| LED Digest 2181: The Pinocchio Theory |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. June 13, 2006 Issue no. 2181 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Who's Using AdWords? ==-- ~ Eva Rosenberg "I use Adwords whenever I have a specific campaign..." ~ Chris Nielsen "...you can contact Google and request to have your account 'optimized'." --== Tips for High Rankings [was: Sandbox] ==-- ~ Rob Bishop "Can you explain a little more [about social bookmarking sites]?" ~ Michael Linehan "Some folks would love to have you think there is a secret." --== The Sandbox Myth ==-- ~ Jennifer Laycock "Basically, what search engines really want is to be a 'real boy'." --== AdSense Experiences? ==-- ~ Donald Nelson "...many of the Adsense advertisers are competitors." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Blogging for Revenue ==-- ~ Willie Crawford ~ Beth Earle ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Eva Rosenberg Subject: AdWords > ... I was wondering if we could take a side trip > over to the world of AdWords. As in, who's using > them? What successes are you having? - Martha Retallick, LED 2180 Hey Martha and Adam, I use Adwords whenever I have a specific campaign, like I'm launching a new IRS license examination review course for the summer. www.irsexam.com. It ends up costing me about $150 - $250 for the entire campaign. And I end up with revenues from it of at least $5,000 - $10,000 that I might not have earned without AdWords. In fact, I'll be starting another campaign this week. Incidentally, has anyone noticed a correlation between placing Google search on your site and faster placement into their search engine? I am slowly redesigning TaxMama.com on another server, using a separate URL in the meantime - TaxTwist.com. I submitted my request to add this URL that I'd just activated about 10 days earlier, to Google. It appeared in their search engine by morning. I did explain about moving TaxMama.com. (Which does happen to use GoogleSearch as the primary search tool for the site - but I didn't say that.) On the other hand, IRSExam.com, which does not use Google Search does not show up in their searches, despite repeat submissions over three years, and being linked to by the most prestigious sites in the industry...hmmm...Oh well, I still fill the classes... through very passionate viral recommendations. Best wishes, Eva Rosenberg http://taxmama.com & NEW! http://www.taxtwist.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: AdWords > I can't say that my budget's getting hammered by > clickers who aren't becoming customers. Quite > the opposite. I'm in search of clicks. - Martha Retallick, LED 2180 We have a few clients that use AdWords, and if you are not getting clicks, I would say it's either because of one or more of the following: 1) You are not generating many impressions. This would be due to using too few or the wrong kind of keywords. 2) You're getting impressions, but not clicks. This could be due to your ad(s) having a problem. If you ads are not appealing, then you will lose in the battle for user's attention. By the way, are you using several ads in each AdGroup? Doing so allows you to keep testing until you get ads with good CTR (1-6% or higher). 3) Bad keyword choices or ones that do not match you ads well. If AdWords is not working for you, either not enough clicks, or many clicks and few conversions, then you need to either go over all the material provided by Google to get a better understanding of how their system works, or get someone to help you with your account. While that last statement may sound like a plug, you can contact Google and request to have your account "optimized". This is something they provide at no cost (makes sense, since they want you to get clicks) and may take a week or so. In the three optimizations I have requested, it was clear they spent a LOT of time creating many targeted AdGroups, good keyword selections, good negative keywords (to reduce impressions with no clicks & poorly targeted clicks), and ads that are generally effective. Spending a little time studying an optimized campaign is one of the best instructors, in my opinion, of how it should be done. Good luck, Chris Nielsen www.best-free-search-engine-list.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Rob Bishop Subject: Tips for High Rankings [was: Sandbox] Steve mentioned some real action steps as follows: > 1. Create a Google Site Map > 2. Get a free sitemap / search from FreeFind.com > 3. Add your site to Social Bookmarking sites. > 4. Submit to Paid Directories > 5. Submit comments to blogs > 5. Start a Blog - Steve Pronger, LED 2180 I understand 1, 2, 4, 5, and 5 - ;) but what does 3 do? I signed up and added my own site to http://Del.icio.us/ just to understand how it works, because I have never looked in to this type of thing. Within hours I have one view on furls.net and two other people have saved my bookmark on Del.icio.us. I also notice that there are more of my site pages now listed there and saved by other people. ( I only submitted the one URL ) I added the RSS feed to my Google, Yahoo and MSN pages. Sorry Steve, I still don't get the big picture. Can you explain a little more? I am just curious. Is this simply non-reciprocating links in, for Google Rank? I am sure some highly educated participants in the LED will have their heads just exploding right now, with me even THINKING about looking in to something like this. Thanks. Rob Bishop Binkley Custom Products www.customplushtoys.