Secrets of Winning
Traffic through Search Engines
It doesn’t matter how great your website, if no one sees it,
you’re not going to make a penny. You can spend days producing the
perfect design, weeks tweaking the copy, and months writing the code
and uploading the pages, but if no one knows where you are, how are
they going to know they should buy from you?
When I first started selling on the Web, the first major
problem I ran into was bringing customers to my door. I put banner
ads on other sites, organized reciprocal links and joined Web rings.
Those methods all worked to some extent, but what really did it for
me, what turned my business from a small earner into a major
money-grabber, was figuring out how to use search engines.
Sure, I’d submitted my sites to the major search engines as
soon as I’d finished building them, but I didn’t really pay them
much attention. After all, I figured search engines are just for
people who are looking for information; they’re not really good for
commercial sites.
Boy, was I wrong!
One day, I sat down and checked out which sites were popping
up first in the categories that suited my businesses. I found that
all the top-ranked sites were my biggest competitors. And when I say
biggest, I mean these guys were in a whole other league. They had
incomes that were ten or twenty times the size of mine—no wonder
they had top billing at Yahoo! and Google! And then it clicked.
Search engines don’t list sites by size, they list them by
relevance. These sites weren’t listed first because they were big;
they were big because they were listed first!
That was when I began to ‘optimize’ my pages and think about
meta-tags and keywords. As my sites rose through the listings, my
traffic went through the roof. And not just any old traffic! The
people that came to my sites from search engines hadn’t just clicked
on a banner by accident or followed a link from curiosity, they’d
actually been looking for a site like mine. My sales ratio went up
like a rocket. I’d created my own big break.
In this chapter, we are going to discuss all proven strategies
of Search Engine Optimization. We would discus how to optimize your
site, submit your pages and pick up the targeted traffic you need to
make cash. This chapter is probably the most important chapter in
the whole book. It’s crucial that you read it carefully.
Let’s start with search engines.
Internet search engines are special sites on the Web that are
designed to help people find information stored on other sites.
There are differences in the ways various search engines work, but
they all perform three basic tasks:
-
They search the Internet -- or select pieces of the Internet --
based on important words.
-
They keep an index of the words they find, and where they find
them.
-
They allow users to look for words or combinations of words found
in that index.
Early search engines held an index of a few hundred thousand
pages and documents, and received maybe one or two thousand
inquiries each day. Today, a top search engine will index hundreds
of millions of pages, and respond to tens of millions of queries per
day.
Spidering
Before a search engine can tell you where a file or document
is, it must be found. To find information on the hundreds of
millions of Web pages that exist, a search engine employs special
software robots, called spiders, to build lists of the words found
on Web sites.
When a spider is building its lists, the process is called Web
crawling.
In order to build and maintain a useful list of words, a
search engine's spiders have to look at a lot of pages. How does any
spider start its travels over the Web? The usual starting points are
lists of heavily used
servers and very popular pages. The spider will
begin with a popular site, indexing the words on its pages and
following every link found within the site. In this way, the
spidering system quickly begins to travel, spreading out across the
most widely used portions of the Web.
Indexing
Once the spiders have completed the task of finding
information on Web pages, the search engine must store the
information in a way that makes it useful. There are two key
components involved in making the gathered data accessible to users:
-
The information stored with the data
-
The method by which the information is indexed
In the simplest case, a search engine could just store the
word and the URL where it was found. In reality, this would make for
an engine of limited use, since there would be no way of telling
whether the word was used in an important or a trivial way on the
page, whether the word was used once or many times or whether the
page contained links to other pages containing the word. In other
words, there would be no way of building the ranking list that tries
to present the most useful pages at the top of the list of search
results.
To make for more useful results, most search engines store
more than just the word and URL. An engine might store the number of
times that the word appears on a page. The engine might assign a
weight to each entry, with increasing values assigned to words as
they appear near the top of the document, in sub-headings, in links,
in the meta tags or in the title of the page. Each commercial search
engine has a different formula for assigning weight to the words in
its index. This is one of the reasons that a search for the same
word on different search engines will produce different lists, with
the pages presented in different orders.
An index has a single purpose: It allows information to be
found as quickly as possible. There are quite a few ways for an
index to be built, but one of the most effective ways is to build a
hash table. In
hashing, a formula is applied to attach a numerical
value to each word. The formula is designed to evenly distribute the
entries across a predetermined number of divisions. This numerical
distribution is different from the distribution of words across the
alphabet, and that is the key to a hash table's effectiveness.
