Search engine ranking is the status of your web site on the search engine. High search engine ranking is important for your web site because most of the time, a visitor might not have the patience to check all the search engine result pages. It is the normal tendency of the visitor to keep into the web sites that are displayed in the first two to three pages of the search results. Hence, if your web site has a higher ranking then you can be certain that it will be featured in the first two pages or till the fourth page of the search engine results. High search ranking results increasing web traffic towards your web site. So, the higher your ranking more will be your site’s business traffic. If your site is not SEO friendly then it will be featured in the last pages of the search result where visitors hardly go & you will not receive any traffic. One company that can help you in making an effective online presence on the web and attract potential customers that offers search engine ranking optimization services.

Benefits of High Search Engine Ranking:
Once you are able to get improved web site search engine ranking, there will be an increased flow of potential customers. As a website visitor purposely searches for specific product & services, he or she at the same time might prove to be a potential customer who wishes to buy the product online. Hence, the website visit might strike a potential deal which becomes revenue for your company. To put it simply, a higher search engine ranking increases your business.

Top Search Engine Ranking Services By Business Promotion Technologies:
If you are looking for a top search engine ranking service for your web site, At Business Promotion Technologies, you will get a wide range of search engine marketing services which can increase your site’s search engine ranking & website positioning. Business Promotion Technologies also offers Web site designing and development services. Avail the various top search engine ranking services by Business Promotion Technologies and see your business grow by leaps & bounds with high search engine rankings. For more information on Search Engine Optimization SEO, Social Media Optimization SMO, Pay Per Click Advertising PPC, Link Building, Direct Marketing, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Ranking Optimization, and Website Promotion Services in India, visit http://www.businesspromotiontechnologies.com

Many people are unaware of search engine marketing and just take for granted the results that appear when they search for something on a search engine such as Google.

However, search engine marketing seems to defy to current doom and gloom of the recession. Think about this:

“The average Britain spends 164 minutes online everyday, compared with 148 minutes watching TV”

Over half the world’s population now has access to the web and nearly 90% of them find what they’re looking for using search engines. 36% of people think that the result at the top of the first page is the market leader and 80% of people make their choice from first page listings alone. With over 21 billion web pages wanting a first page position how can you get your website on the first page.

This is called search engine marketing and I have listed a few techniques and tips to get you started with optimising your website to rank well on a search engine. Remember that this is a basic guide to help to you on your way.

Link building

First we have to look at how search engines rank a website and decide which order to list them. The simple (very very very simple) version is, Google changed everything the way many search engine rank. The initial creators of Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) wanted to create a search engine that could rank a website for quality and list them in order of quality to the user. The way they decided to rank a website was to count how many other websites link to it. If other websites link to it then it must be good. So, essentially links mean votes. Like I said, this is the very simple version and there is so much more to it than this but it is a great place to start as it holds the most importance.

See who links to you and then see who links to your competitors and try to muscle in on some of their action. Simply go to yahoo.co.uk, then in the search box type “link:yourcompetitor.com”. This will bring up a list of websites linking to your competitors website. Then contact them and ask them to link to you too. Don’t be stingy. Make sure you have links going out from your website. Important though that you link to high quality websites, i.e. If your website is a property website, have links to the relevant governing bodies, Wikipedia or the largest property portals. Search engines will see your site as being a good place to get good content. Submit your website to online directories. This can be very boring and takes hours. But once you have had your site accepted in to a directory. You’ll have a link back to your website. Remember. The more the better. Subscribe to forums in your niche. You can include a link in your signature straight to your website. Remember though. Do not spam on a forum. Forum users will not like it and the moderator will probably kick you off. If you use a forum properly though you will find it quite engaging. Read blogs relating to you niche market. This is very educational as well as beneficial for link building. Read the blog then leave a comment about that blog. Don’t forget to include a link to your website though. Just don’t make it too obvious.

Social Media (web2.0)

“Facebook”, “YouTube”, “Flickr”, “Myspace” – These are all social media websites. They provide a means for people from all over the world to join online and share information. The way in which people communicate vary though. “Flickr” allow people to upload photos and share them with other users or even comment on pictures uploaded. “Youtube” allow people to upload videos etc. The number of people visiting these websites to share information is in the millions. So maybe you could use these social communities to spread the word about your website. Social media is a great way to connect with hard to reach people that share the same interests. There are a number of ways to do this.

Make your content interesting enough for people to want to view it. Then,unlike search engine optimisation, change the content often, This will make people want to keep visiting you. Make it easy for people to tag or bookmark your new content. Bookmarking is very fashionable at the moment. The most popular way of doing this is by getting an “addthis” button due to its ease of use, however, there are many buttons available. Use more than just text in your site. Create a video and submit it to a video sharing website like “youtube”, Create a PDF version of your content and create an audio version too. Submit it to appropriate websites. Don’t forget the link back to your site. Blog.Blog.Blog then blog some more. The simple truth is that the majority of internet users love blogs. So do search engines. Create a blog and use it. A lot. Submit it to sites like “technorati.com”. If it is good enough people will link to you and then share and tell others about your writings. Make friends. The social media community, are very social and friendly. They will want to talk to you and ask you questions. Make sure you are polite and take time to answer any messages. Negative feedback spreads faster than positive feedback.

Pay Per Click

This is a method in which you pay to get people to your website. Have you ever done a search on Google and found there are two columns. The Colum on the right is called sponsored links. They are adverts from businesses. They do not pay anything for appearing there but they do pay when you click on the advert (pay per click). This is a very fast way to get people to your website but you do have to pay. I would recommend getting a pay per click company to help here. It will save you a lot of money. However, if you must have ago your self here are some very basic tips.

Budget. Make sure you create a sensible budget and stick to it. Don’t get in to a bidding war. Don’t just rely on pay per click as the be all and end all for your business marketing. PPC is great for promoting specific products and services very quickly but you always have to pay for the result. Analyze your cost per click and cost per acquisition closely. Then compare it to your other marketing activities. See which one works best. Remember that sites such as Google take into account the quality of your website content being marketed more than how much you are bidding. PPC is my favorite part of search engine marketing due mainly to the sheer speed of return on investment BUT make sure it is done properly other wise it can be devastating. Always have two ads running at the same time for each product but with different ad text. Google will use the most successful advert for you and show that advert more often, helping you gain more traffic. Change to poorest performing advert and see if it improves. Keep repeating. This will eventually lead to you having the best possible advert showing.

Search engine optimisation

Remember the two columns we just mentioned. Search engine optimization is the are of optimizing your website enough for Google to rank it on the left hand column. This list is ordered on how relevant your website is. And you don’t have to pay for these listings. Ever noticed how all the big companies appear at the top of the first page. Now we should as “which came first – The chicken or the egg?”. Search engine optimisation is generally split into two categories onsite optimisation and off site optimisation. The first, when done property is very important but it will only get you to the starting line. Offsite optimization is the race itself. A good search engine optimisation campaign should include all the search engine marketing techniques mentioned and when you really get into it you can learn the more advanced techniques. Below are a few basics.

Include your keywords in your domain, title, meta tags. The first thing a search engine spider will read is your domain name. i.e www.yourdomain.com. This doesn’t mean anything to a search engine so ideally use www.yourdomain.com/your-key-words, or even better www.your-key-words.com . Then the next part is your title. Don’t just have “home Page” or “Front Page”. I would have “your domain – your key words”. This also matches the domain name. Then repeat the same in your meta data. And sprinkle it throughout your web page. Keep it readable though. Make each page different. This helps search engines differentiate them and should lead to them indexing each of your pages separately. Get a site map and submit it to major search engines. Don’t pay for this service though. It amazes me that people actually charge for this. Just type into Google “sitemap” and you should be presented with website that will generate you a sitemap for free. Keep going. Older sites generally rank better than new sites. It is believed that older websites must be more reliable. As there is nothing we can do about this just focus your time on other offsite optimisation such as link building, social media optimization and if you just can’t wait, Pay per click. Search engine optimisation is a long term solution but boy is it worth waiting for. Validate your HTML code. Visit “validator.w3.org/ “.This will ensure that web browsers show your website correctly and helps search engine to index your site. There is no point in optimising your website if it doesn’t work properly.

