SEARCH ENGINES EXPLAINED

Search engines are built up algorithms that rank websites that it has in it's database. Search engines have what's called a 'spider' that just moves around from site to site via links on a website. It finds new content & ranks the sites based on these very secure algorithms.

The search engines will move through the HTML code that makes up your website looking for keywords that it can use to determine what your site is about. You can make changes to your site so that affect what search engines sees by changing your meta-tags, title and adding your keyword into the body of your website. Anther way of affecting what a search engine sees your site as is by becoming involved in link exchanges.

As you can see there are quite a few search engines on the internet right now. You basically have two types of search engines: you have the organic results are the results that are based on the search engines crawling your website. The other is Pay Per Click (PPC) results which is generally based on the fact that the highest bidder gets the best results.

Today search engines have used equations to determine ranking on PPC results as well to achieve the most relevant ads first based on the best click through rate which is a % based on the number of times that an add is displayed divided by the number of times that it's clicked on. You can read more on pay per click search engine marketing here.

1.) Search Engine Submission - First and foremost you need to get listed with search engines. The main one to get on these days is Google. They are responsible for about 35 - 40% of all search engine traffic. Other big players are Yahoo.com, MSN.com & Lycos

You can use a professional service such as SEPromotionTools.com or use an automated program such as TrafficBlazer to iniatiate this task. TrafficBlazer also has a built in tool that will check your site for possible improvements and after the first submission it will resubmit every 45 days automatically.
 

2.) The next step while you are waiting for the search engines to crawl your website is to optimize your website. This includes optimizing your title, meta tags & body of your site for your main keywords. A great tool for determining the best keywords in an online application called WordTracker.com. Word Tracker is a database that will tell you the most used keywords based on your topic. You will find whether it is best to optimize for plural or singular among many other things.

3.) One of the most effective tools for establishing a great search engine ranking is called link popularity. Most search engines consider a link from another site a vote that says that you have a site worth viewing. The key is to try to link with sites that are related to your topic. A great application for managing your links is called Arelis. We have used Arelis for years and have save 100's of hours with it.

Link popularity can be time consuming but is worth the time. Google uses an algorythim called Page Rank which ranks your site based on a scale of 1 to 10. Click here to read more on Google Page Rank. We can't stress enough the importance of link popularity but you will find that the tops sites listed in your related categories have taken time to exchange links.

4.) Email marketing is another tool that can prove beneficial. Once you have visitors to your site you need to stay in contact. Offering a free newsletter on your topic is the perfect way. They will opt in and give you their email address. Once you have built an opt in list you can periodically create a newsletter which shows that you are an expert in your field and is a great way to promote new products or services. A great way to manage your opt in list is an application call Email Counts. This will help you create the pages, add new emails for your opt-in list, and if someone chooses to be removed the application will remove them so you don't get reported for spam. Here is a great page to read more on Email Counts.

5.) Pay Per Click Search Engines - A pay per click search engine is a search engine in which the ranking of your site is determined by the amount you are paying for each click from that search engine to your site. The best and most popular pay per click search engines are Overture and Kanoodle.

A pay per click search engine is a great way to get your site listed and to start developing a customer base while you wait for the search engines to list you which could take 30 - 60 days.