The Search Engine Program
The search engine software or program is the final part. When a
person requests a search on a keyword or phrase, the search engine
software searches the index for relevant information. The software
then provides a report back to the searcher with the most relevant
web pages listed first.
We studied how search engines work. An integral part of any
Internet Marketing or Search Engine Optimization campaign is to know
exactly which search engines to target. This section discusses some
of the top search engines today.
Google
Google has increased in popularity tenfold the past several
years. They have gone from beta testing, to becoming the Internet's
largest index of web pages in a very short time. Their spider,
affectionately named "Googlebot", crawls the web and provides
updates to Google's index about once a month.
Google.com began as an academic search engine.
Google, by far, has a very good algorithm of ranking pages
returned from a result, probably one of the main reasons it has
become so popular over the years. Google has several methods which
determine page rank in returned searches.
Yahoo
Yahoo! is one of the oldest web directories and portals on the
Internet today, and the site went live in August of 1994. Yahoo! is
a 100% human edited directory, and provides secondary search results
using Google.
Yahoo! is also one of the largest traffic generators around,
as far as web directories and search engines go. Unfortunately,
however, it is also one of the most difficult to get listed in,
unless of course you pay to submit your site. Even if you pay it
doesn't guarantee you will get listed.
Either way, if you suggest a URL, it is "reviewed" by a Yahoo!
editor, and if approved will appear in the next index update.
AltaVista
Many who have access to web logs may have seen a spider named
'scooter' accessing their pages. Scooter used to be AltaVista's
robot. However, since the Feb 2001 site update, a newer form of
Scooter is now crawling the web. Whichever spider AltaVista uses, it
is one of the largest search engines on the net today, next to
Google.
It will usually take several months for AltaVista to index
your entire site, although the past few months scooter hasn't been
deep crawling too well. Unlike Google, AltaVista will only crawl and
index 1 link deep, so it takes a good amount of time to index your
site depending on how large your site is.
AltaVista gets most of its results from its own index, however
they do pull the top 5 results of each search from
Overture
(formerly Goto).
Inktomi
Inktomi's popularity grew several years ago as they powered
the secondary search database that had driven Yahoo. Since then,
Yahoo as switched to using Google as their secondary search and
backend database, however Inktomi is just as popular now, as they
were several years ago, if not more so. Their spiders are named
"Slurp", and different versions of Slurp crawls the web many
different times throughout the month, as Inktomi powers many sites
search results. There isn't much more to Inktomi then that. Slurp
puts heavy weight on Title and description tags, and will rarely
deep crawl a site. Slurp usually only spider’s pages that are
submitted to its index.
Inktomi provides results to a number of sites. Some of these
are America Online, MSN, Hotbot, Looksmart, About, Goto, CNet,
Geocities, NBCi, ICQ and many more.
Lycos
Lycos is one of the oldest search engines on the Internet
today, next to Altavista and Yahoo. Their spider, named "T-Rex",
crawls the web and provides updates to the Lycos index from time to
time. The FAST crawler provides results for Lycos in addition to its
own database.
The Lycos crawler does not weigh META tags to heavily, instead
it relies on its own ranking algorithm to rank pages returned in
results. The URL, META title, text headings, and word frequency are
just a few of the methods Lycos uses to rank pages. Lycos does
support pages with Frame content. However, any page that isn't at
least 75 words in content is not indexed.
Excite
Excite has been around the web for many years now. Much more
of a portal than just simply a search engine, Excite used to be a
fairly popular search engine, until companies such as Google seemed
to have dominated the search engine market. As of recently, Excite
no longer accepts submissions of URL's, and appears to no longer
spider. To get into the Excite search results, you need to be either
listed with Overture or Inktomi.
Looksmart
Getting a listed with Looksmart could mean getting a good
amount of traffic to your site. Looksmart's results appear in many
search engines, including
AltaVista,
MSN,
CNN,
and many others.
Looksmart has two options to submit your site. If your site is
generally non-business related, you can submit your site to Zeal (Looksmart's
sister site ), or if you are a business, you can pay a fee to have
your site listed. Either method will get you listed in Looksmart and
its partner sites if you are approved.
Once you have submitted your site, and it is approved for
listing it will take up to about 7 days for your site to be listed
on Looksmart and its partner sites.\
AOL Search
America Online signed a
multiyear pact with Google for Web search results and accompanying
ad-sponsored links, ending relationships with pay-for-performance
service Overture Services and Inktomi, its algorithmic search
provider of nearly three years
A search engine's main job is to provide results which most satisfy
a user's query. If they present a result that the user visits and
doesn't agree that the document is about their query, there is a
very good chance that the user may not use that search engine again.
