Re: Where do I begin?

From: Alexis D. Gutzman <alexisg_at_marketingsherpa.com>
Date: Thu 22 Aug 2002 14:46:41 -0500

PositionPro doesn't create pages. What it does is pull your content for
inclusion in Inktomi and others' paid-inclusion programs. Inceptor (and
others) build sites (that THEY host) that direct traffic (while you're
paying for it) to your site -- however, when you stop paying, they simply
redirect the traffic to whoever is paying, which means that your own site
never is optimized for search engines. If you need instant results for
Christmas, then an approach like this might make sense, but it is nothing
more than a pay-per-click arrangement -- with Inceptor, rather than the
search engine.

If you really want to learn about how SEO works, there is one book that you
simply MUST read. This report has receive glowing praise from me and *many
others* because it is quite simply the very best thing written if you want
to know how SEO works *from the search engine's perspective*.

It's _Search Engine Marketing (2nd Edition)_, by Mike Grehan. We sell it in
our store (link in sig), or you can buy it directly from Mike. We both offer
a 100%, 30-day, money-back refund. It is not a light fluffy read, but then,
search engines are computer programs that index and recall millions
(billions?) of pages of data, so a light fluffy read should make you
suspicious. If you want to understand them, read this report. The audience
for this report is really SEOs and marketers doing their own SEO. (This is
not beach reading. It's more like a graduate-level course in SEO.)

If you want to hire someone to do this for you, then you should look at our
Buyer's Guide to Search Engine Optimization Services (published June 2002).
In it we explain what to look for, what to avoid, and how these "shadow"
site builders work. We also interviewed 55 SEOs and include the answers to
our detailed questionnaire in the Guide. We scored SEOs (which made us some
enemies), but our audience was marketers, not SEOs. There are "directories"
out there, but they don't score, rate, evaluate, or recommend SEOs or
particular practices. We do.

There is SO MUCH bad/dated information out there on SEO. When I interviewed
the various search engines themselves for the Guide in May of this year,
they all said that marketers should be very careful about working with SEOs,
and should be careful to pick the right one, because when it comes to
delisting a site for using prohibited tactics (how I WISH I could tell you
the stories they told me off the record), they don't care if what you're
doing is your SEOs fault.

Regards,
Alexis
---
Alexis D. Gutzman, Managing Editor
MarketingSherpa's Knowledge Store
http://sherpastore.com <- Email Marketing Metrics Guide now on sale!
---
Author, _The HTML 4 Bible (1st Ed.)_
Author, _The E-Commerce Arsenal: 12 Technologies You Need to Prevail in the
Digital Arena_, named one of the 30 best business books of 2001




Received on Thu Aug 22 2002 - 14:46:41 CDT