Other useful tips

Get Google analytics. It is one thing having a website but you need to know what people are doing when they are on it. Google analytics is very comprehensive and FREE but it does not report in real time. Woopra however does report in real time. The choice is yours. Before doing anything else you should get one of these other wise how will you know your efforts are paying off. If you decide to use a company to undertake your search engine marketing campaign (recommended) make sure you choose your search engine marketing company wisely. Don’t just go on recommendation. It is going to be a long working relationship so the important thing is that you get on with them. Do your own research on the industry. Think twice about search engine marketing firms that say they can guarantee a first page listing in a short time, the methods they use WILL end up in your website being banned. BMW found this out the hard way.

Search engine marketing is not an easy option but when done properly will bring untold rewards.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but it will give people new to the concept a few things to get on with and research. Look out for more articles that will start to break the subjects down into more detail.

Basing your entire websites future on one simple set of rules
(read: tricks) about how the search engines will rank your site
contains an additional flaw, there are more factors being
considered than any SEO is aware of and can confirm. That’s
right, I will freely admit that there are factors at work that I
may not be aware of and even those that I am aware of I cannot
with 100 percent accuracy give you the exact weight they are
given in the overall algorithm. Even if I could, the algorithm
would change a few weeks later and what’s more, hold your hats
for this one: there is more than one search engine.

So if we cannot base our optimization on a set of hard-and-fast
rules what can we do? The key my friends, is not to understand
the tricks but rather what they accomplish. Reflecting back on
my high school math teach Mr. Barry Nicholl I recall a silly
story that had a great impact. One weekend he had the entire
class watch Dumbo The Flying Elephant (there was actually going
to be a question about it on our test). Why? The lesson we were
to get from it is that formulas (like tricks) are the feather in
the story. They are unnecessary and yet we hold on to them in
the false belief that it is the feather that works and not the
logic. Indeed, the tricks and techniques are not what works but
rather the logic they follow and that is their shortcoming. And
So What Is Necessary?

To rank a website highly and keep it ranking over time one must
optimize it with one primary understanding, that a search engine
is a living thing. Obviously this is not to say that search
engines have brains, I will leave those tales to Orson Scott
Card and other science fiction writers, however their very
nature results in a lifelike being with far more storage
capacity.

If we consider for a moment how a search engine functions; it
goes out into the world, follows the road signs and paths to get
where it’s going, and collects all of the information in its
path. From this point, the information is sent back to a group
of servers where algorithms are applied in order to determine
the importance of specific documents. How are these algorithms
generated? They are created by human beings who have a great
deal of experience in understanding the fundamentals of the
Internet and the documents it contains and who also have the
capacity to learn from their mistakes, and update the algorithms
accordingly. Essentially we have an entity that collects data,
stores it, and then sorts through it to determine what’s
important which it’s happy to share with others and what’s
unimportant which it keeps tucked away. So Let’s Break It Down

To gain a true understanding of what a search engine is, it’s
simple enough to compare it to the human anatomy as, though not
breathing, it contains many of the same core functions required
for life. And these are:

The Lungs & Other Vital Organs – The lungs of a search engine
and indeed the vast majority of vital organs are contained
within the datacenters in which they are housed. Be it in the
form of power, Internet connectivity, etc. As with the human
body, we do not generally consider these important in defining
who we are, however we’re certainly grateful to have them and
need them all to function properly.

The Arms & Legs – Think of the links from the engine itself as
the arms and legs. These are the vehicles by which we get where
we need to go and retrieve what needs to be accessed. While we
don’t commonly think of these as functions when we’re
considering SEO these are the purpose of the entire thing. Much
as the human body is designed primarily to keep you mobile and
able to access other things, so too is the entire search engine
designed primarily to access the outside world.

The Eyes – The eyes of the search engine are the spiders (AKA
robots or crawlers). These are the 1s and 0s that the search
engines send out over the Internet to retrieve documents. In the
case of all the major search engines the spiders crawl from one
page to another following the links, as you would look down
various paths along your way. Fortunately for the spiders they
are traveling mainly over fiber optic connections and so their
ability to travel at light speed enables them to visit all the
paths they come across whereas we as mere humans have to be a
bit more selective.

The Brain – The brain of a search engine, like the human brain,
is the most complex of its functions and components. The brain
must have instinct, must know, and must learn in order to
function properly. A search engine (and by search engine we mean
the natural listings of the major engines) must also include
these critical three components in order to survive.

The Instinct – The instinct of a search engines is defined in
it’s core functions, that is the crawling of sites and either
the inability to read specific types of data, or the programmed
response to ignore files meeting a specific criteria. Even the
programmed responses become automated by the engines and thus
fall under the category of instinct much the same as the
westernized human instinct to jump from a large spider is
learned. An infant would probably watch the spider or even eat
it meaning this is not an automatic human reaction.

The instinct of a search engines is important to understand
however once one understands what can and cannot be read and how
the spiders will crawl a site this will become instinct for you
too and can then safely be stored in the “autopilot” part of
your brain.

The Knowing – Search engines know by crawling. What they know
goes far beyond what is commonly perceived by most users,
webmasters and SEOs. While the vast storehouse we call the
Internet provides billions upon billions of pages of data for
the search engines to know they also pick up more than that.
Search engines know a number of different methods for storing
data, presenting data, prioritizing data and of course, way of
tricking the engines themselves.

While the search engine spiders are crawling the web they are
grabbing the stores of data that exist and sending it back to
the datacenters, where that information is processed through
existing algorithms and spam filters where it will attain a
ranking based on the engine’s current understanding of the way
the Internet and the documents contained within it work.

Similar to the way we process an article from a newspaper based
on our current understanding of the world, the search engines
process and rank documents based on what they understand to be
true in the way documents are organized on the Internet.

The Learning – Once it is understood that search engines rank
documents based on a specific understanding of the way the
Internet functions, it then follows that in order to insure that
new document types and technologies are able to be read and that
the algorithm be changed as new understandings of the
functionality of the Internet are uncovered a search engine must
have the ability to “learn”.

Aside from a search engine needing the ability to properly
spider documents stored in newer technologies, search engines
must also have the ability to detect and accurately penalize
spam and as well as accurately rank websites based on new
understandings of the way documents are organized and links
arranged. Examples of areas where search engines must learn in
an ongoing basis include but are most certainly not limited to:

* Understanding the relevancy of the content between sites
where a link is found * Attaining the ability to view the
content on documents contained within new technologies such as
database types, Flash, etc. * Understanding the various methods
used to hide text, links, etc. in order to penalize sites
engaging in these tactics * Learning from current results and
any shortcoming in them, what tweaks to current algorithms or
what additional considerations must be taken into account to
improve the relevancy of the results in the future.

The learning of a search engine generally comes from the
uber-geeks hired by and the users of the search engines. Once a
factor is taken into account and programmed into the algorithm
it them moves into the “knowing” category until the next round
of updates. How This Helps in SEO

This is the point at which you may be asking yourself, “This is
all well-and-good but exactly how does this help ME?” An
understanding of how search engines function, how they learn,
and how they live is one of the most important understandings
you can have in optimizing a website. This understanding will
insure that you don’t simply apply random tricks in hopes that
you’ve listened to the right person in the forums that day but
rather that you consider what is the search engine trying to do
and does this tactic fit with the long term goals of the engine.

