| LED Digest 2462: Selling Deadlines |
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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 .............................................. August 2, 2007 Issue no. 2461 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Urgency Marketing ==-- ~ Ron Coble "...you need to set deadlines for people." ~ Val Waldeck "I hate being pressured and this kind of marketing is a turn-off for me." --== Natural vs Reciprocal Linking ==-- ~ Eric Ward "Every linking scenario can be good or bad, depending on multiple factors..." --== SEO and Web Standards ==-- ~ Thomas M. Schmitz "W3C validation, and similarly accessibility and usability, are all noble tools and causes." --== The Hard Sell of 'Free' ==-- ~ Veronica Yuill "Put up a page on SourceForge..." ~ Maty Matyszak "We do free. And it's been an excellent investment." ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Ron Coble Subject: Urgency marketing > Does this kind of urgency marketing really work? > I am very much interested in hearing from LEDers > who have tried it. Did it work as well as expected? > Would you do it again? - Will Bontrager, LED Digest 2461 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1870/190/ I have seen numerous variants of the technique described, the 5 cent, the 99 cent and any number of starting and ending values. If the software, ebook, or whatever is something that I am definitely interested in purchasing, I will generally jump on it as soon as I get the email and have learned more about it. My personal thought process is, why wait and pay more. Whether this thought process is effective with a majority of people, well that all comes down to testing. As I recall, most of the variant price marketing (VPM - new phrase and acronym?) seem to be run through PayPal - it may be that their processing system is the only one set up to allow for this type of marketing. I took a 3 day course many years ago, I honestly cannot recall the subject, but one big thing I got from the lady who taught this course was how you need to set deadlines for people. She was adamant in her belief that people need to be lead to a conclusion, otherwise they will constantly be putting off making a decision or getting any job done. By using the VPM method, you are establishing that deadline for people and also adding the incentive to get on with it now so it does not cost you more by procrastinating another minute, hour, etc.. Ron Coble Coble International Marketing Services http://www.importexporthelp.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Val Waldeck Subject: Urgency marketing I hate being pressurised and this kind of marketing is a turn-off for me. Val Waldeck www.valwaldeck.com ============ Sponsor Message =========== It's summertime, summertime, sum. sum. summertime. The fields are green, the swimming hole is cool and clear. The robin and the blue bird of happiness are singing. But not your site. It's not only not cooing sweetly, it's barely croaking. Words are the instruments you play to influence customers. Visit http://GetWebContent.com/LED. We'll tune your instruments and make 'em sing. ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Eric Ward Subject: Link exchanges Regarding Phil Scimone's excellent thoughts on link exchanges (issue 2460 http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1868/190/ ), there were a couple of points made that I really can't ignore. > 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. The exact opposite can also be the case, because the very essence of natural linking is that you CANNOT control the anchor text, therefore producing a potentially more trustworthy link. Nothing is more unnatural to me than keyword laden links on sites that would not have linked in that manner if not for the belief an algorithm would reward them. To quote Elaine Benes from Seinfeld: Fake fake fake fake. > Are you really telling me that a link to a dating site > from the camping site is in some way useful? Define the word "useful". Useful for rank improvement? For click traffic? For sparking someone to think in a way they hadn't before? And also tell me more about both the camping site and the dating site. Is the camping page on a site with a large collection of family and relationship resource links based on a eleven year old public library web site selected and maintained by a librarian, and that page now links to a page devoted to unique dating ideas for single parents with children, based on a dating site run for 7 years by the Christian Singles Association? My point is the same point I have screamed from the mountains for 14 years. Every linking scenario can be good or bad, depending on multiple factors that, like it or not, most people simply do not want to hear. They want absolutes. This is bad, this won't work, this is spam... It isn't that easy. > 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. I assure you it is not "all good", and many link opps I see are useless for any purpose. The challenge and skill is in recognizing what constitutes a seekworthy link target, and what constitutes linkworthy content from that seekworthy link target. There is also a continuum of sorts within the ecommerce sector. The more a site is purely for selling product, the less likely it will be to engender high trust natural inbound links. I know, duh. But the truth many ecommerce sites don't want to face is they might just be better off accepting that they are NEVER going to achieve a significant and legitimate trustworthy natural inbound link profile if all they do is slap a catalog of products on the web. There are hundreds of sites that sell golf clubs. The sites rank well organically for the term golf clubs do have a significant and legitimate trustworthy natural inbound link profile, and take a look at those sites. They also have the kind of content that goes beyond products only. Ranking #1 - http://www.golfsmith.com Ranking #30 - http://www.golfcow.com A good content developer and link builder will see the key differences between these two very similar sites which cause one to rank so well and the other to rank poorly. And those selling linking related services will not force a cookie cutter or packaged approach to all sites. Any scenario can be contrived, and any scenario can be legit. I feel the ethical response from us link builders must include educating the client as to what constitutes a disciplined, logical, and effective linking campaign for site A vs. site B vs site C. Eric Ward http://www.ericward.