| LED Digest 2460: Google Competing for Your Clients |
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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 31, 2007 Issue no. 2460 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ===================== --== Google Competing for Your Clients ==-- ~ Grant Crowell "...does Google's action have the potential to compromise the neutrality of its own search results?" --== Marketing Ethics ==-- ~ Shel Horowitz "...the mainstream media just doesn't find this an interesting story." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Natural vs Reciprocal Linking [was: Google...] ==-- ~ Phil Scimone "I keep seeing reciprocal and natural linking confused and/or meshed together..." --== Ranking & Value of Three Word Phrases ==-- ~ Chris Nielsen "I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are asking." --== The Hard Sell of 'Free' ==-- ~ Will Bontrager "It may be time to abandon free." ========== NEW =================================== From: Grant Crowell Subject: Google competing in the Video Search Marketing Space Greetings fellow LED-heads. Its been a few years since I last posted here, and now that I've returned along with a regular gig at Search Engine Watch covering the video search space, I thought it would be appropriate to share this cross-over subject: I recently lost out on a bid to handle a current client's video production and search marketing campaign. The company who won the bid? Google. Google is actually one of the companies who sits on my client's National Advisory Board, so it was no surprise to me that they were in the running for this project. What did surprise me, however, is when my client contact informed me that Google had not only given them a proposal to handle all of the video search production and advertising work (through their own Google Adwords program, of course), but that they would do all of the organic video optimization work as well. My concern is if this precludes a conflict of interest, when the largest search engine that owns both the most trafficked overall and short-format video search space (YouTube), along with the most trafficked long-format search space (Google Video), offers its advertising clients organic optimization services for its own search spaces. I remember the raised eyebrows from search marketers when Google has acquired media agencies which themselves include an SEM branch or subsidiary company. Provided that what my client communicated to me is accurate, does Google's action have the potential to seriously compromise the neutrality of its own video search results? I would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar experience with Google or any other search space in competing for client business. This is still a relatively new marketing medium, and most deserving of its own checks and balances. Grant Crowell Grantastic Designs, Inc. http://www.grantasticdesigns.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Shel Horowitz Subject: Pledge (new topic) For the last three years, I've been running an international campaign to create a "tipping point" around business ethics -- to see if 25,000 people signing a pledge can create an expectation that business has to be ethical. I've given myself 10 years to accomplish this, and thus we're 3/10 of the way through. We've got great geographic diversity (~30 countries), but very few actual signers. It also seems that the mainstream media just doesn't find this an interesting story. And yes, I know how to get publicity. For other campaigns, I've gotten myself and/or my clients into places like the NY Times and Wall Street Journal. The movement has spread almost entirely virally, in mentions on e-zines and websites. There have been one or two mentions in the mainstream press. And as this is a volunteer project I'm doing in my spare time, there's no money to throw into PPC or other buy-it options. The Pledge website is http://www.business-ethics-pledge.org -- anyone have any great ideas? Shel Horowitz http://www.frugalmarketing.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Phil Scimone Subject: Link exchanges I keep seeing reciprocal linking and natural linking confused and/or meshed together like they are in some way related. I believe they are two very different approaches to linking, each with its own reasoning: Reciprocal linking is when one site asks another site to link to them in exchange for a link back, theoretically because doing so would in some way benefit each recipient. These links typically occur on an isolated page of related links (which these days may or may not even be related). Natural linking occurs when someone decides to link to some other site because the information is in some way related, and the reader could benefit from the relationship. These links typically occur in content, and in context. Unfortunately you can't control the anchor text used in natural linking, which, in my opinion, might have an unwanted effect of diluting your site theme. However, also in my opinion, these links are the most beneficial when they "deep" link (that is, link to a tier 3 or product page). Using the camping example, if this dating site asked for a reciprocal link, the camping site would then have a link to a dating site. Are you really telling me that a link to a dating site from the camping site is in some way useful? I guess one could imagine that the visitor to the camping site just happened to be thinking they would like to try online dating. Therefore, Tom argues, this "irrelevant" link is useful. It's easy to imagine scenarios that look like they might work. Using this "it's all good" logic, then anything and everything is beneficial, and, I suspect it isn't. Unfortunately, the internet is littered with this type of thinking, and, as a result, finding quality information becomes a tedious and frustrating task for most of us. Keeping in mind that the bottom line is to make money (some sites might not care about this and probably it doesn't matter what they do), here are a few things that I have found to be useful or not very useful that in some way relate to "linking": 1. Absolutely subscribe to some keyword service such as Keyword Discovery. You won't believe what you'll learn about how people use the internet to find things. After a while, you'll discover how crazy we were back in the days when we created those first sites -- some of which still haunt me today. 