For a while keyword density spamming was all the rage among the
less ethical SEOs as was building networks of websites to link
together in order to boost link popularity. Neither of these
tactics work today and why? They do not fit with the long-term
goals of the search engine. Search engines, like humans, want to
survive. If the results they provide are poor then the engine
will die a slow but steady death and so they evolve.

When considering any tactic you must consider, does this fit
with the long-term goals of the engine? Does this tactic in
general serve to provide better results for the largest number
of searches? If the answer is yes then the tactic is sound.

For example, the overall relevancy of your website (i.e. does
the majority of your content focus on a single subject) has
become more important over the past year or so. Does this help
the searcher? The searcher will find more content on the subject
they have searched on larger sites with larger amounts of
related content and thus this shift does help the searcher
overall. A tactic that includes the addition of more content to
your site is thus a solid one as it helps build the overall
relevancy of your website and gives the visitor more and updated
information at their disposal once they get there.

Another example would be in link building. Reciprocal links are
becoming less relevant and reciprocal-links between unrelated
sites are virtually irrelevant. If you are engaging in
reciprocal link building insure that the sites you link to are
related to your site’s content. As a search engine I would want
to know that a site in my results also provided links to other
related sites thus increasing the chance that the searcher was
going to find the information that they are looking for one way
or another without having to switch to a different search
engine

Basing your entire websites future on one simple set of rules
(read: tricks) about how the search engines will rank your site
contains an additional flaw, there are more factors being
considered than any SEO is aware of and can confirm. That’s
right, I will freely admit that there are factors at work that I
may not be aware of and even those that I am aware of I cannot
with 100% accuracy give you the exact weight they are given in
the overall algorithm. Even if I could, the algorithm would
change a few weeks later and what’s more, hold your hats for
this one; there is more than one search engine.

So if we cannot base our optimization on a set of hard-and-fast
rules what can we do? The key my friends, is not to understand
the tricks but rather what they accomplish. Reflecting back on
my high school math teach Mr. Barry Nicholl I recall a silly
story that had a great impact. One weekend he had the entire
class watch Dumbo The Flying Elephant (there was actually going
to be a question about it on our test). Why? The lesson we were
to get from it is that formulas (like tricks) are the feather in
the story. They are unnecessary and yet we hold on to them in
the false belief that it is the feather that works and not the
logic. Indeed, the tricks and techniques are not what works but
rather the logic they follow and that is their shortcoming.

And So What Is Necessary?

To rank a website highly and keep it ranking over time one must
optimize it with one primary understanding, that a search engine
is a living thing. Obviously this is not to say that search
engines have brains, I will leave those tales to Orson Scott
Card and other science fiction writers, however their very
nature results in a lifelike being with far more storage
capacity.

If we consider for a moment how a search engine functions; it
goes out into the world, follows the road signs and paths to get
where it’s going, and collects all of the information in its
path. From this point, the information is sent back to a group
of servers where algorithms are applied in order to determine
the importance of specific documents. How are these algorithms
generated? They are created by human beings who have a great
deal of experience in understanding the fundamentals of the
Internet and the documents it contains and who also have the
capacity to learn from their mistakes, and update the algorithms
accordingly. Essentially we have an entity that collects data,
stores it, and then sorts through it to determine what’s
important which it’s happy to share with others and what’s
unimportant which it keeps tucked away.

So Let’s Break It Down …

To gain a true understanding of what a search engine is, it’s
simple enough to compare it to the human anatomy as, though not
breathing, it contains many of the same core functions required
for life. And these are:

The Lungs & Other Vital Organs – The
lungs of a search engine and indeed the vast majority of vital
organs are contained within the datacenters in which they are
housed. Be it in the form of power, Internet connectivity, etc.
As with the human body, we do not generally consider these
important in defining who we are, however we’re certainly
grateful to have them and need them all to function properly.

The Arms & Legs – Think of the links
from the engine itself as the arms and legs. These are the
vehicles by which we get where we need to go and retrieve what
needs to be accessed. While we don’t commonly think of these as
functions when we’re considering SEO these are the purpose of
the entire thing. Much as the human body is designed primarily
to keep you mobile and able to access other things, so too is
the entire search engine designed primarily to access the
outside world.

The Eyes – The eyes of the search
engine are the spiders (AKA robots or crawlers). These are the
1s and 0s that the search engines send out over the Internet to
retrieve documents. In the case of all the major search engines
the spiders crawl from one page to another following the links,
as you would look down various paths along your way. Fortunately
for the spiders they are traveling mainly over fiber optic
connections and so their ability to travel at light speed
enables them to visit all the paths they come across whereas we
as mere humans have to be a bit more selective.

The Brain – The brain of a search
engine, like the human brain, is the most complex of its
functions and components. The brain must have instinct, must
know, and must learn in order to function properly. A search
engine (and by search engine we mean the natural listings of the
major engines) must also include these critical three components
in order to survive.

The Instinct – The instinct of a
search engines is defined in it’s core functions, that is the
crawling of sites and either the inability to read specific
types of data, or the programmed response to ignore files
meeting a specific criteria. Even the programmed responses
become automated by the engines and thus fall under the category
of instinct much the same as the westernized human instinct to
jump from a large spider is learned. An infant would probably
watch the spider or even eat it meaning this is not an automatic
human reaction.

The instinct of a search engines is important to understand
however once one understands what can and cannot be read and how
the spiders will crawl a site this will become instinct for you
too and can then safely be stored in the “autopilot” part of
your brain.

The Knowing – Search
engines know by crawling. What they know goes far beyond what is
commonly perceived by most users, webmasters and SEOs. While the
vast storehouse we call the Internet provides billions upon
billions of pages of data for the search engines to know they
also pick up more than that. Search engines know a number of
different methods for storing data, presenting data,
prioritizing data and of course, way of tricking the engines
themselves.

While the search engine spiders are crawling the web they are
grabbing the stores of data that exist and sending it back to
the datacenters, where that information is processed through
existing algorithms and sp@m filters where it will attain a
ranking based on the engine’s current understanding of the way
the Internet and the documents contained within it work.

Similar to the way we process an article from a newspaper based
on our current understanding of the world, the search engines
process and rank documents based on what they understand to be
true in the way documents are organized on the Internet.

The Learning – Once it is understood
that search engines rank documents based on a specific
understanding of the way the Internet functions, it then follows
that in order to insure that new document types and technologies
are able to be read and that the algorithm be changed as new
understandings of the functionality of the Internet are
uncovered a search engine must have the ability to “learn”.

Aside from a search engine needing the ability to properly
spider documents stored in newer technologies, search engines
must also have the ability to detect and accurately penalize
sp@m and as well as accurately rank websites based on new
understandings of the way documents are organized and links
arranged. Examples of areas where search engines must learn in
an ongoing basis include but are most certainly not limited
to:

Understanding the relevancy of the content
between sites where a link is found Attaining the
ability to view the content on documents contained within new
technologies such as database types, Flash, etc.
Understanding the various methods used to hide text, links, etc.
in order to penalize sites engaging in these tactics
Learning from current results and any shortcoming in them, what
tweaks to current algorithms or what additional considerations
must be taken into account to improve the relevancy of the
results in the future.

The learning of a search engine generally comes from the
uber-geeks hired by and the users of the search engines. Once a
factor is taken into account and programmed into the algorithm
it them moves into the “knowing” category until the next round
of updates.

