Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Agree with the answers, but not the idea that Magento is especially SEO friendly. Input of image tags on products is a royal pain!

Skip it.

You feel like taking a shower after spending time on this site.

Seems to be mostly a bunch of small-time sleazebags trying to con each other into spending a few bucks of marketing guides that provide...

Secret Tips!

Get Rick Quick Schemes !

There may be a little worthwhile info on the site, but it's a very bad neighborhood, IMHO.

Yuck. Very slick. And very wrong, wrong, wrong.

This sort of thing makes me want to puke. But I guess it's the cranky old journalist in me coming out. Your mileage may vary.

But here's how i see it: a rotten-to-the-core pay for play scheme.

The site goes on and on about its high ethical standards -- never an encouraging sign. The fact that the payoffs are disclosed doesn't cure the conflict. It just publicizes them.

The site says the opinions expressed are honestly held. But it also gives advertisers pre-publication censorship rights  in the name of correcting  factual errors ( which is conveniently left undefined. )

I'd stay away. As far as I can see, no law or regulation is being violated. But there is still too much risk of blowback: a real reporter writing a real story about the really dubious tactic of making payoffs for content.

P.S. The site says this about no follow:

Search Friendly Links

Each sponsored link in SocialSpark automatically carries the NoFollow attribute so as not to affect search engine rankings. This is designed to protect Publishers and advertisers from search engine penalties based on paid linking. Publishers and Advertisers participating in the marketplace agree not to circumvent this practice and manually remove the “nofollow” attribute.

UPDATE:

I posted some of this thread to my Facebook Page, with these results:

• FJ Jerkus Agreed Daniel. Unfortunately you're up against a giant Indian army who are taught English from early grade school, live on rupees, and are well versed in the art of online research. You can scream as loud as you want, this battle will not end as Gary V summed it rather well in the past: "content's importance has never been higher, but it's value has never been lower"

  Cheap content isn't going anywhere. However, as annoying as Google is at times, they're getting exceptionally good and weeding out useless shit. Content filtration/aggregation/discovery tools is where I'm placing my bets.14 hours ago · Like

• Daniel Freedman FJ Jerkus I agree with you. And India is actually getting expensive for outsourcing. People are turning to the Phillipines and Vietnam.

  The big change in the last few months is Google's much improved algo. The old optimization tricks no longer work as well as they once did. And smart people have taken note and shifted tactics. After making a fortune on low quality content by nobodies, Livestrong went legit about a year ago. They actually took down tons of crap, hired editors and began courting well known authors and bloggers. The site is much improved.

  On one end of the spectrum, you have the marketing/SEO technicians who chase the algo. This is bit like being a momentum-driven trader who "trades the tape." It's almost impossible to succeed long term. There were people who actually lost their businesses (and homes!) after Penguin and Panda. On the other end of the spectrum, are what I'd call the "journalistic purists" who think it's somehow wrong or evil to spend time writing good page titles and descriptions or build an email list or run an SEO technical audit.

  Here's what I've seen in the last few months: the smartest minds in marketing are now very interested in content and working with the best writers. Of course, they are still doing A/B testing, conversion rate optimization, etc... But they increasingly recognize that content filtration/aggregation/discovery tools has to start somewhere: with unique content.

  There are plenty of people in the fitness world who are great at marketing, but have little to say. Affiliate marketing works well for them. At least for now...

  My point? Things seems to be tilting a bit more towards excellence in content. My rant -- originally posted to an SEO board -- was about people spending big on designers and developers, then outsourcing the content offshore and on the cheap.<abbr id=".reactRoot[99].[1][2][1]{comment10151135350880685_23704534}.0.[1].0.[1].0.[1].[0].[0].0" class="livetimestamp" title="Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 1:17pm">9 hours ago</abbr> · Edited · Like

I’m a great fan of the Yoast/WordPress combo.But you would need an e-commerce solution on top of that. It could range from Shopify to one of the WordPress plug-ins. It all depends on how complicated your e-commerce is. The developer I worked with on my Magento site (three years old) says he wouldn’t make that choice today. Updates and day-to-day management are just too exasperating.