Most search engines pay no attention at all to the Meta description
tags. Meta description and keyword tags are hidden attributes that
you can add to the front of your document which are supposed to
annotate and describe the document. Since the users will never see
this information, they will be disappointed if you stick in invalid
keywords or fail to keep the description in line with the document's
contents which usually is the case.
Most Search Engine page ranking algorithms rank pages based on the
following aspects:
-
Content of the website
-
Representation of content, keywords, and links on websites
-
Location and number of inward and outward links on websites
-
Relevancy of search terms as compared to the websites
Given below is a brief description of the page ranking algorithms of
some of the most popular search engines.
Google
You can submit your site to Google using http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
Submitting your site will only make Google aware that your page
exists; it is quite possible that your pages may get crawled even if
you have not submitted. It is advisable to submit the home page and
some inside pages. Inside pages are added to the submission, just in
case the home page is found too slow to load or crawl. The pages
that are submitted should link to the rest of the pages. Google
indexes the full text that is visible on any page that it crawls. It
generally does not index the metatags – keywords or descriptions.
When Google lists your page in the search results, the
description that is displayed is the extract of text that is around
the first line where the search word appears on the page. It may
thus be a good idea to write a good description of the page and
build it around the most likely search term(s) and place that near
the top of your page. You should remember that one sure way of
getting your site listed and indexed is if there are several links
that point to your site and such links appear on web pages that in
turn have several other links pointing to them. The term ‘link
popularity’ is used for this. It analyzes links of the pages that it
has visited and this ‘link analysis’ helps to determine the ranking
of the page.
Google uses a proprietary PageRank algorithm for determining
relevance and ranking of pages in the search results. Location and
frequency of the search term on your web page are no doubt factors
in ranking; however off the page factors such as link analysis are
more important. Generally, Google provides search results based on
relevancy, meaning that it returns a list of pages ranked by the
number of other Web pages linking to each page, as well as other
mathematical algorithms
Yahoo
Yahoo offers a human powered directory and visitors are
offered the results from this directory. The directory is
supplemented by web page index created by crawling. Yahoo currently
uses Google for its crawler indexing. The directory is an important
channel in the area of search engine marketing. It is popular and is
used extensively by people to locate sources of information.
Moreover the directory is a valuable boost to your site for crawling
and ranking in other search engines, as the directory provides a
high quality link to your web site.
When a visitor is looking for information or relevant sites,
he/she could either browse through the hierarchy of directories and
sub directories or search for an appropriate directory through a
search interface. As your site can be listed in just one category,
generally, the choice of category is an important step. Choose the
top category that your target visitor who is making a search may
select out of the different categories offered to him/her.
Select your target keywords and find out which categories
relate to those keywords. For submission of non-commercial sites
also the Yahoo Express submission is recommended rather than the
Standard submission option.
Listing of your site on the results page in your chosen
category is in two possible sections (for most categories). One
section is called Most Popular Sites and this is on top, while the
remaining listing is Alphabetical in the second section on the page.
Yahoo does not reveal how it includes certain sites in the
Most Popular Sites list. However link analysis, clickthroughs are
likely to be factors. You cannot pay to be included in this section.
Certain sites with sunglasses shown next to their name or @symbol
shown at the end of the name reflect that Yahoo considers those
sites as excellent.
Inktomi (MSN Search, AOL Search, Hotbot)
Inktomi is a search engine that does not offer its search
services through its own site, but through Partner sites – prominent
ones being MSN Search, AOL Search, HotBot and others.
Inktomi through its crawler creates three different indexes.
Best of the Web index has around 110 million pages that it indexes
on the web and considers high in link analysis. The next set of
around 390 million pages is indexed as Rest of the Web, considered
as lower in link analysis. The third index is of paid inclusion. It
also offers specialized regional indexes as well as targeted news,
multimedia and directory indexes. It avoids duplication of the same
page in more than one index. Link crawling and paid inclusion are
the two most effective ways to get covered by crawling. For bulk
submissions to its paid program, it offers IndexConnect (for 1000 or
more pages). Again there is a cost per click basis, with a monthly
minimum.
Ranking at Inktomi is determined by a combination of factors
including HTML links, keywords and description tags near the top of
the page or in the Title tag. If the search string matches with what
is found at these places on the page, the ranking is higher. Link
analysis and analysis of clickthroughs are other important criteria
that it adopts.
AltaVista
AltaVista will accept free listings through its addurl link,
but it also has paid inclusion features. Generally their crawler may
visit every four weeks. Paid inclusion may be desirable if you have
a new website or pages or if your pages are refreshed every week or
so and you do not wish to wait till the next cycle of crawling.
