Money Maker Academy

Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt doesn’t understand much of the criticism geared toward his company, which Time Magazine columnist Dan Fletcher refers to as "the Web’s least understood and most vilified juggernaut." We attended a panel at SXSW this week in which Fletcher and Rosenblatt discussed Demand’s content strategy that has become the basis of so much controversy (Read here for more background).

Rosenblatt thinks it’s just a case of a new business model getting picked on because it’s not understood yet. He compared it to the early days of other successful companies like Amazon and Netflix.

Is Demand Media’s strategy just misunderstood? Share your thoughts.

Demand Media evidently gets more traffic than the digital properties of ESPN, Time, or Disney. They claim to have more videos on YouTube than anybody. This isn’t spammy content though. It’s content created based on what people are looking for, or what a combination of Demand’s algorithms and staff determine people are looking for based on extensive data analysis.

An audience member referred to a video she came across that was simply not the type of quality Demand Media wants its content to be known for. Rosenblatt acknowledges that there may be some of this out there, simply because the company began with a different model, but they are working to eliminate this, and only implement content that has gone through the company’s exhaustive editorial process.

One huge misconception that Rosenblatt went out of his way to clear up is that of Demand Media’s content being taken as news. He doesn’t see what Demand Media is doing as journalism. Journalism is news, and this isn’t news, he says. It’s stuff that makes you laugh, solves your problems, etc. "Only the journalists call us journalists."

A great deal of the criticism that has been aimed at Demand Media is based around the notion that the company is somehow taking advantage of Google’s algorithms, to get its content placed higher than other sources (isn’t this what SEO/SEM is all about anyway?). Rosenblatt basically made the point that if Google doesn’t think it’s good enough content to be there, than it won’t be there.  To change an algorithm to not give an answer just doesn’t make sense, he says.

"If people aren’t looking for it on search, we’re not there," he added. Demand properties like eHow often appear in search results for queries about how to do things. Well, that’s exactly the kind of content that appears on eHow, and the mantra of the industry has always been "content is king" right? Demand simply wants to wear that crown, and make money doing it.

"We are driven by an economic model," Rosenblatt said. The company is focused on "evergreen, longtail, commercial content." They’re focused on stuff they will make money from.

Rosenblatt says a lot of people think their content is auto-generated. "That’s just wrong," he says. One criticism that Rosenblatt does think is fair, is that some of the company’s content "could feel mechanical." In other words, some may lack creativity. "We need to learn, and we’re trying to," he says. A lack of creativity does not necessarily mean a lack of accuracy, though, and through Demand’s editorial process, there is a lot of fact checking going on. At least that is the impression Rosenblatt gave.

He says they have different models for different categories. With something especially important to the world, like health, he says they make sure professionals are writing the articles. With health, fact checking would also go to doctors.

If you are searching for information on Google about effects of chemotherapy, and you are met with an article written by an expert on the subject, with facts checked by doctors, is there really anything wrong with that? Would you rather get a Wikipedia entry? Remember, we’re not talking "news" here. We’re talking information, and in other cases entertainment.

Demand media does use some Google ads, as iEntry CEO and WebProNews publsiher Rich Ord pointed out in an article a while back. He wrote:

The problem as I see it is that while Google is highly ranking the content of these mass production publishers it also has a financial incentive to do so. Almost all content farms use Google Adwords for their revenue. So while Google on the one hand encourages publishers to make content for their readers and not just for search ranking, it is in partnership with sites that do just that.

I guess if you can make content for the purpose of ranking in searches … but make it targeted, unique and not horrible, then you might find that Google well reward you quite well.

The issue of Google’s own practices with regards to this are really a separate issue from Demand Media’s practices. As far as Rosenblatt is concerned, they’re just producing the content that people want, and will find that through either search or discovery. And they’re making a killing doing it.

Tell us what you think about it.

Here are a few facts about Telefonica: it’s a huge telecommunications company.  It’s based in Spain.  And it’s a good friend of Yahoo’s, considering that Telefonica has named Yahoo the exclusive search and search advertising provider on its mobile portal in Spain.

The Telefonica-Yahoo relationship actually goes back a couple of years, since in late 2007, Telefonica made Yahoo oneSearch the main search service on 15 other mobile portals.  This is just a big step forward in terms of people affected and money at stake.

Scott Ellison, IDC’s Vice President of Mobile and Wireless, explained in a statement, "The expansion of Yahoo!’s mobile search partnership with Telefnica into Spain continues to demonstrate Yahoo!’s ability to provide highly personalized and localized mobile search experiences and further establishes its position as a leading mobile customer experience provider.  Building a significant European market presence is essential toward executing a successful mobile strategy."

Strengthening its relationship with Telefonica might be essential to keeping Yahoo out of court, too.  Telefonica’s CEO has expressed an interest in getting money from Google – "search engines use our network, without paying anything for it," he said about a month ago – but the expansion of this partnership increases the odds that he’ll leave Yahoo alone.

Unfortunately, the terms of this deal haven’t been disclosed.

Amazon.com has released its free Kindle for Mac application that allows users to read books from the Kindle Store on their Mac computers.

Kindle for Mac is Amazon’s latest application aimed at expanding Kindle content to a wider range of devices. Kindle books can now be read on the iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC and Mac. Amazon said it also plans a Kindle app for Apple’s upcoming iPad tablet. Also look for Amazon to possibly release a Kindle app for Droid somewhere down the road.

"Kindle for Mac is the perfect companion application for customers who own a Kindle or Kindle DX," said Jay Marine, director, Amazon Kindle.

