Search Engine Optimisation and Marketing - An Overview
Information provided by VizMarketing
Websites are without question a highly effective marketing medium and so have become a key element in many organisations' marketing mix. But to work they must be seen.
Without visitors a website is as ineffective as a TV commercial never broadcast, or a brochure printed but never distributed.
No matter how good a website may be or how much money is spent on design and development, it will still be just one of millions competing for attention on the World Wide Web.
The Web is estimated to contain over 5 billion web pages and 7 million new pages are added daily.
The vast size of the Web means that simply creating a website and publishing it on the Web does not guarantee your desired audience will ever find it. If ever the analogy of finding a needle in a haystack applied, then this is it!
So how do you ensure your website gets found?
To break through the clutter and get visibility it is essential that traffic is actively driven to a website. Without traffic the investment made in developing a website is wasted. Traffic generation can be achieved through a variety of off-line and on-line marketing techniques (ideally in a combined and integrated manner).
A highly potent on-line method for promoting websites and driving qualified visitors to them is through the use of Web search engines and directories.
More than 80% of Internet users rely on search engines and directories as their preferred method for locating websites. The majority of Web users utilise a search engine every day and the only thing done online more often than using search engines is checking for email.
The exponential growth of the Web has increased peoples reliance on search engines as a way of locating information online. Currently there are over 320 million searches made every day.
The traffic search engines and directories deliver to websites is highly qualified because users are actively searching for the information.
This is the major difference to traffic delivered by banner advertising and studies have shown there are 5 - 6 times more online purchases made from traffic delivered by search engines compared to banner advertising.
Not only are search engines highly efficient online marketing tools - they're also cost efficient. The cost of online marketing campaigns using search engines is significantly lower than that for banner advertising.
Key search engines and directories
The term 'search engine' is commonly used to encompass both search engines and directories. Whilst both are used to find information on the Web there is a fundamental difference.
Search engines, such as Google and AltaVista, use software robots to crawl the Web and spider websites. These are then indexed in the search engines database according to specific criteria. To search with a search engine, a user inputs keywords or phrases. The sites returned in the results are ranked by relevancy.
In contrast directories, such as Yahoo and LookSmart, use humans to review websites and then categorise them. This gives users the opportunity to search by category as well as keyword. The sites returned in the results are ranked by category and relevancy.
For ease of reading the term 'search engines' is used generically in this article to include both search engines and directories.
Fish where the fish are
There are hundreds of search engines and directories on the Web, but they are not all created equal. In fact, only a small number of key search engines and directories are responsible for generating the great majority of traffic to websites.
The most significant ones are Yahoo!, Google and MSN which collectively account for the significant majority of search engine-generated traffic. Figures released in April 2002 showed that 36.35% of all search referrals worldwide come from Yahoo!, while Google provides 31.87% and MSN 12.73%.
Whilst a version of Pareto's Principle (or the 80/20 rule) applies, the other key search engines and directories cannot be ignored because of the complex inter-relationships that exist (e.g. Google directory listings come from the Open Directory; LookSmart provides results to MSN; and Yahoo! web pages come from Google).
A common myth is that there are thousands of search engines you should submit your site to. You may well have seen advertisements offering to submit your web site to 7,000 "search engines" for US$49.95 (or some similar sort of deal).
Be warned. There are not 7,000 search engines. The actual number of search engines that will result in any traffic to your website is under 100. And 10-15 of these will drive about 95% of all the search engine traffic to your site.
So what about those thousands of other so-called search engines you "must register with to" get traffic? It's a hoax - these sites are not search engines but FFA (Free For All) link sites and a total waste of time. They are created with the sole purpose of garnering email addresses for bombarding with unsolicited spam emails.
Search engine registration
Publishing a website and hoping it eventually gets added to the index of search engines is, at best, hit and miss. To be registered by search engines and directories requires a proactive approach.
