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Eppie's Editorial
We hope everyone had a pleasant Holiday Season. Chris and I love the "magic" of Christmas as seen through our children's eyes, visiting with family, and seeing the Ohio State Buckeyes become National Champs (hey, I'm from Ohio, what do you expect?)
Anyway, we have a great issue this month with articles on Yahoo! and Froogle. The Internet is a constantly changing beast and I wanted to share with you two ways it's changing. Our Feature Article explains Froogle (a subsidiary of Google)--the exciting new way to search for products on the Internet. Our Tips Section weighs the pros and cons of Yahoo! They've made some changes in the past few months that could effect your website listing.
There is always something new and exciting developing at CEWebsites. So, don't forget to browse through our "R & D", and "Services" sections for the latest information. Finally, visit this month's "Featured Site"--Art on Display Signs.
Have a Great 2003!
Sincerely,
Eppie Adams
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What A Site!
www.artondisplaysigns.com.
Art on Display offers a wide range of Sign Types for Customers (commercial and retail). Their website features signs for horse lovers and car fanatics. Choose from their wide selection of decorator "street signs" and "no-parking signs". Or design your own!
Another fabulous product offered on the website are "Car Graphics". Designed specifically for the PT Cruiser, customers can choose between "Flames" or "Patriotic Flag" to decorate the sides of their Cruiser.
New Clients
www.realbulletkeychains.com.
This is the Retail Site for www.bulletkeychains.com.. Both of which are subsidiaries of Mid-South Marketing owned by Nick Masters of Hooks, Texas.
www.dlkdayspa.com.
Owned and Operated by Dina Kanfi, DLK Day Spa is located in West Manhatten.
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New Services
We are currently offering tremendous introductory savings on all our Design Packages and Ancillary Services. If you refer another business to us (and they purchase a design package), you will receive 2 free months of Hosting.
Research and
Development
We are developing a "Step-by-Step" video and how to update your site using Quicksitemaker. This is a supplement to our guide sheet (which we are also revamping). Videos should be available by the end of February.
Behind the Scenes
We will be working on "Optimizing" your sites for the next few months. This includes Graphic optimization, keyword enrichment, and acquiring quality links. Before we make any major changes to content or add any links we will contact you first for permission. We will not be creating "Doorway" pages, as this is a separate, fee based service. If you have any questions please contact us toll free @ 888-891-1174.
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Feature Article
About Froogle
Froogle is a new service from Google that makes it easy to find information
about products for sale online. By focusing entirely on product search, Froogle
applies the power of Google's search technology to a very specific task:
locating stores that sell the item you want to find and pointing you directly to
the place where you can make a purchase.
To use Froogle, go to the "Froogle" link on the advanced search page
or go directly to the Froogle home page. Type in the name of the item you
want to find and click on "Froogle Search." Almost instantly, you'll see photos
of relevant products and links to the stores that sell them. Or you may choose
to browse through the merchandise categories listed on Froogle's home page until
you find exactly the item you want to buy.
As with all other Google search results, Froogle ranks store sites based only
on their relevance to the search terms you've entered. Google does not accept
payment for placement within our actual search results, and advertising that
appears to the right of Froogle search results is always clearly identified with
the label "Sponsored Links."
How does Froogle compare with other sites?
Froogle in unlike other sites both because of what it does and because of
what it doesn't do. Froogle does provide a lightning quick way to search the
largest collection of stores and products on the web. That means if the item
you're looking to buy is online, Froogle will likely find it.
Froogle does not sell products or promote partner stores within the search
results. There is no shopping cart or wallet into which you can place your
credit card information. Nor are there preferred merchants who always show up as
the first result regardless of what search you enter. Our job is to find the
product you want and point you to the store that sells it. Froogle provides
objective results based on our calculation of what's most relevant to your
search. We don't accept payment for
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inclusion in our results themselves, and the
advertising that appears to the right of the actual results is clearly labeled
as "Sponsored Links."
I don't see my favorite lemur supply store on Froogle. Can you add
it?
