MetaWebs
MetaWebs has been called the Cadillac of search engine optimization/traffic builder sites. Metawebs is a server-based software which allows you to create unlimited search engine optimized web pages. And business has been good. Business has been so good for them that MetaWebs (MW) (http://www.metawebs.com/) has recently been a victim of its own success. In June of 2005, they closed down temporarily after having sold out their third level of membership. They say they will offer a higher level of membership to this popular tool.
Messages posted to user boards state that the old Tier 3 price was $500 down and $500 per month, and that the new tier will cost approximately $10,000. Clearly, MW is a power tool designed for serious users who truly want to maximize income.
How is MW able to charge such high prices, prices people are lining up to pay? Well, because MW is a software release from SEO "expert" Nathan Anderson. The big claim is that MW is "The First White Hat SoftwareTool". The program is supposedly able to "(generate) non-foot-printable, traffic-generating-websites the search engines absolutely love…"
Users were understandably skeptical of these bold claims at first, and skittish of the high price of MW. The buzz that MW has tried to create is that TE, TH and the rest are just black-hat spam machines that create content that’s mediocre at best.
Anderson claims that while MW sounds like a doorway page generator, his product is different because unlike doorway pages, "MetaWebs are likely to be bookmarked and revisited because of their valuable content." Meaning his product creates pages with actual content while doorway page generators just produce pages designed to trick search engines. I talked about doorway pages earlier. Now let me give you a definition. As defined by About.com, doorway pages are "pages designed to be visible only by search engine spiders, and usually just have blobs of keywords all over them."
MetaWebs, on the other hand, creates websites that are highly optimized, formatted in php templates, and filled with live, active content from Anderson’s Meta search engine.
When MW was released, its connotation as a White Hat software tool was met with disbelief and disdain by many users who just didn’t want to believe. Their main criticism had to do with the potential for spam to ruin search engine results. A whole lot of users feel that SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) have become way overcrowded with spam sites and doorway pages which
they view as the bane of their existence. Others blame MetaWeb for the increase in search engine spam.
The question is being asked on forums, "How long will it be before Google's AdSense team starts cracking down on AdSense accounts that are used on pages generated from keyword tools like this?" Apparently, users who do things by hand are irked by those who use automated tools, and there is justification for this. There is also the fear that eventually, someone will—if they haven’t already—use MW for is spam. And when that happens, everyone using MW will suffer, since MW will leave the tracks necessary for Google to eventually detect the machine generation, and then those pages or sites will be dropped."
Others say that MetaWebs has no business being called "white hat" because it is an automation tool and that, because of the misuse, software generated pages ought to be considered a black hat technique. Anderson disputes this. He admits MetaWebs does indeed have the potential to produce spam pages, but that's not his fault. It's the fault of people who misuse his product. It can be misused, he says, "…Especially if people don't customize the pages that MetaWebs spits out. But if they think of MW as a site-building tool, instead of a spam page machine, they should never have a problem.”
He’s right. Any tool that humans use, from tire irons to golf clubs to guns, can be misused. It’s all about intent. And my opinion is that a power web tool like MW shouldn’t be penalized or banned from SERPs just because some people misuse it. That’s like saying we should ban cars because a few people every year misuse them to run over others.
It's up to the user as to how they use MW. You could churn out pages using the advanced tools in Dreamweaver if you wanted to. That doesn't mean that Dreamweaver is bad software. Anderson feels that he is "empowering the masses with something that circumvents the SEO."
Additional Web Page Creation Software
If you’re skittish of what TE and TH create and MetaWebs just isn’t in your budget, here are a few other options. These tools don’t break the search engines’ SEO rules as long as you use them right.
In a larger sense, this advice applies to most any content creation tool. You can use those tools in an honest and ethical way—which is what we recommend—to create very interesting and compelling content, or you can use them in an unethical way to lure users to a site that turns out to be not what they thought it was. Even though the latter approach will draw more traffic, we don’t recommend it. And not just because it’s wrong, either. Think about it: if you went to a site and it wasn’t what it had claimed to be, you’d suspect the site owner cheated the search engines. And then you wouldn’t stick around long enough to click on any of the ads, would you?
Nope, neither would we. It’s called “backlash.” And now, on to the wonderful tools that represent some of our top picks for compelling keyword-rich content creation.
Directory Generator
As the name implies, Directory Generator DirectoryGenerator.com works on directories, also know as portals. The creator of DG noticed that many of these directories and portals have been quietly driving thousands upon thousands of visitors to their own sites on a daily basis year after year.
To appreciate how DG works, you have to know a bit about directories—there are two types.
