| LED Digest 2599: Shouts & Changes |
|
|
|
==================================================
The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom http://www.WillMaster.com/Master : the LED's Key Sponsor Master Series Software - Get Connected with Your WebSite http://www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== Guest Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. March 3, 2008 Issue no. 2599 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> ~ SearchFest, SMX, Shout-outs & Changes ==== CONTINUING ================= --== SEO Tools ==-- ~ Adam Audette "A much better metric is qualified traffic." --== Best Article Marketing Sites ==-- ~ Thom Reece "A niched directory is able to focus tightly on the subjects you are involved with." ~ Donald Nelson "...the standard of articles delivered by submityourarticle.com is very high..." --== SEO Relevance Factors ==-- ~ Leon Simmons "...verbal explanations apparently given so freely by Google engineers..." --== Web Standards ==-- ~ Brett Atkin "I just completed my first site done entirely in CSS...it was really a pain in the a#$." ========= NEW ===================================== <Moderator Comment> SEARCHFEST I'll be speaking in Portland at SearchFest on March 10: http://www.sempdx.org/Events/SearchFest/SearchFest08_Agenda/. If you're in the area and would like to attend, you can use this code to receive a $40 discount on admission: SEMBD SearchFest will be my first speaking engagement (at a marketing conference) since 2002 in Vancouver: http://www.internetmarketingconference.com/vancouver2002/. I've been trying to avoid it, but public speaking is critical to my professional success, and it's not actually THAT bad. ;) It's actually pretty fun. Search marketing conferences are great learning environments in several ways. For the beginner to intermediate marketer, the sessions can be educational. For the advanced practitioner, the sessions don't enlighten so much as affirm what one already knows. And for the very experienced marketer, the conference acts as inspiration to take action on areas that have always been in mind but need to be looked at in new ways. SMX 2008 With few exceptions, the speakers at SMX were fantastic - and the off-hours in the bar were awesome. I met a ton of people and made some great connections. I have no doubt that new business will come out of the trip. Of the sessions I attended, I especially enjoyed hearing Nick Fox, Andrew Goodman, Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Shari Thurow, Marshall Simmonds, Todd Malicoat and Greg Boser. Shouts to my pal Jeff Tirey of http://www.mongoosemetrics.com, my homie Derrick Wheeler of Microsoft, the always classy Avinash Kaushik of http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/, Marshall Simmonds of http://www.definess.com, Shari Thurow of http://www.search-usability.com and Andrew Goodman of http://www.pagezero.com, Mark Knowles and Michael Spedick of http://www.smartz.com, Jamie Low of http://www.searchenginemarketing.com, Graeme McLaughlin of BCAA.com, Lance Loveday of http://www.closed-loop-marketing.com, David Holmes of http://www.digitalhospitality.com, Grant Crowell of http://www.grantasticdesigns.com, Marc Poirier of http://acquisio.com, Matt McGee of http://www.smallbusinesssem.com, and the BruceClay.com crew, especially Bruce, Lisa Barone and Susan Esparza, also Tamar Weinberg of http://www.techipedia.com, Jill Whalen of http://www.highrankings.com and Noel McMichael of http://www.acxiomdigital.com. Also was good to chat with Mikkel deMib Svendsen of http://www.demib.com. CHANGES AFOOT The LED Digest is a great resource, a strong community, and (especially) a strong tradition. But it's time to change. Over the last 18-24 months, activity as become less predictable here. The email discussion list is an endangered species - especially in the area of internet marketing - and it's probably time to update the LED's format and style. Over the next several weeks I'll be planning a new site for the LED. It will be a blog format similar to how 43folders.com operates, where profiles can be created and LEDers can write posts that have a chance to make the front page. That said, most of the editorial content will be produced by my own team. If you'd like to get aboard, please contact me. I'm looking for marketing-related folks who can bring experience and fresh insights to their area of expertise. Since the LED is operating more like a newsletter than anything, I'll update the format to that model - a news-by-headlines style that subscribers can respond to (or not). Remember the Adventive Report? You probably don't... but if you do (and I'd be amazed), that's the model. Part of the reason is the "going extinct" email list, but part of it is my need to focus on blogging professionally at http://www.audettemedia.com. The site is still unfinished... something's got to give (and it won't be our clients). More to come. Have a great week! Best wishes, Adam ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Adam Audette Subject: SEO Tools Not a single response to Brett's question about SEO tools! Okay, guess I'll help out: > What are the latest opinions on the SEO > tools like WebCEO and Bruce Clay's > SEOToolSet? I only need/want to be able to > check rankings and do keyword research. - Brett Atkin, LED 2598 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2013/190/ I won't speak to SEOToolSet since they're a sponsor of the LED, and that would be a conflict of interest. If you only want a ranking checker and keyword research tool, here's some advice: - Try to avoid checking rankings! I know that's tough, since clients practically force this move every time (at least in my experience). A much better metric is qualified traffic. Try to report on traffic trends by keyword instead, on conversion rate, on indexed pages, etc. Rankings can change based on personalization, and that's only going to continue. You may provide a ranking report that's not even accurate from where your client sits. - That said, the best ranking software is the custom kind. You have to be careful about hitting the SERPs too often with an automated tool, search engines don't like automated querying and Google directly mentions one provider in their Webmaster Guidelines http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769. That said, I've heard good things about Advanced Web Ranking but haven't used it: http://www.advancedwebranking.com - For keyword research, I like using KeywordDiscovery.com, Google's keyword tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, and Microsoft Adcenter (specifically the Excel 