"For those customers around the world who don’t yet have a Kindle, Kindle for Mac is a great way to instantly access and read the most popular new releases as well as their old favorites."

Kindle for Mac features Amazon’s Whispersync technology that automatically saves and synchronizes bookmarks and last page read across devices. Kindle for Mac allows users to read some on their Mac and some on a Kindle, while saving their place.

Amazon says several new features will be added to the Kindle for Map app in the near future, including full text search and the ability to create and edit notes and highlights.
 

by Stoney deGeyter

The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L’Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.

Headings

The first place to begin in writing your content is to create a great heading for each page. In the last post I discussed grabbing the visitor’s attention. This is one of the primary jobs of page headings.

The heading is different from the page title tag. Where the title tag is displayed in the search results the heading is viewed on the page itself. Sometimes you want the heading and the title to be the same, other times you don’t. The title MUST use keywords in it. The heading SHOULD use keywords in it. It all depends on the hook you want to use to grab attention and entice your visitor to keep reading.

Be careful that your title and heading aren’t too far removed from each other. The last thing you want is to get the visitor to click into the page and read a heading that doesn’t match up with their expectations.

A good heading tells people what they can expect from the content that follows. What information will they learn? What benefits will be presented? What solutions will you provide? The heading needs to project and give enough information that the visitor wants to keep reading without providing so much that they don’t feel they need to.

A good example of this is “Good headings help you increase search engine rankings.” This seemingly tells me just about all I need to know. On the other hand, “How to write headings that increases search engine rankings,” gives me a reason to keep reading. I know I’m going to learn something that wasn’t given away in the headline.

Make Your Content Compelling

The headline draws people into the content, gets them interested and makes them want to dive into what you have to say. Therefore your content needs to not disappoint.

Don’t skimp. Allow your content to go wherever it needs to give the reader everything that they want. The only time you can have too much content is when it get’s in the way of the sales process rather than promote it. Keep in mind, when readers have enough to make a decision, they’ll stop reading and do what they came to do. If you don’t have enough content to convince them then they won’t take the action you hope them to.

Site visitors come in a variety of personality types and personas. In order to speak your audience’s language you must hit a lot of different key points. Some people want to know about you, some about your products or services and others care about your qualifications. Others don’t care about that at all and want to know how the product or service benefits them specifically. Still, others may want to know your history and are looking for signals of trust.

If you leave any of these out then you’ll lose some potential conversions. And these and these are just the tip of the iceberg. Be careful, however, that you don’t spread yourself too thin. You can’t please everyone, but you can do a reasonably good job of figuring out who is your primary audience and make sure you are hitting the key points for them.

Write what you need to convince the majority of your audience and no more.

Seek Opportunity

When it comes to working keywords to your content there are plenty of opportunities to add your targeted phrases without mucking up the content. Look for these opportunities, but don’t jump on every chance to throw in a keyword just because you can. Good writing means using keywords conservatively.

Every paragraph is full of keyword opportunities but if you added every keyword possible then you’re in real danger of keyword stuffing. The last thing you want is for your keyword rich content to have too many keywords in it. Your visitors that came looking for a site based on the keyword they searched for will have a difficult time getting past the over-stuffed keyword content. Your keyword filled message will be lost due to the over use of keywords in the keyword content. (Get my point?)

Internal Hyperlinks

As mentioned above, good content isn’t just about keywords. It’s about giving the visitor what they need. Sometimes you can’t give them all they want or need on a single page. Sometimes you talk about something else that you can’t address fully without going wildly off point. This is where the magic of hyperlinks come in.

Too often people are afraid to “clutter up” their content with hyper links. They have a point, but only to a point. You can go overboard on the hyperlinks, but too few hyperlinks is worse than too many. Give your visitors the avenue to explore the site outside of the navigation. If you mention something that is explained elsewhere link to it. If you mention something that you should provide more information in a full context, write a new page of content and link to it.

Links let people explore and find other things they are interested in. Things that help them earn confidence in you, things that give them more information, things that teach them new things. Without the links these important areas of your site remain largely hidden, even if they are found in the site’s navigation.

Make it Pretty

Long paragraphs of content may get all the right points across but they are booooring to look at. And visually boring easily translates into just plain dreary to read. Make sure your text looks good. It’s not the job of the copywriter to add images, but that doesn’t mean the copywriter can’t make it easier to read.

Good use of headlines, sub-headlines, paragraph headings and section headings can go a long way to making your content easier on the eyes. You can also use bullet points, content boldings, italics, hyperlinks and numbered lists also make the content look better, easier to read and more digestible.

The content of a website is one of the most important factors in achieving top search engine rankings. But it is an even greater factor in ensuring the website performs with visitors. Without good content a site will fail both with engines and visitors.

Missed a part of this series?
Part 1: Everything You Need To Know About SEO
Part 2: Everything You Need To Know About Title Tags
Part 3: Everything You Need To Know About Meta Description and Keyword Tags
Part 4: Everything You Need To Know About Heading Tags and Alt Attributes
Part 5: Everything You Need To Know About Domain Names
Part 6: Everything You Need To Know About Search Engine Friendly URLs & Broken Links
Part 7: Everything You Need To Know About Site Architecture and Internal Linking
Part 8: Everything You Need To Know About Keywords
Part 9: Everything You Need To Know About Keyword Core Terms
Part 10: Everything You Need To Know About Keyword Qualifiers
Part 11: Everything You Need To Know About SEO Copywriting

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by Sage Lewis

Best Keyword Ranking Tools for SEO – Wordstream did a nice job showing us some of the free and paid search engine rank checking tools out there. If you haven’t updated your rank checking tool recently (or in the past several years) you should check out what is out there now.

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