1. General Directory - A General Directory contains listings of just about anything on the planet. It is not targeted in any way, shape or form.
2. Specific Niche Directory - These directories are vertical in nature and they focus on just one industry or topic. Everything on this type of site is about one topic, so it’s all very relevant.
DG focuses on the specific niche directory. However, it wasn’t easy. Creating a directory has always been a tough job: time consuming, complicated, and frustrating. The big online directories contain thousands of links and resources which can take a live person thousands of hours to create. If one person did it, it would take years. But DG’s found a way to automate the process.
Some of their features include:
• Photo Shots of Websites - Each resource Directory Generator creates contains a Photo Shot of the Website itself. This gives users a preview of the website before you look at it.
• RSS Equalizer Integration - This feeds real news content into your websites.
• Amazon.com Integration - Amazon sells thousands of products and services and you can now integrate these products into your new Directory Generator sites with a simple copy and paste mechanism. If you can copy and paste you can instantly start making extra revenue from Amazon.
• Google Adsense Integration – Since it’s what this book is about, it’s great that Directory Generator has an easy way for you to integrate Google's Adsense into your directory.
• Google Websearch Integration - Google recently released an add-on for Adsense that is called Websearch. It allows you to put a Google search box on your site and get paid for any Adsense click it creates. Now this feature is in Directory Generator.
• Built In Classified Ads - Making a directory is not enough. You need to be able to funnel the traffic to where you want. So the DG people created a way to for you to create Classified Ads in Directory Generator that let you promote and drive targeted traffic to any site you want, even if it is an affiliate program.
• Step Creation Wizard – Makes it easy to create DG pages. 8 simple steps, it’s done. Seriously, you can probably complete the whole process in just a few minutes. Can be done by an 8-year-old.
• Pre-Made Templates – OK, so not everyone’s a webmaster and you don’t have to be one to make money with Google AdSense and DG with this feature. There are pre-made templates for you to use. Just select one, fill some stuff in, you’re done. DG also features PR Maximizer, which lets you search and find relevant and high quality sites for you to exchange links with. This software does all the work automatically for you, including telling you the site's PR, PageRank before you even contact them to talk about trading links.
Traffic TurboCharger
Traffic TurboCharger (TTC)
www.TrafficTurboCharger.com advertises itself as a “next generation SEO software” tool. Their biggest claim is that they optimize RSS feeds. The good things about having RSS feeds are:
• RSS feeds provide dynamically changing content so that every time the spiders come
crawling to you page, it has new content. They really like that.
• RSS feeds give you instant theme-related content. Google, in particular, really loves this.
• RSS feeds provide content that is readable by search engines because the content is part of your page, unlike javascript feeds which offer no advantage because the little spiderbots can’t read them.
• Your pages get indexed faster, since your content changes daily, so you get more visits from the Googlebot. That’s a very good thing.
One of the big advantages of RSS feeds is that you get content that looks like it’s yours. You don’t have to create it or pay a writer to write it. Best of all, you won’t get in trouble with the search engines. Why not? Because RSS feeds are completely legitimate from the point of view
of search engines.
They’re also useful to your visitors, who are looking for information related to the theme of your site. And with RSS feeds, your site is constantly updated and fresh, because the feeds update as soon as new articles or content is added to the source you pull your content from.
With big sources, this can happen every single hour. Better yet, RSS feeds are completely automated so you don’t have to do anything to keep your pages fresh and updated.
The Eyes Have it—So Where are They?
When you’re running a website, whoever is surfing it is staring at the screen…but where? One of the biggest questions for website designers is, “Where are the user’s eyes looking?” Where do your eyes go when you read articles on the Web? What do you notice and what do you miss?
Well, we’ve got some answers for you, because this topic has been studied. Turns out that the upper left quarter of the screen gets the most attention, according to the Eyetrack III research of The Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools. But that’s not all. There’s more to it than that. People’s eyes have some very common behaviour patterns. It probably has to do with our hunter-gatherer ancestry.
First, we do reconnaissance, or “recon” as the military calls it. Users’ eyes flick over the entire screen at whatever draws their attention. And what draws it most?
Well, the first hot spots are headlines, photo captions, subheadings, links, menu items and the logo on the page—doesn’t matter if it’s a good logo or a bad one, people look at logos.
Then the upper left corner of the screen gets special attention, probably because that's where people expect to find the very best stuff. And the right-hand and lower part of the page almost always gets less attention.
