O.K., so we all know that there are literally billions of Web pages out there right. The question is, how do we find what were looking for with all those pages out there? Well, the key to finding information or at least the right direction to head is in learning how search engines and directories work. In this article we will examine just how they work.
What are Search Engines/Directories Anyway?
You may know that search engines and directories are tools that have been developed to help users navigate through much of the information that is out there on the Information Superhighway. But you may not know how they actually work. The following is a brief outline of what goes on behind the scenes.
Search Engines
Search Engines are hard working software programs that explore the Internet and build indexes of available pages. These pages are then made available to users. By using these search tools you can quickly find those resources or products that are relevant to you. Search Engines get their name from the software that searches through the indexed databases it creates. These indexes are special Web documents which can be searched rather than read. The results of such a search are displayed in another Web document containing links to the documents found.
How Do Search Engines Work?
Search engines consist of three parts: A Spider, the Index, and the Search Software.
The Spider: The Spider, also called "the crawler", visits Web pages to build an indexed database for the search engine. Most engines run several spiders that explore the Web as a team. The crawler looks for new Web pages or changes in existing ones to place in it's catalog. The number of Web pages visited and how often varies from engine to engine, but the typical crawler visits several million Web pages a week.
The Index: The Index part, also called "the catalog", is where the spider stores what it finds. Most engines contain only a text copy of every Web page visited, and removes often repeated words such as "the" or "an" to save space.
The Search Software: The Search part of the engine is software that allows you to look for pages containing information in response to one or more key search words that you have entered related to what you are looking for. It then displays the results, called "queries," ranked by a method that usually involves the location and frequency of the matching search words within the Web pages themselves.
Any given search usually results in several hundred to several hundred-thousand possible relevant Web homepage that matches your search inquiry. If this sounds complicated it's really not. A search engine will list the top ten to twenty Web sites out of the results for you with direct links to those pages.
Search Directories
Search directories on the other hand are different from search engines. A search engine finds Web sites on their own, automatically, but a search directory depends on people who operate the site to submit Web sites manually. But that's not all, other people are then required to classify them, and then, you get to select from the listing. The only downfall for directories is that search engines find Web sites automatically that directories might not know about. Directories may also suffer from outdated or broken links, but usually more often turn up excellent and relevant helpful search results.
Yahoo! is an example of an excellent search directory. Most people think that it is a search engine because it's a major guide to the Web. In reality, Yahoo is a directory that contains more than a million listings, categorized far more efficiently than a search engine could ever do.
Copyright 1999 - Ruben Flores - All Rights Reserved
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
By Sean Burns
News broke this week that Yahoo has purchased the Inktomi search engine for around US$235 million. This is an interesting development in the search engine industry that may impact greatly on exactly where sites get their traffic from. Another new development in the past few weeks is the change to the HotBot service but first, I'd like to look at the ramifications of the Yahoo/Inktomi deal.
Here's a bit of background information on how the Yahoo and Inktomi search engines work. I'm sure everyone knows Yahoo but not everyone may be completely aware of how their search engine works. Yahoo is a directory. This means that it is a categorised list of sites that are listed by human editors. Getting listed in the Yahoo directory requires a yearly payment for commercial sites. You can get listed for free if you have a non-commercial site but it is very hard to do and can take months. Yahoo provides additional results when you use their search function that come from Google. In the past, Yahoo has used other search engines to provide these results (including Inktomi) but has used Google for the last couple of years.
They initially used results from other search engines to just compliment their own. So, if someone searched for something that wasn't in their directory, they could still get results. The way it worked was that they would provide results from their own directory first and then a user would click on "web pages" to get more results. Strangely, Yahoo actually changed the way this worked during the year so that the results from a search were a mix of listings from their own directory and Google with the Google results being the more prominent of the two. This has essentially made the payment of the US$299 per year for a directory listing an unnecessary expense. Many people still use the directory to browse for sites but, in my experience, more people use the search function.
Inktomi is a full crawler based search engine that provides results for other search engines. They do have a web site but no-one uses it to actually search - it's more of an informational site. Inktomi's results formerly appeared in many search engines but in the last few years, their popularity has declined. The main site that currently uses Inktomi is MSN but Inktomi only provides the fifth level of results. MSN provides sponsored listings from Overture, their own Microsoft sites, their own human edited directory results, LookSmart listings and then Inktomi. So, Inktomi does drive traffic to sites but far less than a search engine like Google.
So, what does all this mean to us? It's hard to say at the moment but there are three options. Either nothing will change (which is unlikely), Yahoo will use Inktomi together with Google on it's site or it will dump Google and use Inktomi for it's search results. Yahoo actually owns part of Google, maybe 5%, so there is a chance that they will keep using their results for this reason. Also, Google provide far better results for searchers than Inktomi so Yahoo would be making a mistake to replace Google. But, apparently Yahoo is annoyed that Google has become competition to them through Google's own site and that Google's news search service is also providing competition.