There is an Express Paid inclusion service of self-service type for
upto 500 pages at a time. This service will enable weekly crawling.
Their bulk program called Trusted Feed will enable the pages to be
directly linked to their index. Pricing for Trusted Feed is on a
cost per click model with a monthly minimum. In this program you can
submit the Meta data, descriptions and keywords directly to the
index. Nevertheless, the engine will check whether the destination
page has the same Meta data or not and could levy a penalty for
spam.
AltaVista’s ranking policies are a combination of various
factors. The frequency and positioning of keywords and descriptions
is important, so are Title tags or words that appear near the top of
the page. Besides, it applies link analysis to determine relevancy
and page ranking. It levies penalty on spamming and also it does not
recognize invisible or tiny text, keyword stuffing, identical pages,
mirror sites, and quick meta refresh tag.
When a user enters a search term, also known as a ‘keyword,’
into a search engine, the engine runs through the billions of pages
in the database and awards each one a ‘relevancy score.’ The higher
your score, the higher your listing. If your site doesn’t contain
the keyword used by the searcher, the only score it’s going to get
is a big, fat zero. Your first task then is to make sure you know
which keywords are most relevant for each of your sites.
There are three ways to figure out your keywords:
Ask your
competitors
This is the cheapest way to find many of the most important
keywords. Simply log on to a search engine (AltaVista is good,
Google is better) and carry out a search for sites like yours. Open
the top site, and once the home page has downloaded, click on ‘View’
in your browser, and then ‘Source.’ That will reveal all the HTML
used to build the Web page, including all the keywords that have
been specially inserted.
For example, let’s say one of your websites sold nutritional
supplements. You could carry out a search for ‘vitamins’ in Google.
The top site there is called DrugEmporium.com, and the keywords they
list are "The Katz group, Snyders, Drug Emporium, Drug, Drug Store,
pharmacy, stores."
Some of those keywords will be relevant to your site. Others,
of course, won’t be relevant and there will be lots of other
keywords that aren’t obviously listed—like ‘vitamins’ for example.
But you can repeat the process on other sites, using different
keywords, and build up a pretty long list.
Ask the pay-per-clicks
Pay-per-click sites actually let you see how popular a keyword
is. They’re not being kind; they’re trying to make money. The more
webmasters bid on those keywords, the higher the bids are going to
rise—and the more money the pay-per-clicks are going to make.
FindWhat, for example, has a Keyword Center, and Overture a Keyword
Suggestion Tool. Both are very handy, but they also require you to
open an account. That can cost a few bucks, but when you have a lot
of sites covering a lot of different areas, it’s usually worth the
expense.
Use a specialized tool
Not too surprisingly, a number of companies have popped up to
supply specific keyword services for a fee. The best of these is
WordTracker.com. They’re not bargain basement, but you get what you
pay for. They’ll give you all the keywords you need and in my
experience, they’re a sound investment.
Googlefight.com is another useful tool to see whether one
keyword is more popular than another. The site compares two keywords
and tells you which is more popular. It’s free and has a limited
use, but it’s fun to play with.
As you make up your list of keywords, bear in mind that it’s
also worth looking at key phrases. It’s quite possible that a user
looking to buy flowers online might search for ‘red roses’ or ‘cheap
bouquets’ as well as just ‘flowers.’ Key phrases are often
overlooked by competitors, so you’ve got a pretty good chance of
getting a high placement with the right combination.
Don’t worry too much about the competition though. Some people
will tell you that you’re better off trying to find keywords that no
one else has thought of—as if there were any!—and others will tell
you to throw in keywords that are only slightly relevant to your
businesses.
In my experience, that’s a waste of time. If your competitors
are using certain keywords, it’s because they know they work. And if
you pick up any users using irrelevant keywords, you’re not going to
sell them anything. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel here: just try
to figure out the most popular keywords and the best key phrases to
put on your site.
Whichever of these methods you use—and I tend to use more than
one—you should end up with a pretty comprehensive list of keywords
that you can stick into your website. The next question then, is how
do you use them? When a search engine assigns relevancy to a site,
it looks for the keywords in a number of specific areas.
Title Tag
The title tag is written in the <HEAD> section of the Web page
and after the <TITLE> tags. It’s usually the line listed in the
search results as well. For example, the New York Times’ title tag
is “The New York Times on the Web: Daily international, national and
local news coverage from the newspaper, breaking news updates,
technology news, sports, reviews, crosswords, classified ad
listings.”
That looks long, but the title tag is usually between 50 and
80 characters including spaces. Different search engines have
different limits so you want to make sure that your most important
words are near the beginning of the title. When you look at the New
York Times’ site, you only see “The New York Times on the Web”.
