Website Tips for E-Business Success: Can Customers Find You?
By Allan Pulga
Today’s online market is as diverse as ever, making it increasingly difficult to ensure that new customers find your company’s website. Thankfully, tools like search engines and Web directories help people find what they want, including your website.
In her Inc.com article “If You Build It, Can They Find It?” Anne Stuart addressed the challenge of making the best use of search engines and Web directories. With worldwide users searching the Internet at a rate of over 550 million searches per day, the demand is constant. Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search are the big ones but there are several smaller, specialized search engines grinding away as well. And while individual queries yield hundreds, sometimes thousands of links, research has shown that few people click beyond the first 30. So your site doesn’t only need to make the list, it’s got to be near the top.
Do you have to list your site on all those directories and search engines?Answer: Absolutely not, experts say.
“There are only a few worth worrying about,” says Web consultant Peter Kent, president of Denver-based iChannel Services and author of Search Engine Optimization for Dummies. His must-have list includes Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, AlltheWeb, AltaVista, Inktomi, and the lesser-known Open Directory Project.
“There the only ones who matter because they feed everyone else who counts,” he told Stuart on Inc.com. Directly or indirectly, he adds, those few sites provide data for 99 per cent of all searches. For instance, Inktomi provides data to Microsoft’s MSN Search and Yahoo’s Overture, while the Open Directory Project feeds at least 300 others, including many specialized ones catering to particular industries or interests, wrote Stuart.
What about all those companies offering to list your site with hundreds of other search engines in exchange for a “reasonable fee”? Rarely worth the cost, Kent says. Focus on getting listed with a few key search engines and forget about the rest.
Should you focus on free search-engine (organic) listings, or invest in pay-for-placement (PFP) options?
Answer: Both.“Either will work,” said Chris Sherman, associate editor of the industry information site and newsletter Search Engine Watch, to Stuart. Organic placement will take more time and last longer. A PFP listing will go online almost immediately, but it only lasts as long as you pay for it.
The decision about whether to stick with free listings, enter the PFP universe, or combine approaches depends on your budget, your competitors’ strategies, and a sense for how your target audience will respond (many users dislike paid placements), wrote Stuart.
Keys to Search-Engine Success:1. Carefully identify the words and phrases your best prospects are most likely to use in searching for whatever you provide.
- Each page should contain two or three keywords you want people to use to find you.
- Keywords should be simple, coherent and consistent with your marketing campaigns, and be sure to list them in “metatags” (HTML tag that stores information about a Web page, including keywords for search-engine and directory use) as well.
2. Keep in mind that search engines love links.
- The more sites linked to yours, the higher it’s likely to rank in search results.
- Links are like votes, Sherman says. The more you have, the greater the indication that there’s high-quality content on your site.
3. You don’t have to be No. 1.
- Although getting to No. 1 is nice, you haven’t failed if you have a clear, well-targeted message a few notches down the page.
- “Keep your eyes on the result,” Kent says. “The goal is to increase qualified traffic to your website, and you can do that without having the very top position.”