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: The "Secret" of High Ranking I'd like to affirm the importance and power of "the basics" that several people have written about recently. I guess my message is that whether it's yoga, or painting, climbing Everest or search engine ranking, there is enormous power in building a strong foundation and taking care of the basics really, really well. When working on search engine ranking for clients, I (of course) look for keywords that are as relevant and highly searched as possible, while having as little competition as possible. But sometimes that just isn't possible, and one such client provides a great example of developing search engine rank against the odds. Her site is fionaraven.com. For her, the only words that really matter are 'book designer'. When we started, there were less than ten million returns in Google. Now, depending on when you search, you'll get between 65,000,000 and 109,000,000 for an "all these words" search. We got her to #1 back at the beginning, and she has jogged between #1 and #2 since - all the way through Google's Florida, Jagger and Big Daddy's updates. Three nights ago the returns peaked at 109,000,000, and there she was at #1. So the "secret"..... Well - that's just a bit of tongue-in-cheek - there is no secret, of course. (Except maybe that! Some folks would love to have you think there is a secret.) Fiona Raven's rank comes from the basics: An initial burst of content and links plus optimization of that content, followed by ongoing addition of content and solicitation of links. No tricks. No short-term gain. Completely clean. Completely basic. One major factor is her excellent job of doing her part of the site work. The majority of clients simply fail to keep up the "ongoing" as in "ongoing addition of content and inbound links". At the same time, I don't like to paint a picture that any business owner can or should do all their own web work. As with legal or financial matters, it quickly becomes cost effective to use the services of a professional. Yes, anyone can add content and links and many people can optimize, to some extent. But as in any field of human endeavor, there is a lot of difference between someone who has studied a little and someone who studies and implements every day for years. The practiced specialist may be able to do something better - or may simply be able to do it enormously more quickly. Imagine the owner of five, successful retail stores spending two hours a day for six months to build a site, when I could have done the same for him in a week or so. How much more effective to have spent that time promoting his business!? So I like to say that the best way to work on a site is doing a great job on the basics combined with informed and selected use of professional services. Michael Linehan Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Jennifer Laycock Subject: Sandbox myth Well it's true that I don't even have a "lower-level" graduate degree (just a poor little B.A. in English), I do possess common sense. In my mind, common sense combined with years of watching this industry does account for *something* in the realm of understanding what's going on in regards to concepts like the sandbox. I actually just covered the issue this past week over at Search Engine Guide. [LEDers wishing to read Jennifer's article on this topic may do so here: http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/007705.html -ed.] Shari is right... there is no Google Sandbox. I can completely understand why people *think* there's a sandbox, but that doesn't make it true. Time and time again, while teaching small business owners how to stay in the game of search marketing, I explain to them my "Pinocchio theory." Basically, what search engines really want is to be a "real boy." Every algorithm change that has happened in the past few years has been aimed at bringing the search engines closer to the point where they can replicate human judgment on the quality of a site. Taking link analysis beyond a pure numbers game in order to analyze the who, what and why of a link is a great example of this. The coming shift toward latent semantic indexing is another. Sure there are going to be setbacks now and then (Florida, BigDaddy) where some tweaking is needed, but overall, algorithmic changes are designed to replicate human judgment. Thus, I think that even without the setup to conduct non-stop A/B testing of every single algorithmic factor out there, most people can still use a little common sense and observation to understand where search engines are going. So what does all that mean to the sandbox issue? It means that a little common sense has to come into play... Think about it this way... if a search engine wants to continue to improve their search results, then