I got sick last last week... first time in almost 3 years.
Still working on the house getting it ready to sell
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Monday, December 23, 2013
Friday, March 14, 2008
Check Credentials
Ok, first I want to say that this is not aimed at the beginning web designer/developer. We all have to start somewhere.
Recently, we have had several phone calls from people wanting to get a web site started. We are not comlpaining about that, but the phone calls have been coming in at an alarming rate. This is a good problem to have, at least better than the opposite of that!
Some of these people that want a web site have already started the process by hiring someone to create a web site for them, only to find out that the person that they hired has gone away, or gone out of business
, off to college in another state etc. We have asked some of these people, that contacted us, if they checked out any of the other web designers work. Most of these people responded with something like "THEY HAVEN'T ACTUALLY CREATED A WEB SITE THEMSELVES, BUT THEY SAID THAT THEY KNEW HOW TO DO IT!"
We were suprised at their answer, but tried not to show it, and we followed up with another question. That question was "Does this other guy have a web site and did you check their own web site out?" The answer to that/those questioins were astounding. Generally the answer was "WELL, THEY DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAVE A WEB SITE THEMSELVES, BUT THEY SAID THAT THEY CREATED WEB SITES FOR OTHER PEOPLE. THEY SAID THAT THEY DIDN'T NEED A WEB SITE FOR THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE TIME!"
Needless to say, we can help these people, and we could probably even take further advantage of these people if we were that way. We won't ever do that, but the point is, CHECK THE CREDENTIALS OF THE PERSON WHO YOU WILL POSSIBLY GIVE LOTS OF MONEY, TO CREATE A WEB SITE FOR YOU.
We understand that maybe you don't know what web design is all about, or how much it should cost, but there is a ton of information out there about that. Look it up so you at least have an idea. You may still not be able to create your own web site, but at least you will be educated enough to hire someone to do it for you!
As an example of what I'm talking about, I'm not a realitor, and I don't know the first thing about how much a house should sell for, but there are plenty of web sites out there that will educate me a little so that I'm more informed, and I definitely would not hire a realitor that lives in an apartment or has never even sold a house. That would be a GIANT RED FLAG!
I could tell you how much a house should sell for, but it would be a guess at best, but if I could "talk a good talk" you may believe me, even though my only purpose would be to rip you off!
All we are saying is that if you are going to hire someone to create a web site for you, check their credentials. Have the potential web designer/developer show you web sites that they have created. If they are just starting out, have them at least show you their own web site. Have them show you web sites that they have at least helped out on or contributed to. Make sure that their name is somewhere in the text of the web site or in some of the code of that web site. If you don't know how to look at the code, have them point things out to you, and then contact another web designer/developer and get another price quote. Ask the second web designer/developer about the first one. A reputable web designer/developer will at the very least tell you if they have even heard of the other. Try to ignore some of the bad things as the web designer/developer that you are talking to does not want to lose business to them, so they may point out some bad things, but unless they are telling you about how they have a current client that was ripped off (or something very major like that) then you have to keep in mind that they are trying to get your business.
We actually suggest a client get other quotes from other web designers, but we also inform the client about reputable web designers/developers in the area. As much as we want the client to get a good price (if they go somewhere else) it is equally important that this client choose another web designer that will not rip them off.
Here is a list of other web designers/developers in our area that we would happily recommend:
These are all very reputable web design/development companies. Your relationship with your web designer/developer is very important. It's part of what you are paying for. You should be very comfortable talking with them. If you are not, or if there is a problem communicating with them, then they may not be the "person for the job" and you should contact other reputable web designers.
The next post will be about Search Engine Placement Specialists. Truths V.S. Myths.
Recently, we have had several phone calls from people wanting to get a web site started. We are not comlpaining about that, but the phone calls have been coming in at an alarming rate. This is a good problem to have, at least better than the opposite of that!
Some of these people that want a web site have already started the process by hiring someone to create a web site for them, only to find out that the person that they hired has gone away, or gone out of business
, off to college in another state etc. We have asked some of these people, that contacted us, if they checked out any of the other web designers work. Most of these people responded with something like "THEY HAVEN'T ACTUALLY CREATED A WEB SITE THEMSELVES, BUT THEY SAID THAT THEY KNEW HOW TO DO IT!"We were suprised at their answer, but tried not to show it, and we followed up with another question. That question was "Does this other guy have a web site and did you check
their own web site out?" The answer to that/those questioins were astounding. Generally the answer was "WELL, THEY DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAVE A WEB SITE THEMSELVES, BUT THEY SAID THAT THEY CREATED WEB SITES FOR OTHER PEOPLE. THEY SAID THAT THEY DIDN'T NEED A WEB SITE FOR THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE TIME!"Needless to say, we can help these people, and we could probably even take further advantage of these people if we were that way. We won't ever do that, but the point is, CHECK THE CREDENTIALS OF THE PERSON WHO YOU WILL POSSIBLY GIVE LOTS OF MONEY, TO CREATE A WEB SITE FOR YOU.
We understand that maybe you don't know what web design is all about, or how much it should cost, but there is a ton of information out there about that. Look it up so you at least have an idea. You may still not be able to create your own web site, but at least you will be educated enough to hire
someone to do it for you!As an example of what I'm talking about, I'm not a realitor, and I don't know the first thing about how much a house should sell for, but there are plenty of web sites out there that will educate me a little so that I'm more informed, and I definitely would not hire
a realitor that lives in an apartment or has never even sold a house. That would be a GIANT RED FLAG!I could tell you how much a house should sell for, but it would be a guess at best, but if I could "talk a good talk" you may believe me, even though my only purpose would be to rip you off!
All we are saying is that if you are going to hire
someone to create a web site for you, check their credentials. Have the potential web designer/developer show you web sites that they have created. If they are just starting out, have them at least show you their own web site. Have them show you web sites that they have at least helped out on or contributed to. Make sure that their name is somewhere in the text of the web site or in some of the code of that web site. If you don't know how to look at the code, have them point things out to you, and then contact another web designer/developer and get another price quote. Ask the second web designer/developer about the first one. A reputable web designer/developer will at the very least tell you if they have even heard of the other. Try to ignore some of the bad things as the web designer/developer that you are talking to does not want to lose business to them, so they may point out some bad things, but unless they are telling you about how they have a current client that was ripped off (or something very major like that) then you have to keep in mind that they are trying to get your business.We actually suggest a client get other quotes from other web designers, but we also inform the client about reputable web designers/developers in the area. As much as we want the client to get a good price (if they go somewhere else) it is equally important that this client choose another web designer that will not rip them off.
Here is a list of other web designers/developers in our area that we would happily recommend:
These are all very reputable web design/development companies. Your relationship with your web designer/developer is very important. It's part of what you are paying for. You should be very comfortable talking with them. If you are not, or if there is a problem communicating with them, then they may not be the "person for the job" and you should contact
other reputable web designers.The next post will be about Search Engine Placement Specialists. Truths V.S. Myths.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
SEO
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a bunch of different things. I'm only going to talk about one thing related to SEO this time.
Become an expert in your field of expertise. Get involved with writing articles for other web sites (like GoArticles.com), newspapers, magazines, books etc. Get involved with online forums and groups. Don't forget to write articles for your own web site too. Start a blog (like this one) and make sure you "tag" the keywords of your article in it.
There is a whole lot more you can do to help get the word out about your web site, and these things are just a few of them.
Also, don't forget to include your web site address when you sign your name on the article. This will drive visitors to your site.
Become an expert in your field of expertise. Get involved with writing articles for other web sites (like GoArticles.com), newspapers, magazines, books etc. Get involved with online forums and groups. Don't forget to write articles for your own web site too. Start a blog (like this one) and make sure you "tag" the keywords of your article in it.
There is a whole lot more you can do to help get the word out about your web site, and these things are just a few of them.
Also, don't forget to include your web site address when you sign your name on the article. This will drive visitors to your site.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Keywords
Did you know that you can use each page on your web site to get good placement for different key words? The trick is to use different key words on different web pages. You will also have to list the different keywords in a meta file on each page, but the order of those keywords in the meta file are pretty important.
I'll give you an example, let's say that you own a sports store and you sell want to sell lots of baseball items. Your home page should include the word baseball as much as possible, but do it naturally too, don't just keep needlessly repeating the word baseball. Your keywords meta file should be in this order: baseball, glove, bat, field etc...
On another page, you could gear it towards baseball gloves. So again, you should use the term baseball gloves as much as possible but naturally too. Your keywords would go something like this: glove, baseball, bat, field etc...
On yet another page you could gear it towards baseball bats. Use the word as often as possible on the page, again, naturally, and the keywords would go something like this: bat, baseball, glove, field etc...
Now all three of your web pages (not just the home page) will start doing better for all three terms (baseball, baseball glove, baseball bat) because each page in your site is geared towards different words or terms.
