search engine marketing(SEM)/search engine optimization(SEO) book to optimize your site and get business

Search Engine Marketing Guide

There is a lot involved with search engine marketing. In fact, it can be a bit overwhelming, even for those with a great deal of experience. The good news is that by taking it one step at a time, it is not hard to learn. And once learned, search engine marketing can provide an effective method of driving highly targeted visitors to your web site.

The following is a simple guide to search engine marketing. Although it is meant for beginners, it can also be very useful for more advanced search engine marketers as a reference source. Each section provides a brief overview of the basics followed by resources for further study.

Take it one step at a time and you’ll soon understand the basics of search engine marketing…

Keywords & Search Terms
The first step is to learn about the search terms that your target audience is using when using search engines. These search terms are the keywords and keyphrases that will be used to market your web site.                                                                                             On this page you will learn about:

1. The importance of keywords and search terms.
2. Tools that will help you find your best keywords.
3. Search term lists useful for spotting general trends.

Search Engine Optimization
Step two addresses how to make basic web site design changes that will make your site more search engine friendly.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is search engine optimization (SEO)?
2. Domain names.
3. The Title Tag.
4. Meta Description and Meta Keyword Tags.
5. Copywriting.
6. ALT Tags.
7. Site Map
8. Dealing with FLASH.
9. Dealing with dynamic pages.
10. File formats.
11. Framed sites & pages.
12. JavaScript.
13. What to avoid.
14. Getting professional SEO help.
15. Getting free help.

 

Search Engine Submission
After you’ve gone through the search engine optimization process, it’s time to get your site listed in the various search engines and directories.

On this page you will learn about:

1. How will the search engines find my site?
2. Submitting your site using a free submit form.
3. Submitting to directories.
4. Paying the search engines to index your site.
5. Services to avoid.
6. Services that can help.

Link Popularity
Link popularity is a major factor when it comes to ranking well in search engines and drawing traffic to your site. In step four, you will learn how to increase the number of links to your site, how to get quality sites to link to yours, and the overall effect link popularity has on your rankings.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is link popularity?
2. Getting links to your site.
3. Checking Your Link Popularity
4. What not to do.

Paid Inclusion
If you would rather not wait for the search engines to find and index your site on their own, you can pay to be indexed faster. With step five, you will learn if paid inclusion is a viable option for you.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is paid inclusion?
2. Will it help my site rank better?
3. What are the costs?

Pay Per Click Search Engines
Pay per click search engines and pay per click advertising provides web site owners the opportunity to buy their way to better positions on search results pages. Step six looks at this form of advertising.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is pay per click?
2. Which search engines allow pay per click advertising?
3. Important Considerations
4. Pay per click affiliate programs.
5. Pay per click information resources.

Log File and Traffic Analysis
Your site’s log files contain a wealth of information about the effectiveness of your web site marketing programs. With your log files, you can learn how your visitors are finding your site, what search terms they are using to find it, and which are the best sources of traffic for your site.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is a log file?
2. Why is log file and traffic analysis important?
3. Services and tools that can help.

Google’s PageRank
Although Google’s PageRank is but one factor Google uses to determine its search results, it is a popular topic. Step eight provides basic information to help you better understand the importance of PageRank.

On this page you will learn about:

1. What is Google’s PageRank?
2. How do I find the PageRank of a web page?

1. The Importance of Keywords and Search Terms

Search terms are the words and phrases that people type into the search forms of search engines. Keywords and keyphrases are the words on your site that match these search terms.

Before you do any type of search engine marketing, you have to understand your target audience and know the search terms they are using. Once you know the search terms being used, these can be included in the content of your Web site as keywords and keyphrases.

Your keywords and keyphrases will also be used if you plan to promote your site with pay per click or keyword based pay per impression advertising.

To learn more about Keywords and Search Terms:

2. Tools and Services That Will Help You Find Your Best Keywords

The following tools and services will help you discover what search terms are being used on the search engines. The information provided can help you choose the best keywords and keyphrases for your Web site.