The key search engines are being overwhelmed with millions of new page submissions each day. To handle this each has developed its own specific submission requirements that must be met to ensure your site has a chance of being successfully indexed.
This is why the 'instant search engine submission' programs that do generic submissions to multiple search engines generally aren't very successful and can even result in search engines banning websites for spamming them.
Instead individual submissions by hand that conform to the specific requirements of each individual key search engine and directory should be made.
Search engine optimisation
Simply submitting a site to search engines and being added to their indexes is not enough to ensure they drive traffic to your website.
You need to ensure that when someone queries a search engine your website gets returned in the top 30 results (or first 3 pages of results). When this happens the chances of them then clicking through to your site are significantly enhanced.
Search results below the top 30 are effectively invisible to most search engine users. Consequently, competition for top 30 rankings in the key search engines and directories for popular categories is intense.
Eg. A search on Google using the keyword phrase "supply chain management" returns 1,310,000 web pages.
Just because a site is submitted successfully and indexed by a search engine does not mean it will rank in the top 30 results. Each search engine and directory ranks results on perceived relevancy to the search terms. This relevancy ranking is determined according to complex indexing algorithms.
Web pages most likely to rank in a search engine's top results are those that have been well optimised to conform closely to the algorithm requirements for that particular search engine. These algorithms are specific to each search engine, kept secret, increasingly complex and continually being adjusted.
Thus optimisation of web pages to achieve good search engine rankings is challenging and an ongoing task due to search engine volatility.
Pay to play
Whilst many search engines are free to list with, there is an increasing trend for search engines and directories to charge fees. With search engines like AltaVista this fee expedites the submission and indexing process.
With free submissions your site may never be indexed in search engines like AltaVista. However if you pay the submission fee they guarantee to add the submitted pages within 7 days and then to re-index the pages weekly.
To offset their decline in online advertising revenues many search engines now no longer offer free submission options (i.e. to be included you must pay)
Yahoo! requires all commercial websites listing with it to pay a US$299 submission fee. This fee simply guarantees a directory editor will review a website submission within a week; however inclusion and placement in Yahoo! is subject to editorial approval and not guaranteed. No refunds if they don't accept your submission.
An important point to understand is that submission fees do not guarantee high rankings but simply inclusion in a search engine's index. How highly a site ranks in search engine's results is still dependant on how well it has been optimised.
There is however a way to buy your way to the top and that is through 'pay per click' (PPC) engines like Overture.
With PPC engines you bid for position. The highest bids get the highest rankings. Payment is on a per click basis. With PPC costs are performance-based and you only pay for people who click through to your site, (unlike banner advertising which is charged on an impression basis).
Whilst you may not have heard about or used PPC engines like Overture you will have seen their listings. These are the 'sponsor listings' that appear ahead of search results of partner websites such as AltaVista. Google has recently implemented its own variation of PPC.
Typically click through rates on PPC listings are not as high as those for 'pure' search results (after all people know they are a paid listing). Despite this PPC is a great way to get high visibility quickly in key search engines and you only pay on click throughs.
The thing to watch is that PPC requires active management or you can burn through a lot of money very quickly. Most professional search engine marketers such as Viz Marketing will manage PPC campaigns for their clients.
Search engine marketing options
Businesses wanting to implement a search engine marketing campaign basically face 3 options. These are DIY (do it yourself), use a submission service, or use a professional search engine marketing specialist. As with most things each has its pros and cons.
Doing it Yourself
Search engine marketing is not rocket science and, given enough time, can be successfully done by most people. The problem is that to do it properly involves a steep learning curve, experience through trial and error, and lots of time.
Most organisations don't have the luxury of this and so choose to outsource to experienced professionals - as they do with other specialist marketing.
If you are intent on going down this track there are plenty of resources available online - unfortunately not all are credible and many recycle out of date information that doesn't work today or may even get your site banned by search engines.