How This Helps in SEO

This is the point at which you may be asking yourself, “This is
all well-and-good but exactly how does this help ME?” An
understanding of how search engines function, how they learn,
and how they live is one of the most important understandings
you can have in optimizing a website. This understanding will
insure that you don’t simply apply random tricks in hopes that
you’ve listened to the right person in the forums that day but
rather that you consider what is the search engine trying to do
and does this tactic fit with the long term goals of the engine.

For a while keyword density sp@mming was all the rage among the
less ethical SEOs as was building networks of websites to link
together in order to boost link popularity. Neither of these
tactics work today and why? They do not fit with the long-term
goals of the search engine. Search engines, like humans, want to
survive. If the results they provide are poor then the engine
will die a slow but steady death and so they evolve.

When considering any tactic you must consider, does this fit
with the long-term goals of the engine? Does this tactic in
general serve to provide better results for the largest number
of searches? If the answer is yes then the tactic is sound.

For example, the overall relevancy of your website (i.e. does
the majority of your content focus on a single subject) has
become more important over the past year or so. Does this help
the searcher? The searcher will find more content on the subject
they have searched on larger sites with larger amounts of
related content and thus this shift does help the searcher
overall. A tactic that includes the addition of more content to
your site is thus a solid one as it helps build the overall
relevancy of your website and gives the visitor more and updated
information at their disposal once they get there.

Another example would be in link building. Reciprocal links are
becoming less relevant and reciprocal-links between unrelated
sites are virtually irrelevant. If you are engaging in
reciprocal link building insure that the sites you link to are
related to your site’s content. As a search engine I would want
to know that a site in my results also provided links to other
related sites thus increasing the chance that the searcher was
going to find the information that they are looking for one way
or another without having to switch to a different search
engine.

In Short

In short, think ahead. Understand that search engines are
organic beings that will continue to evolve. Help feed them when
they visit your site and they will return often and reward your
efforts. Use unethical tactics and you may hold a good position
for a while but in the end, if you do not use tactics that
provide for good overall results, you will not hold your
position for long. They will learn.

Google, AOL, Info Space, Yahoo, Askewest, MSN, AltaVista, Lycos, AllTheWeb, Netscape, Looksmart, Go/ InfoSeek, Overture, NBCi/Snap, Kanoodle, IX Quick, Northern Light, Excite, DMOZ, WiseNut, Teoma, Hog Search, MetaCrawler, Dogpile Web Search Eureka,EuroPages, Free Find , Go.com, Mirago, Nerd World, Northern Light , Open Directory Project, OpenText , Planet Search, Scoot, Starting Point , UK Directory , Webtop, Yellow Web

SEO an Overview
The objective of Search Engine Optimization is to increase web visitor counts by ranking very high in the results of searches using the most appropriate keywords describing the content of your site. This relative ranking is often viewed as a struggle to best use a few keywords, instead of a struggle to out-do your competition. If you search on your target keywords, you will see the leading site in the rankings. All you need to do is to be better than that number one site. This page suggests ways to optimize and improve search engine results with ranking and placement advice, placement hints, tips, and clues to improve your search engine keywords relative to existing leaders. After all, better keyword ranking is your real objective.
It is not enough to simply add META tags and do search engine submission of your site to a million search engine indexes and directories. The first placement step in obtaining significant web visitor counts is to seek first-page search engine results. An early step is to build a great 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 competent Search Engine Optimization you are destined to be search engine fodder.

There are no Search Engine Optimization secrets — just ranking and placement methodologies to follow in order to beat your competition in obtaining a high ranking for desired search keywords. This site targets improving search engine rankings by using a “follow the leader” approach to keyword selection and page wording. Once you know what keywords and search engine marketing services (not spam) worked for the “leaders”, you can “beat the leader” and do even better! Proper Search Engine Optimization requires that you beat your competition, so knowing the keywords and criterion used by your competition is the most important first step. It will become obvious that good ranking excludes keyword spamming the search engine, and that with the careful selection of your keywords that you will fare well for a little effort. Bruceclay.com offers help, hints, and tips for improving search engine results via a specific search engine keywords placement methodology.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the science of search as it relates to marketing on the web. It is mostly technical in nature, combining programming with business, persuasion, sales, and a love for competitive puzzle solving into a written form capable of maintaining desired revenue goals while achieving high rankings in the organic sections of search engine results pages. It is not just technical, nor copywriting, nor links, nor just search engine submission, but an intricate blend of over a hundred variables into the fabric of a website. It is difficult to accomplish without a formal proven methodology and strong proprietary tools. We offer you a tutorial on all of that and more on these pages…

Before you start, you should understand that top 10 rankings with every single major search engine and directory can be obtained, although very few sites can get there and the effort is often beyond reason. Note: URL ranking results change week-to-week due to competition, so maintaining a top ranking requires constant keywords monitoring and information rework. Search Engine Optimization never rests, much like your competition.

The key information on this page includes how to prepare both you and your site for the search engines, choosing the right keywords, how to analyze your competition, what is submission and how is it best accomplished, when to monitor your ranking, instructions for performing an analysis of your site results, complete with tools and aids. This site covers all basic and advanced strategies and the common mistakes to avoid.

The overall SEO involves:

• Attracting prospects to a web site

• that is properly designed to encourage visitors to browse like Web Site Design

• leads the visitor to a completed transaction by offering products easily and without undue complexity like Web Site Navigation

• Addresses concerns (perceived risks) that can scare off the potential buyer if left unanswered like risk avoidance.

The overall SEO involves

• Attracting prospects to a web site

• That is properly designed to encourage visitors to browse like Web Site Design

• Leads the visitor to a completed transaction by offering products easily and without undue complexity like Web Site Navigation

• Addresses concerns (perceived risks) that can scare off the potential buyer if left unanswered like risk avoidance.

SEO Case Study

• Do you have any intent to sell your product yourself?

• Do you have any intent to sell this product through a traditional retail channel?

• Have you decided to sell this product via the Web?

• Determine What You Have To Sell

• Determine Who Already Needs What You Have To Sell

• Determine What They Will Pay For What You Have To Sell

SEO Guidelines

• Obtain A Domain Name And Site Host

• Search Engine Marketing Through Links

• Search Engine Marketing Through Public Relations

• Search Engine Marketing Through Banners and Print Media

• Search Engine Marketing Through Strategic Relationships And Reciprocal Links

• Search Engine Marketing Through Email Discussion Groups And News Groups

• Search Engine Marketing Through A Bulk Email Program (Careful!)

• Measure Progress And Change Only One Thing At A Time

• Proceed to Search Engine Placement Tactics and Tools Page

Develop A Website Using These Principles:

Before submission you must have prepared your site for search engine placement. If your site is not prepared for top ranking then a submission service can only give you many, many poor rankings.
Consider techniques for counting visitors and have a demographics collection process (newsletter registration or perhaps a Guest Book or equivalent) for capturing visitor name and email information.

1. It must showcase the need that your product addresses (public interest)

2. It must showcase the solution that you are offering.

3. It must provide instant gratification (for information and access to the solution).

4. It must provide appropriate and timely information (in images and words) to allow the visitor to make a decision. Help them to decide that your product meets their needs.

5. Allow the visitor to buy your product (or, if a service, allow them to contact you).

6. Allow for easy information requests if questions arise anytime, day or night. Always respond promptly!

7. Consider techniques for counting visitors and have a demographics collection process (newsletter registration or perhaps a Guest Book or equivalent) for capturing visitor name and email information.

8. Change the site often (at least once per week) to give users a reason to visit again and again.

9. Consider offering a “gift” to visitors (free is best, perhaps a contest) to have them tell their friends to visit your site. Word of mouth is a powerful tool. We have our own “tell-two-friends” referral script on our site.

