| LED Digest 2540: Keyword Research Tools |
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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 .............................................. November 21, 2007 Issue no. 2540 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Keyword Research Tools ==-- ~ Nancy Cardinali "Are there any others? Any best buys?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Trends in Ecommerce ==-- ~ Alex Hughart "The U.S. market is and will continue to be very attractive for foreign manufacturers." --== International SEO ==-- ~ Richard Stubbings "I would disagree about the use of colloquial english especially the obsure slang..." --== Reciprocal Linking ==-- ~ Michael Martinez "Search engines will go much deeper than 7 layers." ~ Steve Pronger "...the deeper you go into a site structure...the more unlikely it will be the page is indexed." ~ Nathan Holley "I no longer practice any reciprocal linking, nor do I recommend the practice..." ========== NEW =================================== From: Nancy Cardinali Subject: Keyword Research Tools Hi all, There have been several mentions of online services to help one pick the best keywords for a site / blog / whatever. I managed to conjure WordTracker.com & KeywordDiscovery.com. Are there any others? Any best buys? This time I'll take notes! Thanks, Nancy Cardinali www.CardinaliDesigns.com <Moderator Comment> Thomas Schmitz has a nice write-up on keyword tools here: http://www.marketingpiranha.com/blog/internet-marketing-seo-tools... We use KeywordDiscovery and Wordtracker regularly, along with Google's tools here https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and here https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox. Both offer very useful results. -adam ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Alex Hughart Subject: Ecommerce trends > I think the devaluation of the dollar in Europe > may open more possibilities to sell there. - David Spahr, issue 2539 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1954/190/ Some of the services Europe can use from here, are branding, web design and marketing. I often see great products from Europe and elsewhere with utterly confusing sites and copy written by Borat himself. The U.S. market is and will continue to be very attractive for foreign manufacturers. The current economic circumstances will not last forever and it will be good for them (and us) to take advantage of the weak dollar. Not to duplicate content, here's my post about these very issues titled Think Global, Click Local: http://www.theparticipator.com/2007/11/when-you-have-whole... Alex Hughart ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= When The Going Gets Busy, The Busy Get Gone! Ever since we launched www.GetWebContent.com/LED we've been advertising here with great results! So great, we can't accept new clients for awhile. Fact is, we simply underestimated the demand for professionally written custom copy. See you again as soon as we get caught up. Thanks to those of you who are now repeat clients! www.GetWebContent.com/LED ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Richard Stubbings Subject: International SEO > I would suggest it is more important is that > you use the appropriate colloquial English. - Maty Matyszak, issue 2539 I used "optimise" as that was echoing a word in the original poster's sentence. I would disagree about the use of colloquial english especially the obsure slang you used. I would merely suggest that in doing your keyword and phrase research for the site you include, possibly concentrate, on the spelling varients that your target audience may use. For example, when I first looked for a SEO company that specialised in UK sites (or at least knew the UK market) I searched on Search Engine Optimisation and got a very different list than using optimization. Richard Stubbings Kulture Shock http://www.kultureshock.co.uk -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Recip linking > But this sentence would certainly seem to state > that search engines won't index pages that are > 7 layers deep. So how many layers deep will > they go? And which search engines? - Peter D'Aprix, issue 2539 Search engines will go much deeper than 7 layers. That they won't go farther than X directories / layers / clicks is absolute nonsense. It's an SEO myth that has been around for as long as bad Web site architecture has been around. Search engines typically restrain their in-site crawling (called "deep crawling") for a variety of reasons, but if you have 16 directories nested within each other you can get every page in those directories indexed through links (either on your site or off your site). Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Recip linking Hi Peter, I'm not suggesting that search engines will not index a page which is 7 layers deep, only that the deeper you go into a site structure, where there are no other links pointing to that page other than the one above it, then the more unlikely it will be that the page is indexed. Many of the link exchange requests I receive are where my link is on a non-indexed page. It's certainly not impossible though. I would suggest that anything over 3 levels really should have an XML sitemap. I would also use an external sitemap such as FreeFind.com, which will give you direct links to each page. > So how many layers deep will they go? > And which search engines? So long as your site is well linked, both internally and externally, Google and MSN generally won't have a problem indexing all your pages. But as I say, if you need to go deep, back it up with sitemaps and external deep linking. Yahoo's indexing, on the hand, stinks. I honestly don't know what it takes to get some sites fully indexed with Yahoo. If anyone has some insights, let's hear them, please! They do actually have a forum where you, along with many other frustrated webmasters, can ask why a particular site isn't fully indexed. And an actual Yahoo employee will tell you "it's in the pipeline." Must be a long pipe. My comments, tongue in cheek as they were, did refer to link directories. If the page isn't indexed, then it provides no value from an SEO perspective, and it would take a very determined human visitor to venture into a links directory more than one or two levels. And yet, this is how many webmasters present their link exchange proposal to you. Just doesn't make sense to me. I'm quite happy to give link partners a whole page, with a direct link off the home page, if they are prepared to do the same, as long as the exchange makes sense to both our visitors. I used to have a form on my site with an offer to webmasters to submit an article with a one-way, in-context link to their site. All I asked was that the article be unique, good quality and related to web design. I didn't even ask for reciprocation. You wouldn't believe some of the "articles" I got sent. Everything from press releases, articles which had already been published hundreds of times, to complete garbage. The concept was just lost on most webmasters. All they were interested in was "I've linked to you, now you link to me." But for those few prepared to make the effort and exchange value, not just links, there are real benefits in direct, targeted, two-way traffic, as well as search engine love. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com/freebook/ -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Nathan Holley Subject: Recip linking I no longer practice any reciprocal linking, nor do I recommend the practice except in a few special circumstances (see below). Recip linking not only doesn't work as well, it's also specifically a target for the spam team at Google, and other search engines are following suit. By and large, recip linking (the way it's done by most webmasters) is a deliberate attempt to game the search engines through manipulating anchor text-stuffed links on pages only in existence for spiders. Nothing about it is for human visitors. To back up my argument, I offer the following sources as proof: 1) Google says it violates their webmaster guidlines: "Examples of link schemes can include... Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")" Source: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356... 2) Matt Cutts. I don't have a link to this, but somewhere on his blog is a statement about reciprocal linking being a target for the spam team he leads. He talks about it at conferences too. 3) Aaron Wall. He states in numerous places that recip linking is now an abused and ineffective technique. Here's an example from 2006: http://www.seobook.com/archives/001675.shtml Reciprocal links pages are also tacky on websites. It's simply not a useful idea for building a solid online resource. Now, there are still a few special ways this can work. The one which I still use, which isn't a recip link per se, is to form a partnership with other webmasters who own important sites in my area of focus. Then, we build a mutual set of articles citing each other's sources within the context of the copy. This is a useful, contextual link that adds value to a site. This in my opinion is the only way to build links reciprocally that still has a long-term vision. People like Dirk who champion proper reciprocation deserve to be heard. I'm sure Dirk knows more about the ins and outs of this than I do. But there has to be a thought in his mind that it's becoming much less useful. The online real estate market has felt the hit from Google penalizing excessive reciprocation: Google's Real Estate Reciprocal Link Penalty http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-it-looks-like-to-be-lost-in-googles... Dirk, are you concerned about the future of reciprocal links? I feel it's in your professional interest to be concerned, if not all out threatened by Google's stance on this. I know you've done this for a long term, and it goes beyond (or even pre-dates) Google. But it's got to be unsettling from your viewpoint since Google is by far the largest sender of traffic of any search engine. Google's the default barometer of online success in many ways. The best way to build links is still to make a great website people have to cite and talk about and link to regularly. Too many people try to take the easy way, yet there are no tricks in this game that last long. To me, reciprocal linking is another trick that looks for a shortcut: exchanging links on pages built for spiders with partners who have pages built for spiders too. Nate Holley (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else." - Andre Gide |