Without a crystal ball, it's very difficult to know what is going to happen but it's worth making sure that you are prepared for all occurrences. There is really very little that you need to do because it is only the popularity of Inktomi that may change. Even without the searches from Yahoo, Google will still be the biggest search engine in the world due to the fact that it's own site is very popular and it's results are also used by AOL (amongst others). So, what can you do to get the most from Inktomi?
Inktomi is the only major search engine that uses meta tags. This is actually the reason that it is not as popular as before because meta tags allow webmasters to "trick" Inktomi into thinking a page has more relevant content than there really is. Therefore, Inktomi's search results are not very good. However, as there is a good chance that Inktomi will now become popular again, you need to make sure that you have your meta keyword and meta description tags in place. Make sure they are relevant to the page that they are on - you don't want to be caught "spamming" their search engine. The other thing that will probably make a difference is to get other sites to link to you. Link popularity makes a difference on all search engines except possibly AllTheWeb.
I'll keep you updated here with any news on what Yahoo decides to do and any changes that I find out about the way the Inktomi generates results.
As I mentioned above, the other major search engine news in the last month is that HotBot has finally updated their site. HotBot is owned by Lycos and was quite a popular search engine a few years ago. It has become far less popular lately - since it was purchased by Lycos and was just left to "die". It's results largely came from a mix of the ODP, DirectHit and Inktomi. DirectHit has since become Teoma which is owned by AskJeeves but HotBot went for months after DirectHit ceased to exist saying that it's results were coming from them.
So, HotBot has essentially become another meta search engine - like DogPile or Excite. It now works pretty much like Netscape does. A searcher can choose which search engine they would like their results to come from. The search engines that you can choose from are Fast (AllTheWeb), Google, Inktomi and Teoma. This may mean that HotBot starts to get some of it's market share back but as webmasters, there is nothing that we can do to target HotBot. All we can do is target the search engines which provide it's results.
Sean Burns is the author of the WebmastersReference.com Newsletter - http://www.webmastersreference.com/newsletter. More than five years of experience in site design, marketing, income generation, search engine optimisation and more is passed on to subscribers - hype free. Sign up today to get real information of real value to webmasters.
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
By Sean Burns
Pay per click search engines have become one of the most popular ways to market your site in the last few years. There are now hundreds of millions of dollars spent each year on this form of advertising. Unfortunately, it has got to the point now where only companies with big budgets can compete for the best keywords ... or has it?
For those who don't know, a pay per click search engine allows you to bid on keywords. The higher your bid, the higher you are ranked. Then, when a person clicks on your link, you are charged the amount that you bid. Examples of this are Overture (http://www.overture.com), Google AdWords (https://adwords.google.com/select/), FindWhat (http://www.findwhat.com), Kanoodle (http://www.kanoodle.com), GoClick (http://www.goclick.com) and SearchFeed (http://www.searchfeed.com). It is marketed as "results based advertising" and whilst this is not really the case, it can still be very useful to use if you know how to do it.
Overture and Google AdWords are the two that will provide the most traffic. I should point out that Google AdWords is the name that Google uses for the ads that appear on the right hand side of the screen when you do a search. The problem that most people encounter with these two in particular is that to get a good listing, you need to pay a lot of money. For example, I looked up "Search Engine Optimization" on Overture and the company that was listed first was paying about $7.90 per click! Google's system works slightly differently from the others but to be listed first, you do need to pay quite a bit.
So, could you make a profit paying $7.90 for each visitor? The answer for 99% of web sites is no. I even doubt that the sites that are paying this much would be getting a return on their investment but they would have a yearly advertising budget that allows them to pay this much.
Now, there are a few solutions to this problem. First, I'll look at not advertising with Overture or Google. The other PPC SEs listed above don't get the same traffic as the big two but they do get a lot of searches in their own right. For example, GoClick claims to get around 120 million searches per month. So, to get better value for money, focus on these search engines. For the search term I used in the example above, all of the four smaller engines have far lower top bids - most are well below $1.00 per click. Apart from saving money on getting a number one listing, it also means that if you can only afford to bid $0.05 you may make the first page of results - often you will actually get quite a good listing.
You will receive less traffic relative to the listing that you achieve but, you will get more traffic relative to the amount that you pay.
OK, the next step. People don't all use the same keywords when they search. For any one keyword or phrase, there are usually hundreds of variations that people have used. If you bid on the most popular search term and only bid the minimum available - $0.05 on Overture and Google, $0.01 on the others - you will be listed very low down. As a result, you will receive very few clicks, if any, each month. But, if you find keywords that only get searched for a few times a month, you can easily get listed at number one and get a click for every search.