10. Have the site be “High Class”. Curb appeal is important in determining if you want surfers to stop and visit. Opinions will be formed early about whether the customer wants to do business with you. Plan improvements.(Regardless of what you may think, every site on the Web is under construction all of the time). Make sure that your web site design does not violate any taboos.

11. Design for the masses. Do not use exceptionally advanced technology unless that is your product. The Web is still connected to a lot of slow computers, and many do not operate on the latest Netscape or Internet Explorer products. Keep it simple and still meet your web site design and promotion goals. The toys must be appropriate to the mission of your web site.

12. Write the text and “storyboard” your site much like creating a good product specification. Use a word processor to lay-out all of your pages. Make sure that the flow is simple for the novice Internet user. Try to keep the body content each Web page to one to two 8½ x 11 sheets of paper, or if heavy information, minimize graphics and limit the size to no more than six pages. Focus on making the message clear. Creativity, and how quickly the page loads, is more important than the use of extra artwork for the sake of “cute”. And when this is done, call a Marketing Consultant first, definitely before you call a web page designer. Message and Placement sell on the web.

13. It is important to consider some aspects of eCommerce: web-based commerce with a human touch is very effective in most cases, especially with 60% to 70% of all shopping carts being abandoned. Do not design around human contact if it increases the ability to sell your products. Factor it into your design. While this may be against the Amazon.com hands-off model, some firms like Face Time Communications are integrating AOL Instant Massager with their website eCommerce applications to answer last minute questions. Reports are that buy decisions increase six-fold if questions are answered. Customer Service is evolving, and it is alive and well on the web.

14. Double check the site architectural concepts.

15. There are obviously “things” that a Web architect must know. Much of this is contained in this site and many others linked to this site below. You still need to have a minds-eye image of what is possible before you spend too much money doing it. We recommend that for optimal search engine placement that you start by reviewing this site once, and then on the second pass spend more time on the Web by “surfing” my links and those linked from our links.

16. For all sites that you identify, go to their website and visit their home page. Choose the browser option to view their Home Page HTML source (this might be a complex process). Scan these sites for search engine placement keywords and terms to make sure that your list is as complete.

17. Marketing is everything. It brings potential buyers to your door. But proper design is vital, because without effective design the buyers who see your home page will leave before it finishes loading. The average home page loads in 48 seconds at 28.8, and the average visitor stays at a home page for 35 seconds, obviously many leave before the page finishes loading. We can learn from this.

18. Create/Design the site by taking content and art, mixing it with navigation and style, testing it on family and friends, and always listen to comments, grunts, pregnant pauses, and blank stares. Specific advice on development of a page is at our Quality Site Criteria page and we suggest that you visit it now, before you code your first Web page! Try not to copy a page layout from another site. Use your own words, ideas, and artwork whenever possible, making sure that the message in the image matches your text. Make sure that the visitor knows what you are saying/selling at all times.

19. Carefully consider the use of database tools, visual tools, and java tools. These are areas receiving a lot of interest, and technology work, and they might be right for your site. Carefully consider your options since some could adversely affect search engine placement.

20. Use the smallest graphics that you can to relay your message. It is estimated that 20% of all Web users surf the Web without graphics enabled! But always have graphics if it helps sell your product. Don’t add graphics just to be neat — an animated mail box is really not something to add to a commercial site.

Follow these rules (mandatory for Free Site Listings)

• Make sure the site is rated for Family Viewing (keep it clean).

• Be courteous to other authors at all times — respect their copyrights, trademarks, and intellectual property.

• Make sure the site is NOT a multi-level marketing site, a network marketing site, or a get rich quick site (although some MLM sites can get into the free lists if they are not moderated).

• Make sure the site is NOT graphically overburdened. Minimize the use of CAPITAL letters, large fonts, and extensive graphics, especially animation.

• Make sure the site Home Page loads quickly and informs the visitor what you have to offer them right up front. If using sounds, use MIDI files whenever possible instead or WAV files, and default to off unless sounds are short. Be careful, some browsers crash with sound enabled.

• If you entice visitors with a FREE OFFER or CONTEST, make sure you explain how to obtain the gift or prize in an obvious manner. (FREE is good, but contests usually don’t work and there may be legal problems).

• Always choose to communicate information rather than to display wiz-bang nifty technical skills. These gadgets are a no-no to many free sites even if mandatory for some award sites. Animation, although exciting to see sometimes, is a real distraction on most pages and actually decreases sales. Avoid it unless there is a purpose.

• If you are going to be selling a service or product, take the time to establish a merchant account and accept credit cards. The good news is that this is easily implemented with or without a store. The bad news is that it takes effort to set it up. It is strongly suggested that you visit our page on e-commerce considerations and follow those instructions carefully!

Search Engine Placement through Search Engines, Links, and Awards
Before submission you must have prepared your site for search engine placement. If your site is not prepared for top ranking then a submission service can only give you many, many poor rankings.

There are many Web businesses offering to list your site with search engines or directories for FREE for a few sites, and for a small fee for other sites. The key is that over time, the categories change, the registration format changes, and there is a great difference between being submitted and being registered. At present, there is a 25% mortality rate for search engine sites every few months, and those that survive do so by upgrading categories and registration formats.

Search engine placement requires some homework. Before making this commitment, make a written note with the below information:

1. Your Web address (URL) in the form of http://www.yoursite.com

2. Your email address in the form of yourname@yoursite.com

3. The title of your Home Page in the form of “yoursite -products for {need}”

4. A 40 character product description

5. A ten to twelve word site description (your site probably)

6. A twenty-five word site description

7. A forty word site description (keep in your paste buffer). Consider using this text at the top of the displayed area on your home page.

8. A list of sixteen to twenty words best describing criteria that a prospective visitor would use in a search engine to find your site

9. A complete list of keywords (up to 1000 characters) sequenced with the most important first (possibly from your HTML Keywords line)

Mahesh Ugale

Netland India

A search engine is one of the most important tool that helps you find information on the web. Search engines are giant sized automated cataloguing & retrieval systems. They typically have large databases of web pages & other information found on the net. Upon specific query by the users these databases are scanned & the matching results displayed.

The utility of search engines in web search lies in the fact that they are the repositories of large amounts of information which can be searched very conveniently using certain keywords. This natural language searching & many advanced features now available with search engines makes the recipe tantalizingly attractive. Hence it is no wonder that 78% of the users start their search process for any information via a search engine.

Before we go any further lets clarify the difference between a search engine & a web directory. Search engines as we have learnt are automated software based systems which aid the web search. Directories are generally human based indexes in which the web sites are visited & catalogued by human beings. In the directories the web sites are included in the categories & sub categories . These categories or taxonomies are specific to specific directories.

Users can search for relevant sites in a directory by either mining on the subject they are looking for or searching through keywords. The most famous commercial directory is Yahoo. There are hundreds of directories available. We will be discussing them later. A point to note here is that most of the SE have now started to mix their web results with some kind of directory results.

Though there is a category of SE which are not crawler based. They accept money to list your web site. These paid listings search engines will be dealt in greater detail in subsequent section.

For the moment, lets look at search engine internals a little more closely:

What goes into making a search engine

To have a birds eye view of search engine functionality will help the searcher evaluate the relative search engine merits amongst themselves as also compared with other search resources.

Search engines as we know them, to put simply, are divided into three parts:

Crawler

Index

Search software

Lets take them one by one.