Two credible resources to check out are Search Engine Watch and Planet Ocean. Click here for information about these and other credible search engine marketing resources worth checking.
In addition there are software packages available that can be used for website optimisation and submission. The best known is WebPosition Gold - if you decide to use such a package do so judiciously or you'll end up creating problems for yourself.
WebPosition Gold is a program with many features including automated reporting of rankings in search engine results; automated submission and creation of doorway pages.
Viz Marketing's advice is do not use the automated submission function (far better done by hand) and definitely do NOT use it to create "cookie cutter" doorway pages which search engines view as Spam. If you use the reporting function do so with caution and consideration to the search engines.
A warning about automated rank reporting software.
Google has become increasingly intolerant of automated rank checking of its search results indexes because of the load this puts on their servers and the fact it skews true demand for search terms.
If you run automated rank checking software against Google you risk having your access to Google permanently blocked and possibly also your website penalized or even banned if they can link your IP address to that of the website.
For this reason Viz Marketing, like most professional SEOs, does not run automated Google reports.
Submission Services
Instant submission services are available in varying guises. Many involve submissions to FAA links and the problems of these have been discussed earlier.
Automated and repeat submissions are viewed dimly by the key search engines and can result in your site being penalised or even removed from their indexes.
As mentioned earlier getting good rankings in search engines involves more than simply submitting your site - it needs to be optimised to rank in the top 30 results for relevant key search phrases.
The trick with submissions is knowing the correct order in which to submit. The complex inter-relationships between the search engines means order of submission impacts on rankings.
The other aspect is picking the most appropriate categories in directories such as Yahoo! and then developing appropriate titles and descriptions that rank high. Submission programs won't help here.
Using a search engine marketing professional
This is the most expensive option and prices charged vary widely, as do the services offered. However using a competent search engine marketing professional will generate increased targeted traffic to your website and impact positively on its ROI.
If you're serious about generating a return from your website this is the option to take.
In the past year or so, the criteria for achieving top rankings in search engines have changed considerably. Emphasis has moved away from tinkering with Meta tags to site architecture, linking, visible text and off-the-page criteria such as themes and link popularity. Paid submissions and placement have also had a huge effect.
Professional search engine marketing typically involves four key steps
1. Analysis
2. Optimisation
3. Submission
4. Monitoring
The analysis phase is most crucial step and typically involves research to:
- Understand the target audience and broader marketing objectives
- The success of a search engine marketing campaign is extremely dependant on selecting the right keywords (search terms). The importance of doing this right cannot be over-stated. It is absolutely essential. The worst mistake is to guess what keywords might be used to find the site. The wrong keywords will bring the wrong visitors, and keywords that are too broad will bring less qualified visitors than focused keywords.
- Identify the most appropriate categories in the various directories (can be difficult to change later)
- Identify most appropriate search engines and directories to target
- Identify and analyse competitor websites
- Analyse optimisation of top ranking sites for the selected keywords and categories
- The success of a search engine marketing campaign is extremely dependant on selecting the right keywords (search terms). The importance of doing this right cannot be over-stated. It is absolutely essential. The worst mistake is to guess what keywords might be used to find the site. The wrong keywords will bring the wrong visitors, and keywords that are too broad will bring less qualified visitors than focused keywords.
Summary
Achieving good search engine positioning is not an easy task, particularly for competitive search phrases. It requires a lot of time, effort and specialist knowledge to do it successfully.
For this reason and/or ignorance of its benefits, many website owners do not implement strategies to achieve good search engine positioning. This in itself gives the organisations that do a competitive advantage.
Search engine marketing is a proven and very cost effective on-line marketing technique for driving qualified traffic directly to a website.
For more information about how search engine marketing can benefit your business click here: Search Engine Marketing or contact Mark Sceats of Vizmarketing Limited on (09) 522 9522 or click here to email Mark.
Back to the iStart Online Marketing Research Pavilion
