Site Reference Forums

After all if you were for real you would realise that people are unlikely to give what you say much credence if you just rant without substantiating what you say

To start with, Ranting is what I do Doc. Second, I have a pretty good following in the SEO world as do my web developers in their world.... I can substantiate anything I say M8 - so tread carefully. I dare say you'll want a way to get me on your side, not the oposite... on the web there IS such a thing as bad publicity... it doesn't always come out being a positive thing..

Furthermore to that, I have 10 years experience in building web businesses with a previous 10 as an offline business consultant... I know how to bake a cake there Doc....

Surely you need to include keywords within your pages; how else would they be listed by the engines? Do you not need to ensure that dynamic URLs to your site can be found? These are a couple of web design considerations, imho.

This already illustrates your lack of understanding. I dare say most folks here know the structures and terminologies of the industry. How does this transalte into education? Once again, as part of this journey, the other members should teach U this? Or are U going to re-invent the wheel as say how U think it is? Further confusing people.

What harm does it cause? It is how I found this site.

Once again showing the complete LACK of understanding. Other than some regional engines, nothing outside of the Big 3.5 will EVER send enough traffic to justify even thinking about them. It's all about ROI there Doc....

As I have said before I do not present these topics from the position of a professional

Like I have touched on before, we're learning about Tax Law from the Garbage man? People have a hard enough time with all the info out there...... I still don't see the point/

I understand your cynicism, but I sincerely do want cut through the mysticism (and diverse views) surrounding website promotion.

It's not cynasism in as much as I spend MY time writing to further educate those intereset in internet marketing. As such, I bust things I feel are taking people down the wrong path.... if your information is quality... I am a fan... if it is making my life more difficult by putting more 'mysticism' out there... I am all over it

The bottom line is it is not enough for experts just to expect us to believe what they say without backing it up with results.

Gee I already gave U one.... the #1 ranking for 'Bad SEO Providers' - I can show U top ranking terms up to the level of 800 000 000 in results (competition)..... would that make you a 'Gypsy Believer'?
How about a list of all the sites my companies have worked on over the years? Over 400 sites there..... Would that help?

As far as us helping yer list... I think folks filled up 3 pages with thoughts and ideas.... Where were U then? http://forums.site-reference.com/topic/ … b-Success/

I dare say that would have been a good time to get folks involved....



And for U Nic -

And, of course, I hope people visit my site, and so am using one of the many techniques put forward by experts, that of article writing.

ha ha ha ha... I harken back to my comments to Nic about a certain eBook... tsk tsk.... double standards... what a troubled web we weave huh? So I have to write an article about 'How to Market an eBook' and then I can make a thread for my product? Sounds like a recipe for Article AND Forum spam to me bro.....

Last edited by TheGypsy (2007-02-19 18:02:20)

Mutilated1 wrote:

pwn3d - gypsey wins

i whole heartedly second that... oh wait... my alter ego just came in "hi bob"... "hi ryan... i third that".

Bob says he thirds that.

Much of what you say is much to the contrary of what i have learned in my time doing the funky seo so unfortunately (not really - cause you have somehow ignored all previous advice and suggestions) backing you would be the equivalent of backing a theory that states "chocolate milk comes from cows painted brown". Its a dangerous thing to lead people off the path, some people could lose a lot of money painting cows brown.

uhg... too much text on one page.

Skimmed through and it appears there is this thing where someone said something about someones second removed cousin... er... something-er-other.

meh...

TheGypsy wrote:

..Back to sleep my sweet Prince.... the Kingdom is as it should be... ( the loonies are running the Asylum)

I thought we werent letting anyone else in on the "who really runs the asylum" sega stitch

Last edited by Ryan_steyn (2007-02-21 04:10:10)

Ryan_steyn wrote:

TheGypsy wrote:

..Back to sleep my sweet Prince.... the Kingdom is as it should be... ( the loonies are running the Asylum)

I thought we werent letting anyone else in on the "who really runs the asylum" sega stitch

I must be having an off day here.... what are you talking about?

TheGypsy wrote:

..Back to sleep my sweet Prince.... the Kingdom is as it should be... ( the loonies are running the Asylum)

The loonies?  Who let Ryan loose?

ruperty wrote:

Hopefully, gypsy/dave and other professionals will help in guiding us in the right direction, but I understand that they may feel they are giving advice for free.  .