• Word Tracker
  Wordtracker helps you choose the right Internet marketing keywords that will help your search engine placement and ranking. Use Wordtracker for keyword research to learn what keywords and keyphrases your customers are using to find the products or services you offer. Provides basic access for free and a much more robust paid version.
• Keyword Discovery
  Discover the right keywords to target on your website and PPC campaigns. Identify common keyword misspellings, seasonal trends, related and industry terms. Run keyword permutations and even translate your keywords to and from various languages. KeywordDiscovery has the largest keyword database of around 30 billion searches compiled from close to 200 different search engines. Offers basic access for free and a much more robust paid version.
• Overture Search Terms
  Enter a term to find how many searches were performed using it the previous month on Overture. Free to use.
• SEO Research Labs
  SEO Research Labs provides a very handy service that will identify the best keywords and search terms for your site. Their service is recommended for anyone that would rather have someone else handle the time intensive research work for them.

To learn more about Tools That Will Help You Find Your Best Keywords:

Recommended Articles:

• An Ingenious Way to Use Wordtracker - Besides using Wordtracker to find keywords, John Alexander actually uses the service to target an audience�s surfing behavior. Once he determines the surfing behavior, he can use that knowledge to target those who are most likely to purchase his clients� products or services.

 3. Search Term Lists

These sites provide lists of the top search terms used on the search engines. These are not intended to help you find keywords and keyphrases specifically for your site. These lists are useful for looking for general trends.

• Top 500 Keywords Of The Week
  This week’s list of the top 500 most frequently searched keywords used on search engines.
• Lycos 50
  Lists the 50 most popular user searches for the week.
• Livesuche
  Shows the search terms people are using on the German search engine Fireball.
• Ask Jeeves Peek Through the Keyhole
  Shows the questions that people are asking at Ask Jeeves.
• Kanoodle.com - Search Spy
  Shows what other people are searching for on Kanoodle.com.
• Metaspy
  Provides real-time display of searches being performed on MetaCrawler. Provides both filtered and unfiltered versions.
• Yahoo! Buzz Index
  Find out what people are searching for at Yahoo! Subjects are ranked according to a buzz score which is based on the percentage of users searching for that subject on a given day.

Copywriting: Key to Search Engine Visibility and Conversions

High rankings in search engines can bring you lots of targeted traffic, but will you be ready to convert those leads when they get there? Only if you use skillful, strategic copywriting combined with search engine optimization techniques when designing your Web pages.

Hooking Visitors

The home page is your most important page because that’s where most visitors start. The purpose of your home page is to get your visitors’ attention by allowing them to find essential information quickly and easily. This means benefit-rich text that can solve problems - copy written from the visitor’s viewpoint rather than your own.

Visitors are usually looking for information with short attention spans. They’re thinking “What’s in it for me?” and aren’t interested in sales copy or company profiles. They may want to know more about the company later, but the first order of business is to find information that answers their query.

To design a good home page, focus on the key benefits of your products and services. Every time you get into the details or features, make it a hyperlink to a new page around that topic. For instance, a search engine marketing firm might list the benefit below on its home page.

“If you need higher rankings in the major search engines, we specialize in search engine optimization and copywriting techniques that result in better positioning and increased conversions for your business. Click here to learn more about how we can help you improve visibility and profits.”

The “click here” statement should be a hyperlink taking your visitor to an inner page focused on describing your products and services in more detail. From there, and also from your home page, they should be able to click to an “order” or “e-quote” page. You can conveniently offer a link back to the home page, as good Web site navigation is essential for keeping visitors on your site.

Researching Keywords

Before any copywriting or search engine optimization tasks can begin, it’s necessary to conduct thorough keyword research to identify the strategic keyword phrases that lead to better positioning and visitor conversions.

Your keyword phrases are used both in visible Web copy (headers and body text) and non-visible HTML code (title tag, meta description tag). It is the selection of the right keyword phrases, coupled with skillful copywriting in using these terms, that makes your site relevant for both search engines and visitors, so choose your words carefully.

• Brainstorm to create a list of keywords describing your offerings. Identify search terms that potential customers might use in a search query to find you. Get feedback from multiple sources (customers, suppliers, brand managers, sales people, etc.). Check your Web logs for clues.
• Enter these keywords into a keyword suggestion tool like WordTracker. This Web-based tool provides ideas for expanding your keywords by identifying popular keywords within a keyword database. It reveals the number of users searching for specific keywords on major search engines within the last 24 hours, indicating how popular these keywords are with competitors.
• Select search terms that aren’t overused but remain fairly popular. Look for uncommon combinations. Expand your list to include plurals and misspellings.
• Select several of your most relevant terms (high WordTracker scores) for use on each Web page as appropriate. You can use the same terms on different pages if they match the copy on the page.

