Who wants to be a part of Vapor4Life????

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leeshor

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Aug 6, 2009
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Are you thinking of META tagging the hell out of V4L (and associated sites)?

For starters, yes. But they need to be constructed properly, and that's only a fraction of the whole SEO thing. Google pays very little attention to most of the meta tags any more but many other search engines still use them. If you can get some link popularity in other search engines it dramatically improves the ability to be found on Google.

Warning, this is a long explanation:
Had a customer with a site that had been up for nearly 5 years. They could never find themselves on Google and though I had told them for 2 years that I could help, they elected to do nothing. They eventually got tired of not being able to find their site using Google and were finally willing to sit down and discuss it.

They loved the way the site looked so I told them I could optimize it without changing the appearance and they went for it. Took 4 months for the full effect to be seen but if you do a search for what they do NOW they will come up 3-5 times in the first page depending on the search terms.

On top of everything else their home page is a flash presentation which is a no-no for optimizing but I still got it to work. They have admitted that it has gotten them several million dollars in business they can trace back to being able to be found on the NET.

This works better for some businesses than for others. I'm working with a foreign car parts dealer at the moment and there is a lot of compition in that area with a lot of sites that had a head start but we have made a lot of progress in only 4 weeks.
 

Allestaria

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Oct 5, 2009
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I'm more then willing to pair up with someone as well. Writing is not a problem for me. Page set up is not a problem for me.
Linking pages and writing html is again not a problem. I had 2 websites going... for my guild in world of warcraft. My unfinished one is still up..lol

For those who are not internet savvy there is places like homestead.com that make web building easy. With everything already done for you and the site fee is like 4 bucks a month. Totally affordable. Their server up time is excellent. And customer service is like Steve. Great. Except they have a tendency to call often to make sure everything is going smoothly.

Anyway I'm ready to get started. Being a stay at home mom I can help anyone that needs it. I have 24/7 to do nothing but sit in front of the computer.
With occasional candle,bath and body products to be made. But I keep a large stock on hand so I don't have to go crazy refilling =)

So give me a webaddy and idea of what you are thinking about. I'll give my imput and we can get underway!!!
 

Ryan10700

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Oct 8, 2009
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Missouri
My experience with article marketing would help I believe. If we used several of those domains with links to V4L that would add relevance to the store site because of the backlinks. Writing blogs, articles, etc. will help with search engine terms and finding highly searched and specific terms that have low competition can drive traffic in several ways as well. I think adding helpful information such as the health benefits, consumer trends, etc. and overall education for folks who are not forum savvy will raise awareness. I believe sales will come as a side effect to delivering information people are seeking that do not have any knowledge of e-cigs. Once they see a helpful website with a wealth of information to educate them I think simple sales tools can deliver more traffic to Steve's site. There are a lot of things that can be done for free or with very little money to optimize webpages and targeted traffic.

Steve- Who will handle the web hosting for these domains? Newsletters are a great idea but paid programs for list building are typically much more efficient. Who covers these costs?
 

leeshor

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One thing that I have noticed on the V4L home site is that it's a storefront, there's not any instruction or product info there. this is fine for those of us who only WANT a storefront, but if you're not familiar with the product, you still need to do some research.

just my $.02

Absolutely. A non storefront site can really be better optimized to assist the storefront on the search engines. The existing site isn't all that helpful but I think a part of the problem is the Volusian cart. Unfortunately some others have their drawbacks as well. I have seen a couple sites using OScommerce that are better for SEO.
 

Sirch

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Oct 7, 2009
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Count another in. I've had some similar ideas along these lines.

What I think he is trying to get going is a news and information base online using several different websites. I think he said he would pay for them and be the financial backing, but he needs talented individuals for the content and upkeep.

Some well written websites with news and information about e-cigarettes in general are very much needed. Each site should look different from the other to appeal to a different demographic. Most e-cigarettes I've noticed seem to be targeted at the 40-75 demographic.

A weekly news site that gathers news and information would be great. Maybe a site that has a weekly podcast that tells little tips and tricks found from users of forums and such as well as the current news. A lot of people don't have the time to browse a forum constantly to find the little 'thing' that helps them enjoy vaping to the point of using it regularly.

I'm new to vaping, and I've done a lot of research, and I still don't know exactly what is in ejuice. I gather that there is nicotine, flavoring, and glycerin. All of which are considered safe, beyond that though I have no idea what else is in them. Educating the public and correcting the "There's an ingredient from antifreeze in them!" mentality a lot of people have from the mainstream media.