Search Engine Crawler: A traditional database is populated using conventional data entry methods. Not so on the web. Search engines send a software called spider or crawler to the wild web. This spider will visit a web site once it hears of it (through other links pointing to the web site, cataloguing in some directory or direct submission to the SE) & will start to crawl around. Based on links in the site it will digest as much information as it has been programmed to receive about the web site. Thus crawlers are search engines inventory(index) suppliers.

Search Engine Index: Index or the catalogue is that huge book which contains a copy of all the web pages that have been spidered. This in other words is the database of the search engine. Once the site has been crawled it is added to the index of the search engine. This database is refreshed & updated as per the settings done by specific search engines on a regular basis.

Search Engine Ranking Software: This is the sauce which is mostly instrumental in different crawler based search engines serving different platters on being queried about the same recipe. In other words, this is the area where most of the search engines differ in the way they handle queries & display results. This portion of the SE deals with scanning the database (index) according to specific user queries & then ranking the matches found.

This brings us to the variety found in search engines.

Types of search engines:

Search engines come in various flavors. There is as much variety in search engines as one wants. From a searchers angle it makes sense to have a handle on the major search engines in multiple categories as one important aspect of doing a good search is to be aware of specific tools to be applied in specified conditions. To illustrate, a good medical search could be done using medhunt.com as compared to say altavista.com.

Broadly the categories that the major search engine could be divided into are:

General search engines

Specialty search engines

Meta search engines

Paid search engines

Search utilities

All of these search engines have a specific utility & specific application. Lets take some examples to demonstrate.

The almost eponymous General search engine is google.

In specialty search engines we have search engines specially for multimedia, medicine, blogs, law, industry ,scientific papers…

The meta search engines are which use two or three other general search engines to generate results & then customize the format in which they are presented. Some prime examples are mamma.com, myway.com, metacrawler.com etc.

This category of search engines are really growing as a category. Starting with overture.com they come in multiple varieties as well. While some accept paid inclusions like inktomi to PPC( pay per click) engines like overture, espotting etc.

Search utilities are specialized tools utilized for special applications. One example of such utility is lexibot which scavenges the deep web for information.

Since search engines are the first stop for people on the Internet looking for goods or services, the position your website appears in search results is an important factor. If your URL shows up far down the results list, the chances of the consumer never finding you increase incrementally. Once you achieve a high search engine position, it is essential that you make sure you maintain the high ranking you have worked so hard to achieve.

This means you must come up with a strategy to monitor your search engines positions. This strategy is crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. Think of your search engine positions as your online portfolio. Would you let your stock portfolio be ruled by chance and market fluctuations, or would you keep close tabs on your stocks so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This is the way you must consider your search engines positions.

Be aware that at first, after you have launched your search engine campaign and done all the right things to increase your rankings, you will most likely see a continual upward climb. What you need to be on the lookout for is the moment that upward climb reaches a plateau. When this happens, your search engine position campaign moves into stage two, the monitoring and protecting stage.

In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-term
fluctuations in your positions. These are similar to the subtle rising and falling of stocks in a portfolio.
Short-term movement is an integral part of the whole
process. It’s the long-term changes that you must watch for and prepare to act on immediately.

Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions is imperative. The way in which search engines rank websites may change at the drop of hat. If you are unaware of these changes – many of which are subtle yet can be deadly to your ranking – your position may drop to the bottom of the list before you can get your bearings. To prevent this kind of precipitous drop, you must create a system to monitor your positions on a monthly basis. Devise a chart to keep tabs on your top ranking positions or your top pages, and make sure to watch “the market” closely.

Each search engine uses a formula to compute website
rankings. When a search engine changes this formula in any way, it may raise or lower your ranking. Some search engines use a number of different formulas, rotating them so that a formula doesn’t become overused or outdated. Depending on which formula is being applied, your search engine position may suddenly drop or rise in rank significantly. Therefore, you must check your positions frequently in order to catch when a search engine changes formulas and what effect it has on your positions.

You must also deal with your competition – a crucial factor you must always be vigilant about. Your competitor’s position may suddenly rise, automatically lowering your position. Or their position may drop, pushing your position higher. Each month, expect position changes due to the continual changes that are occurring in your competitor’s position, and be prepared to adjust your marketing strategy to compensate for decreased rankings. Monitoring these
fluctuations will also give you vital information about how to improve your website to increase your position in search results.

So far, we’ve uncovered some interesting facts about Search Engine. You may decide that the following information is even more interesting.

Of course, you must discern what the most popular search engines are in order for your monitoring efforts to be effective. Right now, there are ten popular search engines that direct most of Internet traffic to your sites. The challenge you face is that these top ten may change from month to month.

This means that your must not only monitor your search
engine positions, but you must also keep track of the
ranking popularity of the search engines you are
monitoring. Find out which search engines people use most frequently every month and be sure to live in the present! People are fickle about their favorite search engines, and it takes constant vigilance to follow their dalliances. The search engines they loved when you first launched your campaign may be old news in the next few months. You must adjust your list of engines according to the whims of the Internet users.

Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of
your positions in all search engines. This is not the same as monthly fluctuations – this is a neon red warning sign! It could mean a number of different things.

It all your search engine positions have plummeted, it may indicate that search engines spiders – those sneaky
programs that seek out your site and rank their positions – have found some type of problem with your website. If you have recently changed the code, for instance, the spider may become utterly confused and consequently drop your positions disastrously. If a spider creeps up on your website when it is down for adjustments or changes, you may actually disappear from a search engine index entirely. Or a search engine may drastically change its formula, and
suddenly all of your website come up as irrelevant. If that search engine is a current favorite, it may create a domino effect, causing all of your position to drop in all search engines.

Some search engines rely on the results from other search engines, and it is vital that you know which engines these are and keep track of all the engines they influence. The biggest problem here is that search engines will sometimes change affiliations, and this can create a major shift in the geography of the Internet. For example, recently Yahoo decided to display only results gleaned from Google. So you
must not only monitor your own positions, but you must keep abreast of seismic shifts in the landscape of the Internet as a whole.

Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are the foundation bricks of the entire search engine system, and they demand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts. If you have found that a number of your positions have plummeted, it may mean that a page of your website has become invisible or inaccessible to search engine spiders. Or the competition for that particular keyword or phrase has recently rocketed into outer space. In either case, you must act quickly and efficiently to regain lost ground.

Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. It costs you time and money on a continual basis. Protect this investment as diligently as you would your financial portfolio. In the same way, track your positions from an objective perspective, and monitor your positions on a regular basis. Make sure your time and effort reap rewards by keeping your eye on the big picture – your long-term marketing campaign.

When word gets around about your command of Search Engine facts, others who need to know about Search Engine will start to actively seek you out.

I wrote this article to help you understand a little bit about how search engines work.

Search engine marketing was once the gold rush for online customer acquisition. When the internet was much smaller and search engine rankings was easier to come by, a business could earn top ten ranking and free traffic quite easily.

Today, through, competition has skyrocketed, and ranking in the top ten for leading search engines within the chosen keywords or phrases can be next to impossible. Additionally, search engine algorithms or the criteria they base relevancy against, change as frequently as once per month.

As a result, developing a website that meets the criteria for superior ranking results is the same as chasing a moving target. In any regard, the basic foundation is important in internet marketing today and why search engines are pay-per-click driven, discussed in detail in my book “The Newbies Guide To Internet Marketing.”

Portal vs. Search-Only Sites

Search engines have two basic styles – portal and search box focused. http://Yahoo.com is a portal site, along with http://Netscape.com and http://MSN.com. These engines, sometimes called directories, offer search, news, mail and other user features to encourage repeat visits and visibility.

Other search engines offer nothing aside from a search box. http://Google.com, http://DMOZ.org and http://AltaVista.com are search box based engines. Each time one searches these engines, he or she receives a listing, often many pages long, of relevant results listed according to their relevancy algorithm.