Copywriting for Conversions

To write copy from a customer viewpoint, use your search terms strategically to emphasize benefits. You’ll also want to use teaser copy and hyperlinks for easy readability. This keeps your copy short so visitors remain focused, yet longer copy is just a click away.

Use several strategic keyword phrases to write the copy for each page. Search engines work with text, not graphics, so ensure that your home page includes at least 200 to 250 words. Repeat your keyword phrases at least three times, possibly more if copy is longer. Use keywords in headlines and sub-heads. If it helps readability, bold a few keywords to stand out. Create a new page for each topic.

Ensure that the content on every page includes strategic keywords accurately describing your offerings. Keywords in meta tags should match content on the page. If you use graphics, place keywords in your alt tags to accurately describe your images.

Quick Check List

• Brainstorm your benefits, then prioritize and present benefits in terms of problem solving.
• Brainstorm for features, but use mainly to support benefits on inner pages.
• Grab attention with a compelling headline emphasizing benefits.
• Use power words and active voice (See “Words That Sell” by Richard Bayan).
• Differentiate yourself from competitors.
• Use testimonials.
• Establish credibility (awards, customer list).
• Close with call-to-action, ask for the business, be precise with desired action.
• Ensure your order form is flawless.
• Offer something of value to spur a response (optional).
• Use “About Us” section for company description and accomplishments.
• Use “Contact Us” for accessibility and customer service.

Optimizing for Better Positioning

Once your visible copy is written, it’s easy to create the meta tags that help boost search engine rankings. The most important tags are the Title Tag and Meta Description Tag. Others are optional.

• Title Tag - Write an HTML title tag for each page. This should be the first tag on the page in the Head section. Use compelling words to draw visitors to your site. Use questions if possible. Start with important keywords first. Begin with a capital letter and use sentence case for readability. Good title tags read like a one-line ad that solves a problem and shows urgency. Don’t use your keyword phrase more than once in a title tag.
• Meta Description Tag - This HTML tag is important because it’s often used by search engines as your site description in search results. It’s also used by search spiders to summarize Web sites when indexing. Make your description compelling and relevant to attract potential customers. Copy should contain several strategic keywords from the page. Place essential copy in the first 150 characters as copy is sometimes limited (150-400 characters).
• Meta Keywords Tag - Most search engines have stopped supporting the meta keywords tag but Inktomi and Teoma still use it, so it can’t hurt if you have the time. This tag should contain your most important keywords for each page, up to 1,000 characters including spaces. Place your most important keywords first, with or without commas.
• Alt or Image Tag - The alternative text attribute tag requires text to be placed in the tag within quotation marks. Some search engines index alt tags, so it never hurts to describe your images with a keyword message.

Beyond Copywriting

Good navigation links to inner pages allow the engines to index deep into your site. Quality, incoming links to your site will boost link popularity.

Once you’ve focused on the above, the crawler search engines will find and rank your site. You can submit manually from the “add URL” link, or invest in paid inclusion for faster indexing and more frequent refresh. At the same time, customers searching your keywords will find what they’re looking for, making favorable decisions due to smart copy.

Search Engine Optimization

Making your site more accessible to search engines and increasing the number of pages indexed is a major benefit of search engine optimization. The process is not difficult. Search engine optimization is just a matter of understanding what search engines look for when they visit your site.

1.       What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Ask ten different people what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is and you may receive ten different answers. For the purposes of this guide, SEO will be defined as the process of making changes to your site to make it more accessible to search engines and the people that arrive at your site from the search engines.

Search engine optimization is not about tricking the search engines. It is about understanding what elements search engines look for on a page to help determine the relevance of the page to a search term. By understanding what page elements the search engines take into consideration, and making adjustments to better present your page, you can improve your rank for a search term.

Search engines use programs called “spiders” or “crawlers” that visit the pages of your Web site and index the information on those pages. This includes the content that your visitors see when viewing your page and some of code used to build your page.

Taking search engine optimization into consideration before you build your site is the best approach. Fortunately, search engine optimization can also be performed after a site is built, but it will require making changes to your site.

It is important to understand that it will likely take more than a month before you see the results of your work. This is due to the fact that it takes time for the search engines to update their databases.