I agree that now is the time to act. E-Cigarettes are either going to rise to acceptance or become illegal for bogus reasons like marijuana. Now is the time to educate and inform the ignorant rather than stocking up in preparation for a ban.

Let me know what I can do. I have ideas, and I've been told I have a way with words in my writing.
 

RyGuy

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Sep 11, 2009
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I am a video guy, but my production company also does web, graphic, audio, and print designs as well. My website is RPM Productions, LLC and I do own said production company. I have a bachelors in Digital Media Production as well as Digital Filmmaking and Video Production. I have won an Emmy as well as a Telly and am up for many other awards this winter/spring. I usually keep pretty busy, but am definitely willing to make some time for this cause. My team is game as well. If anyone needs my services to plaster beautiful graphics and video all over a site, please let me know.

I know that there are others on here that are probably better at HTML than I, so I will leave the original coding of the sites up to all of you. If you need any Flash done though.... I'm your guy! I have constructed many strictly flash sites for a multitude of heavy hitting clients. I don't think that solely flash would be the best platform for this subject though considering we need to be able to design for SEO.

Like I said, I'm here if you need me.

Ryan
 

DaShiVa

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Oct 1, 2009
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Heh, at my old job I was custom writing websites from teh ground up usually they had SEO as a big issue, so from manipulating outside urls (apach mod_rewrite feeding to php scrpits, for those who know what I'm talking about) through to page structure (W3C approved, structured html), through to the 'barely matters' stuff like meta tags and keywords (which really no longer make any difference) - and while my graphic skills are somewhat lacking, I did quite well in the design and implementation area, working on multi million dollar sites for big name companies :) But, I don't do that anymore. Now I work on one site, for a company that, well, brokers internet advertising - Allowing people to promote their sites :p

In any event what this boils down to is this:
If any of you can simply run a blog - writing about how your life has improved through vaping, and any other anecdotal daily stuff, perhaps review items, flavours on there, etc, thats all you really need.
Have links to each other's blogs, have links to these forums and to vapor4life. Add links to your sigs to your blogs, etc, then you'll be creating a network of links that will raise everything they link to.

You can get free blogging systems to set up on the domains - wordpress is a popular one, easy to use, and I'm sure Steve and his team can get that installed on any sites, else I can do it for you.

And, really, if nothing else, just about anyone can manage that.

The main thing is to write original stuff. Don't copy and paste from other places, but put your own personal spin on everything.

Also, no offense to Steve and team, but the current vapor4life site makes me cry a lil inside.
 

Dirtay J

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same here. I am down to help in any way possible. I don't have much web knowledge, but i do have some! Helped out on a couple sights back a few years ago. so yeah i have some basic knowledge and a willingness to learn. also i will be out of a Job here in about a month. so i will have a bunch of free-time on my hands. and will be willing to do pretty much anything. i will PM you in a little bit, gotta get some work done first.
 

Cimyss

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Sep 15, 2009
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My idea:
Team work I think would be a main key in all of this! Since Steve's project is so many sites and each is different, each will have to have a particular appeal, amount of professionalism, and cover perhaps different aspects. You would need (Graphics that do not violate copy-write laws) Advertising pics., customized buttons, people who can edit, research related articles, articles on laws, doctors findings, Updates local laws, and FDA revissions and mandates ( so that means people who are good at finding these things) , videos on everything :) ect. ect... ,
It would not be fair to put all of this on one person and a lot of this can be done through contests here or by volunteer basis esp. with the articles or the graphics and videos :)

This is all based on the assumption that Steve is a very busy man who would probably want to have to do the least work amount as possible but still have the utmost control. Also all of these sites would still need to continue being maintained and added too.

If there were teams I would say you need a bare-bones team/s of:

admin, (Person/s would be directly involved in getting everyone to work together and be the go between person with Steve or Mark . Also who would coordinating between the teams )
editor ( person in charge of site layout, articles, videos, adverts, positioning, grammar spelling and overall site contributions)
site builder ( person who is familiar with building a site, troubleshooting, formats, linking, and maintenance of this)
submissions /contest running (Person/s responsible for getting needed content by contest, Submissions from the forums and then getting those to the correct site team or person)
Graphics ( can be done by contest or by a person who wants to fully contribute their time but is best if there is more then one so that V4L has the best for the many submissions that will be necessary, will need someone in charge of this though so that the graphics follow a basic format per site and per appeal, professionalism )
Marketing ( people involved on getting the site out to sub forums ( i.e. yahoo groups, Google, AOL, MSN, meta- tagging…)
Researchers ( also this could be one or more people and include contests and volunteer submissions but will need at least one person to stay on top of it and make sure contributions are updated frequently and are going to the right site)

Each of those departments would work better if they had 2 or 3 people involved and some people are qualified to do more then one, and some people have time constraints or don't, and each team would need different amounts of work so that would factor into the number on the team as well. Also we would need one person to run contests on here or be involved in submissions so they get to the right site.
Plus once the sites are finished a team of 2 or 3 in each area could continue to handle these aspects and be able to continue to cover all of the sites.

