Round-Up of Newsletters 9 & 10 by Rachelle Money, 22 July 2008

We take another glance over our shoulder at how our previous newsletters have gone down with our Wordtracker audience, and it seems you like what we're doing.

I'm glad to hear that our SEO expert interview series with Mark Nunney has gone down a storm with our readers. It seems that Mark's own comments and responses to your questions have also won him some fans.

Bry Gee was the first to comment on our article where Mark discussed the most commonly made mistakes in the world of Search Engine Optimization.

“Hurrah, at last someone who has grasped the true problems of SEO with both hands!” said Gee.

“I am a web designer who plans and builds my websites with SEO in mind from day one, as a matter of fact, I sometimes plan longer than build. I follow most of these guidelines to the letter and have very high rankings on most of the sites I build for their appropriate keyword requirements.”

As I wrote in my introduction to the article, I asked Mark for his top five most commonly made mistakes and he gave me 12! One reader, Rich, felt the list just wasn't long enough and left a comment on the newsletter with a few more suggestions.

Rich said: “I could add quite a few things to it that are common mistakes including allowing duplicate content issues through poor URL structure or failure to canonnicalise [sic], keyword stuffing or other suspicious on-page keyword usage like hidden text and failure to write search engine friendly semantically marked-up code.

“But...most important of all is PICK THE RIGHT KEYWORDS, which means identifying keywords that people are actually using to search, so perhaps number 2 on the list might be amended to stress this bit. If you get this bit wrong, everything else you do is a waste of time.”

Jim Robinson made a good point about using keywords in linking text.

“Type "Click Here" into Google and see what comes up. Number one is Adobe Reader - from the millions of sites that put links on saying "Click Here to download Adobe Reader". And if you click the actual page that comes up number 1, it doesn't say Click Here anywhere in the content. Enough said!”

At Wordtracker we never shy away from criticism and we duly accept it when it's constructive, like Andrew Allan's comments about how smaller businesses can generate content on their site.

He said that although the article talked about a “sound strategy” it would only work if a company had “extremely deep pockets.”

He wrote: “In item #1 on your list on the Big Picture: "If a site is to help a small business then that site is going to need hundreds of pages targeting thousands of keywords, and using a wide range of techniques." How is a small business going to afford this? Where will the copy come from?

He added: “How can a retail store or service business or any business with under 20 employees (which accounts for 90% of all US businesses) afford a strategy that includes thousands of page so content and keywords.

“The advice is solid for larger firms but make sure that you don't reference "small business" because this kind of strategy ignores reality.”

Andrew Allan makes a valid point here; when a small business is being told over and over again 'content is king' how do they generate that content? There's no quick fix for this. You cannot be complacent about this, the quality of content on your site is vital, but no one said you had to pay a professional to do the job for you. We appreciate that's not a viable solution for many of those reading the newsletter. Wordtracker will soon publish a Web Content Recipe book packed with tools, tips and advice on how you can generate good quality copy for your own site, without spending a penny.

A lot of our comments thanked myself and Mark for our concise presentation of SEO mistakes, however, a few of you were disappointed by what you thought were “sweeping statements” in the article.

Dave Robinson highlighted the sentence: "Putting Too Much Trust In An SEO Company". He felt all this would do is “serve to feed the increasing distrust of the SEO industry.” He said: “There are some good and valid points being made in this article but the sweeping statements devalue the overall piece in my opinion.”

Our SEO expert, Mark Nunney responded to Dave Robinson's concerns by saying: “I have to call it how I see it and I see people trusting SEO companies that are delivering poor service. Please note I speak as an owner of an SEO company myself and I know that many of us deliver great value and make millionaires of our clients. I would happily add to my list: 'not getting help from a proven SEO company'. “I think you're right about articles like this being full of "sweeping statements without any corroboration" but the trouble is that if you qualify and corroborate everything you write and say (and this was an interview) then you wouldn't get past the first point and it would be unreadable.”

We are happy to report that the majority of our comments on this article were positive, with Gabriel claiming “This is it! No stone is unturned. Absolutely must read article for everyone interested in SEO.”

M.Afzal was already receiving good returns by putting Mark's advice into practice.

“By adopting Mark Nunney's SEO experties (sic), I am seeing that my Alexa ranking is going to be better day by day and also getting organic traffic from Google, Yahoo & MSN.”

Congratulations M. Afzal and we hope you continue the success.

Now to look back at the responses to Wordtracker's article on Larry Chase's Web Digest for Marketers. Chase cast his wisdom on how to write the perfect newsletter after 13 years experience of writing and producing his own successful newsletter. It seems his advice went down a treat with our readers as the response was fantastic.

Chad told us he's been a loyal reader of Larry's newsletter for years.

“All of his newsletters have at least something I can use. Every marketer should subscribe to get his newsletter not only for the content itself but to learn about how to create a newsletter that will keep people interested and loyal. Well done Larry!”

At Wordtracker we were also thrilled to hear our readers have started to save and print out our newsletter for future reference. It's always nice to know our newsletters are worth keeping!

Tricia said: “I saved your newsletter in my in basket because I have come back to the content several times to demonstrate to clients key Internet tips. Just the font and spacing plus the rich but easy to read content demonstrate optimized Internet marketing. Thanks!”

Our viral marketing piece which focused on the success of Blendtec's Will it Blend? sparked some interesting discussions.

It was good to hear that a few of you have tried your own viral video content with mixed effect. Chris Keller said he enjoyed the Blendtec phenomenon so much he tried to replicate it with his own company.

He said: “We did our own "will it melt" video http://www.pcdoctor-community.com/blog/posts/2008/05/06/Will-it-Burn-Episode-1/ using a 3'x4' Fresnel lens. “It is on YouTube, but really just doesn't compare to the novelty of willitblend.com nor does it quite align with our business, so the buzz is interesting but hasn't yet affected our bottom line.”

Dr Chris Bowman had a rather tongue in cheek idea for viral content called Will It Decay? which he explained on our comments page.

“I'm trying to figure out how to make it work in dentistry. Perhaps a "Will It Decay?" website, where we put teeth into different liquids and see how long they last. Hmmmm, maybe not. Dr. Chris Bowman Dental Insiders Alliance www.DentalInsiders.com/blog.”

Methinks you have to get back to the drawing board with that one Dr Bowman - good luck!