Bill and Company... I'm re-posting something I put over at the ProDJ boards, hope you don't mind.
DJ Unification Project -
http://djunification.org
I know, you're probably like "huh "...
Okay here's the deal in a nutshell:
Times are changing. When it comes to Internet marketing success, there's no one who knows this as well as your friendly marketers... The DJ Directories, The Wedding Directories... Those sites that are trying to grab as much opportunity for DJs as they can. For years they've struggled to compete with one another for high search relevance on your behalf. If you've been around a while you realize the "return on investment" a decent directory can provide right?... Some work better than others especially depending on the geo location or specialty and new search algorithms every six months make staying on top rough, but one thing's for sure, you've probably found benefits to one or several of them.
The trouble is, that just like several years ago when these vertical marketing sites started eclipsing the private DJ sites in the Top 10, today's search world is being highly influenced by overgrown and under-delivering "mega directories" and "information repositories" that list everything from peanut oil to disc jockeys. Their main purpose is to be a huge traffic hog and flip unsuspecting site visitors into a sponsored pey per click ad or paid banner ad the site sells. The business model is simple: grab millions of visitors, based on any and every search phrase they can dream up and redirect them to a site that will pay for their click via AdSense or Yahoo Sponsored Search. (Those are the "recommended sites" or "sponsored sites" you see on so many of these big sites). If they do that well, they'll be a cash cow for investors.
The DJ Unification Project is designed to help keep you seen by uniting some of those competing services you currently utilize, in a way that retains their friendly competiveness, yet gives them more leverage against the mega directories and repositories that Google and Yahoo seem to adore, (no doubt because they earn a fortune from them), and which are knocking you, your favorite directories and everyone else out of the top 10 organics results at major search engines. Google's latest update "Big Daddy" just made this even more apparent.
One of the biggest contributing factors, is when disc jockeys place their info on any site that will have them and then, maybe even give a link back to that site. When a mega directory, community site, classifieds, or info site latches onto YOUR information, they use that content backed up with the power of a giant page rank status and search optmization muscle to squeeze you and the directories you list at, right out of the top 10!
Truthfully, I hate to make it sound like the sky is falling, but you might be surprised how fast one of these big sites can knock your website and your favorite directories right off the relevancy ladder. They have shareholder money to burn, teams of seo developers and they throw more money into marketing in a day than you'll earn all year. Unless you're a super dooper web master, a Dj Directory or Wedding Directory is your last line of defense against these beastly sites. If these big sites full of nothing, knock out vertical directories, you will get less client opportunities plain and simple. Less oportunities = less business... Less gigs... You do the math.
What can you do to help?
1) Recommend the DJ Unification Project to your favorite directory owner.
2) Stop placing "free ads" all over the Internet, unless it's with a vertical market directory i.e.; dj directories and wedding directories.
3) Don't advertise your dj service on MySpace or any other "community site".
4) Take any links down from your site that point to anything other than your favorite DJ resources. If you don't have links to dj resources, put them there. (if you don't like big gaudy banners, use a little bitty text link).
5) Don't contribute anything "dj" related to info repositories like wilkapedia.
DJ Unification Project
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