2. I have one client whose advertising budget is zilch. But, he has more quality traffic than any other client, and it's all based on word of mouth. His refer a friend form is sending out daily invitations that would make any SEO professional envious. 3. I have another client that swears by MySpace. His traffic is huge, but his sales are miniscule. Why? My guess about this is because the clicks from MySpace don't drive targeted traffic very well. Whether this happens to be isolated to his particular approach is anyone's guess. 4. Building individual landing pages for products and using well-defined page names that contain keywords and phrases that people actually search for. 5. Having well-defined image names (with targeted keyword alt tags) on those product pages. 6. Having a well-defined directory structure using keyword names for folders (although I'm not completely convinced about this). Folder names that are more general seem to work just as well too even when they appear to be unrelated. 7. Getting included into theme based directories where you can control the keyword anchor text. 8. Signup with a good log-file analysis service. StatCounter.com is my favorite, and their excellent keyword analysis reports can easily drive your SEO work and give you new ideas for oodles of new content -- not to mention show you surprising things about how people arrive at your site. 9. I have one client that literally outpaces all other clients in high quality, targeted traffic simply because his site was mentioned in an eBook that people have to pay for to download. 10. Articles that are keyword rich that you target to your product pages using keywords that are in the title on the product page as the anchor text, and that you post to article directories will be a free source of good, quality traffic for years to come. 11. Concentrate on getting indexed into Google, Yahoo, MSN. Don't forget about the smaller engines but only spend time on them if you have it. 12. Setting up your website on three tiers (main page, category pages or section pages, product pages). 13. Sprinkle lightly keyword links from tier 2 and tier 3 pages to other tier 2 and tier 3 pages and make sure the anchor text is contained in the title text of the page to which you are linking. 14. Have the patience of a Saint. 15. My vote is still out on Squidoo. I've seen some pretty beautiful pages built by some folks, and I've seen the pages show up on the first page of search results, but I don't have any practical experience with it yet. Using these practices, traffic will start as a trickle. Over the course of a few months, add more tier 2 or tier 3 pages (maybe two or three pages a month) and you'll see that traffic grow. You'll notice that not once did I mention reciprocal linking because I don't think is a viable practice. Just a few days ago I had to remove a link to a site because the site turned into something it wasn't when I originally reciprocated. I believe the techniques work above because they help clearly define what the object is at the end of the link. Nothing in those techniques is for "the wrong reason", as the user looking for something is the beneficiary. Regards, Phil Scimone Orange Tree Internet Service, LLC http://www.orangetreeweb.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: 3 word phrases > I would like to hear more of a theoretical discussion and > opinions about what value a three word phrase anchor text > contributes to a two word phrase in search engine rankings. - Greg Watson, LED Digest 2459 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1867/190/ I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are asking. To me, the value of any phrase is simply the combination of the number of searches that phrase gets and how targeted it is to the site. Generally the more targeted a keyword phrase is the less it is used in searches. Some go for the most traffic, others go for less traffic that is more targeted. We think a blended approach is optimal. I can provide an example that may help somewhat with what you are asking. We optimized a clients site and did link building for a 3 word phrase, for example "newsletter expert witness". This was the most targeted phrase that the client wanted. The results were that we got the client on the first page of Google and they are still there about halfway down. But what we discovered was that the client's site started appearing in the #1 spot for "newsletter expert". While not as targeted, this clearly was not a bad thing, and I doubt that the client would want to give up this unintended ranking for better ranking on the targeted phrase. Thank you, Chris Nielsen www.EbayAuctionAds.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Will Bontrager Subject: Selling free > Everyone loves to buy but no one likes to be sold. - Ivan Jimenez, LED Digest 2459 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1867/190/ > I really think people are burnt out on free. - Ron Coble > When you went to softsell of the free item > customers didn't feel threatened. - R. Neilson Oh, my, what wonderful insights! Thank you. "Free" is, indeed, a slippery fish. Free software launched our business, back in '98. Much of what was found on the Internet was free, at that time. Good value for free was abundant. Free was really free (still is, with us) -- no out of pocket *and* no strings. Things have changed. It seems the more that people are used to paying for stuff, the less value free has. When free items have low perceived value, the consumer soon abandons it or doesn't use it at all. "Low value" is not a good brand to nurture. It may be time to abandon free. A successful strategy might be to require something in exchange. Something fair. And not use the word "free." We'll be giving that a try for some things, see how it works. One is in this week's issue of Possibilities, an offer to do interviews. "You get original content and we get our names and links seen by more people." There will be more "free exchange" offers. It will be fun, a real pleasure, to see if and how it works. Will Bontrager http://willmaster.com/ ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by: GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. 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