Search Engine Submission is Dead
A few years ago, search engine placement was arranged by your average Web designer and/or Webmaster. The Webmaster would simply submit a site to search engines manually or use rudimentary software that was widely available. Keyword relevance was largely a matter of link popularity and the Webmaster assigning a simple keyword meta-tag to each page of your site. The system used to work reasonably well, or so it seemed. That is no longer the case. Today, submission to the major search engines like Google is largely irrelevant, although there is a complex mix of PFI (pay for inclusion) and PFP (pay for performance, sponsored links, ads) that require complex submission of details.
Today's Methodology
In today's Internet economy, sophisticated and complex programs, called spiders surf the Web looking at the source code of Web pages. They sort through the complex web of formatting tags, programming script, multi-media, page titles, and content that the user may or may not see, to ascertain how to rank each page of your site for each and every word and word combination that it finds.. These spiders index the words of each page found and add it to the engine's database, making them available as keywords for search engine searchers. In this new environment, sophisticated software programs that analyze the various search engine algorithms and how they rank selected pages have moved to the forefront of search engine placement. This has spawned a large industry of SEO (search engine optimisation and marketing) experts and specialist SEM firms (see www.iprospect.com) in the USA.
Australia Lags Behind
In Australia, the market for SEO specialists is relatively immature. One company who has not sat back and waited too long is WCR Internet Marketing. They are one of the very few full-service search engine and Internet marketing firms that performs: natural search engine optimisation, search positions (ranking) reporting, pay-per-click advertising program management, paid inclusion program management and website analytics in a monthly integrated web marketing plan.
What Does Keyword Based Marketing Offer?
If implemented correctly, SEO can offer a higher return on investment than nearly any other marketing strategy (online or offline) if implemented correctly. Placing high in the search engine ranking positions (SERPs) is a great way to attract first time visitors. Placement in the search engines can largely determine the “reach” of your online marketing strategy.
The stakes in this battle are being raised all the time as the number of users online increases which in the U.S. alone approaches 100 million with over 60% of those users spending some 48 BILLION dollars per year for online shopping (Greenspan, 2002, cyberatlas.com). With broadband prices in Australia falling rapidly and the rate of Internet takeup extraordinarily high, the Australian consumer is showing similar enthusiasm for online sales. Unfortunately, many potential buyers, some say as many as 70%, give up because they cannot find the good sites which are poorly keyword indexed or the actual site have poor navigation and design.
Any comprehensive Web marketing plan should:
- Promote your web site based on the content of your site (optimised) and knowledge of the relevant marketplace;
- Utilise data of how the average search engine user actually looks for information on your site - including alternative terms, synonyms, common phrasing, etc;
- Include internal and external link building with relevant sites and relevant keywords;
- Regular reporting of search engine positioning, general Internet visibility and actual visitor statistics/analytics and recommendation for improvements.
Every serious Web site owner should be on a Web marketing plan that is definately more than just a submission or reporting service. Set a monthly budget and take action.
Charles Ryder
WCR Internet Marketing
10 August 2004