Discover The Best Kept Secrets For Top Placement On Search Engines
Part One: Exploding The Search Engine Myths
by Patrick Anderson & Michael Henderson,
Editor & Publisher, Hits To Sales
Myth
#1:
There must be an easy way
to get to the top of the major search engines...
Sorry. Over 4 million web
pages are listed on Infoseek when you search for the word "business".
You are shown 10 of them at a time. What makes you think that you
have any more chance of getting listed on the top than the other 3,999,990
pages??
If it was really easy to
figure out exactly how to get placed on the first page, everyone would
do it. Then, however, everyone would still not be on the first page.
It's just like the freeway at rush hour traffic. You want to find
a direct route home. So does everyone else. What happens?
Think about it... you are
walking into a huge crowded room and you want special preferential
treatment. How are you going to get it? The rules have not changed.
It has just been computerized. The fact is that the people at the
top of the search engines are the ones who really, really, want to
be there. And they got there first! They have spent the money and
they have taken the time to discover the tricks. They continue to
monitor their placement and resubmit their pages to make sure that
they are always on top.
There is competition for
those top 10 seats. There is serious competition. People are trying
to take away the top spots every day. They are always trying to fine
tune and tweek their HTML code and learn the next little trick. The
best players even know dirty ways to "bump off" their competition
while protecting their own sites. Think I'm kidding...?
So what is a search engine
anyway? It is a complex, "search and sort" database algorithm written
by intelligent hackers and computer science majors -- owned by businesses
who want to insure that pages that have the most interest to their
reader will come up first. Otherwise, the appeal of their website
as a destination resource drops in value significantly. Which directly
relates to their advertising revenue. Got it? That means they don't
want people to use "AAA111" for the page title. They do not want people
to stuff keywords to trick and fool them into putting those pages
on top. And they certainly don't want the same pages to be listed
repeatedly at the top of their website. That would ruin their credibility
and no one would use their Search Engine.
Since clever computer people
will try anything to get the top spot, the Search Engines have taken
on a "Spy vs. Spy" attitude. They are now on the lookout for people
who are "spamdexing" and using sneaky tricks to artificially bump
up their page. If they catch you, they kick you out for trying to
cut into the line -- just like the bouncer at a crowded concert.
To stay ahead of the game,
the major Search Engines change their methods for determining relevancy
rankings every few months. This is usually when they discover that
a lot of people have learned the latest technique and are all sneaking
into a side door. They also try to fool the tricksters... sometimes
they put irrelevant pages at the top of the list just to cause confusion.
Myth
#2:
As soon as my site is submitted
to all the rest of the search directories, everyone will find me...
Not really. First of all,
it takes time for the computers to process all of the hundreds of
thousands of requests that they have everyday. Even if you knew the
latest tricks and were able to write a Web page that would sort to
the top of the list, you are still not going to see that page show
up for several days or several weeks. But a lot of people assume it
is something that happens instantly. It is probably because of outrageous
claims like "Put your site on 300 search engines for $39 dollars".
Secondly, you will never
be on all the search directories. There are several hundred around
the world. Most people can not name more than 20 of them. And finally,
even if you automate the submission process, you can't automate the
ranking process -- since each directory has unique criteria for sorting
and listing the pages. A computer is not able to determine which categories
would give you best exposure or rewrite your headline to make it stand
out on the page. And more unfortunately, many useful resource sites
are now simple depositories for automatic submissions, so no one will
ever look at the pages that are listed there.
Myth
#3:
There has got to be a way
that everyone can find my site without me spending any time or money...
Guess again. Some people
are using the "free" and "easy" ploy as a come-on for an upsell opportunity...
(but you already knew that, right?)
My dad always said "anything
worth doing is worth doing well." This has never been more true of
anything than Search Engines. If you want the traffic and the exposure,
you are going to pay for the education or you are going to pay for
the service. There is no other way to do it. It is not easy. It is
not magic. It takes time, effort, and knowledge. Then it takes continual
monitoring to keep the position you worked so hard to get in the first
place.
Please do not misunderstand
-- the competition is fierce and severe for those top spots, which
is why the Search Engines can charge so much money to sell keyword
banners.
You must be passionate
about being on top and you have to learn to do it well. Anything else,
quite frankly, is not worth doing. If you are not going to take the
time to do it right, then just use a free service and amuse yourself,
thinking that you have "done" something. Pretend that you may someday
get exposure while knowing in your heart that this is worthless. It
will not get you any return at all unless you do it properly.
Part II: Our
Tried And True Search Engine Placement Strategy