Search engine optimization strategies, techniques and principles become even more important with some paid listings, otherwise you'll be simply burning good money. Maintaining paid rankings can be a time consuming and expensive process.

These rankings/listings models present a number of challenges to those web site owners on a limited budget as the costs are out of reach for many and the competition for free listings grows more fierce each day.

It's well known that you need to be listed in the first 3 pages of results, otherwise it's a waste of time. If paid listings are taking up the first 5 or 10 results, the competition for the residual prime placements is huge.

Optimize your rankings while you can
Some web masters may tell you that as the search engine landscape is rapidly changing, optimization is a waste of time. Nothing could be further from the truth!

The majority of our new visitors come from free listings on search engines, but given the fact that the industry is changing, we have been experimenting with paid listings with some excellent results as well. In the evolving world of search engines, spreading your risk is a very good idea. To depend on any one source of traffic is a very risky strategy.

In relation to our free listings, we spend a great deal of time and effort to boost rankings and compete with the "big guys". This work also assists with our paid listings where we still need to compete in terms of rankings.

The effort has paid off and we receive many thousands of visitors a week. There's nothing more satisfying than achieving higher rankings on important keyphrases over a company with a multi-million dollar advertising budget ;0)

It's of crucial importance to improve search engine free listings while you can. More and more companies will turn to the paid model, and at times to the total exclusion of everyone else. In these situations, as has been the case with the Yahoo directory, listings already included in their own database may be "grandfathered". This means that current listings stay (for a while), all new business pays.

Even if you are considering utilizing PFI strategies from the outset, it's important that you ensure your site is completely finished and optimized before shelling out your cash - remember that in many instances, payment only gets you into the index and you'll still have to battle it out for rankings.

Optimization is a legitimate promotion strategy Search engine optimization is a buzz phrase that has been around for a long time, but it's surprising how many people still do not properly understand the concept. In my home town of Adelaide, which is the capital city of South Australia, mentioning the term often draws blank looks from web masters and site owners. Many think it's some sort of scam.

Search engine optimization is not about scamming or fooling search engine "spiders" (the software used by the companies to crawl through your site and index it). It's about making the best of what you have and making what you have the best.

Solid content is still king, forget the pretty pictures and Flash animations - the more valuable information you have, presented correctly, the more that other sites will link to you. These links, known as backlinks, are given great importance in ranking calculations as is the search engine's own "opinion" of your content.

Search Engine Optimization Professional (SEOP)
URL submission fever and competition for high search engine rankings has given birth to a new industry - that of the SEOP (Search Engine Optimization Professional). Many of these "professionals" charge around US$150 per hour for their skills. Few are worth this kind of money. If you choose to utilize the consultancy services of an SEOP, make sure you carry out exhaustive background checks on the person/company first.

Anyone can arrange to have tens of thousands of visitors sent to you (for a fee), it's not that hard to achieve, but in most cases, this will be garbage traffic - people not interested in what you are offering. If someone approached me today wanting 50,000 visitors directed to their site by tomorrow, I could do so - it would only cost them a few hundred dollars, but it would be a waste of their advertising budget.

There are a number of automated URL submission software programs available which promise to increase your traffic. Few do and many will cause damage to your listings. Many so-called "bleeding-edge" strategies and optimization techniques are bandied about in forums - be very wary as some of these strategies will not only damage your listings, but may get you kicked out - forever.

Tried and True Optimization Techniques
The following is a list of 8 tried and true strategies for increasing your profile in search engine rankings - stick by these to begin with before trying the more exotic strategies, and remember - don't gamble what you can't afford to lose. These techniques apply to most paid and free listings.

Content is King - Provide information, lots of it, ensure that is relevant to your subject and that it contains popular keywords and phrases in relation to your topic or industry

Meta Tags - Meta tags are the sections of your HTML that provide direction and information for search engine robots. To get the best rankings possible in some search engines, be sure to use keywords, description and title tags every web page. Meta tags are not viewable to Internet users unless they examine the source code of your pages.

Even search engine spiders such as Googlebot will use the description tag if there is a problem with spidering body content.

Try to use different description tags for each page. This is a point I ignored as I thought I didn't have the time to create a set of tags for each page. It was a big mistake that I'm now slowly rectifying. While our search engine referral stats are nothing to be sneezed at, there is always room for improvement. For further information on these aspects of optimization, read our articles on meta tags and title tags.

Inbound links - The more sites you can have linking to you, the higher you will be ranked in some of the major engines. But not all links are created equal.

Many links coming into your site from very low quality sites may damage your rankings. So will buying & hosting a hundred domain names and publishing up a brief page with links to your site. Worse still, links coming in from FFA sites may destroy your rankings altogether. Aim to be linked from popular sites.

