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High Rankings Advisor: Writing for the Search Engines - Issue No. 043February 12, 2003 ________________________________________________________
~~~IN TODAY'S ADVISOR~~~ *Introductory Comments: ----> Full Issue *Search Engine Marketing: ----> Additional Domains for Extra Rankings *This Week's Sponsor: ----> Too Full for Sponsors! *Guest Article: ----> Making Sales on the Internet *Stuff You Might Like ----> Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines *Other Search Engine News ----> Yahoo! UK! admits! scam! ----> Overture Doubles Minimum Bid Amount *Search Engine Strategies Conference Requests: ----> Send In Your Directory Questions ----> Free Books to Session Attendees *This Week's Sound Advice ----> Using Duplicate Content and Mirror Sites *Advisor Wrap-up: ----> Gotta Run! ________________________________________________________ ~~~Introductory Comments~~~ Hey everyone! Today's issue is filled to the brim with good stuff. Make sure you read all the way through to the end so you don't miss anything. Pay special attention to the fact that my "Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" special report is finally done and ready for you to purchase. It was fun writing a review of my own report, after having written so many for other people's stuff. I'll have an affiliate program in place shortly in case you're interested in reselling it on your own sites. Zip me a quick email if you fit into that category. Let's get right to the good stuff! - Jill ~~~Search Engine Marketing Issues~~~ ++Additional Domains for Extra Rankings++ From: Paul B. Dear Jill, First, I must commend you on your excellent and consistent work that you provide in each newsletter. It's one of the few emails that I look forward to getting each week. Our company in Pittsburgh offers many different services. Right now we have top-ten rankings in Google, MSN, etc. for our regional keywords. So, what we have done is bought some domain names (pittsburghkeyword1.com, pittsburghkeyword2.com, pittsburghkeyword3.com, etc.) and we are going to make these sites content-specific to their URLs. The goal is to now go after national rankings for certain keywords. I have a few questions about all of this: 1.) Since we already have a top-ten ranking for the keywords, are we hurting our main site by creating a "sister site" that hopefully would become the highest ranked site for that phrase? 2.) Will the search engines consider these sites as spam since these "sister sites" all refer to our main site? 3.) Is it realistic to think that we can attack the general keywords (without Pittsburgh) to get high rankings even though the URL is pittsburghkeyword.com? (Since Pittsburgh precedes the keyword, will the search engine disregard it?) Anything that you can refer me to would be great. Thanks again, Paul ~~~Jill's Response~~~ Hi Paul, It seems to me that you'd be treading in dangerous waters to do what you are thinking about doing. The reason is because it sounds as if you're thinking about creating new sites for the sole purpose of gaining extra exposure in the search engines. This is *exactly* the kind of thing that the engines (most specifically Google) would prefer that you DON'T do. It doesn't sound as if you believe your users would be best served by having multiple sites, or anything like that. It appears to be strictly a search engine strategy, and one that I would heartily recommend against using. So with the above in mind, let me answer your individual questions: 1.) Would you be hurting your main site? There would definitely be a chance that you would be hurting it. For one thing, you'd be competing with yourself on the same keyword phrases. That's not necessarily bad, as you probably don't mind which site you get found under. However, the risk of Google banning all of your sites is real, which of course would hurt your main site! Google is getting better at analyzing sites that are in their own little cluster. The sites generally all link to each other, but have very few outside links. This is a huge tip-off that they are all owned by one company who's trying to gain extra search engine exposure through multiple domains. It's really one of the oldest SEO tricks in the book, and it's taken the search engines a long time to develop ways of fighting against it. Google seems to have found a way, and sites are getting penalized every month for this sort of thing. 2.) Would the sites be considered spam? Yes, as stated in my answer to #1, if they did indeed analyze the situation, it would probably be deemed spam by most engines, especially Google. One of the biggest tip-offs would be the fact that they all pointed to the main site. But even if you figured out a good way to do it so they didn't all point to the main site, it would be considered spam once it was brought to their attention. More and more Web site owners are snitching on their competitors these days, so you really have to watch your back! 3.) Could you attack the general keywords with a Pittsburgh URL? Since words in the URL have very little to do with how you rank in the search engines (if all else is equal), then sure, you could attack any keyword phrases you want to attack. However, anytime you attempt to optimize for general keywords (as opposed to specific keyword phrases) you will make your job more difficult. If you're thinking about optimizing for one word such as "multimedia," for instance, you probably won't have a shot regardless of the URL you're using. Not only that, but someone searching for "multimedia" or nearly any single-word keyword could be looking for something totally different than what you offer. Search engine optimization is about targeting keywords that describe exactly what you have to offer. This almost always means that you should be optimizing for multiple-keyword phrases, not single keywords. They will be easier to get ranked with, and they will generally convert your visitors into buyers more easily. This week's Sound Advice (see below) just happens to be on this topic also! Jill ~~~Guest Article~~~ ++Making Sales on the Internet++ Today's guest article is about something I bet most of you are after...making more sales! It's more common sense information from our moonwalk friend, Scottie Claiborne. (See her previous guest article "Links Are Good for