Generally only the first few words or phrases are taken into consideration when the robots search your site for consideration of the search engine placement.
This is another important reason to make each page, within your web site, be a good landing page. What I mean is, consider that the page may be the only page that a visitor looks at on your web site. Does it make a good impression on the visitor (if it does, then chances are, they will click further into your site)
I'll give you an example, let's say that you own a sports store and you sell want to sell lots of baseball items. Your home page should include the word baseball as much as possible, but do it naturally too, don't just keep needlessly repeating the word baseball. Your keywords meta file should be in this order: baseball, glove, bat, field etc...
On another page, you could gear it towards baseball gloves. So again, you should use the term baseball gloves as much as possible but naturally too. Your keywords would go something like this: glove, baseball, bat, field etc...
On yet another page you could gear it towards baseball bats. Use the word as often as possible on the page, again, naturally, and the keywords would go something like this: bat, baseball, glove, field etc...
Now all three of your web pages (not just the home page) will start doing better for all three terms (baseball, baseball glove, baseball bat) because each page in your site is geared towards different words or terms.
Generally only the first few words or phrases are taken into consideration when the robots search your site for consideration of the search engine placement.
This is another important reason to make each page, within your web site, be a good landing page. What I mean is, consider that the page may be the only page that a visitor looks at on your web site. Does it make a good impression on the visitor (if it does, then chances are, they will click further into your site)
Monday, December 31, 2007
End of 07 and beginning of 08
Net Magik Pros would like to wish EVERYONE a Happy New Year. Don't forget to be safe if you are traveling tonight!
I won't post again until next year sometime :-)
I won't post again until next year sometime :-)
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Merry Christmas
Net Magik Pros would like to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Theme your web site
Did you know that you can make your web site automatically change it's look during certain times of the year?
It doesn't matter if you use .php, ColdFusion, or .asp or just about any other programming language. All you have to do (in basic simple terms) is to tell the web page to use a different style sheet during certain times of the year.
It just makes your web site more festive and helps visitors to know that you update your web site regularly. This can be a bad thing as well because if you change your web site too much, they may think that they have arrived at a different site. As long as you keep your logo and your layout basically the same, then you should be ok.
It doesn't matter if you use .php, ColdFusion, or .asp or just about any other programming language. All you have to do (in basic simple terms) is to tell the web page to use a different style sheet during certain times of the year.
It just makes your web site more festive and helps visitors to know that you update your web site regularly. This can be a bad thing as well because if you change your web site too much, they may think that they have arrived at a different site. As long as you keep your logo and your layout basically the same, then you should be ok.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Copyright Material
There are so many things out there on the web, that it is really tempting to just copy it and make it your own.
If you are tempted to do this, let me give you some advice: Don't copy it until you have the owners permission. This not only makes you look bad, but it makes the company you work for look bad too. It's basically stealing. If you wouldn't go into a store and hide something under your coat, then you shouldn't be thinking about copying something from someone else, without their permission, and putting it on your web site or your blog.
It's not right to do this.
Doing things the honest way is better than stealing. The same goes for "black hat" tricks to get your website into the search engine placements higher. The search engines will figure it out sooner or later.
If you are tempted to do this, let me give you some advice: Don't copy it until you have the owners permission. This not only makes you look bad, but it makes the company you work for look bad too. It's basically stealing. If you wouldn't go into a store and hide something under your coat, then you shouldn't be thinking about copying something from someone else, without their permission, and putting it on your web site or your blog.
It's not right to do this.
Doing things the honest way is better than stealing. The same goes for "black hat" tricks to get your website into the search engine placements higher. The search engines will figure it out sooner or later.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Other web designers
Sometimes you just have to go to another web designer. Sometimes your current web designer just doesn't "get it".
This has happened to Net Magik Pros recently.
It's not that we are mad because we had a client leave us. We are actually happy that our former client found someone that understands what the client wanted better.
What we were unhappy about was the threats that this former client used towards us. We did everything possible to make the transition as easy as possible, and the former client thinks that we are the bad guy.
We were not the bad guy in all of this. Unfortunately the client thought that we were not releasing the domain name and that we did not give them a complete file with their web site on it.
The funny part about this whole story is that the entire web site was turned over to the former client, and the new web designer's name was plugged into the contact information so that the transfer would go as smoothly as possible. Basically, we did everything possible to make sure that this was not a negative experience. Unfortunately, our former client did not do their research when it came to hiring a new web designer. This person had not been in business for that long, they don't come up under the results in a search engine, and we could tell from the emails that were going back and forth that the new web developer was very new at this.
It was so negative, that NMP actually had to call the new web developers registrar to make sure that they had put in for a transfer of the domain name and that they could find all of the files for the web site. They claimed that they couldn't find the files, and said that the files were not there.
We also got emails from our previous client that we were not releasing the domain name.
Unfortunately, this could have all been avoided if our previous client had done some research before hiring a new web developer.
If you are a web developer, and you are reading this, BEWARE! If you have the funny feeling in your gut, and you try to pass off a client on to someone else with the experience that is needed to create a site for the future client, use that "gut feeling" and don't take the job. It doesn't matter how much money the potential client is offering, it won't be worth it.
Use contracts to protect you and the client, and stick to your guns!
Notice that we did not use any names or company names in this. You can't even tell if the other people that we were dealing with were male or female.
This has been a real learning experience.
I hope our former client and their new web developer have a very merry christmas!
This has happened to Net Magik Pros recently.
It's not that we are mad because we had a client leave us. We are actually happy that our former client found someone that understands what the client wanted better.
What we were unhappy about was the threats that this former client used towards us. We did everything possible to make the transition as easy as possible, and the former client thinks that we are the bad guy.
We were not the bad guy in all of this. Unfortunately the client thought that we were not releasing the domain name and that we did not give them a complete file with their web site on it.
The funny part about this whole story is that the entire web site was turned over to the former client, and the new web designer's name was plugged into the contact information so that the transfer would go as smoothly as possible. Basically, we did everything possible to make sure that this was not a negative experience. Unfortunately, our former client did not do their research when it came to hiring a new web designer. This person had not been in business for that long, they don't come up under the results in a search engine, and we could tell from the emails that were going back and forth that the new web developer was very new at this.
It was so negative, that NMP actually had to call the new web developers registrar to make sure that they had put in for a transfer of the domain name and that they could find all of the files for the web site. They claimed that they couldn't find the files, and said that the files were not there.
We also got emails from our previous client that we were not releasing the domain name.
Unfortunately, this could have all been avoided if our previous client had done some research before hiring a new web developer.
If you are a web developer, and you are reading this, BEWARE! If you have the funny feeling in your gut, and you try to pass off a client on to someone else with the experience that is needed to create a site for the future client, use that "gut feeling" and don't take the job. It doesn't matter how much money the potential client is offering, it won't be worth it.
Use contracts to protect you and the client, and stick to your guns!
Notice that we did not use any names or company names in this. You can't even tell if the other people that we were dealing with were male or female.
This has been a real learning experience.
I hope our former client and their new web developer have a very merry christmas!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Holiday Parade in Battle Creek
Ok, just to point out some differences between how the Battle Creek International Festival of Lights is being handled now v.s. the way it was run back when I was maintaining their web site. This is not a shot at the people running the IFOL now, nor is it even a shot at their current web developer. Their current web developer is very reputable and I have even referred some work to them. I don't know the people that are currently running the IFOL either, so this is nothing personal towards any of them either:
The IFOL used to get pretty good media coverage. The Battle Creek Enquirer always covers the parade each year. Usually a local Television station does too. This year, the Enquirer did cover the parade again. I found 3 pictures of the entire parade so far, and from what I saw on Access Vision, it didn't look like there were too many people lining the streets like in the past. This could be because it rained this year during the parade, but in past years, when NMP was maintaining the site, there was a year just like this year, and it was raining, but the streets were crowded to the point that you could hardly get around! This year, it look like people could have a front row seat, with nobody behind them.
When we used to go to the committee meetings, my wife would remind the comittee members about the correct web site address for the festival. She did this to the point that it was almost embarassing. I finally pulled her aside one day and told her that if they didn't get it by now, there weren't going to get it at all. There is a story about the Taste of Battle Creek that proved me wrong on that (putting the incorrect web site address on the posters that they were distributing all over the city etc. incorrect web site addresses on the shirts, until we said something about it and they redesigned the shirts, but the posters were already done and being distributed... etc etc. but like I said, this is for another story)
I can't find anything about the IFOL anywhere on the local TV stations web site. I'm sure that Access Vision has something on it, and that's about the extent of their TV coverage.
"so why are you posting this Marc?" you ask. Because it's just one more way of proving how valuable a web site can be to a company or organization.