2007 plugin here http://advertising.microsoft.com/advertising/adcenter_addin) There are some other great tools at Adcenter as well - check 'em out. You can get plenty of competitive information using these tools and comparing them in interesting ways. Some folks swear by Compete.com but I haven't used it much (though I plan to). One interesting technique is to take Adcenter data and compare it with data from Google's Traffic Estimator https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox. This tool tends to report wildly inflated data in my experience, so it's good to plan seeing about 5-10% of the bid prices and clicks it reports. Compare with Adcenter data for best results. Honestly, you can get pretty good keyword info just from Google's tool. Sure, it's only Google keywords, but Google has "only" 55-65% of all the searches made in a day depending on who you read. What's good for Google in keywords, is usually good for everywhere else (I'm speaking in general terms). Hope this helps, Adam Audette http://www.audettemedia.com ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= Inexpensive Content Rotator Rotate any part of a page. Or even the whole page. ~ Image ~ Headline ~ Leading paragraph ~ Special pricing Content Carousel - http://www.willmaster.com/carousel ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Thom Reece Subject: Article sites Aloha... Trevor Johnson asked a number of good questions relative to article directories and article marketing. I have referenced them below and given my feedback on his commentary when it appeared relevant... > I am now looking for something similar in > relation to rankings for Article Marketing > Directories. These have multiplied > enormously in recent years, though I > suspect most are valueless and mostly for > the benefit of the site owner collecting > content to surround with Adsense ads. It is very true that, with the advent of some free article directory software, and the constant hype of certain "gurus" in the business with a self-interest in promoting the growth of the industry, that the sheer number of article directories has exploded. Many of the directories created in the first wave of this fever disappeared into the electronic ether as soon as the get-rich-quick crowd discovered that operating and managing a quality directory is actually a lot of work, and requires significant investment of both time and money. > I doubt that genuine website or ezine > publishers go anywhere near most of them to > find material they can use. Publishers, webmasters, editors, etc do use quality article directories constantly to: 1. Find well written, useful, articles unique to their particular niche. 2. Discover new writing talent that they can nurture a long-term relationship with. The primary benefit and purpose of article marketing however is not about getting your articles published in other ezines. That is simply icing on the article marketing cake. The power of article marketing (as a writer) lies in the back links that accrue to your site as a result of the linked article appearing in numerous directories. If it is true that back-links have solid SEO advantages (and my experience indicates they do) then the article submission process is a powerful traffic and rank booster. > Thus comes the question: Which are the most > serious and useful article marketing > directories? A genuine "top 20" or so would > be useful, particularly if ranked by some > relatively objective criteria. Any attempt to assess a "top 20" ranking to article directories is fraught with problems. Your 'objective criteria' will be different from mine. It would seem prudent therefore for every marketer to build his/her own list of objective criteria and then do a little homework to determine which directories fit the bill. There are any number of top directory lists as far away as a Google search... but keep in mind that those recommendations are made on the criteria of the list builder... not yours. One common error is to simply look at the total number of articles that a directory has archived and assume that directory is somehow a better quality directory. Most of the largest directories are huge collections of articles on hundreds of non-related subjects. I guess they are working on the theory that bigger is better... I disagree. Highly niched, in-depth, article directories (those that publish articles confined to a certain interest area or subject matter) are, more often than not, better for finding unique articles of high quality. For example, (please forgive the self-promoting nature of this example but it is illustrative of my point) if you publish articles exclusive on sales and marketing subjects, you would probably find the content archived in a directory focused on this niche to be valuable to you. i.e. www.MarketingArticleLibrary.com A niched directory is able to focus tightly on the subjects you are involved with. Over time the niched directory itself is able to attract and nurture expert authors which write high quality material in a broad range of sales and marketing sub-categories. This saves both the ezine publisher-editor and/or knowledge seeker a lot of time when researching topics of interest. > Additionally, from the experiences of the > "article marketers" reading LED today, do > you submit by hand? Do you use a paid > submission service? Either method of submission is effective. The best by far is to individually submit to your choice of directories. Become familiar with their individual article submission guidelines and make sure you closely follow their terms-of-service and submission guidelines. There are several quality paid submission services such as ISnare or Article Marketer. You are well advised to test them. > Or do you use automation software? My advise is to never use a piece of submission software that operates from your own computer. If you must submit in bulk then use a paid service. PLR materials (private-label-rights) have created a nightmare in the article marketing/publishing arena. Most directory owners are installing quality control filters to delete all automatically submitted content. All good article directories have an editorial review process to insure only quality articles (well written, properly formatted, original content) are published in their directories. Authors who use automatic submission software are being banned from most legitimate directories. Hope some of this is helpful ... Thom Reece http://www.ArticleMarketingNetwork.