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SEARCH ENGINE MARKETINGIn no other area of online marketing are there so many self proclaimed experts and search engine marketing websites, ready to offer search engine submission, search engine optimisation and top position in search engines. What is even more perplexing is that the only people who have ‘true knowledge’ on how search engines rank web pages are the search engines themselves. And they have ‘wired jaws’, when it comes to divulging insider information. Hence, these are but guidelines that ‘sits like the froth’ at the top of a well poured glass of Guinness (beer), distilled from tried and tested ingredients that make up the science of search engine positioning. It is not enough to simply add META tags and to submit your site to a million search engine indexes and directories. The first promotion step in obtaining significant web traffic is to seek first-page search engine results. This must start with building content-rich site. One of the last steps is the proper submission of your great site to the search engine or directory. In the middle is a step that is VITAL if you want to obtain front-page results, and most sites skim past this step because it is forgotten or too complex, but without it you are destined to be search engine fodder. The following FREE advice describes how to design your keywords with search engine ranking and optimisation in mind. But First, some background information. What’s A Search Engine? Basically, Search engines are programs that use spiders to “crawl” the web and automatically index your web site (basically check it out and record what’s there) based on algorithms (mathematical formulas). Search engines can be completed but here’s what you need to know.
While the spiders do index sites and pages that have not been submitted, you certainly don’t want to leave this to chance. A spider might find your site and index it next week or it could take two years before it finally happens. Be smart and submit your site. (Once submitted, expect it to take 2 to 6 weeks for your listing to appear.) Search engines are continually changing their listing criteria, what works this week may not work a month from now. As a result, submitting your site to the search engines and forgetting about it is risky. Your listing needs to be optimised and then maintained if you want to generate traffic that a top spot can bring. You need to know the different types of search engines
Speciality Search Engine/Directory – These offer an alternative to major search engines. They are devoted to being “the” online resource for a particular subject or niche. Pay-Per-Click Search Engine – These are like auctions…they allow you to bid for top ranking positions under keywords of your choice. For each visitor who searches the keyword(s) you rank under and then clicks through to your web site, you pay whatever you bid. There are a few advantages to bidding on keywords through the pay-per-click search engines:
Rather than waiting weeks, even months, for your web site to be listed like you will with many of the other search engines, pay-per-click search engines will list your site within as little as a couple of hours, or days at the most. All you need to do to be ranked in a number one spot is to out bid the other sites. It’s a straightforward process compared to achieving and maintaining a top ranking position in the “regular” search engines. With so many search engines which ones should you focus on? With hundreds of search engines to choose from, deciding which to submit to and where to start can be a daunting task. It is advisable to concentrate on the top eight engines. These will bring your site the most traffic (provided that you’ve optimised your position). View Search engine chart here The top search engines include:
LookSmart Powered Search Directories LookSmart is powered by the directory portion of:
By submitting to LookSmart, your web site will be listed in the directory portion of all the engines listed above. Inktomi Powered Search Engines This is basically a generic search engine that outsources its technology. Sites powered by Inktomi engine include:
By submitting your site to any one of these (with the exception of NBCi and RadarUOL), you are submitting to the Inktomi database. The high traffic sites are Hotbot, iWon, NBCi, MSN, and Overture You can also submit directly to Inktomi by visiting http://www.inktomi.com. The Open Directory Project (ODP) Over 20 search engines and directories including use this database:
It’s also the default search for Netscape’s browser! You can submit your site to the ODP by visiting http://www.dmoz.org Important Note: While it’s a good idea to submit your web site to Inktomi, Looksmart and ODP, you should also make sure to submit your site individually to at least the top eight search engines/directories. Other top search engines worth submitting to include:
What are search engines looking for when they rank your web site? With each search engine using a different set of algorithms to rank sites, search engine submission is a tricky business! What earns you a top spot in one search engine may leave you hanging at number 529 in another. There are no search engine optimization secrets -- just ranking and promotion methodologies to follow in order to beat your competition in obtaining a high search engine promotion ranking for desired search keywords criteria. For a major search engine, your search position, placement optimization, and web site promotion ranking are commonly controlled by META keywords and top of page text. Once you know what keywords worked for the "leaders", you can "beat the leader" and do even better! Proper web ranking optimization results requires that you beat your competition, so knowing the keywords used by your competition is the most important first step. Generally speaking, here are some of the main factors currently being considered by the search engines:
This means that link popularity is now a weighty factor in search engine ranking. However, it’s not just link popularity that’s being measured, the quality of the link is being considered as well! Establishing quality links is now an essential part of ensuring that your web site is well ranked in the search engines. The more high traffic links you have pointing towards your site, the more traffic your site will generate. The more traffic your site generates, the greater your “perceived popularity” will be to the search engines. The greater your site’s “perceived popularity”, the higher it will be ranked! Your Domain Name: Domain names rich in keywords rank higher in some search engines because search engines love URL’s that are saturated with keywords! Keywords and key Phrases: Any discussion of search engine positioning eventually comes back to keywords and key phrases. It doesn’t matter if you’ve used the most cutting-edge techniques to submit your web site to the search engines. If you’ve
Your target market will never find your web site! Your keywords are what the search engines look for in your Title Tags, your Meta tags and the body of your text when ranking your web site. They’re also what the search engines will ultimately use to categorise your web site! So it is critical that you choose your keywords and phrases wisely. You need to:
Keyword Density Keyword density refers to the number of times that your keywords appear throughout your web site as compared to all of the other words. For example, if your keyword was “marketing”, and your web page comprised of the single sentence, “essential online marketing tips”, the keyword density of “marketing” would be 25%. Keyword density = Total number of times the keyword appears divided by total number of words. Your keyword density is a factor that is heavily weighted by many of the search engines, so it’s important that you design web pages that make strategic use of your keywords without crossing the line into “keyword stuffing”. META tags META tags are messages that are coded into the HTML of your web page, but never displayed on web browsers or seen by your visitors. The search engines that visit and index your page only ever see them. Some search engines will use your META tags as your page description…and some will use them to determine your site content. META tags tell any spider that visits how to catalogue your web site based on your preferred description and choice of keywords. Words contained in META tags are given a lot of weight by some search engines; hence this is another opportunity to use your carefully chosen keywords. Use very well defined Metatags. Running out of ideas on what words to use? Do a keyword check from this site: http://www.wordtracker.com/ It will give you words that your potential clients are searching for. Title tags Your title tags are of paramount importance when it comes to securing a top spot in the search engines! Title tags are simply used to display the title of your web site in the top of your visitor’s browsers. This is done by placing your web site title within the <TITLE></TITLE>tags of your source code. Too often, site owners underestimate the importance of their title tags and put little thought into them. They use ineffective titles such as “my home page” or “smith1010” This is a problem for a couple of reasons:
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