In either search style, results depend on inclusion within the engine’s extensive database, some using human edition and others fully automated, some requiring paid inclusion and others free. Results listings are called SERP’s or search engine result pages.

Search engines began in the early 1990′s to organize the growing online information sources. Since then, search engines have become one of the leading avenues for online business marketing. According to the Internet ranking source http://Alexa.com, Yahoo is the most visited site on the Internet, reaching an average of nearly 270 billion users, Google reaches an average of almost 150 billion users each day. Lycos averages nearly 5 billion, Netscape averages 4.3 billion and Alta Vista reaches nearly 5.5 billion users per day.

Studies also indicate search engines and links are the most effective method to reach users. According to GVU users survey, 85 percent of all new visitors currently arrive from search engines. Other strong marketing venues include word of mouth and print direct mail advertising.

Not all search engines are created equally. Each database is built on specific classes, such as visitor quantity, professionalism, search quality and target audience. The higher regarded search engines return the most relevant results and compile the most comprehensive resources for any given search. In addition to the all-inclusive search engines like http://Yahoo.com and http://google.com, other location or industry-specific search engines specialize in sites of interest, such as bed & breakfast, restaurants or art galleries. These are smaller, but offer more niche industry or geographic-based results.

Search engine marketing is tiered, each level offering a distinctly different service that the next. At the most basic level is search engine listing. Listing refers to registration in any given database. This does not guarantee ranking in the top search results, but does obtain consideration.

The next level up is search engine optimization or improving a website based upon current search engine algorithms – what they seek, how they label relevance, who they place first.

Search engine placement and positioning refers to particular rankings promise for given search terms or keywords. Because most people who search pay attention to the first three pages, if not the first page only, search engine positioning generally aims for top ten placements in the largest search engines. It’s one thing to be included in a database and another thing completely to actually be found among the millions upon millions of searchers reading only the first few results.

Keywords

To rank relevantly within search engine results, each website must be considered relevant to a particular search algorithm for a given keyword or phrase. Keyword selection can be a challenge to both experts and neophytes. While anyone can come up with various words that may be used when searching for their product or service, these words may not be the ideal mix for search engine ranking. Why? If a marketer chooses a popular keyword phrases, he or she and a million other businesses compete for top placement. Top SERP placement is dense, searchers typically giving up after the first three pages. To succeed, one must use relevant keywords that are not being used by everyone else and that are searched for quite often. This may include misspellings and other alternative data. After finding relevant keywords and phrases, the results must encourage conversion or success based on each business’ criteria. For example, while it may be possible for a DVD rental firm to get top listings under the search criteria “free DVD rentals”, the person who visits is looking for free merchandise and will leave if its not found.

For optimal search engine rankings, a page will be optimized for only one to two popular but non-competitive keywords or keyword phrases.

Needless to say there are far more aspects to marketing to search engines than I can cover in this article but the information provided here should give you a good insight into understanding how important it is to design a website that is search engine friendly.

Article Summary:

Search engines are the #1 tool people use when shopping for products, services or information online. Properly promote your site to search engines and watch your traffic explode. If you gain an understanding of how to properly promote your website your efforts will reach it’s full potential.

Don’t give up! If at first you don’t succeed, TRY, TRY, AGAIN! There is a lot to learn when starting a online business. Give yourself a break and don’t set unrealistic goals. Contrary to popular beliefs, having a successful, profit making, online business doesn’t happen overnight.

So, Good Luck, Make Money and Have Fun Doing It – Shirley Kelly

I wrote this article to help you understand a little bit about how search engines work.

Search engine marketing was once the gold rush for online customer acquisition. When the internet was much smaller and search engine rankings was easier to come by, a business could earn top ten ranking and free traffic quite easily.

Today, through, competition has skyrocketed, and ranking in the top ten for leading search engines within the chosen keywords or phrases can be next to impossible. Additionally, search engine algorithms or the criteria they base relevancy against, change as frequently as once per month.

As a result, developing a website that meets the criteria for superior ranking results is the same as chasing a moving target. In any regard, the basic foundation is important in internet marketing today and why search engines are pay-per-click driven, discussed in detail in my book “The Newbies Guide To Internet Marketing.”

Portal vs. Search-Only Sites

Search engines have two basic styles – portal and search box focused. http://Yahoo.com is a portal site, along with http://Netscape.com and http://MSN.com. These engines, sometimes called directories, offer search, news, mail and other user features to encourage repeat visits and visibility.

Other search engines offer nothing aside from a search box. http://Google.com, http://DMOZ.org and http://AltaVista.com are search box based engines. Each time one searches these engines, he or she receives a listing, often many pages long, of relevant results listed according to their relevancy algorithm.

In either search style, results depend on inclusion within the engine’s extensive database, some using human edition and others fully automated, some requiring paid inclusion and others free. Results listings are called SERP’s or search engine result pages.

Search engines began in the early 1990′s to organize the growing online information sources. Since then, search engines have become one of the leading avenues for online business marketing. According to the Internet ranking source http://Alexa.com, Yahoo is the most visited site on the Internet, reaching an average of nearly 270 billion users, Google reaches an average of almost 150 billion users each day. Lycos averages nearly 5 billion, Netscape averages 4.3 billion and Alta Vista reaches nearly 5.5 billion users per day.

Studies also indicate search engines and links are the most effective method to reach users. According to GVU users survey, 85 percent of all new visitors currently arrive from search engines. Other strong marketing venues include word of mouth and print direct mail advertising.

Not all search engines are created equally. Each database is built on specific classes, such as visitor quantity, professionalism, search quality and target audience. The higher regarded search engines return the most relevant results and compile the most comprehensive resources for any given search. In addition to the all-inclusive search engines like http://Yahoo.com and http://google.com, other location or industry-specific search engines specialize in sites of interest, such as bed & breakfast, restaurants or art galleries. These are smaller, but offer more niche industry or geographic-based results.

Search engine marketing is tiered, each level offering a distinctly different service that the next. At the most basic level is search engine listing. Listing refers to registration in any given database. This does not guarantee ranking in the top search results, but does obtain consideration.

The next level up is search engine optimization or improving a website based upon current search engine algorithms – what they seek, how they label relevance, who they place first.

Search engine placement and positioning refers to particular rankings promise for given search terms or keywords. Because most people who search pay attention to the first three pages, if not the first page only, search engine positioning generally aims for top ten placements in the largest search engines. It’s one thing to be included in a database and another thing completely to actually be found among the millions upon millions of searchers reading only the first few results.

Keywords

To rank relevantly within search engine results, each website must be considered relevant to a particular search algorithm for a given keyword or phrase. Keyword selection can be a challenge to both experts and neophytes. While anyone can come up with various words that may be used when searching for their product or service, these words may not be the ideal mix for search engine ranking. Why? If a marketer chooses a popular keyword phrases, he or she and a million other businesses compete for top placement. Top SERP placement is dense, searchers typically giving up after the first three pages. To succeed, one must use relevant keywords that are not being used by everyone else and that are searched for quite often. This may include misspellings and other alternative data. After finding relevant keywords and phrases, the results must encourage conversion or success based on each business’ criteria. For example, while it may be possible for a DVD rental firm to get top listings under the search criteria “free DVD rentals”, the person who visits is looking for free merchandise and will leave if its not found.

For optimal search engine rankings, a page will be optimized for only one to two popular but non-competitive keywords or keyword phrases.

Needless to say there are far more aspects to marketing to search engines than I can cover in this article but the information provided here should give you a good insight into understanding how important it is to design a website that is search engine friendly.