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Donald Nelson Subject: Article Marketing Dear All, In LED 2598 Trevor Johnson has asked us to share experiences in article marketing, especially asking where articles should be submitted and how. I have relied heavily on article marketing over the years. In the beginning I only used to submit to one of the Yahoo article groups (AAINET) and to a few specialized newsletters (like sitepronews and webpronews), and that was enough. My articles were published far and wide. For the last few years I have been submitting my articles and client articles using an article distribution service located at www.isnare.com. Their rates are very reasonable and they submit to several hundred article directories and to the various Yahoo article distribution lists. If your article is well written, it will get republished on places that go beyond the initial distribution. In addition to using isnare.com, whenever I distribute an article I make sure to do a hand submission to www.ezinearticles.com This is one of the big-daddies of the article sites and I consider it a must. If you are in a specialized niche there may be other directories where you will want to do a manual submission. For example if you are in the self-improvement field then www.selfgrowth.com is an excellent place to submit an article. There are some other services that seem to be good, but I have not used them. www.articlemarketer.com is also reasonably priced like isnare.com. Another service, www.submityourarticle.com is more pricey but they have some special features (providing unique variations of your article to different directories) that might make it worth it if you have a good budget. In addition the standard of articles delivered by www.submityourarticle.com is very high (possibly because people have to pay the high distribution fee.) In my other role as an article directory publisher (I run three directories), I mass-approve the articles from www.submityourarticle.com because the standard of articles is uniformly good, so this is another plus for them. Regarding submission software. I have never used them. As a directory owner I can say that sometimes the articles submitted using software are not formatted properly or are not put in the proper categories, so be careful when using submission software and make sure that it actually works properly. Also check to see the distribution list that comes with the software. One thing to remember, article marketing is not a silver bullet. The field has been flooded with articles that are written only to get easy back links. The way to stand-out and get the kind of success that the early article marketers enjoyed is to produce well-written articles that really provide solid information and enhance the user experience. Best Wishes, Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Leon Simmons Subject: SEO relevance This is in response to Shari Thurow's post in LED #2597: > Here's a link to the full article: > http://searchengineland.com/070222-133032. > php Meta-tag descriptions and keywords on > text pages do not make or break rankings in > Google. They never have. Expert SEOs test > (and I do mean test, with control groups > and everything) this all of the time and > have done so for years. I have read the article that you have so kindly referred me to and I have absorbed the comments made. It is quite right for you to challenge my conclusions about the description meta-tag having a relevance in determining the position of a page in the search results -- there are other factors that I may not have taken into consideration and I will be examining these issues more closely. Of course, it is always a bonus to have the opportunity of discussing SEO with Google engineers at conferences and being given explanations and assurances by them on issues of interest to all of us. It is a pity, therefore, that verbal explanations apparently given so freely by Google engineers to a limited number of people at gatherings, do not appear in any Google documentation available in print (to the best of my knowledge) -- which begs the question: Why not? > I wouldn't make such statements without > thorough research and testing. Inaccurate > cause-and-effect conclusions do not help > the industry. With the greatest of respect I think the 'industry' is perfectly capable of analysing and disseminating all conclusions and opinions from whatever source without fear of collapsing in a state of chaos -- but then again even this conclusion could be disputed! Cheers Leon Simmons -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Brett Atkin Subject: Web Standards [was: Doctype] > A short while ago, I posted some comments > re validating pages to standards. It didn't > generate much comment or discussion (as I > had hoped it would). Do LEDers not care > about standards? - Tom Aman I just completed my first site done entirely in CSS. I have to say, it was really a pain in the a#$. What would have taken me about 3 hours total to get the general layout (header, footer, left column, right column) with tables took me days to do with CSS. Why? Because each browser handles CSS floats / positions / margins / padding / etc.. differently. I know my next site will go faster, but come on. I have been using CSS for everything but layout for sometime now, so I wasn't starting from scratch and the learning curve was still steep and some things just didn't make sense (the wonders of IE) I'm trying to do the right thing by following standards and implementing sound design and coding, but how do you justify the cost to the client? I can design a site that looks like crap from the code perspective but displays correctly in all the browsers regardless of version or I can design a site that passes HTML and CSS validation but doesn't look the same from one browser to the next and possibly doesn't function the same without a bunch of hacks that might get "broken" when the next browser version is released. Until the browsers all work the same from a rendering perspective, does it really makes sense to stay awake at night thinking you're a bad developer because your site fails validation? I agree 100% that we should strive for standards compliant sites in theory, but in practice, it just doesn't seem practical. Once all the browser companies get on the same page, it will be come easier, but what do you do about all those users who aren't using the newest browser? I sure hope we don't revisit the days where it was common to say "This site best viewed in browser X". Brett Atkin http://www.BrettAtkin.com (c) Copyright 1995-2008 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Art can do much, but this maxim's most sure: A weak or wounded brain admits no cure." - Anne Dudley Bradstreet |