It doesn't help that we haven't had any snow this year, and I'm sure the rain forcast did make some difference in the turnout for the parade, but watching it on Access Vision, the crowd just looked very sparse out there.
The IFOL used to get pretty good media coverage. The Battle Creek Enquirer always covers the parade each year. Usually a local Television station does too. This year, the Enquirer did cover the parade again. I found 3 pictures of the entire parade so far, and from what I saw on Access Vision, it didn't look like there were too many people lining the streets like in the past. This could be because it rained this year during the parade, but in past years, when NMP was maintaining the site, there was a year just like this year, and it was raining, but the streets were crowded to the point that you could hardly get around! This year, it look like people could have a front row seat, with nobody behind them.
When we used to go to the committee meetings, my wife would remind the comittee members about the correct web site address for the festival. She did this to the point that it was almost embarassing. I finally pulled her aside one day and told her that if they didn't get it by now, there weren't going to get it at all. There is a story about the Taste of Battle Creek that proved me wrong on that (putting the incorrect web site address on the posters that they were distributing all over the city etc. incorrect web site addresses on the shirts, until we said something about it and they redesigned the shirts, but the posters were already done and being distributed... etc etc. but like I said, this is for another story)
I can't find anything about the IFOL anywhere on the local TV stations web site. I'm sure that Access Vision has something on it, and that's about the extent of their TV coverage.
"so why are you posting this Marc?" you ask. Because it's just one more way of proving how valuable a web site can be to a company or organization.
It doesn't help that we haven't had any snow this year, and I'm sure the rain forcast did make some difference in the turnout for the parade, but watching it on Access Vision, the crowd just looked very sparse out there.
Preventing Spam
Here are some things you can do to prevent spam.
The reason that I'm writing this is because I have a client that called and was very upset because of an email saying that a detective agency (they didn't mention the name of the agency) was listening to her phone conversations and she was in trouble. This came with an attachment so that she could listen to the phone conversation. My client is a good person and could not think of anything that she would do that is wrong, but still, the fact that she thought that someone may be listening to her phone conversations was very disturbing.
The first thing you need to do is identify that the email is spam. Here are some basic guidlines, but by no means does this include everything.
The reason that I'm writing this is because I have a client that called and was very upset because of an email saying that a detective agency (they didn't mention the name of the agency) was listening to her phone conversations and she was in trouble. This came with an attachment so that she could listen to the phone conversation. My client is a good person and could not think of anything that she would do that is wrong, but still, the fact that she thought that someone may be listening to her phone conversations was very disturbing.
The first thing you need to do is identify that the email is spam. Here are some basic guidlines, but by no means does this include everything.
- Use some common sense. This is not being said to sound mean or anything, but spam messages generally play on your emotions. They want you to open up that attachment or that message. One good way of doing that is to make you upset or even angry. Before you even look at your email, make sure that you are not already in a bad mood to begin with because this will only make your "fuse" shorter. Make sure you are in a good mood so that you can look at the email message logically and not just jump to a conclusion.
- Even if the email addresses you by name, but the rest of it doesn't make sense, don't open it. Chances are, it's spam. Just delete it without opening it. If it's that important, then they will contact you in a different way like phone or a letter in the postal mail etc. If there is something that just doesn't make sense and you don't know the person that is sending you the email, chances are, it's spam.
- Don't just look at the "From" and assume that the sender is someone you know. The "From" part of the email is very easily disguised to make it look like it's someone on your address book. I even get spam from my wife and myself, but I can easily see what email messages are legitimate and which are spam just by looking at the subject of the email (if it's from my wife) and if it's from myself, I would think that I would remember sending myself an email!
- Never reply to a spam message. This includes the 'unsubscribe' link. When you click on this link, it actually informs the sender of the spam that your email address is a legitimate email address. Once the spammer knows that your email address actually exists (they don't know for sure until you reply to the message) this can open you up to more spam... A LOT MORE SPAM! I'm not saying that all 'unsubscribe' links are bad, they are actually required if you are signed up for a mailing list, but if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, then it's spam, so don't click on the 'unsubscribe' link.
- Don't just disguise your email address on your website, don't put it on your website. There are other ways of getting email to you without putting your email address on your website. Even disguising your email address is better than nothing, but it doesn't matter how well you have disguised it, eventually the spam community will figure it out. If you don't have the email address on your web site, it's going to be very difficult for a robot to find your email address, and very difficult for them to send you spam.
- Don't forward an email, from someone you don't know, to a list of people. This basically just helps the spam message "stay alive" and the spammers get all of these email addresses, so they have more people that they can send spam to.
- Don't use your business email to sign up for a mailing list, sign up for a website, or sign up for a group. Instead, get a free email account like Yahoo! or Hotmail, Gmail etc. and use that address to sign up for things online. This will help "cut down" on how much spam you get in your business or home email.
- Before you join a list, make sure the list owner or the web site owner will not sell your email address. See if you can opt out of receiving email from the site where you are registering. If you are still not sure, check the web site's privacy statement, if you are still unsure, don't sign up for the list.
- Many email programs allow you to preview the message without actually opening the email. This is a good practice as you will be able to see the text without sending a signal to the sender that the message has even been opened, and if you discover that this is spam, just delete it.
- Use a spam filter. You will have to do some searching for this, but there are a few free spam filters out there and they are pretty good, and free!
- If you work for a company and have an I.T. department, forward the spam to them so that they can see the message and update the spam filters to prevent it.
- Never use your email address as your screen name in a chat room. 'nuff said on that one
- When you are purchasing something online, or filling out a form, watch out for check boxes that are already checked. Most times, this is to automatically enroll you for a mailing list that you may not even want to receive.
- Don't send personal information to a company via email.
- Don't contribute to a charity if they asked you to do so in an email.
- If you are unsure whether an email is legitimate or spam, find the company name in the phone book and call them and ask if they sent out this email to a list of people. If you can't find a phone number, there is a good chance that the email is spam.
If you use Outlook, use the junk mail filter (Outlook 2003 and later). This is really good about filtering out most of the spam. Make sure you check your junk mail folder before emptying it. Sometimes a legitimate email does get put into the junk mail folder, but this is rare, and easy to correct if it does. (right click on the actual message, a menu comes up, go to junk mail, another menu will fly out, and then click on either 'Add Sender to Blocked Senders List' or 'Add Sender to Safe Senders List' but be aware, if you are going to add them to the blocked senders list, make sure that you have repeatedly gotten spam email from the same sender over and over. If you haven't then chances are, the spammer has moved on to the next email address and won't use that email address again.
You can also set your junk mail filters to High.
Make sure you keep your Junk email filter updated too.
Turn off automatic processing of metting requests. Turn off read and delivery receipts also.
You can also send a full copy of SPAM or deceptive e-mail including the e-mail header to uce@ftc.gov. The FTC uses the unsolicited emails stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive spam email.
Check with your Internet Service Provider for their SPAM policy. Many Internet Service Providers may already have SPAM blocking mechanisms in place and may even allow you to forward to them the SPAM messages you receive, helping prevent the same types of e-mail reaching you in the future.
Send an e-mail with the e-mail header to the ISP or web host of the user who is sending you the spam. Below is a short list of some of these e-mails.
- abuse@aol.com - File a complaint against an AOL users.
- abuse@hotmail.com - File complaints for MSN and Hotmail e-mail addresses.
- abuse@geocities.com - File complaints against Geocities users.
- abuse@sprint.net - File complaints against Sprint
- users.abuse@usa.net - File complaints against USA.NET
- mailto:users.%0d%0ajunkmail@earthlink.net - File complaints against Earthlink users.
- Yahoo abuse form or abuse@yahoo.com - File complaints against Yahoo users.
In closing, this is not a game. If you open yourself up accidentally or on purpose, get ready because you WILL get a lot of spam, and it will not be easy to either filter through this spam or get rid of it altogether.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
What's the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day?
This is one of the best, most detailed answers I have read about the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day:
Memorial Day started in the 1860's in various towns as a day to remember and honor the soldiers who died in the Civil War. It was originally called Dedication Day. In 1868, the first official military proclamation of the day was given, and flowers were put at the graves at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to recognize Memorial Day as a holiday was New York in 1873. Eventually all the Northern states adopted it in the late 1800s, while the the Southern states had other days for honoring Confederate war dead. In 1971, Congress set the official date of Memorial Day to be the last Monday in May.
Veterans Day, which is celebrated November 11 of each year, is set aside to honor all veterans, both living and dead. It was first called Armistice Day, to celebrate the day when WWI was ended with the signing of an armistice on November 11, 1918. After WWII, the holiday changed to honor all veterans rather than remember the peace and the sacrifice of those in the first world war. In 1954, the president changed it to Veterans Day to honor all servicemen and servicewomen. Many other countries, which also participated in WWI also celebrate a day honoring those who served in the military (living or dead) on November 11.
