|
Helping Businesses, Organizations & Individuals Achieve Success
|
Why Search Engines Are Important to Your Online Success
copyright 2002 Joan Holman
#1 WAY PEOPLE FIND NEW WEB SITES --Search engines are the #1 way people find out about Web sites. According to research, over 85% of Internet users find new Web sites by using search engines. After e-mail, using search engines is the most popular activity on the web.
CRITICALTO GET GOOD RANKING, NOT JUST LISTED --It is very important to get listed in the search engines However, it is not enough to just get listed in the search engines, you must also get a good ranking, which means that your Web page come up in the first three pages of the search engine results pages.
OPTIMIZATION IS THE KEY TO GOOD RANKING --Search engine optimization of your Web site will greatly improve your chances of coming up in search engines for specific keywords related to your products and services. With billions of Web pages now on the World Wide Web, it can be very difficult to come up toward the top of any of the major search engines, but there are optimization tricks that can be used to increase your odds.
SOME SEARCH ENGINES NOW CHARGING--Some search engines still do not charge to register with them, however, many of the top search engines now do charge a fee. You should plan to spend at least $200 or more registering your site.
QUALIFIED VISITORS -- The advantage of getting visitors from search engines is that they have entered a keyword relevant to your site, so they are have some interest in your product or service. These are the kind of visitors you want coming to your Web site.
FOCUS ON THE HIGH TRAFFIC SEARCH ENGINES-- Some companies will offer to register your Web site with hundreds, even thousands of search engines. This can be a waste of your time and money since there are only a very few search engines and search directories which have a lot of traffic.
Top Search Engines
- AltaVista
- Excite
- Google
- Iwon
- Lycos
- HotBot
- WebCrawler
- Northern Light
Top Search Directories
- Yahoo
- LookSmart
- Open Directory
- AOL
IT CAN TAKE A LONG TIME TO GET LISTED --- Search engines are backlogged with registrations. The time to get listed varies with search engines and directories. Most sites get listed within the following times:
- Altavista --1-2 weeks
- Excite, Lycos --4 weeks
- HotBot --2 weeks
- Google --4-6 weeks
- Northern Light --2-4 weeks
- Webcrawler --3 months
THE RANKING OF PAGES -- Search engines use a ranking. Each web page on your Web site will be graded not only on the number of the search keywords it contains, but on where the words are located on the page and on other criteria as well. No search engine has the same method of ranking. Different criteria include the page TITLE, the META tags, link popularity, and page content.
TIPS ON OPTIMIZATION - Be sure to create pages with good content that have specific keywords repeated on the page (keyword density). Make sure that keywords also appear in headlines and towards the top of your page. (what you think is the top of your page might not, in fact, be the top of your page, depending upon the layout of your page -- for instance, if you use several columns on your page, the search engines will index those columns from left to right, so the keywords that appear in the upper left hand corner will be weighed more heavily)
USE OF KEYWORDS -- Be sure to use keywords that are likely to be entered into search engines. Do not be too general or you will end up becoming lost among thousands of other Web pages -- words such as "business", "marketing", "sales", etc. are too general. People on search engines tend to use phrases to narrow their searches. So an effective keyword might be "small business marketing specialists in Minnesota". When a TITLE is created for your page, be sure to use keywords in addition to your company name. Try to get other Web sites to link to your site so you rank high with link popularity.
I can help you optimize your Web site for the search engines and also register it with the appropriate search engines.
Other Articles:
|
PHOTO OF JOAN HOLMAN
New York Times Bestselling Author
Harvey Mackay with Joan Holman
Joan Holman with Marketing Guru Jay Abraham
|
Home / About Joan / Joan's Wish List / Consulting /
Speaking /
Clients /
Articles /
Books, Television & Film
Projects /
Resources /Online and Offline Marketing /
Inspiring Our Youth /
Leaving A Legacy /Contact
Joan Holman Productions, an I.A.M., Inc. Company
600 South Highway 169, Suite 180, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55426 USA
PHONE: 952-595-8888 / e-mail: joan@holman.com
copyright 2007 Joan Holman Productions
Sign Up for Joan's Newsletter
|