Business" here: </issue035.htm#guest>.) Along with being the moonwalk queen, Scottie has performed usability and web application design for several years and strongly believes in using the Internet as a tool to reach people. I couldn't agree more! So without further ado, here's Scottie. Guest Article Making Sales on the Internet Scottie Claiborne The Internet has changed our buying habits. From deciding on which movie to see, selecting a new car, or buying ink for your printer, many people turn to the Internet to get answers and to make purchases. Historically, the company with the biggest marketing budget and best location was able to gain the largest share of their market through traditional marketing spends. A Level Playing Field You can set up a business today and be taking orders tomorrow. Google and DMOZ are the key players in creating this equilibrium because they don't rank companies by how much they can pay. They judge on the quality of your site's content and its "reputation" or backward links. Sounds great, doesn't it? It IS great, but it is not as easy as many hucksters on TV and the Internet would have you believe. In order to get great traffic and sales, your site must be *better* than the rest! Why would someone buy from your site when there are likely to be many sites out there selling similar products or services? What is your unique selling proposition (USP)? The following concepts can help you to succeed, even if your site exists solely to support a bricks-and-mortar business. Usability and Design If you appeal to your target audience and design for their likes and dislikes, they are more likely to buy from you. If you sell used video games, your look and feel should be different than if you sell scented candles. One size does not fit all! Think carefully about the "voice" of your site, and carry that over into the graphics and copy. Think about the type of hardware and software your customers are likely to have. Are they using AOL? Do they have older browsers? Or perhaps they have state-of-the-art equipment. Not all target markets are alike. Build Trust Buying something on the Internet is still a scary thing for many people. Always use secure pages for transactions and have a privacy policy -- then STICK TO IT. Testimonials are another powerful way to instill trust, as long as they are sincere and believable. An "About Us" page is always a great idea; people typically want to know who they are buying from. Avoid personal information here unless your customers need to know more about you personally. If you are an artist selling your work or an individual providing services, personal information can help build trust. However, if you are reselling software, people really don't need to know that you are a major Star Wars fan who likes to dress up like Darth Vader and scare the pizza delivery guy! Add Benefits If a customer can get MORE at your site -- whether it is a wider selection or a special offer -- they are likely to hang around. Offer free advice, sample downloads, tutorials, or anything else that would be useful to your customer. Don't fill a page up with junk just to have more content; only add things that will be useful to your targeted audience. For example, a news feed with SEO articles would be a useful thing to have if you sell Web-building software, but a general news feed on a site that sells sunglasses would be a distraction. Add Informational Content Often, when faced with the unknown, people will assume a feature is not present unless the copy clearly states that it is. The more information you provide about your product or service, the better. People and search engines like to learn more about what you have to offer. Consider adding a forum! Forums are a great way to build a community around your products and also get valuable feedback. Long-term Proposition All of these things take time and ongoing work to keep up-to-date. You can't simply expect to link to a product database and get high rankings and lots of orders. You certainly can't get into DMOZ that way, nor can you expect high rankings in the other search engines. As with any business, if you build a better company than the other guys you can come out ahead. With lots of unique and useful content and a design that appeals to your audience, you can rank well with a commercial site and build a good business while you're at it. **A word of caution: anyone who builds their business by being dependent upon free search engine traffic is building a house on sand. The sand can shift at any minute. If you absolutely must have traffic to your site to survive, make sure you invest in alternate marketing strategies such as pay-per-click, online advertising, and traditional media. Even if you achieve great rankings with your site today, when you are dealing with free search results there are no guarantees that these will last.** Scottie Claiborne Right Click Web Services http://www.rightclickwebs.com/ ~~~Stuff You Might Like~~~ ++The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines++ You've begged and pleaded with me to finish my special report. Well...I finally got off my butt and did it! I'm very pleased with the results, and I think you will be too. So what exactly is this special report? Well, it's called "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines," and it costs $49. It's not hundreds of pages -- just 27. They are 27 pages of pure content and real-life examples -- no fluff. Which means you can probably read it in an hour or two. As with everything I write, it's nothing tricky or confusing or even anything that you couldn't have thought of yourself (if you chose to think about it for awhile). In fact, you're gonna read it and say, "Sheesh...this is soooooo obvious and such common sense." You'll probably even kick yourself for not having thought of it all yourself. So why should you buy something that's all common sense? Good question! Let me ask you another one. When you read this newsletter, do you often find yourself saying, "DUH! Why didn't I think of that?" C'mon...you know you do. It'll be the same thing when you read my special report. You will definitely have some "duh" moments. What I bring to the table with this report (and what you probably don't have), is my many years of training copywriters to write for the search engines. Not to mention all of my own