It's also becoming increasingly important that the anchor text of incoming links is relevant as this relevancy will also effect your rankings on some engines. For further details on this aspect, read our tutorial on anchor text.

"Alt" text - Search engines can't read images, so ensure that descriptive "alt" text is added to your coding. Some sample coding:



Transparency - I received an email yesterday from a major engine stating that they wouldn't include a site I had submitted because there wasn't an email address on the home page. While this was a glitch on the engine's part as there was an email address, it was a good reminder that some companies demand that your site contain proper contact points, privacy statements etc. - and that they do enforce their policies

Study submission guidelines - Take the the time before hitting the submit button to study the URL submission guidelines of each site - they will vary. To ignore even one small point can prevent your site from being listed.

Target - Just as your site's content should be focused, so should your search engine optimization strategies initially. Submit to all engines, but focus on gaining high rankings on one or two before moving on to others. If you try and optimize for all, you may only achieve mediocre rankings across the board. The difference between No.1 position and No.30 position can literally translate into thousands of dollars of income a year. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Frames are evil - Framed sites can be optimized for search engines, but it is very, very time consuming. If your reason for using frames is to make the editing of common elements such as menus a simpler task, consider implementing server side includes (SSI) or FrontPage Includes as an alternative. You can learn more about these elements, plus other search engine friendly elements that can also save you time in our article about web site upgrades.

Current search engine URL submission overview
The following is a brief rundown on the major engines/indexes and their paid/free listings policies (current March 2004). NOTE: If you run a community based site, in many instances the company can be approached directly and you can have your web site listed for free.

Google:
Still by far the best free URL submission search engine, but also runs paid listings for top "sponsored links" and side boxes. If you aren't ranked well in Google as yet, make the effort to be as soon as possible. Google supplies secondary data to a number of other search engines/indices and sites.

http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Yahoo:
US$299.00 non-refundable, recurring annual fee for commercial sites in their directory. Adult sites will be charged US$600. Community, non-profit sites can still get a free listing.

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/

Note: Yahoo has two separate aspects to their search, the Directory and Web Search. Sites included in their web directory will also show up in Yahoo Web Search.

Up until February 18 2004, Yahoo web search results were also powered by Google, but now Yahoo has switched to it's own search technology, based on the Inktomi system - a company they recently purchased. Inktomi provides data to many search engines.

Clients who have paid to be a part of the Inktomi Search Submit program will be given a free trial of Yahoo! traffic up until April 15, 2004; as will any site Yahoo picked up with its new spider.

When the April 15 deadline expires, Search Submit participants will need to join the new program, Site Match. Site Match is a PFI/PPC mix. People will need to pay to have each page included, and then pay for each click that's generated.

If current Search Submit participants decide not to go with the Site Match program; Yahoo have stated that these people will still have the opportunity of being listed for free via their new spider - the main difference being the regularity of listing updates. Under the Site Match system, listings will be refreshed every 48 hours, whereas the free listings may only be updated every few weeks.

To submit your site for free:

http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request

This latest shakeup to the search engine industry promises to really make things interesting. It will challenge Google's dominance as Yahoo now owns a number of prime search technologies including Overture, Fast, Inktomi and others - and is now finally starting to flex the accumulated muscle.

MSN:
MSN recently dropped LookSmart for paid inclusions in their search results and are now favoring Inktomi.

http://inktomi.com

You can get in the paid Inktomi "Search Submit" program via one of their resellers - generally the prices are:

1st URL - $39
URLs 2-100 - $25 each.

Paying for inclusion is a good strategy if you wish to get listed within a few days; but you will still need to compete for rankings once listed.

An Inktomi "Search Submit" inclusion will also mean that you are listed on other search engines.

You can also still be listed for free on MSN via their free Inktomi powered results:

http://free.submit-it.com/msnsubmit.htm

Another option for listing on MSN Search is as a "sponsored listing" via Overture (Pay Per Click). Overture are currently offering $10 credit on each account signup.

Keep an eye on MSN search - they are also currently testing their own search technologies to move away from their dependence on other companies who currently provide them with search data.

AltaVista:
Up until early April 2004, Alta Vista, which was acquired by Yahoo!, operated as a separate entity in terms of search results.

The era has ended, and now to be listed in Alta Vista, you only need to submit to Yahoo!; either through their free URL submission service or the SiteMatch service via Overture. Overture are also currently offering $10 credit on each account signup.

Ask Jeeves & Teoma:
US$30.00 for the first page then US$18 per web page (pages 2-1000).

http://ask.ineedhits.com/

DMOZ:
Still a strong community of independent editors, free listings, but you are only listed once in most cases and having your listing updated can take a long time. Considering that DMOZ supplies data to hundreds of search engines/indices and sites, it's absolutely essential to be listed here. Be sure to read the submission guidelines.

http://www.dmoz.org

Lycos/Hotbot:
Now powered by FAST/Inktomi. They offer a special deal for regular site spidering. As with Inktomi, paying for inclusion via FAST will get you listed on other search engines as well.