Here is an example using the above phrase "search engine optimization". On GoClick last month, this phrase was searched for 4183 times. If I bid $0.01, I will be listed at number 37. As you can imagine, that will be lucky to generate one click. The phrase "search engine optimization specialist" was searched for 1129 times. By bidding $0.01, I can get listed at number 14. So, far less searches but I should get a few clicks. The phrase "searchengine optimization" was searched for 109 times. If I bid $0.01, I will be listed at number one (which you will see, I have!). So, I will get a reasonable number of clicks from those 109 searches. Not all but at least 20. By finding the phrases with less competition, you can almost guarantee a return on your investment. Sure, the more you bid on more popular search terms, the more traffic you will get but advertising should always be viewed in terms of ROI (return on investment). There is no point in paying $0.50 per click to get more traffic if you don't get enough sales to cover the expense.
So, bid on everything that people search for - not just the popular keywords. Most PPC SEs have a suggestion tool that shows you how often people search for particular terms. I prefer GoClick's because it provides hundreds of suggestions - the others only tend to provide 50.
The third step to optimizing your pay per click search engine performance is to focus on conversion rate. You need to know exactly how much you can afford to pay for each sale. Let's say you sell a product for $100.00 and you are prepared to pay $20.00 for each sale and still make a profit. Assuming that you get a conversion rate of one in a hundred, you can pay $0.20 per click. But what happens if you get 1000 clicks and no one buys anything? That's $200.00 down the drain.
Therefore, you need to work out a general conversion rate for each PPC SE and possibly each search term (I don't actually worry about this). To avoid losing too much money, I prefer to bid low amounts when testing. So, attempt to get 1000 visitors for the lowest cost possible and then work out your conversion rate and your ROI. If you pay $0.05 per click and get a 1 in 100 conversion then that's good. If you get a 1 in 50 conversion rate, that's even better and it let's you know that you can afford to bid more for each keyword or phrase, get more visitors and make more sales.
From a small business point of view, I may have money to spend on PPC SEs but I never have money to waste on them. By working out exactly how much you can afford to bid on each search engine (because they are all different) you can actually achieve your goals - increase sales and increase profits.
To finish up, I'd like to discuss a couple of other points in regards to advertising with PPC SEs. First, every time someone clicks on your link and doesn't buy, you've lost money. Not much money but as you are paying for clicks, you want there to be as little wastage as possible. If you use hype in your title or description, you will generate clicks but generating sales is different. So, to get value for money, it's often best to try to get people not to click on your link. This is perhaps a touch extreme but if you are targeting an area that gets lots of surfers, you will end up paying for lots of click and not getting many sales. Things such as games and sports betting are topics where people are looking for "free stuff".
So, if someone isn't going to buy something, don't try to convince them to click on your link. Again, this is about testing for conversion rates. I have seen it mentioned elsewhere that putting your price in your description will put off people looking for freebies. I agree with this to some extent but I think that this will, on occasion, lose you sales because you don't have the opportunity to sell to them. Maybe your site could convince them that what you offer is worth the money. So, you don't have to include the price but don't mention free stuff either if you want them to buy something.
Now, the last thing I want to talk about is something that is often ignored by people when the advertise on search engines. That is, branding. If you include the name of your site in your title and/or description, you at least get people to see it. They won't all remember but some will. Marketing a web site online is often about making the most of every opportunity - especially if it's something that doesn't cost you anything. If someone doesn't click on your link, at least get them to see your name. In all my titles, I have WebmastersReference.com. By having that, I am getting my name out there (often to thousands of people a day) and some of these people may come and visit me later. If I just have Search Engine Optimization Services as my title, there is no way they will ever find me again unless they come back and click on my link - which I have to pay for.
Never miss an opportunity to have someone see the name of your site.
So, just to sum up how to optimize your PPC SE results:
Advertise with the smaller PPC engines to save some money on your bids,
Don't just target the main search terms, target all of them,
Test for conversion rates and ROIs,
Don't use hype. You want customers, not surfers,
Branding - make sure everyone sees your site name,
Follow this advice and you will not only be more profitable but it will help your site in the long run.
Sean Burns is the author of the WebmastersReference.com Newsletter - http://www.webmastersreference.com/newsletter. More than five years of experience in site design, marketing, income generation, search engine optimisation and more is passed on to subscribers - hype free. Sign up today to get real information of real value to webmasters.
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
Have you noticed your website slipping in the Google rankings over the past few months for keywords that previously scored high? Join the club and welcome to The Google Dance.
The Google Dance is a phrase that was coined to explain the new search engine algorithms that Google puts into play on occasion. The most recent Google Dances, in November 2003 and January 2004, startled website owners as they watched their previous number 1 site plummet to number 400 in the rankings - or disappears off the Google charts all together.
Many of my clients called me in a panic, wondering if they did something "wrong" to cause this to happen. The answer is mostly: no. You didn't do anything wrong. Google is testing new search algorithms to help people find more relevant results from their searches and to give penalties to people who use illegal techniques to try to get higher rankings in the search results. I can't say that the results are any more relevant, though. For instance, when I use the keyword "small business coach," I expect to receive results that list small business coaches' websites. But when I type in "small business coach" in Google, the first result I get is an Amazon.com site. In fact, only four out of the top 20 sites listed are coach's sites.