SEO copyediting experience for client sites. To be clear, this report is definitely *not* a copywriting guide. If you want to learn copywriting in general, please purchase Karon Thackston's Step-By-Step Copywriting Course: </copywritingcourse>. (Between her course and this special report you will have all your copywriting bases covered!) My report assumes you already have some copywriting ability. In fact, I believe those that can benefit most from it are copywriters who already have their craft down to an art but want to start taking on some "writing for the search engines" work for clients. After all, that's where the money is. Spend $49 on this report, and with a little practice, you'll be able to start charging folks a whole lot more for SEO copywriting as opposed to your usual plain-vanilla writing. Seriously. Ask any current SEO copywriter and they will confirm to you that they charge more for SEO writing because it is a specialized skill. It's not just copywriters who should purchase this report though. Any SEO consultant who has to edit his or her clients' pages to better utilize their targeted keyword phrases will also want to read it. If you're a consultant who thinks you simply have to stick the keyword phrases into a header tag, or place them randomly throughout the copy, you *definitely* need this book! Ever wonder why your SEO clients fight your copywriting changes tooth and nail? It's because they stink! You're probably thinking only about the search engines and not your clients' site visitors. That just won't cut it anymore. My techniques will not only help your clients' sites in the search engines, but their site visitors as well. This makes for a happy client! Now, if you've heard my "Writing for the Search Engines" session at conferences, the report will be familiar to you. It's basically the same stuff I talk about there, only fleshed out into more words and some additional examples. If you forget what you heard me say at a conference, you may certainly want a copy of the report to jog the old memory. However, if you took good notes, you may not need the report. You'd have to decide that for yourself. If you've never heard me speak, you will find that the information and ideas presented in the report have never been published anywhere by anyone else. Not in any of my articles, not in anyone's articles. It's not often one can say that about stuff having to do with search engine optimization these days. However, I'm confident that this is true in this case. (At least for now, until someone comes along and steals my stuff as inevitably happens!) At any rate, I've babbled on long enough about this. You can learn more and purchase the special report here: </seo-writing.htm>. (Assuming I get it all up and running by the time you receive this -- wish me luck!) ~~~Other SEO News~~~ ++Yahoo! UK! admits! scam!++ Remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you about the Yahoo UK scam email that was going around? (Here's the link: </issue041.htm#seonews1>.) Apparently my mentioning it did some good! See this article in The Register, a UK news and information site: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29281.html>. Thanks again to those who forwarded me their scam emails and to Barry Lloyd of MakeMeTop for providing me with his company's additional research into the matter. ++Overture Doubles Minimum Bid Amount++ If you're an advertiser on Overture, you've probably already heard that they doubled the minimum amount you can bid from 5 cents to 10 cents. Obviously, many small businesses are not happy about the increase. For those of us (like me!) who concentrate on traditional search engine optimization -- as opposed to pay-per-click (PPC) ads -- this is actually a good thing. The more expensive PPC gets, the more people will need to optimize their sites to show up in the regular results. As bad as I feel for those of you who've been squeezed out by the new prices, I can't help hoping that Overture keeps on raising the prices through the roof! By the way, remember my New Year's prediction regarding PPC? Let me refresh your memory: "PPC will continue to grow in popularity, but so will the price tag. Bids for keywords on Overture and Google AdWords are already out of reach for many sites, and this will only get worse. This in turn will make 'organic' search engine optimization more popular than it currently is (and it's pretty darn popular)." Score one for me! ~~~Search Engine Strategies Conference Requests~~~ ++Directory Submission Questions++ The Boston Search Engine Strategies Conference <http://www.searchenginestrategies.com> is coming up in a few weeks and I need your help! I'll be speaking once again in the "Dealing With Directories" session and am looking for some specific questions you may have about directory submissions. They can be questions for the directory reps or for me (or Elisabeth O., who is a DMOZ editor and SEO consultant). Hopefully we'll have time to run through some of your questions, and I'll report back to you later with the answers! ++Free SEO Books++ Another session I'll be presenting in is a new one that I dreamed up called "From Start to Finish." This is the one I mentioned a few weeks ago, where Shari Thurow and I will take an audience member's Web site and optimize it right before your eyes. Shari and I wanted to announce ahead of time that we will be giving out a free copy of her new book, Search Engine Visibility </searchenginevisibility> to one lucky attendee of our session. And not to be outdone by Shari, I will also give out a copy of my new special report, "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines," to another attendee! All the more reason to attend the conference and particularly this new, informative session. ~~~This Week's Sound Advice~~~ ++Using Duplicate Content and Mirror Sites++ Listen to this week's audio tip here: <http://www.whatsworking.biz/gfx/audio/sa-se12.asx?hra>. View the complete list of SEO audio tips here: </soundadvice>. ~~~Advisor Wrap-up~~~ No room or time to write any more. I need to test my report download page. If you purchase the report and have any problems downloading it or opening it, please be patient with me. Just send me an email and I'll make sure you get your copy ASAP! Catch you later! - Jill    |
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