| LED Digest 2624: No SEO Shortcuts |
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The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom http://www.AudetteMedia.com : the LED's Publisher Boutique Internet Marketing: SEO, SEM, Social Media http://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 .............................................. April 14, 2008 Issue no. 2624 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== PPC Management Services ==-- ~ Anthony Kirlew "I am looking for a reputable and reasonably priced PPC Management firm..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Guaranteed (and Automated) Rankings ==-- ~ Ron Coble "I really do not have time to be making this comment but I just could not let it go..." ~ Stephen Mareches "...we cannot guarantee the results of our SEO work as it is more an art than a science." --== Site Architecture for Multiple Languages ==-- ~ Rich Dudley "Microsoft's .NET Framework has a very rich globalization strategy." --== Bidding on Trademarked Terms ==-- ~ Barry S Mills "You could look at this as an opportunity Simon." --== Online Backups ==-- ~ Chris Nielsen "I have used HTTrack several times to make copies of dynamic (database-driven) sites..." ========= NEW ===================================== From: Anthony Subject: Can Anyone Recommend a Solid PPC Management Vendor This is for those that provide professional SEM services. I am looking for a reputable and reasonably priced PPC Management firm to potentially farm out my PPC work to. If anyone have any solid US based companies that they have worked with, I'd love to hear from you. If you have personal experience with an overseas firm, I am open, but I am pretty much determined to use a US based provider. Thanks in advance. Anthony Kirlew Web Traffic Team http://www.OldSchoolSEO.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Ron Coble Subject: Guaranteed rankings > Does anyone have experience with > IBusinessPromoter Software? It guarantees: > "Top 10 rankings on Google or money back!" > Apparently you just install the toolbar, > enter your website address and the keywords > you want to be ranked for, and it does the > rest. - Jim Berry, LED 2623 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2038/190/ I really do not have time to be making this comment but I just could not let it go since I have much personal $$$ experience with these type of paid submission services and paid services to help you get your web pages ranked well. First though let me say that I do not consider myself a "guru" and I really do not bow down to anyone holding such a title. The Internet is an evolving technology and some have just been lucky enough to stumble upon or done enough testing to find that certain things better than certain things that do not. I spent hundreds of dollars in the late 90's on submission services that ultimately provided no benefit to our web site. Next I spent hundreds of dollar a year, for several years, on a software program that claims to help you compare your web pages to those that are in the top 10 and shows you the parameters that you need to change one way or another to get those pages ranked better. I stopped spending those dollars about 5 years ago and never looked back. But to address your question about the particular service - the first thing I did was perform a whois on the domain name. They have been in registered about one year. This is sufficient time for them to use the magic of their own software to get ranked for keyword phrases such as: website promotion - 163 search engine submission - 221 ** the numbers to the right are the estimated number of daily searches across the three major search engines per a tool that I use on an almost daily basis - Wordtracker.com. I could not find their web site listed for either of these search terms even in the Top 30 listings in Google (I don't bother even trying for Yahoo or MSN because they produce such low search numbers). Now wouldn't you think that if their "guaranteed top 10 tool" really worked that they would have used it to rank their site for these two search phrases since these two phrases are prominently mentioned in their Meta keyword tag and titles? The other thing that I have found in the last few years within the "guru" crowd is to help you rank your pages in the top ten for search phrases that NO ONE is really searching for or in very, very low numbers. You see testimonials about how we ranked in the top 10 or 5 out of x number of hundreds of thousands of web pages for a particular search term. Go use Wordtracker.com's free trial to see how many people are searching for that search phrase before spending any money trying to get ranked for it. A common technique I have seen used by some of these services is to pick out keyword phrases that when you do a basic search in google shows hundreds of thousands of pages or even millions. If you follow through and do a free trial with wordtracker, you will see their results show the keyword phrases within quotation marks. It took a while for me to get my old brain wrapped around the explanation for this but here is why this is important: When you do a basic search for a multiple word keyword phrase, like best golf clubs - which google shows 1,150,000 pages - now do the same search but with quotation marks around the phrase - "best golf clubs" - see the number drop to 30,200 (at least these are the numbers on Friday, 11 April 2008). Basically, the first results for best golf clubs are the number of pages google has in their index that have all three of those words on the same page. The word best could be in the first paragraph, golf in the 10th paragraph, clubs in the 15th. But the real clincher is when you do the search using quotation marks you are really seeing how many pages have those 3 terms strung together in the actual search term you may be seeking to get ranked for. So before jumping up and down and singing the praises of a program or guru, do your homework and see if they got your pages ranked in the top ten for something people really search for or just for a group of words that may sound good but really has low or no actual search numbers. Hope this helps you make a more informed decision and by the way, I do not work for Wordtracker but I am a customer of theirs for about 4-5 years now and use it on an almost daily basis. Ron Coble Coble International Marketing Services http://www.importexporthelp.