Search Engine Marketing Spot

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So you are launching a new website, or wiping the dust off an old one to re-launch it to the world. Before you get in to deep, you need to think about the link structure you want to put in place for this website. You looking at using sub domains to separate the different sections of your website and keep it organized? How about making sub directories and keeping your pages organized that way? Well lets take a look at the benefits of each first before you make your decision.

Sub-Domains: Using sub domains for your website would look something like this site.yourdomain.com, site2.yourdomain.com. They look short, clean and to the point. Well to the search engines they two different websites all together. It does not matter that the same domain name is being used, what makes the difference is what you are putting before your domain name, that being the sub domain. Using sub domains will not pass the link love around your main domain name as freely as using sub directories. Using sub domains however is a great SEO tactic if you have a large website.

You have your mainsite.com, and you want to add a blog and maybe a chatroom. So you would make blog.mainsite.com and chat.mainsite.com. Now keep in mind that the engines are treating them as different websites here, however when you start linking to other sections of your website, it will look like it is coming from 2 other authority websites. This is a great way to keep your brand recognition and at the same time have the ability to market several websites with each other because they are all under the same domain name. Marketing sub domains can take more time because you are essentially marketing several websites and not just one.

Sub Directories: Sub directories are nothing more then folders you have created to put your pages into, an example would be www.sitename.com/widgets. This is a great for smaller websites and also for people with a limited budget and time frame. I say time frame because no matter how many folders you create, they are all seen as one website by the search engines. So when you start your search engine marketing campaign you are only marketing one website and not multiple websites, like if you were using sub domains.

With sub directories all of your pages will be linked to the same domain and the link love will be passed around through your main domain name. When receiving backlinks, it will not matter what sub directory they link to, your main domain name will still get the “link credit”. Most common way of using sub directories is to have setup like the following.

www.sitename.com/keyword1/keyword2-keyword3.html

Or if you choose to use separate directories for each page then you could do the following

www.sitename.com/keyword1-keyword2

In the end use sub directories if you are running a smaller website and looking for quick link strength throughout your domain. If your site is thousands of pages deep, you have the time to invest in a good search engine marketing campaign and looking for brand awareness then use sub domains. Keep in mind that you will want to use keywords for either your sub domain or sub directory as to help with your optimization. What site structure are you currently running and why did you choose that route?

This article was originally written and posted on SEMSpot.com, a Search Engine Marketing Blog. If you like the article please sign up to our RSS Feed.

A thread over at digital point got me thinking on how possible this was.  Let’s say SEMSpot blog was to hold a contest in the coming weeks to see who could rank the highest on Google for the term “Google”.  Do any of you out there think you could actually rank number one without using photoshop or other editing softeware?  I bet nobody could even get on the first page of Google for that keyword, I mean wikipedia is currently ranked 8th for he term.  So lets see some results for that term and you will see 9 out of the top 10 are Google owned domains. 

I have seen other SEO contest which the contestants are not told the keyword until the day the contest starts and normally it is for some off the wall phrase.  Well here would be one heck of a contest to showcase people’s search engine marketing skills, weather white, black, gray, blue, purple, green hat it doesn’t matter.  Just show us the highest ranked site and tell us exactly what was done to get it the ranking for the term “Google”.  This contest would take a long time to complete, probably would have to give it a good 12+ months or so for the contestants to try and rank there site or sites.

If you look at the google wikipedia, you will see at the time of this post they have 3.2 million back links in googles index and they are only ranked #8.  That is one crazy number to try and compete with, we know as of right now your back links and anchor text play a big role in your SERP’s so imagine trying to break into the top 10 for the term google.  Is is definitely the extreme SEO challenge and I think impossible to break into the top 10 for.  But one could only wonder what it truly would take to do so…what do you think?

This article was originally written and posted on SEMSpot.com, a Search Engine Marketing Blog. If you like the article please sign up to our RSS Feed.