A basic overview of the content and basic code that the spiders or crawlers will look for on a page is covered here. The information provided is not specifically geared toward one search engine. Instead it takes a more general approach that will work well with most, if not all, search engines.

2. Domain Names

Having keywords in your domain is not a major consideration. For example, having a domain such as www.keyword-keyword-keyword.com isn’t going to do much, if anything.

If keywords in your domain naturally make sense and would make it more memorable to your visitors, then don’t be afraid to use keywords in your domain name. If you already have a domain name, don’t worry about switching just because it isn’t packed with keywords.

Don’t purchase multiple domains with the idea of having multiple copies of your Web site to get multiple listings in the search engines. This will likely result in a penalty from the search engines.

3. The Title Tag

The title tag for each page of your site is very important. If you look at the code of a web page, you will find it in the head section and it will look something like the following:

Your title should include your keywords or keyphrases and help describe your site, or the specific page, in a concise manor. When people are viewing a list of search results, they typically will scan down the list. Make sure your title tells them what your site, or the page, is about.

For the title, your keyphrases are more important than your company name, unless your company name is a well known brand.

Repeating keywords and keyphrases over and over is likely to be penalized and looks terrible in the search results.

To learn more about the Title Tag:

4. Meta Description and Meta Keyword Tags

These tags are also in the head section of the code of a web page and are not seen by the visitors of your site unless they happen to look at your source code. If you look at the code of a web page, the Meta Tags will look something like the following:

Of the two, the Meta Description is the most important. In fact, many experts will advise that it isn’t even necessary to bother with the Meta Keywords tag because most search engines ignore it.

For your home page, your Meta Description Tag should briefly explain what your site is about. Each page of your site should also have a Meta Description Tag that explains what that specific page is about. Keep it short and to the point.

5. Copywriting

This is the text on the page that your visitors see. This is an extremely important factor in search engine optimization because both the search engines and your visitors rely on the text on the page to understand what the page is about.

To learn more about Copywriting:

Recommended Articles:

• Copywriting: Key to Search Engine Visibility and Conversions - High rankings in search engines can bring you lots of targeted traffic, but will you be ready to convert those leads when they get there? Paul Bruemmer tells you how to write Web copy for your customers and the search engines at the same time.
• Keywords Coming Out of My Ears - You don’t need (or want) to repeat the word a zillion times over and over again. The key is in using your phrases where they make sense in the copy. The copy *must* read well. It absolutely must.
• Search Engine Spiders Like to Read - While a good domain name and targeted META tags can help improve search engine rankings, they alone will not help a Web site if it does not contain relevant text on the page being optimized.

• Good Content: The Key To Search Engine Ranking - What drives visitors back to your website and keeps them there? Good content. Content is key to

6. ALT Tags

Images are an important part of making your site visually attractive to your visitors. But, search engines do not understand the content of images on a page. This is true even if the images have text in them. For example, your logo may have words in it. The search engines can not read these words because they are not standard text. They are a picture.

This is why ALT Tags can be useful. ALT Tags are text descriptions that are used to describe an image on a page. These are not seen by the visitors to your site unless they look at the source code.

If you look at the code of a Web page, the ALT Tags will look something like the following:

alt=”image description”>

Sight-impaired people using special Web browsers will appreciate them because these browsers can read the ALT Tags and tell the visitor what the image is about.

ALT Tags can also be useful to your optimization efforts when used with images that serve as navigation links to a page on your site. For example:

When set up this way, some search engines will factor in the ALT Tags for images that serve as links. This provides another opportunity to include keywords and keyphrases on your site. But, don’t forget your site impaired visitors. The description in the ALT Tag needs to make sense to them in the context of describing the purpose of the image.

7. Site Map

A site map is a page on your site that lists and describes all, or at least the most important, pages of your site.

A site map is valuable for both search engines and your visitors. For search engines, it makes it easy for them to find all of the pages of your site. For your visitors, it is helpful in navigating your site and finding the information they need.

8. Dealing with FLASH

Although some search engines are beginning to implement ways to index FLASH pages, they generally will be difficult to get indexed. There are ways around this problem though. For example, instead of making the entire page a FLASH presentation, make the FLASH element smaller and use it as a feature on the page. This will leave you with plenty of room for descriptive text that the search engines can easily index.

To learn more about Dealing with FLASH:

Recommended Articles:

• FAST Breaks the Flash Barrier - Expanded visibility for Flash sites is good news for designers and users alike because it means that AllTheWeb, Lycos, InfoSpace, and other partner sites using FAST technology can readily display links to a cache of Flash content that wasn’t available to users before.

