: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/52/187/ Unsubscribe, Change Email, or Hold / Resume Delivery: http://www.led-digest.com/content/category/4/17/201/ (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me." - Jose Ortega y Gasset |