This is info that site developers must know: when you put your most important, vital content outside that critical upper left corner, that important content might as well be invisible when people are making the big decision:
whether to stay on your site and read more or go somewhere else. Yes, people scan a page quickly. But scanning has a purpose: it quickly identifies to a user what they really want to read. The good news is that if you can hook them right off the bat, when they start actually reading a news story on the Web, they read a larger proportion than if they were reading that very same story in the newspaper.
Frontloading
Frontloading means that you start headlines, paragraphs and links with the most important words. The first words should communicate the subject of the headline, paragraph or link. This is not like writing a novel or a story, where you have time to be coy and not get to the point for awhile. You’ve got about a quarter of a second to grab that user’s attention or he won’t read the rest of the sentence. Make the most of that opportunity. If you do this, and you frontload your writing, especially at the top of the page, user’s eyes will easily catch the most important info, and they’ll keep reading.
Here are some examples of good frontloading:
• Foo Fighters release new cd
• Barbeque beef ribs recipes everyone will like
• Tom Cruise stars in a new movie
Here are some bad examples that are not frontloaded:
• New cd is being released, it’s by the Foo Fighters
• Everyone will love these great new recipes for barbeque beef ribs
• New movie is coming out and it’ll star Tom Cruise
Don’t Nest, Just List
Remember back in school when the teacher asked you to make an outline and you went nuts making all sorts of nested sub-headings that looked like this?
1. The United States
a. Texas
i. Austin
1. South Austin
a. The 78704 zip code
i. My house
Don’t do that.
Why? Because the last few items could be out of sight for many people when they skim-read. A straight margin is a whole lot easier to scan quickly on the Web. Nested dot-points and numbers are often used in business and government policy documents and management plans, and you’re not making those, you’re just writing content. Find another way to show the hierarchy of ideas. Web users do not like to try to read through a whole bunch of indentations, and you will lose some people before they even start reading.
Put web links where people will see them
If you’re putting web links in, make sure they’re where people will see them—not in that bottom right-hand Corner of Death! Yes, people notice links in web content. They’re usually bright blue and underlined, so people notice them. Many people even read links before they look at headlines.
Now that you know that, make it easy for them to get to your links by consistently presenting them in list form or by slamming them right up against the left-hand margin. Don't put your links in a sentence or they might end up in the invisible right-hand area of the content. Yes, this means you can’t use the old "click here" convention, but for a good reason: it never worked very well anyway.
Here’s an example of a good way to put in links:
“There are several cool skateboarding sites you might want to check out. They really rock and they’ve got some great gear you can pick up for not a lot of bucks.
Skateboard.com
Skatefreak.net
Liv2skat.biz
Here’s an example of a bad way to use links:
If you want to read about the latest in cool tricks, check out skateboard.com. For the lowdown on which pro skaters are doing what and dating who, you want to see skatefreak.net. And one of my very favorite places to read blog is liv2skat.com.
Never Hide Headers
Remember how I said people look to the upper left?
If you’ve been centering your headlines and subheadings, do you still think that’s a good idea? Well, it’s not. Yeah, I know newspapers, magazines and books do it. So do lots of other sites. But that’s just not where people want to look first.
They’ve tested this. Believe it or not, about 10-20 percent of people just literally do not see centered headlines, particularly if they’re in a hurry (and who isn’t these days?) They look in the top left hand corner of the content. And when they do, they see empty space, because the centered headline starts off to the right.
So what do they do? Instead of scanning right, they move their eyes down. And they miss the headlines. Centered headlines are wasted headlines. If you center them, you’ve hidden them from 10-20% of your readers. Might as well not have them at all. And don’t even think about right-justifying them.
Just left-justify them and don’t ever worry about it again!
A word about tables: the ideal table for online is short, narrow, and only used for data. When a table is too wide or too long, part of it is out of the reader’s natural field of vision. When they scan fast, they won’t see all of it.
Maximize your Click-Throughs With Placement
Yeah, size matters, but so does placement…particularly as far as Google AdSense ads are concerned. Remember how I said to use the skyscraper format for ads, putting them in the margins as opposed to banner ads across the top or bottom?
Well, guess how much difference that can make. Go on, guess. OK, I’ll tell you. Poorly placed ads, such as banner ads down at the very bottom of the page, might have a click-through rate of about 2.3% on a good day. But well-placed ads, such as a nice skyscraper ad in that critical upper-left quadrant we talked about, can have a click-through rate as high as 40%. And that’s for the same ad. Yes, the very same ad can have a click-through rate of an abysmal 2.3% or an awesome 40%. It has nothing to do with the ad itself and everything to do with where you put it.
Another neat trick to maximize click-through is to massage the colors of the ads so that they fit in with the colors of your site. Ads that are seen as “fitting in” get more clicks than ads that clash.
Continue..
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