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Intro by Mike Grehan - March 2005
It's a bit of "my buddies" type issue this time around (I
know that's the case 99.9% of the time - but I do get around
you know). Each of the contributors to this issue happens
to be a personal friend. And I can guarantee it's a real eyebrow
raising edition!
Keyword density analysis (KDA). Yes, if you've been involved
in search engine optimisation circles for long enough, you've
heard the phrase before. In fact maybe you even bought a keyword
density analyser? Well here comes the rub: a keyword density
analyser is about as useful at giving you information on actual
"term weights" as reading tealeaves.
This issue of e-marketing-news brings an exclusive article
from my dear friend, Dr. Edel Garcia, which blows the myth
of keyword density analysis into space. And it will likely
change the way you do optimisation, forever.
Not only that, you've heard about "black hat" and "white
hat" techniques in search engine optimisation - but have you
ever considered "black hat" PPC? In another exclusive, Danish
search engine marketing superstar and buddy of mine, Mikkel
deMib Svendsen, takes a look at a rather more devious side
to PPC advertising.
And what about the frequently tedious side of link building?
It certainly can be a chore. Fear not, overworked and underpaid
associate editor, Christine Churchill, has been taking LinkExplore
for a test drive. This labour saving software has been developed
by my friend, industry veteran and innovator, Sumantra Roy.
It's a must read for serious link building specialists.
At the search engine strategies conference in New York in
February, I had lunch with my dear friend, Dr. Edel Garcia,
otherwise known as Orion from Danny Sullivan's Search Engine
Watch forums.
Dr. Garcia is a classically trained information retrieval
scientist and his posts at the forum are scintillating, to
say the least. In fact, as I pointed out in the search engine
algorithms and research session at the conference, one thread
he started has now had more than 48,000 views.
We've talked about a lot of the myths which pervade in the
search engine marketing industry, but on this particular occasion
we were discussing what the search engine optimisation community
has called "keyword density analysis."
In the second edition of my book, I placed a lot of emphasis
on trying to explain the vector space model and how a search
engine creates an inverted index and then applies a term weight
pair. This is calculated (classically) by taking the term
frequency of a document and multiplying it by the inverse
document frequency. Basically, in order to apply the term
weight, you really need access to the entire corpus.
So, when I hear claims by search engine marketers that they
have proprietary tools which download thousands of pages and
analyse them i.e. as in keyword density analysis... Thousands
isn't good enough I'm afraid and you're probably looking at
the wrong things.
The exclusive article in this issue by Dr. Garcia is a very
enlightening and de-bunking read. Written in an easy to understand
manner, you don't need to be a scientist to get grasp of the
very valid points he makes against keyword density analysis
as it has been applied to search engine optimisation. Read
it here...
I hang with my buddy Mikkel deMib Svendsen at most of the
conferences. He has a wicked sense of humour and props the
bar up with me from time-to-time.
In Chicago we had dinner and he talked about the "dark side"
of PPC advertising. It was fascinating, funny and a little
dangerous at times as he explained it.
Get it from the horse's mouth, as we delve inside the mind
of the man behind those wildly colourful designer suits! Read
it here...
Regular readers may be aware that my buddy and associate
editor Christine, is an SEO tools geek. Forget the clients
and the family (but not the horses :-)
She dumped them all this week to play with LinkExplore, the
labour saving device used by many professionals in the industry
to get one step ahead of the competition. Read
it here...
Only one other item to touch on in this issue and that is…
Is it true you sold your consultancy to the world's largest
search engine marketing company, Mike?
Yes, I did. Smart Interactive Ltd., is now a wholly owned
European division of WebSourced, Inc.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050324/245144_1.html
And that means I'm working very closely with my great pal
and fellow Brit, Andy Beal.
So, why did you do it, Mike? Let's just say that, the new
Ferrari I'm picking up at the weekend and the mansion on the
small island off Scotland, next door to Sir Paul McCartney,
had a little influence… ;-)
That's it, enjoy an excellent read. I'm off to back up the
9,000 tracks on my iPod from the back-up drive I bought which
came with a warning that I should back-up my, er… back-up.
Yeah, go figure.
Cheers!
Mike.
High Rankings Search Engine Marketing
Two-day Seminar
31 March - 1 April in Seattle
Everything You Need To Know for a Successful SEM Campaign!
Jill Whalen, Christine Churchill, Debra Mastaler, Scottie Claiborne, Dan Thies, Karon Thackston and
Matt Bailey will cover Search Engine Marketing from
start-to-finish.
Learn SEO basics, link building, PPC, keyword research, writing for your
target
audience and the search engines, plus how to measure traffic &
conversions and cleaning up spam. Includes one day of hands on workshops.
Quick Bits:
Need A Smarter Alarm Clock?.
Do you have trouble getting up in the morning? Here's a clock that's guaranteed to get you moving and just happens to be a MIT research project. When Clocky's alarm goes off, this innovative clock rolls off the bedside table and wheels away in a random direction. Minutes later, when the alarm sounds again, the sleeper has to get out of bed to search for Clocky to turn off the alarm. Best of all, an internal processor helps Clocky find a new hiding spot every day. Read article on Clocky - the amazing clock.
© Mike Grehan & Christine Churchill
Editor: Mike Grehan. Search engine marketing consultant,
speaker and author. http://www.search-engine-book.co.uk
Associate Editor: Christine Churchill. KeyRelevance.com
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