You can submit to Inktomi and FAST for free, but this means irregular spidering with no guarantee of inclusion:

http://insite.lycos.com/lite_step1.asp

You can also get listed on Lycos via Overture (Pay Per Click). Overture are currently offering $10 credit on each account signup.

AllTheWeb (FAST):
As with Alta Vista; AllTheWeb is now using Yahoo! results. In order to be listed, you can choose from Yahoo!'s free URL submission service or the premium SiteMatch service via Overture.

Overture:
Owned by Yahoo. The heavyweights of the pay per click industry. This model requires that you bid on keywords for ranking and at times the competition can become quite insane - some advertisers go overboard. As an example, I recently reported that on the word "computer", the no.1 advertiser had bid US$10 for the privilege. The number 2 position was held by an advertiser prepared to pay US$.77 per click. It's a huge difference.

Coupled with the fact that not everyone who clicks on the link will purchase, it can become an extraordinarily expensive marketing exercise.

The COA (Cost of Acquisition) tied in with each sale may not viable for the majority of small online businesses, unless you are selling high profit items. The minimum bid starts at 10 cents per click.

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Traditional Search Engine Optimization VS. Pay Per Click

With the current rise of pay per click (PPC) advertising services such as Overture, Google AdWords and many others, professional search engine optimization (SEO) companies are having to deal more and more with the issue of why their clients should spend money on traditional SEO when they can simply "buy their way to the top."

Traditional Search Engine Optimization
First I will define what traditional SEO is. Search engine optimization is the process of fine tuning (otherwise referred to as optimizing) your web site to reflect specific keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business and for which you want to attract visitors to your site who are searching for such words.

This optimization relates to a variety of elements, not only on your web site's home page, but its sub pages as well. Those elements can include things like title tags, meta tags, alt tags, link structure, link popularity and the content of the site itself. Once your web site is properly optimized, the goal then is to make sure that each of the top crawler based search engines find your site and add as many pages as possible in their indices. These engines will usually start with your home page and then work their way to other pages of the site.

This is where another important aspect of SEO comes into play - making sure the sub pages or at least the main areas of your site are accessible from the home page. It can be assumed that if many of your pages are optimized for different keywords and can be found in the search engines, they will draw traffic to your site.

Search engine optimization also involves making sure your site is listed in the major directories such as Yahoo and Open Directory to name a few. I won't go into detail about proper directory submissions here as that is another topic of its own but will say that it is important to make sure you are listed in the right category and have a title and description that is reflective of the keywords you are trying to target.

Other elements of SEO include monitoring your positioning in the search engines, making adjustments as necessary to your site to stay in top position and submitting to new engines or directories that come along as well.

Pay Per Click
Now I will define what PPC is using Overture as an example. PPC or pay per click is a service in which an advertiser selects specific keywords or phrases and then creates a listing that will show up when someone searches for that phrase. The advertiser selects an amount they are willing to pay for each click on their listing which results in a visit to their site - thus the term "pay per click". At Overture, you can bid anywhere from $.10 up to $50.00 for each click.

If other advertisers have selected the same keyword or phrase as yours, you then are competing against them for the highest position. Whoever is willing to spend the most shows up first and the others following in order.

What makes PPC attractive in the case of Overture is that they distribute their paid listings to other partner sites. In fact, if you bid in one of the top three positions at Overture, your listings will also show up at some of the leading search engines including AltaVista, HotBot, InfoSpace, iWon, Lycos, MSN, Yahoo and others. They also show up in several meta crawlers and other minor search engines.

Therefore if you bid for top placement at Overture, you will show up at these partner sites as well. There are many other pay per click programs including Google AdWords, ah-ha.com, FindWhat, Sprinks and Looksmart to name a few. All function in a similar manner.

What PPC has allowed one to do then is to instantly "pay" their way to the top whereas traditional SEO takes a lot of time and effort.

The overriding question then is how valuable is PPC and should it replace standard search engine optimization techniques?

Pros and Cons of Pay Per Click
First of all you must understand that PPC will never help improve your positioning in the regular editorial search results. They most always appear in a "Sponsored or Featured" area which is usually at the top or side of the regular search results.

While it is nice to "show up first" there are still a lot of end users, myself included, that do not click on the "paid" listings but rather will search through the regular editorial search results.

Pay per click will not optimize your site so that it reflects who you are and what you offer. If your site is poorly optimized before you begin to advertise it with PPC, it will still be poorly optimized afterwards. Another downfall is that when you stop paying for PPC, it disappears and so does the traffic it brings!