9. Dealing with Dynamic Pages

Great improvements have been made by the search engines regarding indexing dynamic pages. But, there are still times when getting the content of dynamically generated pages indexed by search engines creates special challenges. Solutions are discussed in the recommended articles that will help the Webmaster overcome difficult cases.

To learn more about Dealing with Dynamic Pages:

Recommended Articles:

• Optimization of Dynamic Sites Requires Precision - Dynamic sites require highly specialized search engine marketing strategies. Learn how dynamic databases are created, why they are hard to index, and what strategies can be used to increase dynamic site visibility.
• Dynamic Page Optimization and Search Engine Inclusion - Optimizing large, dynamically driven web sites can be difficult without the right toolbox of ideas and technology available. Lander reviews some options and lays down the groundwork for getting a great optimization plan going on these dynamically generated giants.

10. File Formats

Beyond simple HTML files, search engines are now indexing other file formats such as PDF files, Word files, Excel files, etc. These files can be optimized to improve the results when search engines index them. The recommended articles will discuss how this is accomplished.

To learn more about File Formats:

Recommended Articles:

• Optimizing Your PDF Documents - As search engines begin to crawl many different file formats besides HTML, consider optimizing your PDF documents for better search engine visibility. Search engine optimization tips for achieving higher search engine rankings for your alternative-file-format documents.

11. Framed Sites & Pages

Although they are used less often, there are still times when framed pages can be handy. Understanding how the search engines deal with these pages is important. The recommended articles will discuss frames, the drawbacks, and how to optimize them for the search engines.

To learn more about Framed Sites & Pages:

Recommended Articles:

• Optimizing Frames for Search Engines - Because of the way framed web pages are created, search engine robots have a difficult time spidering sites built in frames. The best way to make a website accessible to the robots is to take it out of frames, but what can be done if the site absolutely must remain in frames?
• Self-Referencing Framesets - Frames offer added flexibility to the Web designer, such as the ability to ensure that branding and navigation are always on screen. Frames are therefore often seen as a “good thing” in the Web design community. However, without careful forethought frames present several problems, chiefly in the Web marketing arena.

12. JavaScript

JavaScript can create problems when trying to get a page properly indexed. The solution can be as simple as offloading the JavaScript to external text files to make your pages more easily indexed by the search engines.

To learn more about JavaScript:

Recommended Articles:

• Optimizing Pages with JavaScript and Style Sheets for Search Engines - Optimizing pages with JavaScript and Style Sheets for search engines. Step by step tutorial on how to successfully offload JavaScript and CSS (Style Sheets) to external text files for optimum indexing by the search engine spiders.

13. What To Avoid

The primary purpose of search engines is to provide relevant results to their visitors. Some Webmasters try to trick the search engines into believing their page is relevant by using methods that the search engines discourage. It is important to understand what the search engines advise you not do.

To learn more about What To Avoid:

Recommended Articles:

• Are Your Search Engine Rankings At Risk? - While most search engines are becoming more and more adept at detecting ’spam’ pages and penalizing or removing them, there is an unfortunate side effect to this efficiency - some companies that are innocent of intentional wrongdoing unknowingly have sites that fall into the ’spam’ category.
• Search Engine Damage Control - Google and other search engines will boot anyone using spam tactics to get high rankings. If you inadvertently spam Google or others and wish you could clean-up your act, Paul has some good news for you.

14. Getting Professional SEO Help
If you have the budget for it, hiring a professional to perform, or help you with, your search engine optimization is highly recommended. A professional can help you learn more about improving your site and can save the time of having to learn everything on your own.

The services of a quality SEO are not going to be cheap. You get what you pay for in this field. Don’t expect someone offering a $19.95 service to be of any value at all.

A professional SEO will bring an incredible amount of knowledge to your project. You should expect to pay for this knowledge.

To find a SEO professional, you can start with the companies that advertise on Search Engine Guide and the contributing authors. These companies are the reason Search Engine Guide is able to provide so much free information.

15. Getting Free Help
Many in the search engine optimization industry devote a great deal of their time providing free advice and information on the search engine forums. If you have a specific question, don’t be afraid to visit one of the following forums to seek help.