 

You take the time and put in the effort to write great content for your site, once you have published it you then realize another site has just published the exact same content on there website. This happens in a matter of seconds after publishing your content, and think to yourself how is that possible. Well it is quite easy since your RSS feed is publishing a full article for each post you make, that website just scrapes your content from your feed and republishes it on there site. This has happened recently to both myself and Maki over at DoshDosh. The site gives us credit on the side for being so called contributors, however straight up theft of content is a far cry from any contribution on my part. What can really be done about this though? There are not running any ads on the site, I do not see any form to where they are trying to capture any information, except maybe the email box for feedburner which could be fake. Anyhow what can be done about this? You can try and complain to there hosting company by doing a whois on the domain name and seeing who the NS servers belong to. I do not see that working really in the long run, but its a shot. You could send a cease and desist order to them, but there whois information is hidden and there is no contact information so you can try and send one to the hosting company.

Well i am not going to do any of that, instead I am putting in each of my post where it originated from and links back to this site. Yes I understand about the duplicate content issue at hand, but I want to see what the engines do in the coming weeks/month with this other website and my content. A few things I am trying out is using the term search engine marketing blog as my anchor text for my site. I am using absolute URL’s in all of my post’s and I am considering adding other links to posts on this blog. I am not sure how well this is going to work since it is duplicate content, we shall see. What would you do about a website that is scraping content straight from your RSS feed?

This article was originally written and posted on SEMSpot.com, a Search Engine Marketing Blog. If you like the article please sign up to our RSS Feed.

Most people have heard of these two names in one way or another and what they do online to make money.  It is all about marketing, you market the right product to the right people you will make money online.  Well the two of them are having a friendly battle of RSS subscription wars.  Whoever has the most subscribers by the end of the month will be declared the winner.  Only thing at stake would be there pride and ego’s, oh and the loser will have to link on there site stating why the winner is better then me.  Shoemoney has posted his John Chow VS ShoeMoney - Rss Subscription Challenge article and John has post his John Chow VS ShoeMoney - Rss Subscription Challenge article, John added a twist though by throwing in competition for his readers.   

Now some people are probably thinking either this is a waste of time for them both, or that these to are stroking there online ego’s.  I don’t think it is either of the two, I think it is marketing genius at work.  Let’s go ahead and look at a few things first shall we.  Neither of them will probably spend that much money on this challenge, shoemoney has even said he does not spend any money advertising his blog.  Any publicity they get out of this weather it is good or bad will result in more subscribers which is what they are both after anyhow.  Since they have both posted this on there blog, they will end up getting new subscribers from each other.  In the end it will be a win win situation for them both because there RSS subscription count will go up. 

There are a few things I have already seen with comments on both sides in regards to creating multiple email accounts and signing them all up for one feed.  Who is to say those Google account makers can’t whip out a few thousand accounts to slowly subscribe to a feed.  I do not think that either of these two guys would do that, they probably do not have the time and don’t care.  Remember in the end they both just want more subscribers to market there ads to and make more money. 

John has already started a contest to basically see who can do the work for him, which is smart marketing.  Work smarter and not harder is a phrase we have all heard, John is just putting it to more use.  He is giving away prizes if you sign up to his RSS feed, you have a chance at winning a book.  If you blog about him and tell your readers to signup to his feed your site has a chance at winning free RSS text ads for a month.  The final prize being an iPod nano and a free John Chow review goes to whoever gives him the most creative way to get more subscribers.  In the end John is trying to have his readers do all the marketing for him by giving away a few free things. Jermy on the other hand has remained someone quit so far, but I will not put anything past him by any means.  We will just have to wait and see if what tactics he uses, if he makes them public.

All in all neither of these two will be loser’s, yea so one will end up with more subscribers in the next 30 days then the other but who cares.  They both will see a big jump in traffic to there site, which in return gives them more people to throw there ads at and  make them more money.  I am not sure how big this will get, it might get huge and make a wave or it might just stay a swell and disappear.  Who knows, all I know is to me it is a great marketing tactic.  Take a friend or even contact a competitor and stir up a contest to generate some more juice to your website.  After all we want traffic to our site and creative thinking, crazy marketing tactics, buzz around the blogosphere are ways to get it.

 

This article was originally written and posted on SEMSpot.com, a Search Engine Marketing Blog.  If you like the article please sign up to our RSS Feed.

Yesterday I was playing around with MSN and some of the new features the site has to offer with the results page. The screen shot above is from a video search I did for the term sports cars. Instead of just showing an image from the video, go ahead and put your mouse over the thumbnail and the video will begin to play for you. This way you have the option to preview the video first before enlarging the view and having to load the next page.