In short, Memorial Day -- an American holiday established for the honoring of the war dead. Veterans Day - a holiday celebrated in many countries for honoring veterans, living and dead.
Source(s):
http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html
http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/memorial/?page=history
http://www.patriotism.org/veterans_day/
I got this answer from Yahoo! Answers
Next time you hear someone complaining about what a lousy job the government is doing, or the President is doing, or anything else like that, let them know that the reason that they can complain about that is because somewhere, there is a soldier out there fighting so that they have a right to complain about it!
Yeah, this is coming from a veteran!
Memorial Day started in the 1860's in various towns as a day to remember and honor the soldiers who died in the Civil War. It was originally called Dedication Day. In 1868, the first official military proclamation of the day was given, and flowers were put at the graves at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to recognize Memorial Day as a holiday was New York in 1873. Eventually all the Northern states adopted it in the late 1800s, while the the Southern states had other days for honoring Confederate war dead. In 1971, Congress set the official date of Memorial Day to be the last Monday in May.
Veterans Day, which is celebrated November 11 of each year, is set aside to honor all veterans, both living and dead. It was first called Armistice Day, to celebrate the day when WWI was ended with the signing of an armistice on November 11, 1918. After WWII, the holiday changed to honor all veterans rather than remember the peace and the sacrifice of those in the first world war. In 1954, the president changed it to Veterans Day to honor all servicemen and servicewomen. Many other countries, which also participated in WWI also celebrate a day honoring those who served in the military (living or dead) on November 11.
In short, Memorial Day -- an American holiday established for the honoring of the war dead. Veterans Day - a holiday celebrated in many countries for honoring veterans, living and dead.
Source(s):
http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html
http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/memorial/?page=history
http://www.patriotism.org/veterans_day/
I got this answer from Yahoo! Answers
Next time you hear someone complaining about what a lousy job the government is doing, or the President is doing, or anything else like that, let them know that the reason that they can complain about that is because somewhere, there is a soldier out there fighting so that they have a right to complain about it!
Yeah, this is coming from a veteran!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Ahh, another old debate
Ok, while they really try to make some valid points here, the truth is, it depends on what you are trying to market. I have never used pay per click as I have better things to spend my hard earned money on. I'm always busy, and if I got even more busy using pay per click, (if it indeed actually works) I don't think I would be able to handle any more business than what I already have, but then again, I'm a smaller company too.
I'm not saying don't use PPC, it can be a good thing for the right company, but too many web developers out there say that it's the only way to go. I don't necessarily agree with that.
Read on...
Tuesday, Nov 06, 2007
So, what’s it going to be? Spend the time and effort cultivating your organic search engine marketing plan or just offer up the cash and invest in a pay-per-click program? Which is better for you? Both?
It’s a question most, if not all; businesses will eventually have to ask themselves in the course of developing their Internet marketing strategies. Which alternative offers the best return on investment? Which one is more easily managed? (Give us your comments.)
When you purchase visitors or "clicks" from a search engine, this is called "pay-per-click" (PPC) search engine advertising (or PPCSE). Pay-per-click search engine advertising allows you to quickly leverage search engine traffic by "bidding" (paying) for keywords related to your product or service.
On the upside… you’re free from the headaches and worry of trying to figure out what any given engine’s algorithm is up to and how it impacts your position. It’s scalable and controllable – you know exactly how much you’re spending and (ideally) have a good idea of what you’re getting in return. It’s also very fast. No waiting around here… just sign that check and watch your results.
On the downside, it costs several coins – sometimes quite a lot of them actually, to get really good results. The low hanging fruit of paid search has long since gone now that mainstream advertisers and Fortune 500s have jumped into the space. Paid campaigns are also not without their headaches. Coming up with effective keywords to bid on is a job in and of itself. Managing what you’re spending on what keywords, measuring their returns, adjusting your spends and playing the PPC game intelligently is a full time gig.
In the other corner we have "Organic" or "Natural" search engine optimization (SEO). Generally speaking, organic SEO consists of optimizing your web pages to enhance their position in the naturally occurring search results. Asking what goes into organic SEO is a lot like asking what goes into a Twinkie. You start with sorbic acid, which derives from natural gas. Ok really organic SEO consists of making sure the search engine spiders can crawl and understand what is on your web pages. Once they understand it, you need to make them like it more than all the other web pages with the same/similar information.
It’s about as easy as it sounds. In essence, you are just making sure your content on your page is in good shape and then start trying to move your pages up the results by doing things like cultivating inbound links from other sites. Inbound links dictate your "link popularity" so, by acquiring (ahem... however you do so) links that point to your web site. You can boost your rank in the search results.
That established, we decided to ask some of the experts which type of marketing most sites should be using: organic SEO or PPC? Executive Vice-President of SiteLab, Dana Todd, a regular speaker at Search Engine Strategies Conferences, and Jeremy Schoemaker of Shoemoney Media Group, Inc. have both been there and done exactly this with both methods.
Jeremy felt like, as a rule of thumb, the majority of bloggers should generallyuse organic SEO because they aren’t really selling a product. For those companies and sites that are trying to sell a physical product, PPC has quicker results.
He said, "Whenever you have a physical good, that you know what it's worth and you know what that value is, then it's real easy to use Pay-Per-Click. You know exactly how much to spend to make money."
Dana Todd emphasized the fact that everybody can benefit from organic SEO. Dana says, “(each form of) Advertising has a completely different place in your media mix. We would never recommend, here at SiteLab, that you do one or the other; you always do them both wherever possible."
Jeremy and Dana both felt that neither method was sufficient by itself and indicated that everyone should look at trying both if at all possible. For some sites, depending on your goals, it often makes sense to allocate more or less resources to one form or the other. However, for most sites looking to put together a comprehensive marketing strategy, most any plan should include components of both.
To find out more details of the interview with Shoemoney and Dana Todd, you can watch the video and gain helpful tips of how to start and what to do when tackling marketing online.
About the Author:
Kara Ratliff is a reporter/anchor for WebProNews.
I'm not saying don't use PPC, it can be a good thing for the right company, but too many web developers out there say that it's the only way to go. I don't necessarily agree with that.
Read on...
Tuesday, Nov 06, 2007
So, what’s it going to be? Spend the time and effort cultivating your organic search engine marketing plan or just offer up the cash and invest in a pay-per-click program? Which is better for you? Both?
It’s a question most, if not all; businesses will eventually have to ask themselves in the course of developing their Internet marketing strategies. Which alternative offers the best return on investment? Which one is more easily managed? (Give us your comments.)
When you purchase visitors or "clicks" from a search engine, this is called "pay-per-click" (PPC) search engine advertising (or PPCSE). Pay-per-click search engine advertising allows you to quickly leverage search engine traffic by "bidding" (paying) for keywords related to your product or service.
On the upside… you’re free from the headaches and worry of trying to figure out what any given engine’s algorithm is up to and how it impacts your position. It’s scalable and controllable – you know exactly how much you’re spending and (ideally) have a good idea of what you’re getting in return. It’s also very fast. No waiting around here… just sign that check and watch your results.
On the downside, it costs several coins – sometimes quite a lot of them actually, to get really good results. The low hanging fruit of paid search has long since gone now that mainstream advertisers and Fortune 500s have jumped into the space. Paid campaigns are also not without their headaches. Coming up with effective keywords to bid on is a job in and of itself. Managing what you’re spending on what keywords, measuring their returns, adjusting your spends and playing the PPC game intelligently is a full time gig.
In the other corner we have "Organic" or "Natural" search engine optimization (SEO). Generally speaking, organic SEO consists of optimizing your web pages to enhance their position in the naturally occurring search results. Asking what goes into organic SEO is a lot like asking what goes into a Twinkie. You start with sorbic acid, which derives from natural gas. Ok really organic SEO consists of making sure the search engine spiders can crawl and understand what is on your web pages. Once they understand it, you need to make them like it more than all the other web pages with the same/similar information.
It’s about as easy as it sounds. In essence, you are just making sure your content on your page is in good shape and then start trying to move your pages up the results by doing things like cultivating inbound links from other sites. Inbound links dictate your "link popularity" so, by acquiring (ahem... however you do so) links that point to your web site. You can boost your rank in the search results.
That established, we decided to ask some of the experts which type of marketing most sites should be using: organic SEO or PPC? Executive Vice-President of SiteLab, Dana Todd, a regular speaker at Search Engine Strategies Conferences, and Jeremy Schoemaker of Shoemoney Media Group, Inc. have both been there and done exactly this with both methods.
Jeremy felt like, as a rule of thumb, the majority of bloggers should generallyuse organic SEO because they aren’t really selling a product. For those companies and sites that are trying to sell a physical product, PPC has quicker results.
He said, "Whenever you have a physical good, that you know what it's worth and you know what that value is, then it's real easy to use Pay-Per-Click. You know exactly how much to spend to make money."