On the other hand, a well executed SEO plan will improve your position in the regular editorial search results. You will have a finely tuned web site that reflects who you are and what you offer. You are not held hostage to having to continuously throw money at search engines to maintain your listings.

In most cases, once you have good positioning in the regular search results, you will continually receive free traffic. It may require some minor adjustments from time to time but all in all brings in consistent free traffic so long as people are searching for your products or services.

I am not saying that PPC is bad and you shouldn't do it for if you have the budget that will go beyond a traditional SEO campaign, then by all means, utilize PPC as well. You gain instant exposure and only pay for actual visitors to your site.

But never ever disregard SEO in place of PPC! SEO should be the foundation of your online marketing strategy because in the long run, the benefits of SEO will far outweigh anything else you do.

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Search Engine Optimization & Website Promotion Services

There are two types of search engines: Search Engine Directories and Search Engine Spiders. Each search engine (regardless of whether it is a spider or a directory) uses unique criteria for "ranking" websites.

1. Search Engine Directories rely on humans to gauge web page relevancy and search engine placement. Human editors review each website and rank them according to a set of guidelines such as website content, website functionality, and design professionalism. Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project, DMOZ are the most popular Directory Driven Search Engines.

2. Spider driven search engines use "robots" to spider websites across the Internet. Robots "crawl" each website and "score" pages based on relevancy. Some engines score the index page while others score individual web pages. A website's score or placement within a spider driven search engine is derived from hundreds of variables such as, link popularity, click popularity, keyword density, website themes and more. Google.com is the most popular spider driven search engine.

Earning Top 10 Search Engine Placement is complex and highly competitive for three reasons:


1. The variety and complexity of search engine's "ranking" algorithms
2. Search Engines constantly modify "page ranking criterions"
3. Increasing competition on the web

Why Search Engine Optimization?
Studies have proven that top placement in search engines, among other forms of online marketing, provide a more favorable return on investment compared to traditional forms of advertising such as, snail mail, radio commercials and television. Search engine optimization is the ONLY fool proof method to earning guaranteed Top 10 search engine placement.
How does SEO earn guaranteed top 10 placements?

Every Search Engine ranks Website Relevancy using a unique formula. Another term for a search engine's ranking formula is a search engine algorithms. The goal in search engine optimization is to build a website that meets each search engines "ranking criterion. The closer a website matches each search engine's "ranking criterion, the higher the website scores. Higher scores equal better placement in search engines. The best scores are rewarded with Top 10 search engine placement.


Each search engine places emphasis on variable factors such as the design and layout, keyword density and the number of relevant sites linking to it. Search engines constantly update and refine their ranking criterions in order to index the most relevant sites. Other variables that have an emphasis on search engine placement include the following:

Keywords: choosing the right keywords is mission critical.
Link Popularity: The more links pointing your site from "relevant" sites the better.
Click Popularity: The more traffic your site receives, the higher you score.
Website Themes: Create text heavy pages broken down into "themes".


Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Listings:
Should you use pay-per-click engines? This decision should be influenced by your industry's keywords and prices. Your budget, economies of scale, cost-per-customer acquisition, marginal costs and profitability should be considered before entering the PPC arena.
How much are you willing to spend to generate a sale?
If pay-per-click engines can meet the figure you derive, it is a rewarding investment. Learn more about pay-per-click search engines!

Competitive Analysis:
Competition analysis is about focusing on the areas you need the most improvement. Find the engines you lack solid placement and learn the tricks to earn top 10-search engine placement.


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Different engines, different rankings

Every search engine uses its own unique formula, called an algorithm, to index and score web sites. Search engines' algorithms weigh various factors, such as a page's design and links, to rank pages in their search results. By constantly refining and improving their algorithms, search engines hope to give their visitors the most relevant results.

Webmasters who want their sites to achieve a Top 20 position spend a lot of time studying different algorithms. Even when several search engines rely on similar factors in composing their rankings, they may still rank the same site differently.


Understanding ranking factors

Before you can understand how each search engine scores web sites, you need to understand the various factors they consider. These factors can be divided into two categories: page-related and outside.
Page-related factors are concerned with keywords and their placement in the HTML. These factors include:
• Format, placement and content of the title tag
• Keyword frequency, weight, prominence and proximity
• Use of the meta description tag
• Use of ALT tags
• Use of comment tags
• Use of keywords in URL names
• Alphabetical placement

Outside factors are not related to the content of your HTML. They
include:
• Link popularity
• Click popularity
• Themes
• Overall site design

Achieve results

You can improve most of the above factors to achieve higher rankings. Pay attention to what your competition is doing. Analyze their high-scoring pages and use their techniques.



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