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Thomas Schmitz Subject: My Turn | W3C Web Standards & SEO > I constantly read SEO's disclaiming web standards > and its relative importance to SEO. Considering, I'll > toss in my 2 cents into the discussion... - Al Toman, LED Digest 2461 I must admit a selfish joy when I read articles about the relationship between SEO and W3C standards. Think of the maniacal laugh that a stereotypical child aged evil genius scientist might utter in his (or her if you must break from the stereotype) laboratory. I like watching business-masochists flailing themselves against figurative walls stuccoed with broken glass, especially when they do it so needlessly. Why? Because it is like comparing steel girders and glass (the not broken kind). Both are used in the construction of buildings, and buildings must be designed and constructed properly, but steel girders and glass have little to do with each other beyond the fact that if a steel girder is sticking through your window space it will be difficult to install the glass. Here are the relationships between W3C standards and SEO. - If a website validates then search engine spiders will be able to crawl it, unless you embed all of your links in Flash or Javascript. - If you validate you avoid errors like white text on a white background, unless you specify white text on a white background in your CSS. - If you validate you will rank better, but only if the search engines can see rank-worthy markup, content or links that they could not see before you published the W3C validated version. W3C validation, and similarly accessibility and usability, are all noble tools and causes. As an SEO consultant I recommend them often, not for their primary effects, but because they often lead to indirect improvements that make websites rank better. - I will recommend W3C validation because it assures the absence of most web crawler roadblocks. - I will recommend accessibility standards because it naturally leads to keyword richness - I will recommend usability because it leads to embracing CSS and reducing code bloat. Now, here is the important part. As an SEO consultant and as a marketing professional I do not constrain myself to third party validation. My directive is to accomplish everything I can to help clients succeed. If I can move a document from a number 7 ranking to number 3 by inserting two < title >Title Elements< /title >, and if I do not have to fear a penalty or ban, then I am going to insert two title elements. If I find that not closing stand alone tags, like < br / >, will help the ranking cause, then I am going to include them as < br >. Lucky for me, search engine spiders are robust litter critters. They are designed to access and overcome a myriad of coding styles and mistakes. Google and the other companies are wise. They do not care about the standard. They care about what real people do in real situations. Why would I exclude myself or my clients from this generosity, especially if it can be harnessed to earn better rankings? So, while you are hanging perilously from your steel girder, I will sit comfortably in my window sill and enjoy a cool beverage. Thomas M. Schmitz SEO Analyst Social Media Marketing Consultant Portent Interactive http://www.portentinteractive.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Veronica Yuill Subject: Selling free Hi Adam I'm wondering why those discussing "Selling free" have apparently not considered releasing their software using the open source model (i.e. "free as in speech") instead of "free as in beer"? If I wanted to give software I'd created away that is certainly what I would do. Put up a page on SourceForge to announce it, provide good documentation, fix bugs promptly, be willing to listen to suggestions, and if your software fills a real need, with any luck you will get a bunch of volunteers to help you improve it further. Both you and they benefit from the improvements, and running a successful open source project helps to build your reputation with your peers too. Everyone wins with this model; that is why it is growing so rapidly. So I'm just curious to know what those people "selling free" think of this option? My 2 centimes Veronica Yuill www.larecettedujour.org -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Maty Matyszak Subject: Selling free We do free. And it's been an excellent investment. We took a particular topic which we knew was needed, and spent a lot of money and man-hours getting something of professional quality out there. The product comes in two forms - usuable online, and downloadable. The downloadable items contain advertisements and our url built in, and we encourage people to download and freely distribute this software. The online material is only usable on our site, and we spend a lot of time serving DCMA notices on people who try to nick it. So why the altruism? Because it's SEO by the back door. The material on our site is worth linking to, so people do so, in large numbers. Type 'English Games' into Google and you can see the result. So rather than spending the same hours on SEO optimizing keywords and preparing spider fodder, we get natural links for a product that people find useful - and we get top page ranking for doing something in the way big G wants us to. ( i.e. making pages that people are glad that they found.) It's not a strategy that works for everyone, but if applied carefully you get good results. If for example, you don't know the currency converter at www.xe.com take a look - its another site doing free and getting the links and visitors as a result. I like 'free' on the web, and sometimes everybody wins. I'm hoping the idea will catch on :) Maty Matyszak www.english-online.org.uk ------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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