Dana Todd emphasized the fact that everybody can benefit from organic SEO. Dana says, “(each form of) Advertising has a completely different place in your media mix. We would never recommend, here at SiteLab, that you do one or the other; you always do them both wherever possible."
Jeremy and Dana both felt that neither method was sufficient by itself and indicated that everyone should look at trying both if at all possible. For some sites, depending on your goals, it often makes sense to allocate more or less resources to one form or the other. However, for most sites looking to put together a comprehensive marketing strategy, most any plan should include components of both.
To find out more details of the interview with Shoemoney and Dana Todd, you can watch the video and gain helpful tips of how to start and what to do when tackling marketing online.
About the Author:
Kara Ratliff is a reporter/anchor for WebProNews.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Website Calendars
For the longest time I have looked for a decent calendar to put on a website so that people can view appointments etc. All the time I was looking, it was right there in front of me on Google's website. If you need a calendar for your website, I would highly suggest signing up with a free Google account and get started from there.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Here is an article that I think is very well written
I agree with a lot of this article: I will put some notes below. Again, my notes will look like this:
Search Engine Optimization for Small Business Owners
Small business owners are often limited by small marketing budgets and manpower. But that doesn't mean they can't compete against larger businesses or websites when focused on search engine optimization. SEO is a basic marketing tool that everyone should use regardless of size.
Can the small websites compete with the big guys?
I'm often asked by small business owners if they stand a chance against larger websites when it comes to organic search results. My response is that size doesn't matter. When it comes to improving natural search results, it's all about the keywords you choose and how competitive those keywords are.
Yes, the small guys can compete with the big guys, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but be careful what you wish for. What I'm saying is, don't compete with the big guys if you can't handle the business that comes in. An example of this is: I'm the only web developer in Net Magik Pros. One person can only do so much work, and one person can only spread themselves so thin. There was a time when I started competing with more medium sized companies, and we were able to compete successfully with the medium sized companies, but then pretty soon, there was so much work coming in that I was putting in 18 and 19 hour days. The money was great, and if the work kept coming in like that, we would have been able to hire someone else to help keep up with the demand, but the fact is, we were not in that position at the time. If you can handle working 18 and 19 hour days 7 days a week, then go for it, compete with the larger companies, but my advice would be this: Be prepared to get more help if you need it.
What makes a keyword competitive?
One way to determine the competitiveness of a search term is to simply type that search term into Google and notice the number of web pages that contain that search term. This number appears in the upper right-hand corner of the search results page and appears as, "Results 1 - 10 of about 228,000,000 for [your search term here]."
The large number you see gives you an indication of how many websites contain the keyword term or phrase you're searching for. Not all of these sites would necessarily be competitors, but have been indexed by Google none-the-less. From my perspective, when this number is less than 3 or 4 million, the particular search term would not be all that competitive in and of itself.
The above is very good advice, and I do this myself.
Determining just how competitive the search term is.
There are a variety of methods to determine true keyword effectiveness (KEI, etc.). However, if you're just a regular person trying to figure out how difficult it will be to rank well for a particular keyword, consider the following. In addition to the number of sites that contain your keyword, how well optimized are the top 3 sites that appear on the search result. You can determine this by:
1. Visiting the site and determining the Google PR of the page. This information is available by downloading the Google toolbar and looking in your browser. You will see a green bar and ranking (ex: PR5), which tells you how Google ranks this page/website with regard to popularity. Any site with a Google PR6 or better is well established and will be difficult to outrank in the near term.
Even though I really don't believe in PageRank, this is a pretty good tool for the purpose of determining your competition. Basically, you need to know how popular you need to get your site in order to compete with your competition.
2. Visit Google and type, "link:www.competitorwebsite.com". Be sure to replace 'competitorwebsite' with the website name you are researching. Remember, this should be a website that appears on the Google search result for the keyword term or phrase you're researching. This will tell you how many sites are linking to this particular website. The larger the number the more difficult it will be to outrank.
Again, this is something I do for my clients all the time! This is very good advice.
3. Look at the website code. Simply visit the competitor's website and go to "View", "View Source". Look for the meta tags of "Title", "Description", and "Keywords". Are the meta tags at the very top of the page? Does the website also use h1, h2, and h3 tags? If so, they probably know something about SEO and have applied some on-page optimization techniques.
While this is also very good advice, if you are not "geeky enough" then you should consult someone on this. Even though it may cost you money, it's money well spent and it allows you to do what you do best instead of doing all kinds of research on how to use Title, Descriptions and Keywords on your site. A true professional will give you good advice in plain english without trying to get even more money out of you by just taking over the development and maintainence of your website. Be careful as there are many developers out there that will try to do this very thing and if all you want is a little advice, it could be a very negative experience.
Using the above will give you a good sense of whether of not you can compete for given keywords. As you've figured out by now, a company's size is no indication of their level of experience in optimizing their own website. You'd be surprise of the type (and size) of companies that call me for SEO advice.
While big companies don't always have the knowlege, they do have the money to spend and find someone with the knowlege, it's a matter of whether they want to spend that money or not. Most of them don't, or most of them will not want to spend the money, or do the research on people to make sure that they have the proper knowlege to make sure they are going to get what they want. Don't be cheap about it, but don't spend more than you can afford either.
Keep this in mind the next time you think that size matters!
About the Author: Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert with more than 12 years of marketing experience. To discover how to improve search engine rankings on Google and other major search engines visit http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com and the Marketing Blog.
Search Engine Optimization for Small Business Owners
Small business owners are often limited by small marketing budgets and manpower. But that doesn't mean they can't compete against larger businesses or websites when focused on search engine optimization. SEO is a basic marketing tool that everyone should use regardless of size.
Can the small websites compete with the big guys?
I'm often asked by small business owners if they stand a chance against larger websites when it comes to organic search results. My response is that size doesn't matter. When it comes to improving natural search results, it's all about the keywords you choose and how competitive those keywords are.
Yes, the small guys can compete with the big guys, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but be careful what you wish for. What I'm saying is, don't compete with the big guys if you can't handle the business that comes in. An example of this is: I'm the only web developer in Net Magik Pros. One person can only do so much work, and one person can only spread themselves so thin. There was a time when I started competing with more medium sized companies, and we were able to compete successfully with the medium sized companies, but then pretty soon, there was so much work coming in that I was putting in 18 and 19 hour days. The money was great, and if the work kept coming in like that, we would have been able to hire someone else to help keep up with the demand, but the fact is, we were not in that position at the time. If you can handle working 18 and 19 hour days 7 days a week, then go for it, compete with the larger companies, but my advice would be this: Be prepared to get more help if you need it.
What makes a keyword competitive?
One way to determine the competitiveness of a search term is to simply type that search term into Google and notice the number of web pages that contain that search term. This number appears in the upper right-hand corner of the search results page and appears as, "Results 1 - 10 of about 228,000,000 for [your search term here]."
The large number you see gives you an indication of how many websites contain the keyword term or phrase you're searching for. Not all of these sites would necessarily be competitors, but have been indexed by Google none-the-less. From my perspective, when this number is less than 3 or 4 million, the particular search term would not be all that competitive in and of itself.
The above is very good advice, and I do this myself.
Determining just how competitive the search term is.
There are a variety of methods to determine true keyword effectiveness (KEI, etc.). However, if you're just a regular person trying to figure out how difficult it will be to rank well for a particular keyword, consider the following. In addition to the number of sites that contain your keyword, how well optimized are the top 3 sites that appear on the search result. You can determine this by:
1. Visiting the site and determining the Google PR of the page. This information is available by downloading the Google toolbar and looking in your browser. You will see a green bar and ranking (ex: PR5), which tells you how Google ranks this page/website with regard to popularity. Any site with a Google PR6 or better is well established and will be difficult to outrank in the near term.
Even though I really don't believe in PageRank, this is a pretty good tool for the purpose of determining your competition. Basically, you need to know how popular you need to get your site in order to compete with your competition.
2. Visit Google and type, "link:www.competitorwebsite.com". Be sure to replace 'competitorwebsite' with the website name you are researching. Remember, this should be a website that appears on the Google search result for the keyword term or phrase you're researching. This will tell you how many sites are linking to this particular website. The larger the number the more difficult it will be to outrank.
Again, this is something I do for my clients all the time! This is very good advice.
3. Look at the website code. Simply visit the competitor's website and go to "View", "View Source". Look for the meta tags of "Title", "Description", and "Keywords". Are the meta tags at the very top of the page? Does the website also use h1, h2, and h3 tags? If so, they probably know something about SEO and have applied some on-page optimization techniques.