Before you get started, take the time to become familiar with the forum you are visiting and read the rules on posting. Each forum has its own personality. Some are more laid back than others. For example, some forums will allow you to post your Web site address with your question, others don’t.

Next, spend some time searching past posts to see if your question has already been answered. It is likely that you will find many others have already had the same question and had it answered.

When you are ready to post a question, be sure to provide as much relevant detail as possible. This will help others to fully understand your question.

While you are there, consider looking for questions from others that you may be able to answer. The forums rely on the free exchange of ideas and the help of participants with various levels of experience.

• ihelpyou Forums
• Webmaster World
• Cre8asite Forums
• Search Engine Forums
• SearchGuild
• Open Directory Forums
• SitePoint Forums

To learn more about Getting Free Help:

Recommended Articles:

• Search Engine Forums - Not only are forums an excellent way to stay up to date on the latest industry trends and news, they’re also a source of priceless information from some of the most well known industry experts out there.

Search Engine Submission

Learn the difference between submitting your site to directories such as Yahoo! and getting your site spidered by search engines such as Google.

1. How Will The Search Engines Find My Site?

There are basically three ways to get your site listed in a search engine:

• Submit your site directly to the search engine using a free submit form.
• Let the search engine find your site through links to your site from other sites such as directories.
• Pay the search engine to index your site.

2.     Submit Your Site Using A Free Submit Form

Some of the major search engines and most of the smaller search engines will provide a form that you can use to submit your site for free. With the smaller or thematic search engines, this is a good method to use.

For each search engine you’ll just need to locate the submit URL form and submit your home page. There is no need to submit anything else. And, you don’t need to keep submitting your site month after month. Re-submitting your site over and over after it has been indexed does nothing but waste your time. It will not improve your rank in any way.

Don’t be surprised when you find that not all of the major search engines even provide a free submission form any more. Don’t worry though. With the major search engines, submitting your site isn’t even necessary. This is because the major search engines will find your site through links to your site from other sites. This is why it is very important to begin getting incoming links to your site as soon as possible. You should start by getting your site listed in the major directories.

3.     Submitting To Directories - Help the search engines find your site.

For the major search engines, if you get incoming links to your site from other quality sites, your site will be found. The best way to be sure your site is found is by submitting to the major directories that are crawled by the search engines. This is a good approach for the search engines to take because sites listed in directories have already been reviewed by an editor and been considered to be worth a listing.

So, in addition to the traffic that the directories can send to your site directly, getting listed in the major directories is also important for getting your site found by the major search engines.

To get started, be sure to get your site listed in the following directories that are crawled by the search engines:

• Open Directory Project - Also known as ODP or DMOZ.
• Skaffe.com
• Sporge
• WoW Directory
• GoGuides.Org
• JoeAnt.com
• Best of the Web Directory

When you are submitting to directories, be sure to take the time to find the best category for your site and read the submission guidelines provided by each directory. By following their guidelines, you will improve your chances of being listed and decrease the amount of time it takes to get listed.

Obviously, there are many more directories where you can submit your site. These three are provided to get you started. After you’ve submitted to these directories, then you can begin submitting to other directories. Don’t forget to find local or thematic directories that are relevant to the topic of your site. You will be able to find many in our list of search engines and directories.

It will take time for the search engines to index your site after it has been listed in the major directories. So, be patient and expect to wait at least a couple more months before your site starts appearing in the index of the major search engines.

4.      Pay the Search Engines to Index Your Site

Paid inclusion is the process of paying search engines to index pages from your site. The primary benefit is not having to wait for the search engine to find and index the pages of your site on its own.

The topic of paying to be indexed is covered in our Paid Inclusion section.

5. Services To Avoid

There are hundreds of “companies” that make claims about submitting your site to thousands of search engines. You’ve probably received an email message from one of these companies that had a pitch along the lines of…

We Will Submit Your Site to 500,000 Search Engines for Just $29.95!!

Don’t fall for this scam - it is a complete waste of money.

First, there aren’t 500,000 search engines.

Second, even if they claim to submit to just a few thousand, there aren’t that many that will accept your listing because the search engines they submit to are thematic search engines. For example, if your site is about real estate, you won’t be listed in a search engine or directory that is focused on sports.

Third, they will submit your site to Free For All links pages that no one will ever use. Plus, these free for all sites are notorious for harvesting email addresses so they can send you spam.

