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ABOVE the FOLD Vol. 2 issue 15.

sections:

tool of the week *** book of the week ***what would you like ***around the web: Google Targets Local Ads + A9 *** random funny

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Around the Web (news):

Article: how to brand a directory :)
http://www.search-marketing.info/newsletter/articles/branding-directory.htm

Article: Mike Grehan interviews Jon Glick (of Yahoo! Search) Jon talks about how to use meta keywords tags, page titles and many other SEO tips.
my brief synopsis http://www.seobook.com/archives/000292.shtml
full article http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/april_2004.html#yahoo

Audio: NPR did a feature on search engines. http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2004/apr/google/

Google: launches truly local ads. You can now target AdWords at the town level or within a radius of a location http://www.seobook.com/archives/000286.shtml

Amazon: beta release of A9 search (has some cool new features)
http://a9.com/
http://www.seobook.com/archives/000285.shtml

Yahoo: April 15th past. They will no longer be refreshing Inktomi / AltaVista paid inclusion entries into the Yahoo! Search product. They will not delist pages that were found via free crawl, just sites that were included via paid inclusion only will no longer be found in the Yahoo! Search index unless they are using the Overture Site Match Program.

new: MozDex open search engine launched
http://www.mozdex.com/en/search.html

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Tool of the Week: SEO Index - a resource directory where I have listed the best SEO resources available on the web. Anytime you are looking for something dealing with SEO you should be able to find it there. If not, shoot me an email and I will find it for you... http://www.seoindex.com

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Book(s) of the Week..Mucho Reading

One Thing I know is a quick guide by Nick Usborne where he asks for one quick tip from 17 different internet experts. The thing that interested me most about this product was how obvious it was to connect most of the statement to their associated authors. Have you ever thought of the one phrase or sentence that defines you?
http://www.excessvoice.com/expertadvice.htm

Mind Wide Open is Steven Berlin Johnson's new book about the neurochemistry of everyday life. This is tied with The Tipping Point for my favorite book ever.

Emergence is Steven Johnson's book that he wrote before Mind Wide Open. It is about the interconectivity and group intelligence which controls cities, ants, and the human mind. Another great book by SBJ...

Stanford basically launched a spammers guide to search, which defines a spam taxonomy.
http://www.seobook.com/archives/000284.shtml

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What Would You Like

This newsletter will only be good if I can offer what you are interested in. Please send your SEO questions or any ideas you have for things I should put in here.
mailto:aaron@search-marketing.info

1.) "First and foremost it seems to me that the keywords from WordTracker does not work in US because WordTracker is UK Company and their key words are generated from the searches of UK audience. Is my assumption correct?"

Your assumption is incorrect. WordTracker data is based off of a couple meta search engines...which are used all over the world and are a somewhat fair representation of web traffic. For country specific ads you can try this (free).
http://www.seoindex.com/index.php?c=26

This free tool also allows you to compare overture data and WordTracker side by side.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

2.) "What would be a good conversion rate? Obviously selling $ 146 at a cost of $50 ($0.20 per click or at a cost of 34% of sales) is economically not feasible. Second, how could you increase the conversion rate?"

Your conversion rate and cost per click are not bad, you should probably increase the profit margins in your products slightly, do a better job of branding, and upsell / cross sell more.

3.) "With such a good ranking in Yahoo! shopping (assuming the keywords from WordTracker is effective) why our visits and sales from Yahoo! Shopping is so low?"

While Yahoo! Shopping is probably the best shopping search site, many people do not use all the other tabs...ie: they just search Yahoo! Search or Google...

Google is starting to push its Froogle product some. Perhaps you should consider submiting a 100% free Froogle feed...
http://froogle.google.com/froogle/merchants.html

4.)"Is it common to receive 20 or 30 clicks per month from Yahoo Directory? Also where do you ask questions or make complains? Because in all the sites and literature from Yahoo Directory I could not find any email address or telephone number for this purpose."

Yes. Few people use directories anymore...that is why Yahoo! has been investing so heavily in search.

5.) "What would be a quick way to establish a good number of link exchange for Link Popularity? Presently I am not sure of my links. Because when I search through "Google's advanced search" our site shows only 33 links but when I search Google through www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/inbound-links.php our site shows 105 links."

Google's backlink tool only shows some of the backlinks. Usually it mostly shows the links which have a PR greater than 3.

Link building is a long and hard process. There are no quick ways to build an effective linking campaign unless you are willing to buy / rent links. You can start by registering your site with some of the major directories and niche specific directories.
http://www.directoryarchives.com

6.) "Finally, Can you help in optimizing my site and if yes, what would you do and what would be the cost? However, I have to remind you that if the site needs new keywords because the keywords from WordTracker would not be effective with US audience then I should do that part of the work myself. Because that is a very time consuming work. The work is to select 400 plus keywords and I cannot afford to pay some one to do the job."

I think you stated that you can not afford to have someone do the job. Couple that with the fact that I have shifted my business model to primarily being an author / consultant and odds are would not be the best fit. Demand has been too much for me to keep up with and I don't want to build a big business. The only people I have hired / sent work to are some of my best friends - because I know they do good work and that I can trust them. Currently we are doing as much as we can.

Meta tags and keyword selection are not everything. Proper page structure and link building are important. I don't want to seem like I am trying to sell something, but probably your most cost effective solution will be a quick chat with a consultant, reading a good ebook on the subject, or going to different SEO forums for help. The SEO forums are absolutely free.

I am a moderator at SearchGuild, and it is one of my favorite forums.
http://www.searchguild.com
I listed many of the other SEO forums on the market here.
http://www.seoindex.com/index.php?c=2
Generally I would recommend staying with the smaller SEO forums off the start. In some of the larger ones there becomes so much background noise that it becomes hard to tell what is good and who is talking about stuff they don't know about.

Hope some of my words helped, and best of luck
thanks
aaron
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Random happening of the Week

Bush is perfect...
http://www.democrats.org/mistakesweremade/

Porn industry gets HIV...
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/184539p-160015c.html

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