While this is also very good advice, if you are not "geeky enough" then you should consult someone on this. Even though it may cost you money, it's money well spent and it allows you to do what you do best instead of doing all kinds of research on how to use Title, Descriptions and Keywords on your site. A true professional will give you good advice in plain english without trying to get even more money out of you by just taking over the development and maintainence of your website. Be careful as there are many developers out there that will try to do this very thing and if all you want is a little advice, it could be a very negative experience.
Using the above will give you a good sense of whether of not you can compete for given keywords. As you've figured out by now, a company's size is no indication of their level of experience in optimizing their own website. You'd be surprise of the type (and size) of companies that call me for SEO advice.
While big companies don't always have the knowlege, they do have the money to spend and find someone with the knowlege, it's a matter of whether they want to spend that money or not. Most of them don't, or most of them will not want to spend the money, or do the research on people to make sure that they have the proper knowlege to make sure they are going to get what they want. Don't be cheap about it, but don't spend more than you can afford either.
Keep this in mind the next time you think that size matters!
About the Author: Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert with more than 12 years of marketing experience. To discover how to improve search engine rankings on Google and other major search engines visit http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com and the Marketing Blog.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
I swear I should be a part of Myth Busters
Ok, here is the article, and I will place notes throughout this article.
My notes will look like this.
Can you really buy web traffic?
Yes you can, but is it worth it, or are you just throwing your money down the toilet? Let's take a closer look at this article...
Many people wonder about generating traffic to their websites through paid traffic offerings. This topic is highly debated among the industries top SEO managers because some believe in the practice and others do not.
Paid traffic services can be useful as part of an overall traffic generation strategy. I have used paid traffic services in the past and believe they do present some value when used in conjunction with Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and Email Marketing.
I want you to notice some of the language here. Things are said like "I have used" and "they do present some value". I gather that by saying "I have used paid traffic services, that you do not use them any longer, because if they were worth it, you would have said "I still use" or "I use" and you would not say "in the past" but rather "even today" which is a GIANT RED FLAG in my opinion.
So What's the Rub With Paid Traffic?
Well, it's a rip off. It's a good way to waste time and money. You waste time setting up what you want to target your words to, and you waste money paying some company for very few leads.
Have you ever wondered where paid traffic comes from? No The services that generate paid traffic do it through a few key methods.
1. Traffic Exchange.
Using this method, these sites sell access to their traffic exchange networks where individuals surf for credits. As they earn credits viewing websites like yours, their ads/websites are displayed across the network for others to click on. If this method is being used, you may certainly experience a decrease in performance only because the same individuals are seeing your ad over and over, reducing their likelihood to click.
This is a complete waste of time as basically, the method that is talked about in the last part of this paragraph is basically true most of the time, making it a waste of time and money. I have tried this method in the past, so I can speak from experience, "IT DOESN'T WORK"
2. Search Engine Marketing.
A great way to generate traffic for others is through search engine marketing like Google, ExactSeek or Yahoo! Traffic generation sites buy keywords in bulk or many long-tail keywords and resell the traffic generated from them. If they can do this at a profit, its a win-win. This is a difficult strategy only because the cost of keywords change frequently based on industry demand.
Again, from experience here, I don't pay for targeted keywords, nor do I sell them to my clients. There is no need to because I build my websites for my clients, with search engine marketing in mind, and if built correctly, or what we like to call, "the right way" then there is no need for spending extra money or time paying and setting up for certain keywords.
3. List Marketing.
Traffic generation websites also generate traffic through email marketing and house lists. These techniques are usually leveraged through daily, weekly, and monthly electronic newsletters. Driving less traffic than the first two methods, the list marketing option usually rounds out a comprehensive traffic generation strategy.
And now you know where you get a lot of your spam from. Basically this is people sending you unsolicited email. How many leads do you think you will get from that?
So to answer the question about paying for traffic, is it worth? My answer is that as part of an overall traffic generation strategy, paying for traffic can be beneficial. It all comes down to how you use paid traffic acquisition as part of your overall marketing strategy, the quality of the traffic generated and the costs associated with the traffic.
The other factor to consider is the quality of the traffic you receive. The purpose of most traffic acquisition strategies is to improve sales, generate leads, and/or conversions. To that end, I would only recommend paying for traffic if you have a way to measure the traffic to your site, the path the traffic takes through your website and whether or not that traffic actually converts. Whether you consider a conversion to be the completion of a web form or the actual purchase of a product, your buying this traffic for one reason and one reason only - conversion. Keep this in mind before you spend any money on traffic.
Although you can find plenty of sites willing to give you traffic in exchange for a fixed fee, I personally prefer to sign up for my own traffic exchange, purchase my own keywords, and manage my newsletters and email lists. By doing so, I have a better handle on where the traffic is coming from and ultimately the value of this traffic. Keep that in mind before you run out and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on acquiring traffic that may or may not convert for your web site.
Basically, if you want to do a search engine marketing strategy, that's great, but do it the right way or the complete honest way. Let your website put in it's time. Yes, it takes some tweaking of your site to get it really right, but in the end, slow and steady wins the race. All of these methods that Michael talks about here, are basically shortcuts. Shortcuts do not work in search engine land. The only thing that ends up happening is you either make people mad with spam, or those really cool pop up ads that they won't click on just because it poped up in front of them, or there is always the pop up blocker. It's for people that use these types of methods to get ahead, that pop up blockers and antispam methods were introduced in the first place. Gimmie a break, just do things honestly, realize that there are no shortcuts, and put your time in.
I don't use any of these methods, I generate my own email list, that people volunteer to sign up for. In other words, they are not just automatically added because they signed up for something totally different, I don't pay for keywords, and none of my clients do either, and yet, they seem to show up good in the search engines... and in case you are wondering, I just took a vacation for the first time in almost 5 years, because I have been so busy with work... hmmm, I guess this myth about paying for keywords or search engine placement has been busted!
About the Author: Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert with more than 12 years of marketing experience. To discover how to improve search engine rankings on Google and other major search engines visit http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com and the Marketing Blog
My notes will look like this.
Can you really buy web traffic?
Yes you can, but is it worth it, or are you just throwing your money down the toilet? Let's take a closer look at this article...
Many people wonder about generating traffic to their websites through paid traffic offerings. This topic is highly debated among the industries top SEO managers because some believe in the practice and others do not.
Paid traffic services can be useful as part of an overall traffic generation strategy. I have used paid traffic services in the past and believe they do present some value when used in conjunction with Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and Email Marketing.
I want you to notice some of the language here. Things are said like "I have used" and "they do present some value". I gather that by saying "I have used paid traffic services, that you do not use them any longer, because if they were worth it, you would have said "I still use" or "I use" and you would not say "in the past" but rather "even today" which is a GIANT RED FLAG in my opinion.
So What's the Rub With Paid Traffic?
Well, it's a rip off. It's a good way to waste time and money. You waste time setting up what you want to target your words to, and you waste money paying some company for very few leads.
Have you ever wondered where paid traffic comes from? No The services that generate paid traffic do it through a few key methods.
1. Traffic Exchange.
Using this method, these sites sell access to their traffic exchange networks where individuals surf for credits. As they earn credits viewing websites like yours, their ads/websites are displayed across the network for others to click on. If this method is being used, you may certainly experience a decrease in performance only because the same individuals are seeing your ad over and over, reducing their likelihood to click.
This is a complete waste of time as basically, the method that is talked about in the last part of this paragraph is basically true most of the time, making it a waste of time and money. I have tried this method in the past, so I can speak from experience, "IT DOESN'T WORK"
2. Search Engine Marketing.
A great way to generate traffic for others is through search engine marketing like Google, ExactSeek or Yahoo! Traffic generation sites buy keywords in bulk or many long-tail keywords and resell the traffic generated from them. If they can do this at a profit, its a win-win. This is a difficult strategy only because the cost of keywords change frequently based on industry demand.
Again, from experience here, I don't pay for targeted keywords, nor do I sell them to my clients. There is no need to because I build my websites for my clients, with search engine marketing in mind, and if built correctly, or what we like to call, "the right way" then there is no need for spending extra money or time paying and setting up for certain keywords.
3. List Marketing.
Traffic generation websites also generate traffic through email marketing and house lists. These techniques are usually leveraged through daily, weekly, and monthly electronic newsletters. Driving less traffic than the first two methods, the list marketing option usually rounds out a comprehensive traffic generation strategy.
And now you know where you get a lot of your spam from. Basically this is people sending you unsolicited email. How many leads do you think you will get from that?
So to answer the question about paying for traffic, is it worth? My answer is that as part of an overall traffic generation strategy, paying for traffic can be beneficial. It all comes down to how you use paid traffic acquisition as part of your overall marketing strategy, the quality of the traffic generated and the costs associated with the traffic.
