February
15, 2006
In This Issue:
1. What is Great Content?
2. In the News - Google pay-per-call, SEO cold
calls, Traffic Power penalized
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A - Blog software
5. Wrapping It Up
_________________
What is Great Content?
I'm still working on the new article about "SEO
in 2006" that I mentioned six issues ago
in Net Gains. The landscape has changed a lot
in the past couple months, and some old SEO techniques
aren't very useful any more. But one thing that
hasn't changed is the need for great content on
your web site. Actually, it has changed to the
degree that great content has become more important
now than ever. Problem is - no one seems to be
sure what "great content" is. So in
the midst of working on the "SEO in 2006"
article, I switched gears a bit and wrote a different
article, "Writing Great Content." An
excerpt:
Let's start with what it's not: Great content
is not just the standard descriptions of your
products, services, or company. "XYZ Widgets
has been the leader in widget repair since 1923..."
is not great content. Great content is not your
full catalog converted to the web. And it's not
stories and photos about your kids, pets, or hobbies.
Great content is content that engages and interests
your customer and gives him or her valuable, helpful,
or enjoyable information.
And then the article goes on to discuss some different
ways to write great content for your web site
visitors. Hopefully you'll find it useful!
OWT: Writing
Great Content
_________________
In The News
Google Pay-per-Call in beta
The newest feature of Google's AdWords program
appears to be rolling out in very limited form
-- Pay-per-Call advertising, where the searcher
doesn't click your ad to visit your web site,
s/he clicks your ad to call you on the phone.
At the moment, you should be able to see an example
of this by searching Google for [New York hotels]:
http://www.google.com/search?&q=new+york+hotels&btnG=Search
I see an ad for the W Court Hotel with a small,
green phone icon next to it. (Yesterday an ad
for the Marriott Financial Center had the icon.)
You click that, enter your phone number, and Google
connects you to the advertiser at no charge. The
advertiser never sees your phone number, so no
worries about telemarketing and all that. I think
for many advertisers, this is going to be an important
new avenue for acquiring customers -- assuming
the cost-per-call isn't prohibitive. It's so new,
however, that I don't see any way for you or me
to sign up to start advertising this way -- must
only be available to big/premium advertisers like
W and Marriott.
Cold-call SEO
I assume most everyone who reads Net Gains knows
to ignore the emails and phone calls you may get
from companies that offer "Guaranteed Top
10 Search Engine Placements" and other hooey
just like that. I know I've talked about those
kinds of sales pitches before, but maybe it's
time for a little reminder. I'm prompted to do
so by a post this week at the SEOmoz site about
a Seattle-area company called Internet Advancement.
They made the mistake of calling to pitch their
services to SEOmoz, and, well ... it didn't go
over too well.
SEOmoz: Internet
Advancement Fuels My Rage
Speaking of questionable SEO tactics
Also in the news this week, confirmation from
Google's Matt Cutts about the banning of an SEO
company called Traffic Power and the removal of
all of that company's clients' web sites for using
SEO techniques that violated Google's guidelines.
Yep - not just the SEO company, but all of its
clients also gone.
Matt Cutts: Confirming
a penalty
_________________
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.
MSN
tempts would-be searchers with prizes
February 14, 2006 - ClickZ.com
What
are Amazon's search intentions?
February 09, 2006 - News.com
Search
sees double-digit growth
February 09, 2006 - ClickZ.com
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
_________________
This Week's Q&A
Hi Matt,
You've talked about using blogs on business web
sites a couple times in the newsletter. Do you
have any suggestions on what blog software is
best? Ease-of-use is most important, because the
people who will be doing this for us are not really
technically smart, if you know what I mean!
Thanks,
Chris
Hi Chris,
I've used both Blogger and WordPress, and both
are very easy to use, so I don't think you have
to worry about the technically-challenged people
at your company getting into too much trouble.
With Blogger, though, you can't host the blog
on your own web site -- it has to be hosted on
blogspot.com, and so I'd strongly avoid using
Blogger for that reason alone.
What you want is software that you can install
on your own web server and have it run from your
domain - something like www.yourdomain.com/blog
would be appropriate. WordPress can do that. Another
option is called Movable Type, but I can't speak
from personal experience on that one. I am a big
fan of WordPress, though.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
_________________
Wrapping it Up
That's all for this week. Hope business is treating
you well.
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
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