I could go on and on with the reasons why these services are a terrible waste of money. If you are contacted by one of these companies in any way, don’t fall for their sales pitch, just ignore them.

5.      Services That Can Help

With the warnings about the submission services we’ve discussed, it is important to point out that there are some services that can help. They won’t arbitrarily try to submit your site just anywhere. They will develop a linking strategy specifically suited to your site. If you hire a professional search engine optimization company, this will be part of the services offered.

A professionally developed linking and submission strategy won’t be cheap. It takes a good deal of time and research to do this properly.

Link Popularity

Link popularity is a major factor when it comes to ranking well in search engines and drawing traffic to your site. Learn how to increase the number of links to your site, how to get quality sites to link to yours, and the overall effect link popularity has on your rankings.

 1. What Is Link Popularity?

Link popularity is the number of incoming links that you have to your site from other sites. These links can be from directories, articles, or web sites. The more links you have pointing to your site, the better.

The number and quality of links that you have pointing to your site are a factor that many search engines consider when determining the rank or your site and individual pages of your site. Also, the more incoming links you have, the greater the traffic to your site.

2.Getting Links To Your Site

The most important factor in getting others to link to your site is having a site worthy of a link. In other words, have a site or page that a directory editor or site owner thinks would be of benefit to their audience.

The best way to do this is by having great content. Great content will draw people to your site. Great content will make people want to stay at your site. Great content will cause people to tell others about your site by linking to it.

It doesn’t matter if your site is an information source or is selling something, you can provide great content with articles, reviews, etc.

After you’ve created a site worthy of a link, start by submitting to the directories. Hit the major directories, regional directories, and thematic directories.

Next, look for quality sites that would be complimentary to your audience and exchange links with them. For example, if you sell patio furniture, look for sites that sell gardening supplies and contact them about exchanging links.

The best way to contact a potential link partner is by visiting a site and looking for ways the site owner could naturally include a link to your site in their content. Then look for ways to naturally incorporate a link to that site from yours. After you’ve done this, email the potential link partner with your idea. Don’t use a form letter. Just send a short, personal note explaining what you have in mind.

When looking for potential link partners, always think in terms of how your site would be beneficial to the visitors of your partner site and theirs to yours. If you are selling patio furniture, trying to exchange links with a site selling medical supplies is not a good use of your time.

Another way to get links to your site is by writing articles about the topic of your site and allowing other sites to carry the articles for free provided they include a link to your site at the end.

3.Checking Your Link Popularity

Marketleap provides a very handy tool called Link Popularity Check. It is a great way to periodically check the number of incoming links to your site.

 4. What Not To Do.

Don’t use automated programs that send out form letters asking for links. If you use this type of program, only use it for locating sites that may be worth contacting. Then, visit the site and send a short, personal message in the manner described above.

Don’t expect everyone to want to exchange links.

Don’t expect a reply. If you don’t get a response, you may want to try again in a couple of months.

Don’t be impatient. Just because you don’t receive a reply, it doesn’t mean you won’t get the link eventually. Many site owners will file link requests and come back to review them when time allows.

Don’t set up a big page of links to just any site, and don’t exchange links with sites that do the same.

 

Paid Inclusion

If you would rather not wait for the search engines to find and index your site, you can pay to be indexed. Learn what paid inclusion is, what it costs, and if it is worth the cost.

1. What Is Paid Inclusion?

Paid inclusion is the process of paying search engines to index pages from your site. It is also often called PFI (Pay for Inclusion) or PPI (Pay Per Inclusion).

This option is becoming more popular with both site owners and search engines. Site owners that want to get indexed quickly like it because they don’t have to wait for the search engines to find their sites naturally through incoming links and listings in directories. Search engines like it because it is a way to increase revenue by charging the site owners for this service. If you have the budget and you don’t want to wait, this is a good option.

 2. Will It Help My Site Rank Better?

No. At least is isn’t supposed to.

Pay Per Click

Pay per click search engines and pay per click advertising provides web site owners the opportunity to buy their way to better positions on search results pages. Learn about pay per click, the costs, and if it is a viable option for your site.

1. What Is Pay Per Click?

Pay per click advertising on search engines allows you choose keywords you would like your site to appear for when a search is performed. You decide how much you are willing to pay each time a person clicks on the search results. The more you are willing to pay per click, the higher your site will appear in the results for the keywords you choose.