The other factor to consider is the quality of the traffic you receive. The purpose of most traffic acquisition strategies is to improve sales, generate leads, and/or conversions. To that end, I would only recommend paying for traffic if you have a way to measure the traffic to your site, the path the traffic takes through your website and whether or not that traffic actually converts. Whether you consider a conversion to be the completion of a web form or the actual purchase of a product, your buying this traffic for one reason and one reason only - conversion. Keep this in mind before you spend any money on traffic.
Although you can find plenty of sites willing to give you traffic in exchange for a fixed fee, I personally prefer to sign up for my own traffic exchange, purchase my own keywords, and manage my newsletters and email lists. By doing so, I have a better handle on where the traffic is coming from and ultimately the value of this traffic. Keep that in mind before you run out and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on acquiring traffic that may or may not convert for your web site.
Basically, if you want to do a search engine marketing strategy, that's great, but do it the right way or the complete honest way. Let your website put in it's time. Yes, it takes some tweaking of your site to get it really right, but in the end, slow and steady wins the race. All of these methods that Michael talks about here, are basically shortcuts. Shortcuts do not work in search engine land. The only thing that ends up happening is you either make people mad with spam, or those really cool pop up ads that they won't click on just because it poped up in front of them, or there is always the pop up blocker. It's for people that use these types of methods to get ahead, that pop up blockers and antispam methods were introduced in the first place. Gimmie a break, just do things honestly, realize that there are no shortcuts, and put your time in.
I don't use any of these methods, I generate my own email list, that people volunteer to sign up for. In other words, they are not just automatically added because they signed up for something totally different, I don't pay for keywords, and none of my clients do either, and yet, they seem to show up good in the search engines... and in case you are wondering, I just took a vacation for the first time in almost 5 years, because I have been so busy with work... hmmm, I guess this myth about paying for keywords or search engine placement has been busted!
About the Author: Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert with more than 12 years of marketing experience. To discover how to improve search engine rankings on Google and other major search engines visit http://www.webmastersbookofsecrets.com and the Marketing Blog
Monday, October 29, 2007
Another article that I have received in an email
Ok, I got this article in my email from Site Pro News
The reason that I'm putting it in my blog is that I don't necessarily agree with any of it.
While it may be true that Google "has changed the rules of the game" regarding PageRank, I was not affected, nor would I care if I was affected by it. In my opinion, Google's PageRank is just a glorified popularity contest. I was through with them in high school, and to be honest, I never really bought into popularity contests even when I went to high school, but yet I survived. And frankly, whether or not my site does good in Google's PageRank or not, the thing to remember is that I get out there every day and knock on doors, that's where most of my business comes from. Sure I do get some calls from people that found me in a search engine, BUT MOST OF THEM FIND ME ON LIVE.COM, not Google.com. Still, most of my clients come from good old fashion hard work... knocking on doors, seizing an opportunity to sell my services during social occasions, etc.
I'm not taking away from search engines, but if that's all you are depending on, then yes, you will depend on search engines a lot. To me, right now, I look at it this way, when I get a call from someone who found me in a search engine, I look at it as a bonus, I don't look at it as my main venue to get business. A website helps, but you have to look at it as a tool, not your end all solution. If you don't do this, then definitely read this article because chances are, you have most of your eggs in one basket and the content of this article is going to really effect your business.
Where's Your
Social Responsibility Google?
By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007
Unless you've been living on a desert island with no Internet access, you've probably seen the recent blog fallout from Google's latest crack down on alleged link brokers.
This week it seems that Google made some type of manual Toolbar PageRank reduction on a handful of major blogs and portal sites like the Washington Post, ProBlogger, CopyBlogger and Forbes.com. Some of these sites had PageRank scores of 7 which have now dropped to 5, scores of 6 which have now dropped to 4 and so on. The blog buzz is that the sites have been singled out by Google as using their high PageRank scores to sell links and have been punished by the world's most popular search engine as a result. There is currently no proof of this and no public statement by Google acknowledging or denying the situation.
A lot of bloggers have weighed in with commentary, observations and opinions. Every time I read a new post about the so called smack-down I imagine some Googlers at Mountain View laughing hysterically and high-fiving each other for turning the tables on the SEO industry yet again.
The situation has even got the SEOs turning on each other. One of the world's best known SEOs, Jill Whalen, made a post in response to the situation that included a comment about one of the affected sites, Search Engine Guide. Jill's post has been interpreted in some circles as a type of attack. Here's the comment Jill made in her post:
"Even my very good friends at Search Engine Guide were smacked down. I hadn't been to their home page in ages since I usually visit through direct article links, but when I looked at their home page today and scrolled down to the bottom, I was taken aback to see what looks more like a link farm than anything else!"
I've known Jill a long time and I read her remark about Search Engine Guide as a quick off the cuff comment, not a deliberate attack. Without putting words in her mouth, I think it sounded more shocking than she meant it, probably because she was typing as a response to first impressions of Search Engine Guide after not seeing it for so long and because (being ridiculously busy) she was probably in a hurry. So the comment itself didn't raise an eyebrow for me. But I WAS concerned about how the general webmaster community would interpret the comment.
Yes, she has every right to her opinion. But being who she is and the industry reputation she's built up, Jill has incredible influence over a large number of webmasters and SEOs who absorb her material. Persons reading her article that are unfamiliar with Search Engine Guide may permanently associate the site with the term "link farm" and all the negative connotations that brings. No matter her intent, her remark definitely has the power to hurt Search Engine Guide and their reputation. The site's publisher Robert Clough obviously thought so, as he was prompted to make an uncharacteristic post in response.
Personally, I think Jill should have considered the possible backlash from her casual comment and worded her post much more carefully. After all, with industry influence comes responsibility. Which brings me to the main point of this article. Google now has extreme influence and power over the Internet. When they make changes to their algorithm or the way they cache and filter web sites, it has a dramatic impact on not just web site owners, but business and life in general. Millíons of people rely on Google to survive, literally. In that respect, this attempt at link bait humor is a little too close to reality to be funny.
With such powerful social influence, I think it's about time Google started taking more responsibility by being more transparent with their activities. If too many webmasters are doing the wrong thing with regard to linking, or an algorithm change has occurred, why not launch a media release to set the facts straight? Not everyone knows about Google's Webmaster Guidelines, or has a Webmaster Tools account. But a lot of people read the newspaper. If they want webmasters to co-operate, Google has to recognize it's a two way street.
By slapping on this latest penalty, (if it is indeed a penalty), Google seems to be claiming to *know* the intent of these sites. But what if they're wrong? What if, as Jennifer Laycock claims, they are merely selling advertising space without Google being a consideration? There's nothing in Search Engine Guide's advertising material relating to PageRank OR Google. To assume they are trying to use their site's high PageRank as a selling point is pretty arrogant and irresponsible of Google, in my opinion.
Without some type of public acknowledgement from them, we can only assume Google's latest move is an attempt to control how webmasters use their own web site space. That's a huge line in the sand they've crossed and I don't know about you, but it makes me nervous.
About The AuthorArticle by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena is Director of Studies at Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.
The reason that I'm putting it in my blog is that I don't necessarily agree with any of it.
While it may be true that Google "has changed the rules of the game" regarding PageRank, I was not affected, nor would I care if I was affected by it. In my opinion, Google's PageRank is just a glorified popularity contest. I was through with them in high school, and to be honest, I never really bought into popularity contests even when I went to high school, but yet I survived. And frankly, whether or not my site does good in Google's PageRank or not, the thing to remember is that I get out there every day and knock on doors, that's where most of my business comes from. Sure I do get some calls from people that found me in a search engine, BUT MOST OF THEM FIND ME ON LIVE.COM, not Google.com. Still, most of my clients come from good old fashion hard work... knocking on doors, seizing an opportunity to sell my services during social occasions, etc.
I'm not taking away from search engines, but if that's all you are depending on, then yes, you will depend on search engines a lot. To me, right now, I look at it this way, when I get a call from someone who found me in a search engine, I look at it as a bonus, I don't look at it as my main venue to get business. A website helps, but you have to look at it as a tool, not your end all solution. If you don't do this, then definitely read this article because chances are, you have most of your eggs in one basket and the content of this article is going to really effect your business.
Where's Your
Social Responsibility Google?
By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007
Unless you've been living on a desert island with no Internet access, you've probably seen the recent blog fallout from Google's latest crack down on alleged link brokers.
This week it seems that Google made some type of manual Toolbar PageRank reduction on a handful of major blogs and portal sites like the Washington Post, ProBlogger, CopyBlogger and Forbes.com. Some of these sites had PageRank scores of 7 which have now dropped to 5, scores of 6 which have now dropped to 4 and so on. The blog buzz is that the sites have been singled out by Google as using their high PageRank scores to sell links and have been punished by the world's most popular search engine as a result. There is currently no proof of this and no public statement by Google acknowledging or denying the situation.