So, what to do? The knee-jerk reaction is to try to figure out what the "new" algorithm is and to optimize your site accordingly. That's a bad idea. First of all, the search engines use over 100 elements to rank a site. Since you can't possibly know what all 100 elements are, or what weight is given to each element, you will be wandering in the dark. Second, you don't know how long this particular Dance will last, so you might be optimizing your site only to have it all wrong when the next Dance occurs. Third, you might optimize your site for Google, only to harm your rankings on Yahoo or MSN.
My advice to my clients is two-fold: First, read the guidelines for each of the search engines and make sure that your site isn't doing something against policy, as your site will be penalized and dropped in ranking. Next, sit tight. Wait a month to see how the Dance goes. Monitor your site once a week to see where its ranking is for each keyword phrase you're tracking.
Search engine optimization should be just one part of your fuller Internet Marketing strategy. While the Dance is happening, focus on other pieces of your Internet Marketing strategy and use other techniques to bring visitors to your site. In the end, your strategy and results will be stronger.
© Karyn Greenstreet 2004.
Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to create and grow their businesses, stay focused and motivated, and perform at their peak. Visit her website at www.PassionForBusiness.com
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
In the post-Florida world, what is new at Google...and what does a webmaster need to change to get Google's attention? Surprisingly little, suggests David Leonhardt, unless you happen to be sporting a fig leaf.
Are You A Bill Clinton Webmaster?
Post-Florida Google Pulls Back the Fig Leaf
By David Leonhardt
One of the most frequent questions I get asked about my ebook, Don't Get Banned BY The Search Engines , is whether I amended it to include post-Florida Google. "Florida" is the code name that search engine optimizer wizards gave to a November, 2003, shakeup at Google that left many webmasters covering themselves up with makeshift fig leaves while dangling upside down above the proverbial crocodile moat.
I am tempted to explain that, "No, I did not amend it, because nothing has really changed." But just try telling the world that Bill Clinton did not have "sex" with Monica Lewinski. Yeah, right.
So I take the lazy way out and I just say, "Yes."
But the guilt has been creeping up on me, grasping at my skin, gnawing away at my bones, chewing on my heart, mauling my conscience, and spitting out my toenails one by one. So this is confession time. Don't Get Banned BY The Search Engines has not been amended to include post-Florida Google.
Is this because I am peddling stale goods? Am I leading people astray? Do I have a clue what's going on? "No", "I hope so", and "Maybe".
In fact, nothing really has changed at Google, and webmasters who have been following Google's guidelines can just keep doing what they have always been doing, just as Presidents who follow public decency guidelines can keep doing what they are doing (until we vote them out of office for other reasons, of course).
"But I followed the guidelines, and I still took bullets in several vital organs," I hear many webmasters say. In fact, very few webmasters have been following Google's guidelines. Most have been following the Clinton what-can-I-get-away-with fig leaf guidelines.
Remember that Bill Clinton never had "sex" with Monica Lewinski. Technically. Honest, he did nothing wrong. He followed the rules by not having "sex" with Monica Lewinski. In fact, he was seen in public not having sex with Monica Lewinski on several occasions.
And webmasters follow the rules by not linking to "link farms" or "overoptimizing". Sure, they will link to sites that have nothing to do with their site's topic, but not to a "link farm". And they will "exchange links", but surely that does not violate Google's" uniquely democratic nature of the web" principle. As long as you are not actually caught publicly stuffing the ballot box, how could Google possibly suggest that you are doing so?
So here are my post-Florida rules:
You only link to relevant sites, because that's what you know Google and your visitors want. Keep doing that.
You don't exchange links, because that would be stuffing Google's ballot box – and that is NOT something Google wants. Keep not doing that.
Your link does not appear on many useless "links" pages, where it has to share PageRank with dozens of other web sites. Keep not doing that.
You accept links only from relevant web pages, because you know that's the only meaningful traffic ... and that's what Google wants. Keep doing that.
Your links look different on different web pages around the Internet, because that's how a democratic process would create your links. Keep doing that.
You keep adding relevant content to your web site, because that's what you know Google and your visitors want. Keep doing that.
See? No change. And if there is a change, it simply means that you were not following Google's guidelines in the past. Oh sure, technically you might have been following Google's guidelines, but technically Bill Clinton didn't have sex with Monika Lewinski. Another round of fig leaves, anyone?
Google implemented "stemming" along with the Florida update, or more likely a few weeks earlier. Since your inbound links are varied and often unique, you probably already are taking advantage of stemming, so it won't bother you. And since you write meaningful copy for your visitors, you probably already have all the stemming you need right in your copy. You are ready to really excel in post-Florida Google.
Google is also implementing a "communities" factor. Since your inbound links all come from relevant web pages, you are already part of the community. You are already well placed to succeed in post-Florida Google, right?
Google has implemented "penalties" for some typically overoptimized terms. Actually, I think penalties is probably the wrong word, but that is what most SEOs are using. Since you write quality content, meaningful headers, and don't cut and paste the same phrase over and over in every possible place, you are ready to conquer Mount Google.