The rest of the title is made up of keywords and phrases but
in fact, you don’t want to put in too many keywords here. Just place
one keyword as the second or third word in the title. Too many, and
your site could be seen as spamming.
You can also list more keywords in the <META Keywords> and
<META
description> sections of the <HEAD> area, but because these areas
have been so abused in the past, a number of search engines today
will skip right past the title tag and go straight to the Web copy.
The search engines will scan the text on a Web page to see if
your site is relevant to the search term. That means that in effect,
your Web copy is going to have to do two things: to persuade a
customer to buy, and persuade a search engine it’s relevant.
When you write your copy aim for about 500 words a page, but
throw in between four and eight keywords. You’ll have to try to
balance a smooth text flow with getting in all the keywords you need
to be listed.
You can also consider adding text-only pages such as how-to
articles, tips or tutorials to your site. Throw in some keywords and
they can turn up in search engines and create opportunities for link
exchanges.
So there’s a few
ways you can try to improve the position of your site in a search
engine. More important than where you put the keywords is choosing
the right keywords. That’s not really a huge challenge as your
competitors are likely to have done the job for you.
Of course, even if you do get everything right, it doesn’t
mean you’re going to shoot straight to the top of Google. One of the
criteria for relevancy is how long you’ve been online, so success on
the search engines won’t come overnight. The sooner you start
submitting though, the sooner you can start to rise.
Submitting sites to search engines is much easier than
submitting them to directories or pay-per-clicks. In fact, you only
have to submit the home page. The search engine’s ‘spider’—a neat
little software program—will then follow all the links from the home
page and include your other pages. Spidering actually increases your
relevancy score more than hand-submitting your internal pages
yourself.
The disadvantage of spidering is that it can be slow. Google
has the best spider but even they can take up to a month to index
all your pages. For other search engines you can wait three times as
long.
Search directories differ from search engines by providing a
range of categories for users to browse. Rather than enter a keyword
into a search box, users click through categories and sub-categories
narrowing down their options.
You could say that search engines are like going straight up
to the sales assistant and asking what they have in eveningwear;
search directories are like browsing through the store and seeing
what catches the eye.
How you make your site catch the eye in a directory though is
actually pretty similar to standing out in a search engine: it’s all
about relevancy—a mixture of keywords and links.
Submitting your site to a search directory is a little tougher
than submitting to a search engine. Directories don’t have
spiders—they rely on humans. When you submit your site, whether it’s
to Yahoo! or any of the other myriad directories, you’ll have to
complete a form that will include your URL, Page Title, Keywords and
a Page Description.
Your keywords and title will play some role in your ranking,
but for the description, it’s much better to put a hard sell that
will attract users. There’s no point having a link at the top of a
category if no one wants to click on it.
Bear in mind that because each submission to a directory is
checked by a human editor, it can take quite a while for your site
to be approved and listed. Some sites do have express services but
these are pretty pricey (Yahoo! wants $299 and $600 for adult
sites!), and if they decide your site isn’t suitable for a category,
you don’t get your money back. It’s usually worth the wait.
Pay-per-click programs (PPC’s) allow you to buy a prime
position in a search engine by selecting the price you wish to pay
for each visitor your receive. This can place you exactly where you
want to be in the listing, or let you decide how much you want to
spend on advertising.
The big advantage of PPC’s is that you don’t have to worry
about messing with keywords or links or any of that. You can just
figure out how much you want to pay for a keyword and buy your
position. In addition, you only pay for people who actually click on
your link (for banner ads, you often have to pay when someone sees
it.) And you can also get cheap visitors. Bids usually start at
around five cents per click. The top three bids though are often
promoted across a network of sites (Overture place theirs at the top
of Yahoo!) so there can be big bonuses for bidding high.
This is how most
pay-per-click programs work:
1.
You create your page title, description and link as you want it to
appear in the search results.
2.
You enter the keywords and phrases that will prompt your listing to
appear.
3.
You enter your keyword bid (the amount you are willing to pay for
each click to your site).
4.
Your keyword bid is compared to that of other bidders for the same
keyword. The results are returned to the user with the highest bid
appearing first.
With PPC’s, the name of the game is profit. You need to be
careful not to get carried away with the ranking so that your
promotion doesn’t cut into your revenues.
This is essential! There’s no point in being top if you’re out
of business in a month. You have to figure out what you can afford
and keep to it. Base your decision on your visitor to sales ratio
(the number of visitors on average that it takes to generate a sale)
and your net profit per sale.