What about sales? isn't that the true measure of effectiveness? And the only one that counts in the end?

It's very easy to get caught up in semi-relevant (or downright phony) metrics. What difference does it make if you rank well on insignificant keywords? Or even if your traffic is up, but it's lousy traffic that doesn't generate sales.

A common "trick" used by SEOs of less than outstanding virtue is to optimize for not very competitive keywords. This is quite easily done and presents the illusion of progress. It can also generate really nifty reports with impressive charts and graphs. But to what end?

The fact that most of your traffic is coming from branded keywords is another alarm bell. It means that most of the people accessing your website are already familiar with your brand. But I'm betting that the whole of your web strategy is to reach new prospects.

If your competitors are getting almost all the non-branded traffic and you have other issues with your current firm, it may be time to move on. As mentioned before, you might want to give them one last chance. Talk about your billing issues and concerns with non-branded keywords.

I suspect what you really need is a deep data dive into the whole competitive web landscape. The findings should drive the strategy  going forward.

Is your site by any chance www.c3medianetwork.com? if so, I must tell you there are serious issues on everything form on-page stuff to the diversity of your link profile.

If practical, a better approach is to write different articles on the same topic for different sites.

I know of one subject matter expert who does this to great effect.

Hello:

I'm afraid I have to offer brutal, two word advice: give up.

From DMOZ's point of view: you broke one of their most unbreakable rules and can't accept that you have been banned as a result.

I don't think there is anything more to be done.

It's probably wisest to just move on and stop letting this get under your skin, no matter how unjust you may see it as.

Prestashop....thanks for the heads up.

As they say on Teletubbies..."Uh-Oh!"

What is the  scuttlebutt on what the paid model would look like? What would be included?

Artfx....looks more and more like Magento might not be the right choice for you.

Never a good idea to swim towards a sinking ship! Even rats know better.

B to B is tough. But there is always a way. Is there a trade magazine or website you can identify  ?

If so, the secret is cultivating relationships with the editors. You might start by following them on Twitter and perhaps answering questions. Or you could comment on blog posts.

The idea is that when you ask to do a guest post or send in a press release, it won't be your first interaction.

For one B to B client, we started with a target list of about 10 websites and publications. Initial results were disappointing: no response or rejection. But last week, we kinda hit the jackpot. A guest post was accepted and they asked for a whole series on other topics. And one of my client's experts  will be doing some related webinars.

Another often neglected idea is speaking engagements by company executives. I actually look at the SEO value of trade shows and even local business roundtable sites and make suggestions with those in mind. Another client is a graduate student and fitness expert. i suggested he arrange a lecture at his own university that would be listed on the university website.

And what about profiles of company employees? It doesn't have to be the usually sucky profiles of Mr. Big. A sales or customer service rep who has been with the company for years often has great stories to tell about the changes he's seen. Write this up for your own blog, them send it to your new trade pub buddies. They will often do their own interview and story.

Hope this helps.

I think it's very risky.

This is precisely the sort of thing Google is targeting -- and for good reason. It's inherently manipulative.

This fits under the general heading of "magic software": a nifty tool that does the work for you -- all for $39.95!

But, wait...there's more:

MAKE MONEY WHILE YOU SLEEP!

SPIN STRAW INTO GOLD!

Okay, I exaggerate for dramatic effect. But you get the idea.

If this actually works, it won't for long.

I agree is always better to use a company address when representing the company (for link removal requests to third parties... or anything else. e.g.. creating Linkedin profiles or acting as Privacy Officer.)

I have had many "lively" discussions with clients about getting company email addresses.

Bottom line: hopeless with Fortune 500 or large companies with rigid policies. They are not going to make an exception for you, however compelling your case. They are hung up on (often phoney and imagined) compliance issues. Even if you clear that hurdle, they can always fall back on the old "we have to treat all vendors equally" claim.

But I have had some success with medium sized companies. In one case, I offered to let the IT manager monitor my email to ensure I was using it only for agreed upon purposes....on pain of contract termination.

Yup!

I've had the same experience as James.

The conventional wisdom is "Anchor text links from press release sites don't count, and Matt Cutts said so."

