Search Dojo

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Paid URL Inclusion

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There are many ways to promote your website and one of the

most efficient ways is to use search engines. Search

engines are the first stop for most people trying to find

information, services, and products online. Because of

this, it is essential that your website appears quickly in

search results.

The Internet contains numerous search engines, some of

which offer what is known as “paid inclusion.” This means

that you pay the specific search engine an annual fee for

your web page to be included in their index.

Of course, every search engine already has an automated

program commonly called a “spider” that indexes all the web

pages it locates online, and it does this for free. So

whether you pay or not, your web page will eventually be

indexed by all Internet search engines, as long as the

spider can follow a link to your page. The major issue is,

then, how quickly your page is indexed.

A search engine that offers a paid URL inclusion uses an

extra spider that is programmed to index the particular

pages that have been paid for. The difference between the

spider that indexes pages for free and the spider that

indexes only pages for a fee is speed. If you have paid for

inclusion, the additional search engine spider will index

your page immediately.

The debate over paid URL inclusion centers around the

annual fee. Since the regular spider of these search

engines would eventually get around to indexing your web

page anyway, why is a renewal fee necessary? The fee is

necessary to keep your pages in the search engine’s index.

If you go the route of paid inclusion, you should be aware

that at the end of the pay period, on some search engines,

your page will be removed from their index for a certain

amount of time.

It’s easy to get confused about whether you would benefit

from paid inclusion since the spider of any search engine

will eventually index your page without the additional

cost. There are both advantages and disadvantages to paid

URL inclusion, and it is only by weighing your pros and

cons that you will be able to decide whether to spring for

the extra cash or not.

The advantages are obvious: rapid inclusion and rapid

re-indexing. Paid inclusion means that your pages will be

indexed quickly and added to search results in a very short

time after you have paid the fee. The time difference

between when the regular spider will index your pages and

when the paid spider will is a matter of months. The spider

for paid inclusion usually indexes your pages in a day or

two. Be aware that if you have no incoming links to your

pages, the regular spider will never locate them at all.

Additionally, paid inclusion spiders will go back to your

pages often, sometimes even daily. The advantage of this is

that you can update your pages constantly to improve the

ranking in which they appear in search engines, and the

paid URL inclusion spider will show that result in a matter

of days.

First and foremost, the disadvantage is the cost. For a ten

page website, the costs of paid URL inclusion range from

$170 for Fast/Lycos to $600 for Altavista, and you have to

pay each engine their annual fee. How relevant the cost

factor is will depend on your company.

Another, and perhaps more important, disadvantage is the

limited reach of paid URL inclusions. The largest search

engines, Google, Yahoo, and AOL, do not offer paid URL

inclusion. That means that the search engines you choose to

pay an inclusion fee will amount to a small fraction of the

traffic to your site on a daily basis.

Google usually updates its index every month, and there is

no way you can speed up this process. You will have to wait

for the Google spider to index your new pages no matter how

many other search engines you have paid to update their

index daily. Be aware that it is only after Google updates

their index that your pages will show up in Google, Yahoo,

or AOL results.

One way to figure out whether paid URL inclusion is a good

deal for your company is to consider some common factors.

First, find out if search engines have already indexed your

pages. To do this, you may have to enter a number of

different keywords, but the quickest way to find out is to

enter your URL address in quotes. If your pages appear when

you enter the URL address but do not appear when you enter

keywords, using paid inclusion will not be beneficial. This

is because your pages have already been indexed and ranked

by the regular spider. If this is the case, your money

would be better spent by updating your pages to improve

your ranking in search results. Once you accomplish this,

you can then consider using paid inclusion if you want to

speed up the time it will take for the regular spider to

revisit your pages.

The most important factor in deciding whether to use paid

URL inclusion is to decide if it’s a good investment. To

figure this out, you have to look at the overall picture:

what kind of product or service are you selling and how

much traffic are you dependent on to see a profit?

If your company sells an inexpensive product that requires

a large volume of traffic to your site, paid inclusion may

not be the best investment for you; the biggest search

engines do not offer it, and they are the engines that will

bring you the majority of hits. On the other hand, if you

have a business that offers an expensive service or product

and requires a certain quality of traffic to your site, a

paid URL inclusion is most likely an excellent investment.

Another factor is whether or not your pages are updated

frequently. If the content changes on a daily or weekly

basis, paid inclusion will insure that your new pages are

indexed often and quickly. The new content is indexed by

the paid spider and then appears when new relevant keywords

are entered in the search engines. Using paid inclusion in

this case will guarantee that your pages are being indexed

in a timely manner.

You should also base your decision on whether or not your

pages are dynamically generated. These types of pages are

often difficult for regular spiders to locate and index.

Paying to include the most important pages of a dynamically

generated website will insure that the paid spider will

index them.

Sometimes a regular spider will drop pages from its search

engine, although these pages usually reappear in a few

months. There are a number of reasons why this can happen,

but by using paid URL inclusion, you will avoid the

possibility. Paid URL inclusion guarantees that your pages

are indexed, and if they are inadvertently dropped, the

search engine will be on the lookout to locate them

immediately.

As you can see, there are numerous factors to consider when

it comes to paid URL inclusion. It can be a valuable

investment depending on your situation. Evaluate your

business needs and your website to determine if paid URL

inclusion is a wise investment for your business goals.

Popularity: 30% [?]

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Monitoring Search Engine Positions

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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.

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. Check out

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html

for a current list of website favorites.

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. If

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.

Popularity: 20% [?]