So for example, if
you were get a sale from every tenth visitor, and you net a profit
of $20 from each sale, then you can’t pay more than $2 for each
click without operating at a loss. In practice, you might make one
sale for every 500 or so clicks and pay perhaps 15 or 20 cents for
each visitor, depending on your market.
It’s absolutely crucial for you to know your visitor to
sales ratio.
It’s also important to keep that ratio as high as possible,
and that means only bidding on relevant keywords. If you pay for
visitors who are looking for something completely different to the
services you’re offering, you’re just throwing your money away. They
aren’t going to buy, and even at five cents a shot, those wasted
nickels soon add up. On the other hand, because you can pay so
little, it is worth bidding on as many relevant
keywords as possible.
The key is to balance high payments for top keywords with
low payments that bring in less traffic.
You should also consider the quality of visitors the site will
send you. The more targeted a directory, the more your visitor to
sale ratio may improve—and that might make it worth improving your
bid price.
Submitting your site to a PPC is certainly a lot faster than
submitting to a search engine or a directory. You must, however,
make sure you consider the following:
·
The maximum amount you can bid (can’t stress that
enough!)
·
The keywords you wish to bid on.
·
The titles and descriptions of the site.
That last point is very important for making the most of PPC’s.
Just because you don’t have to worry about putting keywords in your
title and descriptions to please a program doesn’t mean relevance
isn’t important. On the contrary, relevance still matters. You need
to let the user know that your site is exactly what they’re
looking for. That means putting the keyword in the title and having
a catchy, informative description. Remember, the more good clicks
you get, the more money you’ll make.
If you do a search at Google, you’ll notice that not only do
you get a list of all the sites that return your keyword, you also
get a list of other relevant ads on the right of the page and at the
top of the listing. These are part of Google’s Adwords and Premium
Advertising programs. Advertising like this can certainly be an
important part of your marketing plan. Well developed ads with
clever wording can prompt an immediate response from the reader to
visit your site. Google and Overture are currently making a lot of
money with this kind of advertising—and if they’re making money, you
can be sure their advertisers are too.
Buying an AdWord on
Google is a little complicated but it can be very cost-effective. In
effect, Google have combined the Pay-per-Click system with their own
relevancy calculations. You’ll need to select a keyword—or an
‘AdWord’ in Googlespeak—and write a short description. But you’ll
also have to choose how much you wish to pay, and the price won’t
guarantee you a position.
Advertisers enter a maximum bid per click and this is
multiplied by the click-through rate (the percentage of users who
click on the ad). That’s the score Google use to allocate position.
So for example, if you were prepared to pay a dollar per
click, and one user in a hundred who saw your advert clicked on it,
you would get a rank number of ($)1 x 1% = 0.01.
Let’s say that gives you top position. You might then get even
more users and a higher click-through rate of 2%. That higher rate
would reduce your price to 50 cents (0.01 divided by 2%).
All very nice, and it’s always fun to pay less than you’ve
said you can afford, but how it works is less important than the
fact that it does. All you have to do is figure out how much you’re
prepared to pay for each click, how much you can afford to pay each
month, and write a great description.
And once again, it’s the description that’s key.
Like the PPC’s, your description has to persuade users that
you’re relevant; it doesn’t have to play to the search engine’s
software. By all means repeat the keyword, but also make sure you
have good, call-to-action copy like “Grab a great deal on DVD’s
today!” or “Buy now, while stocks last!” Remember, the more clicks
you get, the more sales you’ll make—and the less you’ll pay.
Always place the AdWord in the most appropriate category and
track the responses you receive from it. Be proactive in redefining
your strategy if you receive minimal response. You’ll probably have
to play with the wording and the keyword selection to get the
results you want.
Premium Advertising
This is the Platinum Card of Google advertising. For at least
$5,000 you can be one of two advertisers to top a category. Very
effective, very prestigious—and very expensive. $5,000 is the
minimum bid. Something to think about—if you think you can make
the money back.
Majority of the major search engines use link popularity as an
important factor in ranking relevancy. As search engines have become
more sophisticated, so too has link popularity. Link popularity
simply is the number of links from other websites that point to your
website. This strategy has gained immense success due to the
crawling nature of most search engines. Spiders crawl from link to
link and store pages into their database. Link popularity is
generally gained through reciprocal linking. Other websites would
usually point to your website only if you have a link to their
website from yours.
A few years ago, the number of websites linking to your site
gauged link popularity; little emphasis was placed on the "content
relevancy" of the linking site. In an effort to gain more link
popularity, "link farms" began sprouting up across the web. For a
nominal fee, a website owner could join link farms and enjoy
increased link popularity overnight.