In other words, if you were following Google's guidelines, not the Bill Clinton fig leaf guidelines, just keep doing what you are doing. For the rest of you, isn't it time you dropped the fig leaf and wrapped yourself up in something a little more substantial that will weather the high winds of Google's next big storm?
And, "No." I did not amend Don't Get Banned BY The Search Engines to include post-Florida Google – because I never advised people to follow the Bill Clinton fig leaf guidelines in the original edition.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Leonhardt is a freelance writer, and an online and offline publicity specialist. Contact him at: Info@TheHappyGuy.com
or visit his The Happy Guy website. Pick up a copy of Get In The News or learn how to promote your website with an ezine or newsletter.
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
Copyright 2004 Steve Shaw
One of the common issues that marketers face when using Google Adwords, is that the use of popups on the target page for their ad is not permitted. Many Adwords advertisers just completely remove popups from their web site, which can not only significantly damage the profitability that results from other traffic sources, but, as we shall see, it is also not entirely necessary. This article looks at alternative solutions, which when implemented can virtually double the ROI (Return On Investment) for Adwords ads.
It is well recognized that by capturing the visitor's email address, and then following up with them via an effective auto-responder campaign, marketers can more than double their chances of clinching the sale. Popups can be a very effective way of doing this, often helping to convert 50% of more of visitors to subscribers.
With Google Adwords however, because popups are not permitted, you need to look for other ways in which you can maximize the visitor-to-subscriber conversion ratio, and thereby also maximize the value you get out of each click-through to your web site.
Here are three main ways in which you can do this:
1. Set your target page for your ad as a so-called 'name squeeze' page - this means the whole page you direct them to is focussed on one thing, to get their name and email address, following which you can always redirect them to your normal sales page to try and 'make the sale'. You still need to make sure of course that your ad accurately reflects your target page.
As an example of how to do this, let's say you sell cheap widgets, and your ad is displayed for the keywords 'cheap widgets'. Write a report or an ebook on 'How To Choose The Best Cheap Widget' and offer it for free on your name squeeze page, in return for their email address.
2. Use a special type of popup that doesn't actually display in a new browser window, but 'hovers' over your existing web page - this type of popup is not detected by Google (nor for that matter can they be prevented by popup blocker technology), and works in a similar way to dynamic menus, which of course are perfectly permissable. I have been using this type of popup very successfully for many months in conjunction with Adwords.
You can get a free copy of the software I use by sending a blank mailto:optinover@takanomi.par32.com.
3. Put popups on other pages - Google does not stipulate that you should no popups on your web site, only on the target page for your ad. This means that if your target page encourages visitors to click through to other areas of your web site, you can add put popups on these other pages to help capture your visitors email address.
For example, if you have a long sales letter, try splitting it up onto two or more pages. Your popup(s) can be placed on any of the other pages. I use PopUpMaster Pro to ensure that the popup does not appear if certain links are pressed - this means that you don't show the popup to visitors who click through to read other pages of the sales letter or to order, but otherwise (if they leave your web site) you show them an exit popup to try and grab their email address before they are 'lost forever'.
Use one of the above methods, and you should find that you capture the details of many more visitors who click through from your Google Adwords ad - and by doing this, together with an effective autoresponder campaign, your return on your ad could greatly increase too.
About the Author:
Steve Shaw creates systems and software for effective e-marketing. For the technical edge on e-marketing, and to claim some valuable bonuses, you can subscribe to his popular newsletter at http://takanomi.com/newsletter.
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
By Merle http://MCPromotionsPress.com
As a website owner, getting your site listed and placing well in the search engines can turn into a full time job. Search engine optimization is the process of altering your site so it appears in the top listings of the major search engines. You can hire someone to do it for you and pay out thousands of dollars, or you can be "web savvy" and learn how to do it yourself.
True search engine optimization does not involve tricks or search engine Sp.m, but techniques that help websites become more search engine friendly and therefore rank better.
So how does a novice learn what search engines find important, let alone which search engines to optimize for? The answers to these questions and much more can be found online in discussion forums. Discussion forums are a valuable resource and a fertile learning ground for anyone with the motivation to learn. Hang out a while and read the posts and you'll soon absorb so much new information that you may become an expert yourself.
So where do you find these forums? If you want to learn from the best, you've got to know where the best hang out. I'm going to save you the research time by introducing you to the "cream of the crop."
1) HighRankings Forum: http://HighRankings.com/forum/
This discussion board, run by the acclaimed search engine expert Jill Whalen, is priceless. The forum is broken down into categories ranging from optimization tips and techniques to link building and copywriting techniques. You'll need to choose a user name and password and confirm your new account by email before using the board. Jill really knows her stuff, and I highly recommend her free newsletter as well.
2) Best Practices S.E. Forum: http://IhelpYouServices.com/forums/
You'll find this forum to be a very busy place. Nice variety of topics broken down by individual search engines so you can pick the exact engine you want to study. You'll also find information on pay per click search engines, link popularity and much more. Again, you'll need to register before using the board.