 2. Which Search Engines Allow Pay Per Click Advertising?

There are hundreds of pay per click search engines.

Generally, the larger the pay per click search engine, the more you will have to bid to get to the top for your keywords. This is why it is worth investigating different search engines to find what it would cost to bid on your keywords and how much traffic they draw.

The largest companies in the pay per click industry are Yahoo! and Google. Google is not a pay per click search engine, but it does provide pay per click advertising in text ad boxes to the right of search results it delivers. It also delivers pay per click ads to other content sites.

To find more pay per click search engines, take a look at those listed in the box in the right column of this page.

These pay per click search engines are not as large as Overture and Google, but they are worth a look. As mentioned above, one advantage these search engines can provide is they generally have lower costs per click to rank for a keyword than the larger search engines.

In addition to the general pay per click search engines, you may also be able to find thematic search engines that serve your industry or specifically cater to your target audience.

3.Important Considerations

A very important point to keep in mind with pay per click is you must test, test, and test some more. Don’t start off with a major investment. Start with the minimum and see how the search engine performs in terms of the traffic it delivers and how well that traffic converts into paying customers.

An essential part of your testing is having a method in place that allows you to track your return on money invested.

For example, if your goal is to bring in new subscribers to your newsletter, you could direct visitors arriving from your pay per click link to a subscription form set up just for them. You can then monitor how many clicks actually result in a new subscription. As such, you will know how much you are paying for each new subscriber.

Before spending any money with a pay per click search engine, be sure they can answer the following questions:

• How many searches a month are performed at the search engine?
• What major search partners or affiliates does the search engine have?
• How many searches are generated each month by the search partners or affiliates?
• Is it possible to opt out of having your listing appear in the results of the affiliate sites?
• What fraud prevention mechanisms are in place?
• What is the procedure for filing a “fraudulent clicks” report?
• Will an account be credited for fraudulent clicks discovered?
• Is it possible to opt out of having a listing appear for searches originating from specific countries?
• Is there a posted terms of service for search partners or affiliates. Look for search engines that have very strict guidelines for dealing with their search affiliates. This is important because you want to be sure the search engine is working hard to prevent fraud among its affiliates.

Log File and Traffic Analysis

Your site’s log files contain a wealth of information about the effectiveness of your web site marketing program. With your log files, you can learn how your visitors are finding your site, what search terms they are using to find it, and which are the best sources of traffic for your site.

 1. What Is a Log File?

A log file is simply a file that is used keeps track of all that is happening with your site.

For example, it records:

• Each time a Web page is requested.
• What incoming link a visitor followed to arrive at your site.
• What search terms a visitor used at a search engine before arriving at your site.
• Errors that may have occurred.
• And much more.

 2. Why Is Log File and Traffic Analysis Important

Analyzing your log file and traffic will give you insight into:

• How well your web site is performing
• How visitors are finding your site
• What pages are the most popular
• The geographic location of your visitors
• What search engines are visiting your site.
• How much of your site the search engines are crawling

Analyzing your log files will let you know how well your various marketing programs are working.

 3. Services and Tools That Can Help

If you look at a log file, it is a giant page showing line after line of data. Fortunately, there are programs that can take this raw data and turn it into meaningful stats for you. Here are some worth a look:

• Mach5 FastStats Analyzer
• The Webalizer
• NetTracker
• WebTrends

 

Google’s PageRank

Although Google’s PageRank is but one factor Google uses to determine its search results, it is a popular topic. Learn what PageRank is and where you can find more information about it.

1. What Is Google’s PageRank?

PageRank is part of Google’s method of ranking web pages. Google explains it best at their web site:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.“”

It is important to remember that PageRank is but one factor Google uses to determine the rank of a web page in the search results. This is why you can find pages with a lower PageRank listed above pages with a higher PageRank. Google also factors in the content of the page and the pages linking to it.

Don’t become overly concerned about your PageRank. Focus instead on properly building a high quality site with loads of great content that serves your visitors well. If you do this, improved PageRank will follow naturally.

 2. How Do I Find The PageRank of a Web Page?

One way to get a general idea of your PageRank is to download the Google toolbar. This is a search tool bar that works with Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or later browsers. Included with the search tool is a small graphic display that shows Google’s ranking of a page on a 0 to 10 scale - 10 being the best….

source: search engine marketing(SEM)/search engine optimization(SEO) book to optimize your site and get business