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Hi Everyone!
I hope everyone’s holiday season is going well. Out
here in
Southern California we’re having some record cold temperatures,
so I hope everyone is staying warm.
Note: If your website doesn’t have any PR yet, hold
on because
the next Google PR update is only a couple of weeks away.
Here’s some Q &A to get us started.
Hi Kevin,
I had someone SEO my site a few weeks ago, but it doesn’t
seem
to be working. I keep tweaking my pages, but still no results.
What am I doing wrong?
-Mark
Hi Mark
The biggest mistake people make after a website has been
SEO’d
is impatience. Your SEO firm should have told you to expect
it
to take several months before you see results. After your
site
has been SEO’d there is the “watched pot that never
boils”
syndrome that kicks in. Its hard to just look at your website
day after day and not make any tweaks to it, which is exactly
what you need to do in order to let the SEO work kick in.
Here is what I recommend. After your site has been SEO’d,
do a
PPC campaign for the first several months so that you are
bringing in traffic while you are waiting for the SEO to kick
in. Also, focus on other marketing methods such as hitting
the
message board, link trading (it won’t hurt to update
your links
page), newsletter advertising or even develop a secondary
website targeted for a different set of keywords. These are
all
positive marketing steps that can be done and will keep your
focus off of your SEO’d website for a while.
Hey Kevin,
I read your newsletter last month and have a similar question
to
someone else. I have a very niche website with great design
and
few words. The keywords are not very competitive and some
are
ranking well in Google already. If I add text to my site,
it
will mess up my design. Can I get away with just link building?
-Snowboard
Hey Snowboard,
If your keywords are not very competitive you may be able
to get
away with this especially on Google, especially if you do
the
link building, since Google gives more weight to the links
than
the other SE’s. The downside is that your uncompetitive
keywords
will get you less traffic. In order to go for more competitive
keywords and more traffic, you will need text for the SE’s
to
spider. One of the great design challenges is how to incorporate
text into a great design. Don’t get trapped into thinking
that
your current web design is THE only possible design for your
site. Remember a great design is not very valuable if no one
comes to see it.
-Kevin
News
Bill Clinton, former U.S. President, helps launch a new search
engine that is backed by the Chinese government. The search
engine Accoona sees this as a lucrative opportunity in their
20-year exclusive partnership with the Chinese. More info:
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/10355196.htm
Google has launched its new Google Groups beta where you
can
join in discussion in areas of interest. Some restriction
apply
when joining such as some groups are by invitation only. More
info: http://groups-beta.google.com/grphp?hl=en&tab=wg&q=
Yahoo! will be rolling out its desktop search tool in January
2005 according to the Associated Press. This move by Yahoo!
is
seen as a means to catch up to Google who unveiled their desktop
search two over 2 months ago. More info:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/
20041210/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_desktop_search
Just two months after its official launch, Yahoo Local now
offers more than 15 million listings for U.S. based business.
Yahoo has quietly expanded its local business listings and
rolled out a service that gives businesses control over their
listings in Yahoo Local through a new content inclusion program.
More info:
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3444861
Google has just opened a secret $300 million data center
in
George, but mum’s the word. No signs, no logos and no
admission
from Google that this is their facility. More info:
http://insidegoogle.blogspot.com/2004/12/
google-opens-300-million-data-center.html
Yahoo acquires Wuf technologies that produces technologies
to
let people transfer digital files onto mobile devices. The
addition of Wuf's technology underscores Yahoo's efforts to
expand its Web-based services and technologies into consumer
electronics devices and home networking products. More info:
http://news.com.com/Yahoo+buys+start-up+to+boost+mobile/
2100-1039_3-5483897.html
Tip of the Week
Hold onto your old websites. If you have a website hanging
around for the last couple of years and haven’t done
much with
it, don’t just let it die on the vine and let’s
its domain name
and hosting expire.
Google gives preference to older websites (as anyone with
a new
website who is trying to get top rankings will tell you) so
you
may wish to revive your site. If you don’t wish to revive
it,
then you may wish to sell it. Many webmasters are looking
for
older sites with some PR and back links to buy so that they
can
get an edge in the Google rankings. One resource for buying
and
selling websites is: http://www.websitebroker.com/
Anyway, revive it or sell it, but whatever you do, make some
money off of it. Don’t let it simply just go away.
Have a happy holiday and see you next newsletter!
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