A lot of this is based on just exactly what you want to do, so some important questions that need answered are:

Exactly how big do you want to make this Steve?
How involved do you want to be now and later?
Is this or would these be volunteer or paid positions? Or a combination of both (for example you will pay the people who will work on this full time and continue to do so and articles and such are either volunteered or will win contest prizes or they are all volunteer positions)
How many hours of work time do you want to put into this, both to start out with and on a daily/ weekly basis?
Do you want to do one site at a time or have a few or all of them being made at once?

This is a lot of work but I believe it could be A LOT of FUN also! Especially if it is well organized and doesn’t put too much on any one person (including you Steve :p )

You have lots of talented people who answered this already and I think it is possible with what people have said they can do, But I also think it is such a large scale you may need to target specific needs individually ( such as graphics and advertising pics. and promos) to get you what you want exactly. I also believe we have lots of people who would love to contribute in small ways but aren't answering or don't know exactly what they have to offer that you could possibly need.
 

leeshor

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Aug 6, 2009
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through to the 'barely matters' stuff like meta tags and keywords (which really no longer make any difference)

You would be shocked to find out just what a difference properly formed meta tags and keywords make. Not for Google, but if you're aiming only for Google you're missing the bigger picture. Google picks up backlinks from other search engines where the relevance of the meta tags and keywords to the text in the page matters a lot. There are serach engines and directories what won't even accept a submission without them.

I have proved that beyond a doubt within the last year with 2 identical sites but for the keywords and meta tags. No contest. Discount them if you'd like.

(edit), BTW: I agree with pretty much everything else you said.:D
 
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DaShiVa

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You would be shocked to find out just what a difference properly formed meta tags and keywords make. Not for Google, but if you're aiming only for Google you're missing the bigger picture. Google picks up backlinks from other search engines where the relevance of the meta tags and keywords to the text in the page matters a lot. There are serach engines and directories what won't even accept a submission without them.

I have proved that beyond a doubt within the last year with 2 identical sites but for the keywords and meta tags. No contest. Discount them if you'd like.

Oh, I know they have to be there, all i was saying is that out of SE optimizing a site, the content of the meta tags is probably <1% of the effect. But, yes, for getting sites visited, I care mostly about google rankings - over half the sites in teh world are reached via google, and the other half is a mishmash of other search engines, direct links from other sites, email links, twitter, word of mouth, etc, etc. So while it's good to keep the myriad other things in mind and do your best to make your site accessible to them, main focus should be google rankings, is you're after traffic/profit/etc. I reiterate - main - not only - optimize for all you can heh

(And yeah, when I make a dynamic site, I aim for unique titles for every page, and also unique metadesc (and sometimes keyword tags where relevant) - I have a feeling that meta tags will become more relevant again in future, when they figure out a reliable way to quantify the spam in them
 
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leeshor

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http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/members/dashiva.html
DaShiva

If the meta tags are constructed properly with relevance to the page(s), were talking way more than a 1% effect. Page Rank is one of the most difficult things to get for any site but the way they are calculaterd is a little squirly. I can show you 2 identicle businesses, one with a PR of 2 and another with a 3 but the 2 has more backlinks from the likes of Yahoo, AltaVista and MSN/Bing and the one with the PR of 2 will show up faster/higher in Google than the one with a 3. I know that's contrary to the Google blogs theory but it's the way it is. But I digress.
 

DaShiVa

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Google blogs theory is barely worth reading. I read Matt Cutts blog now and then for a giggle, and I know how all over the place GPR is, but it doesn't change the fact that if I am going to SEO a site, I'll spend 1% of that time on metatags, and the majority of it on actual html page structure, use of flash/javascript, the way the site appears structured to the outside world (getting rid of query strings, etc), ensuring unique content, and keywords within that content in the right balance, and working on getting it good and numerous backlinks. I wasn't saying metatags should be ignored, just that they're the tip of the iceberg, if you will, and all most people seem to care about - not you, I know you know more, but the general public, you ask them about seo, and .. well I won't rant about it here, it's all moot anyhows :) so I'll make this all small font so the others can ignore it easier.
 
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