it makes sense that new sites are going to be judged and "allowed" to rank based on a sliding scale of how they compare to the sites that already exist in the index. The more competition currently index, the higher the bar for admittance. After all, how many mortgage application sites does Google really need to list? Why should they think that your brand new mortgage site is any more worthy of a ranking than the 1.5 million (yes, MILLION) sites that are already indexed for the phrase "mortgage application." This is the reason that I keep preaching to small business owners about the need for niche products and niche approaches. The Lactivist site that I developed for the 30 day project last fall was fully indexed and delivering quality traffic on great phrases within two weeks. Why? Because I chose a niche area to compete in that despite being somewhat competitive, still didn't have 1.5 million sites out there doing the same thing. Now, let's take this "real boy" concept a step further and give another reason why it would be absolutely idiotic of Google to impose this so-called sandbox effect. Above all else, a search engine algorithm is designed to IMPROVE the results displayed by that engine. It's not in a search engine's best interest to suddenly decide that they won't let any new sites in without making them sit around for months on end. There's zero logic to it and search engines try very hard to be logical. On the other hand, it IS logical to carefully consider whether a brand new site can really add something to the search results and to raise or lower the barrier of entry depending on how many existing sites there are for that topic. The thing that people need to understand about "the sandbox" is that it's not a place that all sites go to grow up. It's a concept that people have jumped on to explain what's actually the development of a higher level of judgment on Google's part. In theory, it provides an easy explanation for the trouble that people have suddenly had in getting new sites ranked. In reality, it just shows that the industry is growing up and that search engine algorithms are growing up with it. Warmly, Jennifer Laycock, Editor Search Engine Guide -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Donald Nelson Subject: AdSense Mark Roberts has raised a good point about Adsense in LED 2180. He noted that many of the Adsense advertisers are competitors. This is usually true because the ads that are shown on your pages will be related to your content. If your content is about Bird Houses, then you will get ads from other Bird House distributors. Not all sites or not all pages are suited to Adsense. Do you want to earn $1.00 or perhaps 10 cents from a clickthrough on an Adsense ad or $100 from someone who purchases your product. Perhaps you may not want to put Adsense on your important sales pages. For some sites, Adsense may not make any sense at all. On the otherhand if you have pages with articles and information and they are not vital to your current business, then you can monetize these pages or sites with Adsense. I too would like to hear the opinions of others on this subject. Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Willie Crawford Subject: Blogging revenue > Who has a blog that has had a positive > effect on company revenue? - Martha Retallick, LED 2180 Martha brought up the topic of profiting from a blog. She also indicated that since her ezine is not as profitable as it was years ago, she's thinking of going to a blog. On several of my sites, that have ezines associated with them, I both email out the regular ezine and post the ezine or excerpts on my blogs. I do make regular sales... sometimes of big ticket items, from my blogs! I also run AdSense and affiliate product ads around the periphery of my blogs. This is very profitable. There is no denying that email deliverability rates are down... at least for me, from what they were two years ago, so I'm just offering the same message in as many formats as practical. I also offer a podcast for those who prefer downloading it and listening to me while they're out jogging or driving :-) Willie Crawford http://searchengineoptimizationcashcow.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Beth Earle Subject: Blogging revenue Hi, Martha. We use our blog in conjunction with our e-newsletter ... the newsletter contains the first bits of the blog posts and then links people directly to our site, where they can read the full post and then proceed to whatever other areas of the site are of interest to them. I know we've gotten some relatively decent action out of this (two or three strong leads from each e-newsletter), but I don't know if any have turned into paying customers yet. Of course, that could just be because the blog is only a few months old and we have a relatively long sales process. It would be interesting to get some more feedback on this from other LED'ers who own ecommerce sites and (more useful from my own perspective) those who own information-only sites. Thanks, Beth Earle www.pilotfishseo.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. 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