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Increasing Your Search Engine Ranking

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The methods employed to increase your search engine

rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have

probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell

you - the time has come to face your website! A high search

engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you

have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your

business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this

issue.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on

the Internet find websites through search engines such as

Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages

for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted

customers to your site who will be more than likely to make

a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine

results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your

website. That’s what search engine optimization is about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information

available online to figure out how to optimize your web

pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few

simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments,

and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The

first item you should examine is the title bar on your

homepage.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page.

Look at the words that appear there when you access your

home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on

your homepage’s title bar should include the most important

keywords or phrases, one of which would include your

company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on

the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page

of your site should contain the most important keywords and

phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very

long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or

less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title

bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to

each other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your website

content. Search engines generally list sites that contain

quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The

text on your site must contain the most important keywords

- the words that potential customers will be typing into

search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is

not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100

carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high

ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However,

the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning

that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your

cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able

to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not

highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case,

ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in

order to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this

sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is

really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags

are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality,

they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding

them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags

in their ranking formula.

To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must

access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the

browser menu bar, and select “source.” This will pull up a

window revealing the underlying code that created the page.

If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of

the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta

name=”keywords” content=. If you do not find code that

reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This

may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any

little boost helps.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a

factor that is extremely important in terms of search

engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link

popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based

on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your

links page.

If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular

search engine, the search engine will then show you what

sites are linked to your site. In the case that there

aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites

that are linked up have low search engine rankings,

consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially,

this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that

they exchange links with your site. Of course, this

requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want

to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only

boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more

quality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a

successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out

and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking

some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can’t

boost your rankings yourself. Don’t ever ignore this

all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the

higher your search engine ranking, the more quality

customers will be directed your way.

Popularity: 23% [?]

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Increasing Link Popularity

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Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are

the first tool that potential customers use to find the

products and services they need. This is why link

popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find

your website, you have no possibilities of making any

sales.

You’re probably wondering what the blazes is popular about

a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to

the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines,

and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords

are entered into a search engine. So, you’re probably

wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking

to sites that have links to their pages from related,

quality sites. It’s a simple formula, but a very important

one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the

most popular search engines employ it to rank your web

pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will

be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this

step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly

on any search engine. But don’t be discouraged; there are

tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the

most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is

that just linking up with a large number of other websites

will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have

quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when

pertaining to websites that are nothing more than “link

farms” - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate

links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against

your website if you are associated with a link farm, so

steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site

you are linking to. Never link to a page you have

reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you

want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.

Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link

popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let’s get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link

popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on

all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the

door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as

Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is

business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and

despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year,

it will be money well spent. If your site is

non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take

time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open

Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are

business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make

a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site

listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of

appropriate category, and this just takes some common

sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from

an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny

State, do NOT submit your listing to “Retailers from

Nowhere, Tiny State.” BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is

look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the “Fine

Alpaca Wool” category. You will not only associate yourself

with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a

national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is

to locate other quality sites that will increase your link

popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related

to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase,

but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to

avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful

to your site’s visitors. Let’s look at the Alpaca Wool site

example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies

would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the

knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are

also greater. By linking to a related site that will be

relevant to your website’s traffic, you are increasing both

of your site’s business prospects - and both of your sites’

link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have

to do some research when you are looking for possible

linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for

your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think

quality customers will also enter to find your own site.

Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked,

non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.

Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the

quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use.

Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and

determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must

set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link

on your own links page to their site. This is an essential

first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances

significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added

their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site.

Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make

sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk

mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat

that you have added a link to their page on your site. A

hook like this almost always insures the reader will read

on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much

you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that

you have actually visited their site, and that their site

is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your

links page, and ask them to check out the link for

themselves. It’s a good idea to mention that they will not

only benefit from the increased traffic your website will

direct their way, but you will also increase their link

popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so

essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don’t

sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would

greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on

their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as

you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and

non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant

sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if

they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month,

and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then

give it another month, and if your site is still absent

from their links page, it’s time to remove their link from

your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a

link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial

to your link popularity and your business needs. Just

remember to keep all your communications complimentary and

cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search

engines frequently to see if your link popularity has

improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It

will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no

way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your

link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with

such importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined

site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.

Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long

as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Evaulating Web Site Performance

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Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet

marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site

depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your

website goals. If you don’t know what you want your site to

accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish

anything. Without goals to guide you in developing and

monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online

announcement that you are in business.

If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action,

whether it is visitors filling out a form so a

representative can contact them, or purchasing a product,

there are steps you can take to insure that your website is

functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators

of how well your site is working for you is finding out the

number of visitors in a given period of time. A good

baseline measurement is a month in which you haven’t been

doing any unusual offline promotional activities.

However, just because hoards of people have passed through

your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually,

you want those visitors to actually do something there. It

is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to

your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the

site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the

efficacy of your website.

To find the site conversion rate, take the number of

visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them

that actually performed the action your site is set up for.

For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only

25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion

rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of

visitors and divide that figure by the number of visitors

who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100 (25 ?00 X 100).

If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a

form, make sure to then figure out what the difference is

between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion

rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form

will actually become your customer. However, whether your

site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the

visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will

measure the success or failure of your website whenever you

make changes to the site.

You may find that you need to implement some additional

marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site

is extremely low. There are several effective methods to

improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly

launching a search engine optimization campaign. This

campaign is targeted at increasing your position in search

engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster

and easier. You can either research the steps you need to

take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a

search engine optimization company to do the work for you.

In either case, after your have improved your search engine

positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular

monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high

positions.

Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor

to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up

for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill

out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the

visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If

it’s too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw

in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your

buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or

ordering page quickly accessible.

Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your

website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to

make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be

specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a

cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right

copy can make the difference between profit and loss in

your online campaign.

Popularity: 25% [?]