A lot of bloggers have weighed in with commentary, observations and opinions. Every time I read a new post about the so called smack-down I imagine some Googlers at Mountain View laughing hysterically and high-fiving each other for turning the tables on the SEO industry yet again.
The situation has even got the SEOs turning on each other. One of the world's best known SEOs, Jill Whalen, made a post in response to the situation that included a comment about one of the affected sites, Search Engine Guide. Jill's post has been interpreted in some circles as a type of attack. Here's the comment Jill made in her post:
"Even my very good friends at Search Engine Guide were smacked down. I hadn't been to their home page in ages since I usually visit through direct article links, but when I looked at their home page today and scrolled down to the bottom, I was taken aback to see what looks more like a link farm than anything else!"
I've known Jill a long time and I read her remark about Search Engine Guide as a quick off the cuff comment, not a deliberate attack. Without putting words in her mouth, I think it sounded more shocking than she meant it, probably because she was typing as a response to first impressions of Search Engine Guide after not seeing it for so long and because (being ridiculously busy) she was probably in a hurry. So the comment itself didn't raise an eyebrow for me. But I WAS concerned about how the general webmaster community would interpret the comment.
Yes, she has every right to her opinion. But being who she is and the industry reputation she's built up, Jill has incredible influence over a large number of webmasters and SEOs who absorb her material. Persons reading her article that are unfamiliar with Search Engine Guide may permanently associate the site with the term "link farm" and all the negative connotations that brings. No matter her intent, her remark definitely has the power to hurt Search Engine Guide and their reputation. The site's publisher Robert Clough obviously thought so, as he was prompted to make an uncharacteristic post in response.
Personally, I think Jill should have considered the possible backlash from her casual comment and worded her post much more carefully. After all, with industry influence comes responsibility. Which brings me to the main point of this article. Google now has extreme influence and power over the Internet. When they make changes to their algorithm or the way they cache and filter web sites, it has a dramatic impact on not just web site owners, but business and life in general. Millíons of people rely on Google to survive, literally. In that respect, this attempt at link bait humor is a little too close to reality to be funny.
With such powerful social influence, I think it's about time Google started taking more responsibility by being more transparent with their activities. If too many webmasters are doing the wrong thing with regard to linking, or an algorithm change has occurred, why not launch a media release to set the facts straight? Not everyone knows about Google's Webmaster Guidelines, or has a Webmaster Tools account. But a lot of people read the newspaper. If they want webmasters to co-operate, Google has to recognize it's a two way street.
By slapping on this latest penalty, (if it is indeed a penalty), Google seems to be claiming to *know* the intent of these sites. But what if they're wrong? What if, as Jennifer Laycock claims, they are merely selling advertising space without Google being a consideration? There's nothing in Search Engine Guide's advertising material relating to PageRank OR Google. To assume they are trying to use their site's high PageRank as a selling point is pretty arrogant and irresponsible of Google, in my opinion.
Without some type of public acknowledgement from them, we can only assume Google's latest move is an attempt to control how webmasters use their own web site space. That's a huge line in the sand they've crossed and I don't know about you, but it makes me nervous.
About The AuthorArticle by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena is Director of Studies at Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Freebies
Ok, I'm going to vent here. You may not agree with what I am going to write, but it's my opinion.
Back in 2004, I started the Cereal Festival website, the Taste of Battle Creek, and the International Festival of Lights (IFOL) here in Battle Creek.
I did these websites for free. I spent a lot of my time in the summer doing the Cereal Festival and the Taste of Battle Creek websites. I spent so much time on these two sites in the summer, that I didn't take on any new customers during the summer. Shame on me.
Then along comes this new festival coordinator who was going to work with me and get things going so that these festivals made MONEY, and could eventually afford to pay me.
To make a long story short, she "took over" around October of 2006. At least that's when I started to get some contact from her. I really thought that she understood the power of a website, boy was I wrong. She took a website that I had 'corePHP' design for me and said that it wasn't "fun enough".
Wasn't fun enough? How many websites out there do you know of that your child can sit down and write a letter to santa... AND GET A RESPONSE?! IMMEDIATELY!
I don't know what planet this gal was from but I'm pretty sure it wasn't earth.
She wanted to change the entire layout of the site. I told her that she is way late for that and that the site would not be as good as the one they currently had. She insisted that we change the site. So we did. She spent more time changing the website than she did doing her job, and in the end, the last I heard, the IFOL lost $30,000.00 in 2006. NICE JOB!
In January of 07 I get a call from this gal, she is all excited about her ideas for the Cereal Festival and the Taste of Battle Creek websites. My response to her was "ok, the IFOL has lost money because you were too busy with the website and not busy enough doing other things that needed to be done for this festival. We tried it your way, now we are going to try things my way. You feed me information that needs to go on the websites, and I'll put that information on the websites. We will worry about redesigning the sites when we have more time and can test everything to make sure that it's better than it was."
Now remember, I'm pretty hard to fire here because I'm doing these sites for free. Then along comes Celebrations of Battle Creek. They wanted me to do another free website. We told them that we would not be doing another free website, but if they wanted to pay us for it, we would give them a discounted rate.
They ended up finding another 2 designers for all of those websites. Celebrations of Battle Creek is still the same (that website is being done for free, and I called to warn these web designers that the city would take advantage of them if they didn't put a limit to the freebies. They understood)
The other websites, well, they ended up paying another web design company because the company said that they could take the websites to a "National Level"
My response "If you want to pay to downgrade the site, feel free. These websites are already at an INTERNATIONAL Level. I have the emails (that they never responded to, but I did) to prove it. I still have emails from South America, China, Hong Kong, Italy, France, Austrailia, South Africa, Finland, Norway, Mexico... The list goes on.
My whole point is, if someone isn't paying good money for a website, they don't take it seriously, if they don't take it seriously, they don't do anything with it, even simple things like updating it to keep it current.
I'm in the business to make successful websites, and in order to do that, I have to charge people for the websites that I create. If my customers do not update their website, I will be asking them to find a different web designer, or they can pay me even more money (a lot more money) and I will do the research to make their website successful.
Back in 2004, I started the Cereal Festival website, the Taste of Battle Creek, and the International Festival of Lights (IFOL) here in Battle Creek.
I did these websites for free. I spent a lot of my time in the summer doing the Cereal Festival and the Taste of Battle Creek websites. I spent so much time on these two sites in the summer, that I didn't take on any new customers during the summer. Shame on me.
Then along comes this new festival coordinator who was going to work with me and get things going so that these festivals made MONEY, and could eventually afford to pay me.
To make a long story short, she "took over" around October of 2006. At least that's when I started to get some contact from her. I really thought that she understood the power of a website, boy was I wrong. She took a website that I had 'corePHP' design for me and said that it wasn't "fun enough".
Wasn't fun enough? How many websites out there do you know of that your child can sit down and write a letter to santa... AND GET A RESPONSE?! IMMEDIATELY!
I don't know what planet this gal was from but I'm pretty sure it wasn't earth.
She wanted to change the entire layout of the site. I told her that she is way late for that and that the site would not be as good as the one they currently had. She insisted that we change the site. So we did. She spent more time changing the website than she did doing her job, and in the end, the last I heard, the IFOL lost $30,000.00 in 2006. NICE JOB!
In January of 07 I get a call from this gal, she is all excited about her ideas for the Cereal Festival and the Taste of Battle Creek websites. My response to her was "ok, the IFOL has lost money because you were too busy with the website and not busy enough doing other things that needed to be done for this festival. We tried it your way, now we are going to try things my way. You feed me information that needs to go on the websites, and I'll put that information on the websites. We will worry about redesigning the sites when we have more time and can test everything to make sure that it's better than it was."
Now remember, I'm pretty hard to fire here because I'm doing these sites for free. Then along comes Celebrations of Battle Creek. They wanted me to do another free website. We told them that we would not be doing another free website, but if they wanted to pay us for it, we would give them a discounted rate.
They ended up finding another 2 designers for all of those websites. Celebrations of Battle Creek is still the same (that website is being done for free, and I called to warn these web designers that the city would take advantage of them if they didn't put a limit to the freebies. They understood)
The other websites, well, they ended up paying another web design company because the company said that they could take the websites to a "National Level"
My response "If you want to pay to downgrade the site, feel free. These websites are already at an INTERNATIONAL Level. I have the emails (that they never responded to, but I did) to prove it. I still have emails from South America, China, Hong Kong, Italy, France, Austrailia, South Africa, Finland, Norway, Mexico... The list goes on.
My whole point is, if someone isn't paying good money for a website, they don't take it seriously, if they don't take it seriously, they don't do anything with it, even simple things like updating it to keep it current.
I'm in the business to make successful websites, and in order to do that, I have to charge people for the websites that I create. If my customers do not update their website, I will be asking them to find a different web designer, or they can pay me even more money (a lot more money) and I will do the research to make their website successful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