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Stephen Mareches Subject: Guaranteed rankings Jim, Be very careful about using programs to promote your site to search engines. And to guarantee anything regarding rankings is a clear red flag; we cannot guarantee the results of our SEO work as it is more an art than a science. Years ago I did use a couple of promotion programs but quickly quit using them. With proper optimization for the search engines built into a site, and using tools like Google's site map, I've not submitted a site to serach engines in years, instead relying on them to find our sites and index them naturally. Some promotion programs will actually get you dropped from search engines as they can kind of overdo things. I think I'd rely more on optimizing your sites during the buidling stage and let the search engines do what they do best. And this can be done without any cash outlay on your part. Stephen Mareches Web Consultant Sophia Solutions www.sophiasolutions.net -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Richard J. Dudley Subject: Site architecture > It would be easy to put 100 to 200 pages in > the root if the site was in one language, > but to organize a bilingual site seems more > difficult. - Magnus Brattemark, LED 2621 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2036/190/ Microsoft's .NET Framework has a very rich globalization strategy. Every label, button, etc on a web page is assigned a unique identifier, and the text to be displayed is stored in individual resource files for each language. What is displayed depends on the user's language setting in the browser, the server matches the correct text with the proper design element. When architected correctly, it's all automatic. There is no need for multiple subdirectories or subdomains with multiple copies of each page. As far as SEO goes, the output is purely HTML, so the text exists as it it were specified there originally. Novell's Mono project brings .NET to the Linux platform, too. This is probably too late for existing sites, but if you know you have a multilanguage requirement in a future project, this might be something to look into. Rich Dudley www.bloomery.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Barry Mills Subject: Trademark bids Simon Driscoll writes in reference to trying to bid for Nicorette Patches [issue 2616 http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2031/190/ ]: > Why do brands enforce these bans? Do they > not want to sell product? Sorry Simon, I know it's frustrating, but I think they're right - that's what I'd advise most clients to do. By controlling the PPC space on bids for their brand, they ensure that most searchers find their own web site first, which is most likely what they are looking for, and get the information they want. If they don't enforce it, they will get competitors bidding on their brands. And even (no doubt valued) retailers such as yourself are not what they ideally want the consumer to see if they are still at the decision making stage - your site features competing products on the home page. I don't think what they are doing will cost them any sales, there are plenty of retail sites coming up on the first page of the natural results (including yours), and they will most probably convince more people than they lose. They will save a lot of PPC expense too, because if they open it up the CPC will be driven up substantially. You could look at this as an opportunity Simon. Your site is ranking 10 for Nicorette Patches but isn't very well optimised. With a bit of SEO work you could climb up that front page and maybe make top spot in the natural rankings. It's always a good place to be, but on a term where PPC is restricted to one ad, the benefits will be all the greater. Barry S Mills Chairman Netstep http://www.netstep.co.uk -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: Online backups > ... it occurred to me that if this hosting > company (or any hosting company) were to > suddenly cease to function due to business > reasons, natural disaster, etc., my website > would disappear, files and all. I would be > out of business instantly. Yikes! - Jackie Monticup, LED 2621 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/2037/190/ Those that have their site as what I will call standard web pages that are individual files, with whatever extensions like .htm, .html, .PHP, or .ASP should have a complete copy on their local computer so backups should not be an issue. Those that don't have a copy in the case where another company has developed the site, should get FTP access to the site so they may download a copy of the site, or ask for a copy of the site to be made available to them. It is not uncommon for a client to not have a copy of their site and later have a problem where they have few options for recovery. For site owners that have a site that uses a database for page/content storage, the problem is more acute, since even the web developer many not have a complete, current copy of the entire site. There a number of options here and the best one is to get a copy of the entire database that is used, and a copy of all the application files used to render the site. However, with some CMS applications the program itself may not be available, either because it's an old version or something proprietary. In the case where a backup is needed and the need to maintain the site as it has been in the past is a secondary concern, the use of a web site copier program can save the day, although with some limitations. There are a number of programs available, but I can highly recommend HTTrack ( www.httrack.com ) as being one that works well and has a very reasonable cost (free). I have used HTTrack several times to make copies of dynamic (database-driven) sites, and it does a great job. There can be some limitations, as the case where someone is required to enter something and search results are returned. If there is no link for the query that returns the search results, no copy can be made. The program will only copy what can be followed with links that exist. But the program will download a copy of all site files that it can find, including JavaScript, CSS, and others. It will also change the pages names as needed and make sure all the site links are changed to reflect the current structure. The program is fast and works well as installed, but it provides a wide range of options that you can use to affect how it works, how it creates a copy of a site, and how it impacts the server that hosts the site being copied. Thank you, Chris Nielsen (c) Copyright 1995-2008 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "And those were the days of roses, poetry and prose And Martha all I had was you and all you had was me. There was no tomorrows, we'd packed away our sorrows And we saved them for a rainy day." - Tom Waits |