Our goal is to make Froogle the most comprehensive source of information
about products online. Your suggestions for stores to add will help us achieve
that. Please send your suggestions to froogle-support@google.com. Be sure
to include the name and URL (web address) for each store and a brief description
of what they sell. Please not that for a variety of reasons, we are unable to
crawl some stores' websites, so it may not always be possible to honor your
request.
I sell prosimian supplies online. How do I get them included in
Froogle?
CEWebsites is submitting all clients
with commercial sites to Froogle. If you cannot be included in Froogle, CEWebsites will inform you as to
reasons why.
What's the benefit of being listed in Froogle?
Listing your product in Froogle is a free way to extend the reach of your
marketing efforts to millions of new customers. Google's worldwide user base
performs more than 150 million searches a day. That presents an enourmous
opportunity to introduce your products to customers you might otherwise spend
millions of dollars in advertising to reach. These are people actively searching
for the items you sell. And did we mention inclusion in Froogle is absolutely
free?
How do I advertise on Froogle?
If you are a Google AdWords advertiser and have requested that Google
distribute your ads to our partner sites, they will automatically appear on
Froogle. There's currently no way to have your ads appear only on Froogle and
not our partner sites or Google.com. Google Premium Sponsorship ads do not
appear on Froogle.
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Tips & Facts
Is a Yahoo Listing Still Worth the Cost?
by Dan Thies
Contributing Writer for WebProNews
In October 2002, the Yahoo! portal changed the way it delivers search
results. In the past, the most prominent results were exclusively culled from
websites listed in the Yahoo directory itself. Since October, sites listed in
the Yahoo directory no longer enjoy this privileged status.
The Google search engine now drives the primary search results on Yahoo.
While this is certainly an improvement for users of Yahoo search, it's a
disaster for many businesses that counted on their Yahoo listing to deliver
substantial traffic.
The change has also led many site owners to question the value of a listing
in the Yahoo directory. In this article, I will outline the pros and cons of
maintaining, or paying for, a Yahoo listing. In the process, I will delve into
more details of the recent changes.
Argument #1: Yahoo Listings Mean Link Popularity
Pro: Even if the Yahoo listing itself delivers little or no traffic,
other search engines will rank your website higher if it's listed in Yahoo.
Because Yahoo is so important, a link from Yahoo counts more than a regular
link. Thanks to its higher "PageRank," Yahoo means even more to Google.
Con: Yahoo listings do not deliver nearly as significant a contribution
in this area as you might think. You can verify this by doing a "backward links"
search on Google for any Yahoo-listed website. The most important links are
listed first, and the Yahoo listing is rarely even on the first page of links
for top ranked sites on Google.
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Argument #2: Listed Sites Look Better in the Search Results
Pro: Websites with a Yahoo listing show up in the combined Yahoo/Google
results with their title, description, and category from the Yahoo directory.
This may boost the response when the site appears in the search results. This
applies when the URL is listed in the results is the same as the URL in the
Yahoo listing.
Con: Results listed with Yahoo information include a link to the site's
category, which may prompt surfers to pass over your listing and go to the
category. Sites without Yahoo listings have the more inviting "search within
this site" link, which leads to more results exclusively from your site.
So, Is a Yahoo Listing Worth It?
If you have a non-commercial site and can get listed for free, of course! If
you're not one of the lucky few, though, you have to evaluate whether it's worth
$299 a year for what amounts to a better than average incoming link. Everyone
must make their own decision. If $299 is small compared to your total marketing
budget, it may be easier to just continue paying. My own listing expires in
March, and I don't intend to renew it.
How Can You Profit From the Changes At Yahoo?
The obvious answer is that you must take steps to improve your own position
in Google's search results. Google's rankings are made up of many factors, but
the dominant factor is "PageRank," which is based on the number and quality of
incoming links from other websites.
Therefore, the first step in improving your position on the Google search
engine (and now Yahoo) is to improve your site's link popularity. This takes
time, and trying to take shortcusts can get you into real trouble - Google
doesn't like "link farms," or any program designed to artificially boost your
link popularity.
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