3) SiteOwners/ Webmasters Forums http://SiteOwnersForums.com
Not specifically a search engine board. Topics are for website owners, but if you look closely you'll see a category titled "search engine optimization," with a lot of activity. You'll find a range of topics and general questions on how to achieve a better ranking. As with the others, you'll need to register first before posting.
4) Search Engine Marketing Forums: http://SearchEngineForums.com
Offered by JimWorld.com, this forum is a great example of everything an informative board should be. You'll find a real sense of community here. Topics are broken down by categories like "search engine optimization," organic and pay per click search engines, Net marketing strategies and more. At the time of my visit, there were over 5,000 topics posted in the optimization category alone. JimWorld offers many excellent resources like free website templates, tutorials, helpful tools and again, a great ezine.
5) Cre8asite Forums: http://www.cre8asiteforums.com
Covering topics like usability, web design and search engine optimization. You'll need to drill down to find the category you need. Some of the categories had well over 4,000 posts when I visited, so there are a lot of goodies to be found here.
Who said there's no such thing as "a free lunch?" Search engine forums are literally a goldmine of information, and they won't cost you a dime. By spending some quality time in these forums, you'll find your knowledge base increasing daily until you become one of the "experts" yourself. When that happens, you can start posting responses and helping other newbies yourself.
Forums are a community of people, so if you benefit from them it's always a good idea to give something back by reaching out to other participants. Remember, everything you need to improve your search engine rankings is out there; it's your job to go and get it. See you at the "top."
Merle http://www.EzineAdAuction.com "Where some of the BEST Deals in Ezine Advertising are Made" Buy & Sell Ezine Ads in a live auction setting! Publishers sell off your excess inventory and Buyers pick up some Fantastic bargains. Go now.
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
Copyright 2004 Steve Nash
The days of free search engine traffic are over!
(And the reign of cheap search engine traffic has begun!)
Okay, that may not be quite the case *yet*, but you really do have to work hard (or pay someone to work hard), to even get close to guaranteeing a top 10 position on search engines like Google.
Pay-Per-Click search engines, however, offer the promise of guaranteed visitors, for the keywords of your choice.
Choose to pay per click wisely!
There are literally hundreds of pay-per-click search engines available for you to spend your money. Only a few can guarantee targeted visitors to your site, though. I've listed the best pay-per-click search engines below.
=> SIGN-UP WITH THESE POPULAR PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH ENGINES
* OVERTURE
Overture (formerly GoTo) is the original (and most popular) pay-per-click search engine.
Overture is also one of the most expensive, and competitive. A quotation taken from their sign-up page:
"A $50 initial deposit is non-refundable and will be applied to click-throughs or to the minimum monthly spend. Each account has a $20 minimum monthly spend. There is a minimum bid requirement of $0.10 per click- through."
Overture do have tough anti-fraud measures in place - always evolving, obviously - so there is far less chance of receiving so-called 'bogus clicks' using Overture.
And Overture has an impressive search engine reach, with its results found in "Sponsored Listings" in many search engines.
You can currently choose from Fast Track or Self Serve sign- up options.
Verdict: If you're serious about generating targeted traffic to your site, but less bothered about minimum (or maximum!) bid amounts etc. then you should consider signing-up with Overture.
Overture - http://www.overture.com Overture UK - http://www.uk.overture.com
* ESPOTTING
Espotting is the self-proclaimed #1 pay-per-click search engine in Europe. Its results appear on many major search engines as well as well as thousands of relevant smaller sites too
This is what is says at Espotting UK's sign-up page:
"Espotting Media can help you access targeted leads from 72% of the UK's online population... By ensuring that your listings appear within our top 3-5 search results, you will benefit from highly targeted leads from Yahoo! Europe, Lycos, Kelkoo and Netscape and many more. "
It offers a Gold, Silver and Bronze service depending on how 'hands-on' you want to be with your pay-per-click campaign (and how much money you want to spend!).
Verdict: A serious contender in Europe, worth considering.
Espotting - http://www.espotting.com
* GOOGLE ADWORDS
Even Google operate a pay-per-click search engine.
Called Google AdWords, results appear on the Google search engine itself, as part of the search engine listings (right hand side).
Results also appear as part of AOL and Yahoo!'s searches and other major content providers. Though this might change soon.
And, with it's recent launch of Google AdSense, Google AdWords now appear on minor, but still relevant, content sites.
Unlike other pay-per-click search engines, Google AdWords doesn't always list the highest bidded term first (see BID, BID, BID below for details). In Google's words:
"Getting great results in AdWords doesn't necessarily mean spending a lot either. The AdWords system rewards the best-performing ads."
Verdict: Definitely consider signing-up to Google AdWords, but learn how to make the most of your AdWords campaign first via a suitable tutorial or learning resource!