Article Summary:

Search engines are the #1 tool people use when shopping for products, services or information online. Properly promote your site to search engines and watch your traffic explode. If you gain an understanding of how to properly promote your website your efforts will reach it’s full potential.

Don’t give up! If at first you don’t succeed, TRY, TRY, AGAIN! There is a lot to learn when starting a online business. Give yourself a break and don’t set unrealistic goals. Contrary to popular beliefs, having a successful, profit making, online business doesn’t happen overnight.

So, Good Luck, Make Money and Have Fun Doing It – Shirley Kelly

Ranking Algorithms

You may have heard of ranking algorithms when you were researching search engine trends and optimization techniques. These algorithms are mathematical formulas that search engines use to determine how Web pages are indexed in their databases. These algorithms also help to determine how Web pages are ranked in the results for specific keyword searches. Each of the search engines has its own specific ranking algorithm, but the actual formulas are kept confidential by each individual search engine company.

Because these algorithms have the power to change Web rankings and the way people do business, they are kept from other companies to protect the business interests of each search engine. Even though you don’t know exactly what these formulas are, there are guidelines for each search engine that you can follow to improve your rankings.

Ranking algorithms differ for each search engine, so you can use one search engine and then use a second search engine for the same keyword and get completely different results. This is why you need to have a wide range of search engine optimization techniques in place to optimize your Web site for the best results across all of the search engines.

If you heavily optimize your site for one search engine, you will lose traffic on other search engines. If you optimize your site for the top search engine, you may be able to get away with very little optimization for the other search engines.

All of this will depend on how the search engines are ranking sites when you are optimizing your site. You will also have to keep up with the major search engine trends after you initially optimize your site so you know what changes need to be made.

Off-page optimization has become increasingly more important because of the changes in search engine optimization. Many people involved in the SEO community have learned how to optimize their pages so the search engines started to place increasingly more importance on off-page optimization.

Off-page optimization means that you will have to work on optimizing your site without actually using the pages of your site for optimization purposes. One of the best tools for off-page optimization is link building. Link building means that you are building links from other Web sites to your own site. One-way links are the most valuable since they show that other Web site owners find the information on your site to be relevant or important.

Some of the bigger search engines determine the popularity of the Web sites that are ranked well in the results for specific keywords. If a well-ranked site is not getting much traffic from the search results, the search engines will decrease the rank of this site because Web users have shown it to be an irrelevant or useless site.

If a site that is not ranked as well in the search engines gets a lot of traffic, the search engines may elevate the rank of the site. Users who keep visiting the site despite its low rank are showing the search engines that the site’s information is very important and relevant to the keywords used in Web searches returning that particular site in the rankings.

The Importance of Google

If you have a small search engine optimization budget, you may be wondering if it’s really necessary to optimize your site for all of the search engines. While optimizing your site for all of the search engines will give you the best results, targeting the major search engines can help you to optimize your site for the smaller search engines at the same time.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN are known as the major search engines and they are in constant competition with each other to improve the way information is returned every time someone searches for a particular word or phrase. Google is the most important of these search engines, and the Google organization has changed the way users get information with their innovative search techniques and complementary services.

In addition to the search engine services it provides, Google also offers Google Scholar, Google Earth, Google Checkout, G-mail, and a number of other services for Web users. Google Scholar allows users to search for information in scholarly publications. This is an excellent tool for anyone writing a thesis, dissertation, or article for publication.

Google Earth is Google’s way of getting involved with satellite photographs. Users can search for photographs taken by satellites. Google Checkout is Google’s new payment processing system that is closely linked with major retailers, making it the online shopping experience for convenient. G-mail is Google’s e-mails service that has a very large storage capacity, making it the first choice for users who want to take advantage of the almost 3 GB inbox size.

Google PageRank

Google PageRank (PR) is a statistical tool that can be used by Web marketers to determine how their site is perceived in the online community. Google creates this statistic using a mathematical formula that takes the number of links to and from your Web site into consideration and comes up with the PR number.

When other Web site owners link to your site, Google interprets each link as a “vote” for your site. This allows Web users to contribute to the popularity of a site. The quality of the links to your site is just as important, if not more important, than the number of links to your site. If a Web site linking to you has a PR of 8 and 200 outgoing links, this may slightly help your PR.

If a site linking to you only has a PR of 6 but only has 10 links, this will be more helpful. Because the site has few outgoing links, Google assumes that your site is important because they used one of their few links to drive viewers to your site.

Checking your PageRank is easy using a tool called PR Checker. You simply enter your Web address and your PR will be displayed in a matter of seconds. If you find that your PR is low, you can attempt to increase it by building links and employing other SEO strategies.

The Sandbox Effect

Because Google is so important in the world of search engines, it has had a strong effect on how Web pages are indexed and ranked in the search engine results. This importance has resulted in an effect that is often called the Sandbox Effect. This effect refers to the period of time that Web site owners must wait before being ranked by the search engines. This period can be anywhere from 3 months to 6 months and this time is often used to see if each new Web site can survive without rankings.

If a Web site is not ranked but still has significant traffic, it means that the information and tools on the site must be worthwhile enough to attract visitors without using the search engines to generate traffic. If a Web site is able to stay afloat before it is ranked, Google assumes that the content is important enough to allow the Web site to be ranked for its specific keywords and phrases.

Duplicate Web Content

There is a lot of information about the duplicate content penalty on the Internet, but there are just as many web sites that are devoted to proving the rumor to be false. Duplicate content is when you use content that is already on the Web to populate your web site with information.

Doing this is easy as it saves you time and money on writing your own articles, but if the search engines penalize you for duplicate content, you could be derailing your own SEO efforts. According to those who promote the existence of a duplicate content penalty, search engines have a filter that is used when duplicate content is detected. If your content is ignored by the search engines, you’re not going to improve your rankings and you may not even get anywhere near the top 10 of the results.

Having your own unique content is important for many reasons beyond the threat of a penalty for duplicate content. Writing your own content can position you as an expert in your field. Visitors will be much more impressed with your qualifications if you provide original content than they will be by visiting your web site and finding the same article they just read 10 minutes ago.

Having unique content on your web site can also help you improve your SEO efforts because other sites will want to link to your original information. Would you rather link to someone who has original ideas and a wealth of information on their web site, or to a web site that has the same content as 10 other sites? That’s how other people think and you’ll benefit from this thinking when they see that you have a ton of fresh content just waiting to be read by people all over the Web.

Another reason that adding unique content to your site on a regular basis is important is because it can help you to improve your search engine rankings. Search engines send crawlers out to look for information at designated intervals. If you update your web site, a crawler may visit it and gather the new information for indexing. This can help to improve your search engine ranking.

If you have a web site, newsletter, e-zine, tip sheet, or other information product, you’re going to want to have unique content. This can help to build your subscriber list to your newsletter and make your products more valuable in the online marketplace. Some of the same e-books and articles have spread all over the Internet and have the same tired information that is already out of date.

If you dedicate yourself to creating unique content, you can keep up with the latest trends and give your readers exciting and relevant information that they can use in their businesses. This will solidify your reputation as an expert in your field, and can also create goodwill with your web site visitors. One final reason to avoid using duplicate content is so that you can avoid any legal claims of plagiarism or copyright violation.

Just because something is on the internet doesn’t mean it’s free to reuse or distribute. If you inadvertently distribute or use something that is protected by copyright, you may find yourself in hot water with the copyright owner.

Keeping up with search engine trends and learning how to best optimize your web site for the search engines will not only bring you additional traffic, it will also bring you more chances for sales conversions and satisfied customers. Use these techniques wisely and you’ll be able to manage a steady business for many years to come.