Yuppers Doc – I have been giving tons of FREE SEO advice far and wide ( Trail of the Gypsy) – strangely tho, I don’t help people build their entire business through a forum. That’s what I charge for…. As do most PROFESSIONALs… so the FREE advice built business, is not a model I would generally recommend.

I was thinking last night though – What kind of Doctor are you? From the sounds of your background, you are well aware this is not a ‘test’ nor is it truly something that can be of use to anyone (outside of U and your partners) since we both know the data is limited in scope and there is NO control set to based any results nor recommendations from.

YOU MUST KNOW THIS. You are a scientific person. SO once again I am left wondering about the TRUE motive behind any of this my dear Doc. It is BY NO MEANs a definitive methodology to draw any conclusions from ultimately

1.    One site
2.    One Market
3.    Single Age and Authority ( new site compared to semi-mature and mature sites)
4.    One approach – no comparative data

These are simply a few of the systemic problems with this as some type of learning experience for the masses. What works for this site won't necesarily translate to others

I manage and have analytics running on some 15 sites in 9 markets…. I can gauge the value of various actions and methods across sites of all types to draw my data sets and conclusions from… Get me 3 more folks with the same set up.. and then I shall start to have some data of value....

You mentioned this was to clear up YOUR perceived ‘mythologies’ – to me such a poorly devised research method can only add it’s OWN mythologies, by drawing conclusions from a single data set…

I would assume YOU KNOW THIS already tho – right Doc?

Last edited by TheGypsy (2007-02-22 06:16:39)

atwhatcost wrote:

I've read the article, and looked over the site a bit, and have a few obvious questions:
1.) Aren't two of the first steps for marketing a business to see if there is a niche for it, and who the competition is?!

My current take on this is,

• a new business can enter a market without too much trouble, provided the market isn't saturated
  
• otherwise, and also, a business needs to differentiate by providing unique features
• or by targeting a niche market segment

atwhatcost wrote:

What's the difference between Mobile Travelogue and Flicker, ... every cell phone provider and digital camera company have their own storage places online, ... What did I miss? What's your niche that sets you apart from your competition?

You are right there are similarities. I think Flickr, and other sites, were originally photo upload sites, and have recently added the mobile phone interface. If you try out flickr you will see that the mobile interface doesn't actually work very well; it ignores the subject and body text of MMS messages. There are differences on how the photos are organised; with MobileTravelogue you can send to different galleries (albums) from the phone, whereas with flickr, I believe, you need to go online and reorganise. From what I've seen of the spaces that cell  phone provider provide the functionality is very limited.

In terms of features, I have provided the ability to link to a MobileTravelogue gallery from MySpace, or other website, to display the latest images posted (faq), so you can send from your phone directly to your MySpace page. A niche in which I am interested is the Wedding market (guests all send live to a gallery) so have added a specific "wedding" style for the gallery pages, see wedding. Also, you can point your own domain name to your MobileTravelogue user page; you can change how the pics are displayed, thumbnails or list; you can add users to your account to have group membership; you can restrict posting access to your group or open it to anyone; users can subscribe to a gallery and will be sent an email when a new post arrives; acknowledgements are sent back to the phone along with new comments on posts. Sorry, not trying to "promote" my site, but you did ask.

But, these are important points for anyone building a website as there is a lot of competition out there, and a lot of big sites. One advantage of being small is that it is more possible to target a niche market, which probably wouldn't interest the big boys.

atwhatcost wrote:

2.) At the end of your article, it has three "discussion points" for the forum. To what purpose? Are we not supposed to have our own points?

Yes, please do. Let me know and I can incorporate in future articles.

atwhatcost wrote:

I can't image, "How many web businesses fail?" is going to bring on any lengthy discussion. Although the percentage is extremely high, the answer is merely a fact. Not much to discuss.

Well, I'd be interested in the answer, particularly if we can also answer why they fail. Are there any sources that do such studies or keep statistics? It would be useful to have a realistic idea of what one is getting into before one jumps.

Rupert,
I swear I was leaning over backwards trying to see if you might have something of interest to teach me. If I leaned any longer, I'd be in traction. I've been asking myself, as objectively as possible, if this collaboration is something about your premise, your article, and your PR work on this forum, since you brought it to our attention, before the article was published.

I have to admit, I've come to rely on what Gypsy says (and a few others on this forum), because I trust him enough not to question his advice any where pass the need for him to have to translate what he's written into language I can understand. Despite that, I even pretended not to know what he thought, the last time I posted on this thread.