My daughter had fun searching for her favorite TV show and cartoon characters, it was easy for her to navigate through and watch what she wanted to without clicking on to many things and getting lost. I personally like the new style that have implemented into the results pages for not only the video, but the images as well. You have the option to check the feedback on the picture and also add it to your scratchpad if you like. Is this the new sign of MSN coming back to life, I highly doubt it, but they sure are going to try to catch up to Yahoo and Google.

For those of you just now crawling out of your cave to hear about Webmaster Radio, then now is as good as time as any then. Webmaster radio is headed up by Daron Babin, his wife Brandy and associates which over the years has brought us a great online radio station. There new website was released and the look and feel is so much better in my opinion. To go with the new layout, they have now included paid membership for only $28.73/month. Kind of a strange figure to charge each month, but hey whatever works for them to help pay the bills. In the past everything on the site was free, including the ability to download a lot of the previously recorded shows. By adding this monthly fee, it allows them to expand and offer better services as well as pay there hosts for the shows. In the past all the live shows that were done, the host or hosts were never paid because the funds were not there.

You can see the show line up here, as well as participate in the chatroom or join there online community. I have listened to webmaster radio for almost a year now and have learned a lot in this short amount of time. I was sadden to see the old website go for I did have a small (very small) hand with that site. Ok so all I did was help make a little flash button for Daron a while back, no big deal. I must say though I think the new website has a much cleaner and professional look to it then the dark purple and black from before. I also encourage anyone who has never tuned into some of the programs to check out there lineup and catch some of the live shows. Now on a different note with that monthly fee, when will see an affiliate program any time soon Daron?

Visit Webmaster Radio today or download there desktop application.

Today a client who uses 1and1 hosting called in complaining that they could not send any email to a Hotmail account and wanted to know why. I confirmed there outgoing mail server with them, had them send me test messages to other accounts, (not MSN or Hotmail) and there mail was delivered fine. So I had them forward over the returned mail and it said the following:

SMTP error from remote server after MAIL command:
host mx3.hotmail.com[65.54.245.72]:
550 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. A block has been placed against your IP address because we have received complaints concerning mail coming from that IP address. We recommend enrolling in our Junk E-Mail Reporting Program (JMRP), a free program intended to help senders remove unwanted recipients from their e-mail lists. For enrollment instructions, please refer to:
http://postmaster.live.com/Services.aspx#JMRPP. For additional information about Microsoft’s technical guidelines, please refer to:
http://postmaster.live.com/Guidelines.aspx

At first I thought well there IP address on there network is being blocked by hotmai, for security reasons I will not list that information here. I went to spamhaus and did not see there network IP on the list, then I remember though that MSN/Hotmail does not use spamhaus to block out IP addresses. They have there own “in house” spam filter system that they use. So my next thing was to check and see what other websites are on the same IP as my clients, a simple check at MyIPneighbors.com will do just fine. There were only two other websites that is on the same shared IP, so I was now going to call 1and1 and see about moving my clients website to another shared server so they would receive a different IP address. I figured moving it to a different server and changing the IP of the domain name would do the trick, boy was I wrong.

1and1 makes you use there mail servers to send and receive your email, so by default you have to use smtp.1and1.com as your outgoing mail server. Most of the time hosting companies allow you to use mail.yourdomain.com or smtp.yourdomain.com as the mail server. This was not the case, so moving the domain to another server/IP would not solve the problem. After speaking with a manger there, I was told that mail server is blocked completely by MSN/Hotmail and at this time the only way to send mail to those people was to use the mail server of your ISP. I was speechless for a moment, this big of a hosting company has there entire network blocked by MSN…WOW! They have known about this issue for several weeks and I was told they are working with MSN to get this problem resolved. There was no time frame giving for when the problem might be resolved, I just hope soon.