Search engines caught onto this tactic and created better
tools for detecting legitimate links. Websites that have links from
websites with "similar" or "relevant" content score higher, thus
earn better placement in search engines.
However, Avoid joining "link farms"; some search engines
consider them a form of Spam. Many engines will actually penalize
sites for maintaining an abundance of links from non-related
websites. It is more important than ever to develop a solid
"link-popularity" strategy. One excellent, although time consuming,
method is to simply write complimentary website requesting a link
exchange.
Link analysis is somewhat different than measuring link popularity.
While link popularity is generally used to measure the number of
pages that link to a particular site, link analysis will go beyond
this and analyze the popularity of the pages that link to your
pages. In a way link analysis is a chain analysis system that
accords weighting to every page that links to the target site, with
weights determined by the popularity of those pages. Search engines
use link analysis in their page-ranking algorithm. Search engines
also try to determine the context of those links, in other words,
how closely those links relate to the search string. For example if
the search string was “toys”, and if there were links from other
sites that either had the word toys within the link or in close
proximity of the link, the ranking algorithm determines that this a
higher priority link and ranks the page, that this is linked to,
higher.
Keywords and AdWords aren’t the only way that search engines
score relevancy; links to other similar sites are another important
factor. Keywords have been so abused by some webmasters that links
are winning much more relevancy points. Google is said to love them.
It might sound strange to suggest that your users should check
out your competitors, but they probably know about them anyway. If
your competitors have a higher ranking than you, linking to them can
make the higher relevancy score—and the increase in traffic—worth
your while.
Alternatively, you can link to your own site by creating a
sub-directory. This is like building another Web page, but the URL
will include your keyword. So if you were selling stuffed toys, the
new URL would be www.yourdomain.com/stuffed_toys/stuffed_toys.html.
You could then write a short paragraph on the home page, describing
the new page and including a link. Big relevancy points!
Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal linking means forming partnerships with other sites
who place a link from their Web pages to yours. You give them a
similar link in return.
When you look for people to swap links with, make sure that
you don’t reduce the quality or content of your own site. You don’t
want users to click straight through without reading your content;
you want them to buy first. One way to stop them from running away
too quickly is to create a “Webmasters Resource Page” and link to
that page from your homepage. This doesn’t take away from the
content on your homepage and the links are just one click away
rather than being buried deep within the site, giving value to your
partners.
In any case, you want to be sure that your site is more than
just a page full of links. If your site contains more links than
content, it will not be attractive to webmasters, search engines or
users.
Your link partners should be sites your target market will
visit. Think about your product and its subject area and brainstorm
to determine where people interested in your product might be
looking online. For example, if you’re trying to shift your book
about blackjack strategy, it makes sense that the people visiting
online casinos would make great customers. Online casinos then could
be good partners. Identify top-ranked, high quality casino sites and
find the email address of their webmasters.
You can also identify your competitors and see where they
trade links.
Tips for talking to
webmasters
-
Before you contact webmasters, place a link to their site on your
resource page to assure them that you will actually provide a
quality link.
-
Create a subject line that will encourage them to read your
message rather than deleting it—you don’t want them to think
you’re spam. (Something about their site or product is sure
to capture their attention; they will open it, thinking you’re a
potential customer.)
-
Begin your message by talking about your visit to their site and
what you found interesting about it. Detail your product or
service in one line and ask them to exchange links with you.
-
Tell them in detail where you have placed their link and emphasize
that it is only one click away from your homepage.
-
Tell them that if you don’t hear back from them in a couple of
days, you will consider that to a negative response and that you
will remove their link from your site.
Like reciprocal linking, inward links to your website can be
an effective strategy to increase your website’s visibility. Inward
links are links pointing to your websites from other websites
without providing a reciprocal link from your website.
There are many techniques to improve inward linking. Many of
these have enjoyed success. The most proven technique for inward
linking is through Ebooks. You can offer interesting and educative
Ebooks for free to other websites and they could install the icons
or the Ebooks on their sites. The icon or the Ebook you create would
have a link to your website. This will allow a spider to crawl
through that link and visit you website. For example, a footer on
every alternate page can have a link to your website that would
increase the probability of your website being listed with a crawler
based Search Engine.
Other techniques include posting newsletters, white papers,
news stories and press releases at other websites, particularly
industry specific and general portals. The newsletters and press
releases would contain a link pointing to your website, thus,
promoting your website.