Google AdWords - https://adwords.google.com/
=> OR VISIT THESE LINKS
There are other pay-per-click search engines worth considering. All of the pay per click search engines listed below have considerable reach, and can guarantee visitors to your site (often at a much cheaper cost than Overture etc.)
o http://www.FindWhat.com
o http://www.kanoodle.com
o http://www.xuppa.com/ (formerly Bay9)
o http://www.7search.com
o http://www.epilot.com/
o http://www.goClick.com
o http://www.Ah-Ha.com
o http://www.onesearch.com
o http://www.NetFlip.com
=> THEN BID, BID, BID!
Using Overture as an example here, making a bid is simply a matter of choosing the following:
* keyword * title * description
And as Overture recommends on its site, always repeat the keyword in both the title and description to improve your chances of a click. Overture also comes with a keyword suggestion tool, available to Overture advertisers only.
Choosing your keywords, and the amount you are willing to bid is also simple, but can take a lot of time.
This is because you need to research suitable in-demand keywords, that cost little. Solutions to this problem include using the paid-for version of Wordtracker - the excellent keyword suggestion tool allows you to brainstorm good keywords, and determine the current cost of the top 20 bids. You might also want to use bid management software.
Wordtracker - http://www.wordtracker.com
Example of bid management software for Overture - http://www.ppcmanagement.com/
=> BUT BID CAREFULLY!
Make sure you don't spend too much money.
Clicks can add up quickly. It's probably worth investing in some kind of bid management software, or at least worth using the in-built bid management provided by search engines like Overture.
Remember, you ONLY want your prospective customers to click. And you must know the value of your visitor! (A rough guide: Value = average earnings / average unique visitors .)
Try and make sure that the cost of a click never exceeds this 'value' of a visitor.
One successful strategy is to bid low on many listings.
=> READ MORE...
You can find out a great deal more about pay-per-click search engines from this excellent resource.
http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com/
And the online version of this article contains a variety of sign-up offers for some of the search engines listed, as well as details of Google AdWords learning resources. http://howipromotemywebsite.com/pay-per-click
STEVE NASH is the author of the ebook: "3 Super-Tips To Build, Promote And Profit More From Your Website." Download your free copy now! http://www.wise-buys.info/bonus.shtml
HIS BEST TIP? Use Site Build It! to develop a profitable business online! Learn more, here! http://site-buildit.com
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
By Ross Dunn, Based On An Exclusive Interview With Ask's Jim Lanzone
It appears that Yahoo!'s bold and less than brilliant foray into " Looksmart-like " paid inclusion may have been the final nudge that AskJeeves needed to shut down their paid inclusion program, Index Express (not Index Connect which is Inktomi). This significant shift of AskJeeves away from their 18 month-old paid inclusion program appears to be a timely distancing from the pending storm coming to Yahoo! after it announced its new Site Match system.
Why did AskJeeves shut down their Index Express service? To get to the bottom of that I spoke today with Jim Lanzone, VP of product management at AskJeeves. First I should mention that he very carefully noted he does not believe there is a 'dark underbelly' to monetary search engine inclusion models. He noted Yahoo!, Looksmart, and many others when he emphasized that. When we concentrated on the topic of the cancelled Index Express service he explained that AskJeeves came to this decision based on two elements; the first was technical and attributed to significant testing of their paid inclusion model, the second was entirely monetary. The testing revealed that the differences between a page submitted via a trusted feed (xml feeds via Index Express customers) and a page indexed by the Ask spider were so significant that attributing proper relevance was very difficult. As a result, users, advertisers and Ask technicians alike were finding Index Express submitted pages ranking in odd places; sometimes ranking inordinately high or low. The second reason focuses on what is likely the shareholder's bottom line; the model was "not a very good monetization vehicle."
Will the AskJeeves database take a big hit with this change? This is difficult to say but considering that Jim Lanzone said 30,000 of the 2 Billion pages indexed in Ask were Index Express pages there could be a miniscule drop in Ask's database size. Other than that I cannot foresee any significant negative impact. In fact, I only see a brilliant move here since paid inclusion models will undeniably be under the FTC and SEO microscope for the next few months, what with Yahoo!'s 6 web properties adapting to it with gusto.
Note: It is important that our readers understand that the paid submission process at Ask Jeeves is still active and recommended by the staff at StepForth. According to Jim Lanzone, the sites that are submitted via Site Submit will be indexed within one week and then repeatedly 2 times per week. Considering that sites which do not pay submit may not be found or may only be indexed sporadically, this appears to be a very worthwhile service.
An Inside Glimpse of AskJeeves
Right now AskJeeves has a search engine that, in my opinion, is truly impressive. The natural language processing and wealth of quality information in their database has become so good that searching by query actually provides relevant results 90% of the time! This is a vast improvement over the original natural language system that Ask had in place just a year ago. When asked what made AskJeeves so different from its competitors, Jim answered decisively that it was Ask's search technology that put it in a category all of its own. Why the technology? Well Jim argued that the intuitive query performance of the search and the system's ability to reliably show only the experts in every field was Ask's `secret sauce'. When I personally put this to the test I had to agree that at the very least the top results I found were relevant and spam-free. an impressive characteristic. What I must enter into consideration, however, is the considerable difference in database size in comparison to Ask's competitors; Ask has only 2 billion pages, whereas Google claims a 6 billion count and Yahoo! over 4.5 billion. In this case size does matter. especially when you consider trying to filter twice to three times more content.
