| LED Digest 2121: To Bounce or Not to Bounce |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" 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 .............................................. March 21, 2006 Issue #2121 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== To Bounce or Not To Bounce ==-- ~ Scott Marino ==== CONTINUING ================= --== And Now For... Paperwork ==-- ~ Rob Bishop ~ Chuck Hiatt --== Email List Services or Software ==-- ~ Anthony Kirlew ~ Rick Gortatowsky --== URL Naming ==-- ~ Mike Banks Valentine ~ Scott M. Stolz ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Have I Been Scammed? ==-- ~ Bev Hanna --== 301 Redirects ==-- ~ Viggie Bala =========== NEW ================================== From: Scott Marino Subject: To Bounce or Not to Bounce Here's a new topic... We all get spammed, some worse than others. On a slow day I get 10,000, on a busy day, it hits almost 20,000. The volume comes because some spammer thought it would be a good idea to take a name list, and pair it to the @domain.com part of our name to try to get an e-mails to everybody. Now we get hundreds of the same e-mail every time they send it. I have a catch-all e-mail that captures these and sends them right to the trash. The negative effect is that they are impacting the server when the e-mails arrive, which is generally in large bunches. I know there have been threads on how to combat spam and there are some people on this list that are well versed in the subject. The questions I pose is ... Should I start bouncing these e-mails or continue accepting them and deleting them? Scott Marino ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Rob Bishop Subject: Paperwork > Just wondering what other folks out there are doing > about all the paperwork that their business generates. - Nancy Schettler, LED 2120 Nancy; Great post. Thanks. I work hard to be a flexible boss and allow people to work in the way which each individual is comfortable. I still have one staff member, that gets an email, prints it out, reads it, and then replies back. ( I find that odd ) I personally feel this is a waste, but I try not to micro manage. ( I really try ) For my staff who submit to my badgering, we have set up forms on our website, which only our staff have access to. These forms broadcast the information to the people who need it ( accounting, shipping, ect ) as well as automatically sign these clients up to our newsletter. ( we do ask if it is okay - so it is opt in) This could be as simple as a general inquiry, right up to an order. For me this accomplishes several things; - I can set the form to reject the info if an employee would like to save some time ( cut corners ) and not enter the info we need - I can include scripts on screen for staff to remember simple things like saying thank-you and asking additional questions - the info is only entered once ( worst case someone has to cut and paste it in to shipping software ) and finally - we find that there is little that slips through the cracks, because a duplicate did not get in to a paper inbox, or a paper clip stuck two forms together. We now have paper forms for only one staff member who just does not want to advance. As far as back up goes. We have a central server in the building ( does not host website ) that has removable hard drives. These are swapped out every couple of days, and stored off site. It is simple. Cheap. And is run at night when nobody has to sit and watch it finish. I am sure there are better solutions, but we have tried several like online backups, tape drive and such, but this works for us. Bear Hugs Rob Bishop Binkley Custom Products www.customplushtoys.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Chuck Hiatt Subject: Paperwork Nancy: In 2003, we wanted a paperless office but didn't know where to start so we used a consultant to walk us through the process. It was worth every penny. Since installation and training have been completed, our productivity has increased 68%, labor cost is down 18% and our net profit margin increased by 8.5%. The total cost was about $38,000 and it paid for itself in 3 months. We addressed the issue three years ago and solved it by incorporating dedicated document scanners and optical storage. We have 2 employees that do nothing but scan documents all day long. Every piece of paper that comes into our office is scanned and electronically filed and is then shredded. This includes orders, quotes, letters, receipts, faxes, handwritten notes, emails...everything. As a document is scanned into the system, it is assigned to the correct customer or internal file and a copy is also stored in a searchable database. We have optical storage onsite and back-up every night to an offsite dedicated server. Our office is as paperless as you can get. I can locate any document of any age in seconds. The only originals that are kept on file are contracts and employee records. There are many companies offering document handling solutions. It might be worth having someone come out and evaluate your needs. Chuck Hiatt Promogear.com, Inc. www.promogear.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Anthony Kirlew Subject: Email lists > ... I need to be able to upload a list of emails, the content > of which may change slightly each month as [newsletter] > members enter and leave... - Tom Connelly, LED 2119 Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com) is a very effective managed email marketing tool that does not cause any ISP conflict because they own the servers and you are not sending emails using your ISP. They offer a free 60 day trial and then prices start at $15.00 per month for up to 500 names and allow you to increase your level of service as your list size increases. I don't think there is a limit on how many emails they will send, and also they have the tools in place to make sure you are CAN SPAM compliant. Best, Anthony Kirlew Web Traffic Team www.webtrafficteam.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Rick Gortatowsky Subject: Email lists Hi Tom, Quite a bit of bulk mailing software ends up using your ISP's mail server. What you want is a bulk mailer that has a built in SMTP server. A excellent and very easy mailer that accomplishes just what you want is called AutoMailer (http://www.automsw.com/). Its free to use for like 50 emails at a time or less. I would suggest purchasing the full edition, its very affordable. Automailer allows you to use your ISP's, Website(s) or internal SMTP server. It will send both HTML and/or Text email. It uses a extremely simple .CSV file to setup the mailing list so you can use any spreadsheet software, a text editor, database etc. to do this. Rick Gortatowsky -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mike Banks Valentine Subject: URL naming > I'd like to pose Chris's question to Mike and others again ... > how important is the product name / keyword in the URL? - Tom Anson, LED 2120 Tom, My previous attempt to answer the filename question still applies to the way you have asked it. Filenames are "incrementally important" and the efforts are "worth it" as part of a total SEO