Now, with that background, I need to respond to some of your comments to me --

Let me clarify the purpose of the articles. I have been looking into SEO in more detail over the last year using books, web sites and newsletters from sources claiming to be SEO experts. I have found it a frustrating journey as there seems to be a lot of mis-information and conflicting advice. So, I have arrived at this point with a set of assumptions about the way to do things. I KNOW that many of these assumptions may be misguided or wrong. That is the point; I am not claiming to have the answers, but am raising questions (and maybe not even the right questions), to which you/we as a community can answer with the vast experience available (ideally with repeatable results).

The method you took in writing that article gives the impression that, not only are you an expert in some very impressive fields, but that you consider yourself an expert in web development, or, at the very least, developing a new business online. You teacher. Me student.

I've been on this same frustrating journey as you have for three years now. I kept searching until I found a couple of message boards where web development experts hang out, watch which posters others listen to intently compared to the ones, who aren’t respected. I have no doubt that you’re smarter then me. You really couldn’t find your own method to separate the wheat from the chaff? (You’re in this forum, so I figure you have.)

Most folks, who are searching for help and answers, tend to ask many questions verses writing a long article with an author's bio at the end showing expertise in a non-related and high-I.Q.-required field, as well as a consultant for something that is vague.

atwhatcost wrote:
I can't image, "How many web businesses fail?" is going to bring on any lengthy discussion. Although the percentage is extremely high, the answer is merely a fact. Not much to discuss.

Well, I'd be interested in the answer, particularly if we can also answer why they fail. Are there any sources that do such studies or keep statistics? It would be useful to have a realistic idea of what one is getting into before one jumps.

I recommend asking the question on Ask.com. Lots of reference work for SERPs, and I'd guess, if you searched thoroughly, you would find the stats, too.

Which brings me to where that straw was that broke this camel’s back.

atwhatcost I welcome anyone's input. But if someone says they have the answer, but doesn't reveal what the answer is it is difficult to have a discussion. That's why I'm an atheist.

I can well imagine that is exactly why you are an atheist! Both answers are right in front of you, but you ignored them. Dave has several links listed in his signature that point to him having some expertise in this web-optimizing field. Another phrase keeps repeating in my mind, "They know not, neither will they understand…." Dave didn't bother announcing his detailed creds, because it is repetitive, considering his signature. (The same can be said about God, his detailed creds are also easily seen, but I'm trying very hard to keep religion out of this, as much as possible.)

Many people start their own businesses, but it’s easy to see which will fold. I thought this series of articles would just detail the web development part of starting your business, but it goes passed that to all the other areas of the business. My business tipped that beautiful point between living in the red and pushing into the black, right as my disability slammed into me. I see too many warning flags that strongly suggest yours won't work, unless you change your mindset and learn much more quickly.

- You don’t yet know what makes a business successful, and you started it eight months ago. (Free advice: the atheist remark lost you more possible supporters, besides me. As a business owner, never mix religion and politics with business, unless either or both are related to the business. If you have to bite your tongue off to keep quiet about your personal opinions, lose the tip of the tongue. This is one of the first hard lessons taught, when you research what is needed for a business to be successful, and it is repeated in just about every book on the subject.)

- You've ignored several of the golden rules for any business, but more so, for service businesses -- customers are the reason/the bread and butter/the center of your business, not an interruption of it. I know it is possible to have a business succeed, even when someone is nasty to their potential customers, but "The Soup Nazi" (character from the sitcom, Seinfeld) had incredibly good soup, so folks were willing to endure his nastiness. Is your service that good?

- It doesn't seem like you know how to market your business much more then how to work your business. Your article mentioned one possible competitor. I listed several more possibilities, without even knowing much about the subject. Even then, you responded to only one, and that from memory. Every successful business owner U've ever met (and I network in a variety of circles), knew the competition, and marketed towards their strength to show the competitions' weaknesses.

- You want this series of articles to be interactive, and yet, out of all the comments given to you, the only one you responded positively to was mine? I have sites about Teddy Bears, for cryin' out loud! In the world of web development (and even business development, which just doesn't set right to me, since the assumption should have been that you already learned what makes a successful business), even tough criticism from an expert in the field, should have been a learning tool for you. Experts will not be interactive for you for all the reasons Dave has stated. Noobs won't be, because you scared them off. Politeness goes a long way.

One thing for sure, you’ve already managed to alienate many on this forum. (Stat learned from an SR article: 90% of people, who visit forums, never post anything.) Dave was right when he said that not all bad publicity is good. He was right with everything else he said, too.