To get listed correctly in the search engines each page of
your site that you want listed needs to be optimized to the best of
your ability. Since the keywords that you decide to target will be
used throughout the optimization process choosing the right keywords
is essential. If you choose the wrong keywords you will not be found
in the search engines. If you are not found in the search engines
how will anyone find your site? Since the keywords you choose to
optimize your pages with are so important we have put together some
tips to help you make sure that you make the right choices. You
should utilize these tips when selecting keywords for each page that
you plan to submit to the search engines.
Think "specific keyword phrases" not "keywords". Due to the
extreme amount of competition for general terms in the search
engines, if your keyword phrases are too general it is very unlikely
you will rank well in the search engines. You stand a far better
chance to rank well for specific phrases where there is less
competition. The resulting traffic, since it is more highly
targeted, should also be much higher quality too.
You should try to come up with as many keyword phrases as you
can think of that relate to the page you are optimizing. Try asking
a few friends and family what they would search for when searching
for a site like yours. Check out your competition for ideas. Do a
search using keywords that you already know you want to target and
click through on the top sites that come up. Once on the site view
the source HTML code and view the keywords they have in their Meta
tags - this should give you many more ideas.
Make sure to only use keywords that relate to YOUR site or
page. To view the HTML code, simply click the 'View' at the top of
your web browser then select 'Source', or 'Page Source'. You should
develop a list of keyword phrases, following the tips on this page,
for each page that you optimize for the search engines.
Apart from these, there are certain aspects that should be
avoided. These are:
Dead Links - As search engines index your entire site by
crawling through hypertext links, you must make sure you check for
dead links before submitting.
Graphics and Image Maps - Search engines cannot read images,
be sure to include Alternative Text tags.
Frames - Many Search engines aren't frames compatible. Meta
tags and the <no frames> tags are important in this instance.
Spamming - Avoid resubmitting your pages repeatedly to search
engines if your site does not get listed in the first few weeks.
Allow at least 6 weeks before resubmission. Continual resubmission
(such as those caused by automatic submission software) can cause
your site to be penalized.
Okay, so you’ve decided on your keywords, inserted your links
and submitted your sites. Now all you have to do is open your
offshore account and wait for the cash to pour in, right?
Well, not quite. You might get lucky with your first shot, but
it never happened to me. Once you’ve submitted all your links, you
need to keep a close eye on them, and see which need improving and
which can be dropped.
The crucial factor here is to keep track of your Search Engine
Statistics. These will tell you how many people have come from the
various search engines and how many of those became customers.
But it’s not enough to know how much traffic you’re receiving,
you also want to know how you’re doing in the rankings. There are
two ways to do that:
Manual Searches
Dead easy, simply log on and look. First enter
your URL to make sure your site has been approved and listed. That
can take a little while. Once you can see that you’re online though,
you want to see how you’re ranked in each keyword. To do that, you
can simply enter each keyword into the search engine and browse the
pages until you find your listing. Works, but takes a while.
Computerized
Searches
I’ll be honest with you: it’s been a long time
since I did a manual search. If you’ve got just ten sites and you
want to check ten keywords for each once a week, you’re going to
lose at least a day’s work a month. That’s too much for me. I use
WebPosition Gold. I tell it which keywords to check where and it
gives me an automated report. Simple.
When you look at your statistics, pay particularly attention
to which keywords are bringing in the most traffic. In general, the
higher you are, the more traffic you receive and the more sales you
make. But that isn’t always true. It might pay more to be fifteenth
on a keyword that gets a million searches a month than first on a
keyword that gets just a thousand. And if you’re fifteenth, you’ve
still got room for improvement.
And it’s the improvement that’s the key. If you see that your
link is stuck at the bottom of a list somewhere, try adding more
links, putting that keyword in more pages or adding keyword-rich
content. If you can see where you stand, you can figure to where to
go.
Don’t.
You can spam search engines by stuffing your site with
keywords, submitting them numerous times or filling your pages with
links. And they’ll just get you blacklisted.
Don’t do it. It’s just not worth it.
It used be accepted practice to create doorway
pages—duplicates of a home page filled with different keywords—but
search engines won’t accept even these any more.
They will accept
smart pages though. If you want to use more keywords than you can
fit on your site, create a second page that is totally different
from your homepage but which is still based upon your product or
service. Here, you can expand upon a topic you merely touched on in
your homepage. A great example of a smart page is to write articles
on the benefits of your services using a different set of keywords
to those on your home page. You can do that.
To sum up, this chapter gave a detailed view of many of the
proven and effective Search Engine optimization techniques. SEO is
probably the most important and the most successful traffic
generating mechanism, and when done carefully it can do wonders for
your website and your products.
In the next chapter, we discuss Internet marketing through ads
and banners.
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