So how would this effect any marketing you are doing with a website. Well for starters if you use 1and1 hosting for any of your websites, you will not be able to email to MSN/Hotmail. There could be other domains, but currently I am still trying to figure out who else is blocked. If you run an auto responder, using 1and1 could put a dent in your marketing efforts due to the fact your auto response will not get delivered. If you run a forum, any passwords, confirmation letters, etc. will not be delivered to a MSN/Hotmail account. Who will stay at the forum if they cannot receive any emails from you in regards to changing there password or even worse when they sign up they never hear back from you. I am in no way saying not to use them as your hosting company, I just wanted to bring this to everyone’s attention that they are currently experiencing problems getting mail delivered to MSN/Hotmail. If you know of other web hosting companies that have a similar problem please post them here so all are aware of it.

So you have always wanted to try Yahoo search marketing, but never wanted to spend more money on advertising that you think would not work for you. Are you stuck on Google like glue to paper? Well here is your chance to try out Yahoo’s search network for free. I am not sure how long this offer will be around for, but you can try it out now if you like. If you have tried Yahoo out before in the past without success, then here is your chance to try again without it costing you anything. More so a way to have Yahoo try and get Google customers, but $199 free is a great way to start.

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/choose.php?o=US1893

Tuesday’s Spot On tip of the week is about you and your marketing strategies. Read the title a few times, then write down or type your answer for later on. Everyone wants to know the secret of how to make a living with internet marketing and what easy steps to take in getting them started. They read a few websites or see a success story and want to emulate that person since they saw how much money that person made in that short amount of time. Why do you want to be like someone else? Why try and duplicate what has already been done?

What I notice a lot of is people trying to be is the next affiliate marketing superstar. The thing with being a successful affiliate marketer is not about copying people and what they have done in the past. It is about being ahead of the game, thinking of what market to target next with the best product/service you can pitch to them. Thing is people, that person did not make all that money that fast. They spent hours and hours testing out there marketing strategies to see what works best for them in whatever niche they are trying to promote. Successful marketers can spend those hours and see zero results from it, instead of giving up or just trying to copy someone else they move forward to there next idea. You see these ideas are one of the driving forces behind what makes a person succeed or fail. If you are just trying to use other people’s ideas then you will not get that far. At first you might see some success and see that light at the end of the tunnel, but I bet you will end up falling flat on your face and that light will fade. The reason why most will fail is due to the fact of wanting to be like everyone else you read about, you end up being one of a million, because there are probably a million other people out there trying to succeed by copying and emulating what they have read. When you read a “new trick” or “new technique” do you really think it is new? Boy I sure hope not, those tricks and techniques had been tested over and over again until perfection. Then used to the fullest by that individual or at times group of people to profit the most money. Only then might you see and read about what they did to achieve that success of making money. Problem is that technique had been used previously by a select few, now the rest of the world can try it to. How long do you think it will still work well?

I want you to try and see the big picture, being successful with internet marketing is not about copying what others have done. It is about laying your own ground work for your success and future. You need to realize and understand that coming up with new ideas is all around you. What products do you see around in your every day life that you could target to a specific audience? What new websites are out that you can market on, what new marketing techniques can you use on these websites to increase your success. You need to be able to think for yourself, you need to be that one in a million and push yourself to succeed. I believe anyone can succeed if they have the will power and motivation to do so. Now I ask you to go back to the answer you had wrote down or typed up before and post it here. Being one in a million can happen, you just need to believe in yourself and set your goals in the right direction. That direction is your own road to success, there is no need to be like anyone else and follow there road, you now need to start building your own.

Would you like us to know who you are? Well here is your chance to let the marketing community know by being put On The Spot. Every Monday I have tried to have a new person to feature, which has been slow as of late if you could not tell. There is no charge, and I am not asking for anything in return.  I have tried this in the past and it did not take off the way I had thought it would, probably due in part to not enough traffic coming directly to this site.  I am asking for your help on what I think is a great idea, let your readers know about what I am trying to do for the community and have them take up on it. This is my way of giving back to the community that has helped me out over the years.

So if you want some free publicity and be put On The Spot then send me:

• Full Name
• Nickname (if you have one)
• Picture/Logo/Avatar (if you have one)
• Website address (include anchor text you would like used)
• Give me a writeup that talks about yourself, what you do in the world of online marketing, how you got started and anything else you would like to include about yourself that would be interesting for the readers.

There is no limit really on what you can say, just I ask that you do not write a book. This only applies to online marketers, so no viagra, insurance, vacation specials and other non marketing topics will be accepted.

Email this to “sub” :@: semspot.com