program. But what I've often found is that developers dislike the annoyance of URL rewrites to generate search engine friendly URL's and 301 permanent redirects to reroute crawlers, unless I can "prove" that it is worth their time. Do a search, see where you rank and look at those above you. Do they use keywords or product names in their filenames? If so, then it must be worth the time. Only you can determine what your time is worth and whether the time invested will generate enough additional sales to pay for that time. But to answer the final question of the three above - YES, filenames *can* make the top 10 of SEO if you've already done the other critical pieces and still need to notch up incrementally to beat competitors in the rankings. When I design an SEO program for clients I tell them *everything* that can help them increase ranking. Filenames always make the list, but may be at position 15 or 20 of things to implement for a company that has done it all badly. If a developer or in-house webmaster balks at filename changes, I've done my job by recommending it and I'll let it go. If they come back later asking how to make further improvements, I'll revisit the filename issue and whatever else needs further attention. On another issue - I navigated to one of your product pages and noted that the shopping cart software in the cgi-bin generates the product pages. Then clicked a link at random to visit a single product page from within the list. That single product page is well built and would probably rank well if it were accessible to search engine spiders, but it is not a link that spiders can access the way the page is generated. I thought it would probably show up in top search results quite well based on page structure and filename. I then went to your sitemap page and found that product page missing. www.therapeutic-grade.com/products/singles/basil.html I noted that your robots.txt file tells spiders to stay out of two directories in the cgi-bin and don't know if that product page link exists elsewhere, but it appears not to be accessible to spiders as that page is not indexed at Google. Type the query "info:www.therapeutic-grade.com/products/singles/basil.html" (without quotes) into the search box at Google and that product page is not indexed. I suspect that to be the case with any others not included on the sitemap as well. You'd do well to make sure all products are either linked from pages outside the cgi-bin and shopping cart software - or from the sitemap. If they're not indexed, they don't exist to the search engines. Mike Banks Valentine http://realityseo.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Scott M Stolz Subject: URL Naming I have noticed that in the short run, having descriptive names in the URL tends to help Google AdWords figures out what your page is about and show more relevant ads. But I've also noticed that over time, Google AdSense tends to figure it out based on what ads people are clicking on anyway, but that takes a bit of time sometimes. With Google AdSense, it does help Google serve more relevant ads which increases your click-thru rate and income. As far as the Google search engine goes, it is not vital that keywords be in the URL. In fact I have some high ranking pages that are data driven with generic terms in the URL (e.g. travel/content.asp?article=42 or worse default.asp?action=Visit&iCat=575&iLink=2413), yet show up highly in the search engines. Why? Well, quality content and incoming links from quality sources. But, I'm sure it doesn't hurt either. And it does make it easier for people to type in than some cryptic looking URL. Ironically, I spend all my time generating good content people want to view instead of following SEO practices (and even going against common SEO advice) and yet we rank in the top 5 or 6 in Google, Yahoo!, and MSN in important keywords. And by 5 or 6, I mean links, not pages. We're on the first page of the search results. It is true that you can do some SEO tricks to get yourself in the top rankings, but if you don't also have good content, you will get rotated out or worse, get delisted. One thing to note that I didn't know is that certain things are prohibited in URLs by certain search engines. For example, Google will not index any page with "id=" in the URL. But "article=" apppears to be okay. We recently had to change the URL structure of certain pages because Google would not index them because of the "id=" issue. So you do have to watch what you put in the URL and it does help you (assuming the terms you use are relevant and you have quality content). But the URL is only one small piece and is not vital in our experience. Scott M. Stolz http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/ ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Bev Hanna Subject: Scam or legitimate business? Yesterday, I was called by a company purporting to be representing a respectable internet marketer from whom I had recently purchased an e- book. They offered a one-on-one mentoring program, promising close monitoring with lots of help, assignments and accountability. They had all my contact information from the site where I had purchased the e-book, so naturally, I assumed their claims were backed by the marketer in question, who is someone well-known and respected. I went ahead and bought the mentoring package to the tune of $3,000.00, assuming that this was a legitimate upsell. It was a difficult decision to make, as my total income last year in my business as an artist was just over $5,000.00, but they said they could help me learn to make at least $4,000.00 per month. When I opened my e-mail this morning, I received a message from the marketer from whom I had purchased originally, saying that this company has a terrible reputation and that on no account should anyone have anything to do with them. I have no idea how they got my information from this purchase, but they had everything correct. Does anyone know anything about Empire Marketing, Shanklin Group International or ESM (Educational Sales and Marketing)? Have I just done something remarkably stupid? Bev Hanna, S.C.A. http://www.bevhanna.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Viggie Bala Subject: 301 Redirects > I have understood that to make a 301 redirect > my site has to be hosted on an apache server. > Unfortunately (in this case) my site is on an ISS server. - Magnus Brattemark, LED 2119 301 redirect is not restricted to Apache server. You can do it in Windows IIS Server (it's IIS, not ISS). But admittedly 301 redirect is not as simple in IIS as in Apache. I've searched "301 redirect in IIS server" in Google (without quotes) and found many useful pages. Only particularly useful page is http://snipurl.com/nrfd [mcanerin.com]. To complete a 301 redirect in IIS you need admin access to the server. If you don't have admin access to the server, you can still do the 301 redirect, but your pages need to run in ASP. Step by step details are at http://snipurl.com/nrf6 [seoconsultants.com] Regards, Viggie Bala Helping Websites to Work http://www.viggie.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." - Thoreau |