During my interview with Jim Lanzone, we discussed Ask's current standing and where he expects the prominent search engine to appear within the next few years. Obviously Jim could not provide specifics on the technology they plan on including; however, I was able to garner some idea of the company's vision:
Jim gave serious kudos to Google and Yahoo! for creating relationships with the `hidden web'; vast information resources once missed by the average search engine such as the Library of Congress, US Supreme Court Audio, the NPR, etc.. According to Jim these types of relationships are definitely going to play a role in future development at Ask. The problem is time, they plan on making some inroads this year but it will take a while before Ask can match the kind of advances that Yahoo or Google have made. This is especially true since Index Express was phased out; initially this was to be the model for uncovering the hidden web.
AskJeeves is very focused on providing a quality user experience. This is evidenced strongly by Ask's current clean interface and Smart Search ideology that "search experience is as important as results themselves". From what I could gather, Ask's goal is to minimize the successful search experience to one click.
A fresher index was noted which indicates a strong desire to begin spidering web sites more frequently in the near future. Jim did not elaborate on this, however, I speculate that this means isolating web sites that are updated regularly and spidering them more often.
Currently the News section of AskJeeves is populated using Moreover; a popular and reliable news syndication resource. At the moment, Ask only minimally controls the results of its Moreover results with a basic algorithm. This is a major difference between AskJeeves and its search competitors Google and Yahoo!; Ask is the only engine without its own news spider! When asked, Jim noted that advances in Ask's news asset will begin to take place in the second quarter of this year.
What else? At this point in the interview I encountered the familiar and completely understandable `wall of vague'; to quote Jim Lanzone, AskJeeves plans to "move into the different areas of search and apply our search engines to new areas of the web and make improvements to the methodologies that determine the relevance of the web." Well said!
Ross Dunn is the CEO of StepForth Search Engine Placement, a search engine marketing company founded in 1997 and based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Ross Dunn is a Certified Internet Marketing and Business Strategist (CIMBS) with a background in web design and online marketing. You can visit their website at www.stepforth.com.
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
The old ways are not always the best ways.
The traditional model of making money from affiliate products was simple. Create an interesting website geared to a specific theme, slap up some banners for affiliate products that were related to your theme, and sit back, hoping that some of the audience your website drew would click on those banners, giving you some sales. If you really wanted to get creative you might have done some email campaigns for specific products on the side.
But email campaigns are mostly ineffective (and God-forbid you should spam anyone). And banner advertisements don't generally work. And websites take a long time to build, and promote. And even longer to get good ranking in the search engines.
So it was a slow steady process. There were no `quick routes' to affiliate gold.
Until now.
Hang on to your hats, ladies & gentlemen, because pay-per-click advertising is here!
Pay-per-click search engines like Google AdWords and Overture offer an exciting way to quickly bring highly-targeted, highly-motivated people who want to buy straight to your affiliate products and services. You don't even have to have a website.
All you have to do is write a cleverly worded ad describing your affiliate product and put it up. When searchers click on your ad, they are whisked right to the affiliate product, and given the opportunity to purchase. Wham, you've just made money. It really is that simple.
To demonstrate how quick and powerful pay-per-click advertising can be, I'll offer myself as an example. I came into the `let's make money on the Internet' game late, and when I started I didn't even have a website, and I barely knew what an `affiliate' was.
The first month I cleared $1500 in profits, even though I barely knew what I was doing. For every one dollar I spent on pay-per-click, I got three dollars back in profits. And I was a total newbie, a `marketing virgin'. I didn't have a website, I didn't know how to conduct an email campaign, and I barely knew what a `tracking URL' was. Does that wake anybody up to the power of pay-per-click advertising?
However, don't think it's all wine and roses in the pay-per-click field. The fact is, almost everyone who tries it fails, at least initially. I failed myself, by the way. The first two days I netted over $50 in losses. And I still maintain those were the most valuable two days of my entire pay-per-click experience, in terms of how much I learned, and how quickly I adapted to the learning curve.
So don't go into it with false expectations. Pay-per-click has a learning curve. But if you're willing to demonstrate a little stick-to-it-ness, pay-per-click can be wildly profitable, and kick-start your affiliate sales business.
Daniel Brough is the founder of AdWord Wizards, a free mentoring program designed to teach anyone how to profit from pay-per-click search engines. Want to start a profitable AdWords campaign in less than 30 minutes? Come to http://www.adwordwizard.com and sign up for this free program.
Reprinted from
Zongoo.com Daily Press & Consumer Information
