Search Engine Listing and Optimization

SEO 2 : Getting to the Top

How can you get your web site to come up at the top of the list when someone searches ? If you have followed the first steps carefully and your site is optimized for search engines, you have two choices : wait and see how your web site develops over time or pay to get visitors to your web site. What you choose will depend on the purpose of your web site and, of course, your advertising budget.

It usually takes about 6 months for a web site to naturally gain acceptance and visitors on the web. If your business is not dependent upon web sales or if your budget will not withstand the assault of pay-per-click programs, then the best option is to give your web site time to be found. If you use your web address at every opportunity, you may find that your web site generates enough business on it's own.

However, if you need to get started right away, then you will want to look at the opportunities to pay to increase your web site traffic.

Paid Inclusion and Pay-Per-Click Programs

Most major search engines now offer paid inclusion and trusted feed programs based on refresh indexing or cost-per-click. Engines that offer such programs include Yahoo, Alta Vista, AskJeeves, FAST, Inktomi, LookSmart, and Lycos. These paid inclusions will get your web site listed faster and some will help with ensure that your web site is included with search terms used by visitors.

The major players in the pay-per-click game at this time are Overture and Google Ad Words, but more are appearing every day. There are also a lot of "services" springing up which give false click advertising, so be forewarned that this can be a cutthroat business. Do some checking before you sign up for the pay-per-click services to be sure they are actually giving value for the money. We offer advice ( free )and basic search engine maintenance services at a low monthly fee for clients needing help with pay-per-click services. We can help you set your advertising budget, create the listings, and provide daily maintenance for your pay-per-click search terms. If you need more intensive search engine maintenance than we offer, we can help you select a reputable Search Engine Optimization professional.

What are Search Engine Algorithms ?

Search Engines use constantly changing algorithms to decide which sites get to the top of their listings. Currently, the engines are emphasizing relevancy. Today's algorithms seem to favor relevant content, relevant title and description tags, and a relevant linking strategy. In other words, tell it like it is and be precise in your descriptions. Know which keywords are used to find your site, and use those keywords appropriately. Provide good navigation so the engines can crawl deep into your site. Avoid dubious practices such as web services which promise to buy your key words or link to your site from hundreds of web sites in order to boost your ratings. Search engines have many ways to detect spamming, including so-called spam filters. They also actively encourage spam reporting by users. So even if you get by the spam filters a few times, others might report you -- especially your competitors. So...read on about search engine spamming....

A word about SPAM:

SPAM is bad...period. Most search engines are protecting themselves against spamming practices with harsh penalties for sites who try to get listed using these practices. Beware of companies offering to get your listing to the top using some of the following illegal techniques:Below are some of the common tactics identified as search engine spam:

Cloaking: When one page is served to search engine crawlers to achieve a good ranking, but a different version of the page is served to search engine users. This sometimes involves changing meta tags after a search engine positioning has been achieved.
Spoofing/Redirects/Meta Refresh: A meta refresh tag permits visitors to automatically be taken to a different page. When this functionality is abused, users are taken to content that's unrelated to their search. Thus, search engines are suspicious of pages with a fast meta-refresh rate, and pages that use JavaScript to perform redirection. Use server-side redirection if legitimate redirection is required.
Domain Spamming: Identical sites found under different domain names to increase search engine traffic, also known as mirror sites.
Tiny Text: Overused to hide keyword stuffing.
Invisible Text: Used to hide keyword stuffing by making the stuffed keywords the same color as the page (for instance, white text on a white page background).
Deceptive Title and Tags: Irrelevant keywords in the title and meta tags.
Deceptive/Misleading Links: Setting up pages/links for the sole purpose of deceiving search engines.
Over-submitting: Using the AddURL form to submit hundreds of deceptive pages.

If you intentionally spam the engines with any of the above tactics and get caught, you can expect the penalty to be the removal of your links from the engine. Spamming is not worth the temporary benefits. Search engine marketing done right is a long-lasting marketing investment, so don't jeopardize your rankings with any suggestion of spamming a search engine.

With patience, a little work, and common sense, you can get your web site placed well in the search engines and receive the traffic you need to be a success online.

Preparing for battle ...

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