January
25, 2006
In This Issue:
1. Wordsmith? Marketer? You're hired
2. In the News - Search engines vs DOJ, Adding
Google maps
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A - Purchasing links
5. Wrapping It Up
_________________
Wordsmith? Marketer? You're hired
This is the time of year many businesses want
to start new web projects/sites or just fix up
an existing project/site. It's the start of a
new year, the business has a new budget to spend,
and so forth. It's also the time of year for some
businesses to be reviewing and adjusting their
staffing -- the holidays are over, let's make
sure we have the right people on board to execute
this year's plans.
If that describes your situation, let me make
one small suggestion: Hire a writer. Why? Because
now more than ever, you need great content on
your web site to rank well in search engines and
to engage your visitors. Whether it's a newsletter
or a blog, or something else, you should be planning
on becoming your own mini-publisher this year.
Someone who can write well (and preferably has
a passion for your company, products, or services)
will be a valuable addition to your team.
Maybe a year or two ago you would've been better
off hiring a customer service person, or someone
to work on your site design, or someone to go
chase down links from other sites. But not so
much anymore. Information is where it's at. Check
this out: In preparation for a meeting with a
longtime customer, we ran some searches on a certain
product name -- this is a specific name people
search for with the goal of buying it and/or learning
about it before they buy. At Google, only 3 of
the top 10 sites listed offered the product for
sale; the other seven were informational sites
-- no product sales.
If you already have a good writer on board, then
your next best bet is to hire someone with a marketing
background. As we mentioned in the first
newsletter of the year, SEO by itself isn't
enough in 2006 to succeed online. You need an
overall marketing strategy. Someone well-versed
in that area would also be a good addition.
_________________
In The News
Search engines v. DOJ
The big story last week was news that the Dept.
of Justice is suing Google over Google's refusal
to share search information in the form of a million
random web URLs and records of all searches for
a one-week period. Other search engines -- Yahoo,
MSN, and AOL -- all said "yes" to the
government's request, but all emphasized they
didn't turn over any personal information tying
the data to their users. It's a long story and
may have a lot of impact on a "big picture"
scale, so here are a couple links if you want
to learn what's going on and what it means.
SEW: Bush
Administration Demands Search Data
Battelle: What's
the big deal?
Add Google Maps to your site
This one's for the web developers in the audience:
Jason Gilmore writes a tutorial on how to add
Google Maps to your web page or web application.
He shares different levels of integration with
code examples and all.
Developer.com: Integrating
Google Maps into Your Web Applications
_________________
More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time
to read. These are just some of the headlines
we've posted to OWTweb.com in recent days.
Marketing
in the Search Tail: Is the Pain Worth the Gain?
January 24, 2006 - Search Engine Watch
Search
ad auction models flawed, economists say
January 20, 2006 - ClickZ.com
Research from Stanford Business School finds current
auction models at Google and Yahoo! lead to volatility,
large resource requirements, and higher charges
to advertisers.
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
_________________
This Week's Q&A
Matt,
You have been talking recently about the changing
nature of links and how they impact search engine
rankings. I think you recommended against going
out and making a lot of link trades between my
site and another, where they link to me and I
link back to them. But what about purchasing links
from other sites? Is this a viable way to get
incoming links and get a boost in the search engines?
John
Hi John --
Purchasing links that will appear on relevant
sites can be a great way to increase traffic to
your site. By "relevant sites," of course,
I mean sites where your potential customers are
likely to be surfing. If you own a camera shop,
for example, you might purchase a link on a digital
camera review site.
Whether or not that helps your search engine visibility
is questionable. Keep in mind that the search
engines are incredibly smart - there's incredible
science behind what they do. When they crawl a
web page, they can tell from digging through the
code where the "body" of the page is,
and where the "periphery" of the page
is. They can also tell if the link you bought
appears across an entire site, or just on a single
page. You might guess where I'm going with this:
If you buy a link, it will be most valuable to
your SE rankings if it appears on just one page
and if it appears in or close to the body of the
page. A link like that has the best chance of
appearing to the crawler as a "natural"
link (i.e. - not an advertisement). Links that
appear on the periphery of pages and appear on
all pages of a site look more like advertisements,
and those links are surely not valued as much.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
_________________
Wrapping it Up
Just one thing to say: GO SEAHAWKS!
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
The OWT Newsletter is a weekly service
offered free to anyone interested in learning
more about web development, search engine optimization/marketing,
and just about anything else related to running
a business web site. You don't need to be an OWT
client to subscribe to our newsletter!
Subscribing and unsubscribing can
be done online at OWTweb.com. You may share this
newsletter with others as long as the newsletter
is shared in its entirety.
Private replies to emails will
be written if we have time, but we don't provide
web site critiques or consulting services for
free. You can learn more about our web development
and search engine marketing services online at
www.owtweb.com. |