This suffers from the defect of being doubly untrue.

1. Such links do sometimes count

2. Matt Cutts never, ever said: "Anchor text links from press release sites never count." It's pretty much an urban legend that ought to be featured in Snopes. Matt made two off-the cuff remarks years apart to the effect that he wouldn't expect certain types of links to count in certain situations. These have now been taken completely out-of-context  and repeated ad nauseum to attribute to Matt  a statement he never made.

It's mind boggling.

Whether a press release strategy is the wisest use and best use  of marketing dollars is another question entirely. There are both SEO and branding considerations.

My take: it's another tool in the toolbox, and is right for some situations -- but not others.

I agree it's unclear what the plug in does.

Nor is the developer's name or physical address easily available.

I never buy stuff from people who can't be googled.

A wise investor once told me: "I always look at the people before I look at the plan."

Indulge me for a moment on a real world analogy.

I suppose it's possible the man in the mask standing on the street corner peddling snake oil in a bottle with no label is selling a legitimate product.

But I don't think it's very likely.

I'd keep walking.

Actually, one of clients does precisely this.

It's a language service provider that also does cultural consulting and provides related technical services, like XML conversion and website translation.

And they do original copy writing. Most importantly: they know what works in each country. The hard sell American approach of "we're great and our competitors suck" just doesn't fly in many places. In some, it's actually illegal.

They can handle everything for projects like the one described.

LinguaLinx

I'm working with them now on a new web strategy that makes all this much more clear.

I helped a friend  sell a domain name for $5,000.

It was perfect for the buyer's business.

And the buyer made the mistake of describing his business as "a small little company in France." A little research revealed the company was small only in number of employees and had sales of neary 2 million Euros!

Even for a much smaller company, $300 is peanuts. Go for it.

I agree with the above and would add my own experience.

I've had good results with the format www.widgetservices.com/location 1, www.widgetservices.com/location 2 etc.... all accessible from a drop down menu entitled "Locations and Clients". Each location page talks about the people who work at the location and has some mini-case studies and testimonials. The actual product descriptions, the same in each location,  are elsewhere.

I also build links to the individual location pages. Each location page, in text and tags, is also optimized for the not only the main location but a few of the closest cities.

Note that this is a regional business with only 7 locations. YMMV.

Hi, Mike:

This is very much my niche. I am the former editor-in-chief of the CrossFit Journal and have acted as a web consultant to CrossFit gyms, the Personal Trainer Development Center at www.theptdc.com.,  several fitness authors and experts, and some equipment manufacturers.

My Llinkedin profile is here.

I agree that press releases can be be an effective strategy -- but only as part of a diversified link portfolio. I have used both PR Web and Marketwire, and think PR Web has the edge in the fitness space due to a superior distribution list in this niche.  I currently have a bulk subscription to PR Web and could offer you a very attractive price on a per release basis.

But first things first. I would suggest you consider your overall link-building strategy before jumping into press releases. There is probably low-hanging fruit -- including niche directories and guest blogging opportunities --  that could be plucked first.

Feel free to email me at Danielfreedman78@gmail.com to discuss fuirther.

Not to be unkind...

...but I think there are some major issues.

And the issues go beyond SEO.

Many of your page  titles are too long. Some make no mention that the product is hotel rooms. Other titles repeat a word or phrase in un-natural ways that could be a problem. It's not clear to me whether this is intentional, or a CMS problem.  You use the word "booking" in page titles; but the term is almost unknown in the US. Americans talk about "reservations." Have you done keyword research?

Do you have a link-building strategy that includes PR and blogging and outreach to travel bloggers?

But I think the biggest issue with the site is the very poor quality of the English translation. The copy is not at all idiomatic. This is a a bad trust signal to users. It conveys the impression that you don't care about them.

Another bad trust signal is the fact that you don't name your team, providing only initials for last names.

There are also no testimonials.

It's all very mysterious and sketchy -- even though you say it's not a shady hourly hotel deal.

I would suggest addressing the trust  and transparency issues before even beginning to think about SEO. Even if people can find the site, I doubt many will part with their money until you do.