Marketing On The Internet
[Marketing Basics]
[Demographics]
[Online Resources]
[Search Engines]
[Public Relations]
Search Engine Solutions
The Internet, just like any industry, is all about being found.
Our Resellers have the best hosting solutions in the world
to offer their clients; however, too often their sites go unnoticed
by potential clients. This section is dedicated to providing you
with some useful information about using search engines to make your
Internet site more accessible to potential clients, or in other words
creating a "findable" online presence.
Search Engines can be one of the most helpful and effective free
Internet tools available for advertising your web site to the world.
An effective listing on a high profile search engine can often be the
difference between your company being found by potential clients or
remaining a mystery on the Internet.
There are two main ways to add your web site to search engines or
directories:
These methods are both discussed below.
Submission Services
Proper placement in the major search engines can be as important as your web site itself.
More than 98% of all Internet users use at least one of the major seven search
engines in order to find what they are looking for. In a recent study conducted
by PromoteOne, a thousand people were asked how many times they click on "next ten",
"next ten", and so on from any search result. The answer was not surprising, most
people only click "next ten" an average of 3.6 times in order to find what they
are looking for. If your web site is not listed in the top 36 spots of the search
results, the odds of your web site being found from that search engine are close
to non-existent.
Each search engine is very different in what it looks for to determine relevancy
toward a particular search word or phrase. Therefore, it is extremely important
that you know as much as you can about each of the major search engines and their
idiosyncrasies before attempting to index or re-index your web site.
In the Search Engine Solutions section we already introduced you to many of the
search engine basics, including proper titles and meta names; however, this is far
from a complete explanation of the variables which determine a good listing. To give
you a better understanding of search engines, we have brought in the help of an
expert, PromoteOne.
Literally hundreds of companies have been created to simplify the process
of submitting your web site to multiple search engines at one
time using a single submission form. We would like to point out one such
company that offer excellent submission services, including limited free
submission services.
NetAnnounce
NetAnnounce
is an easy-to-use service that provides quick
submission to the top search engines. NetAnnounce offers
several services including a free submission service along with its
Gold and Premier services.
Other submission services include:
Do It Yourself
The trusted way to submit your web site to the search engines
is to complete the submission form for each individual search engine
(see the short list below). Although still effective, this process
can quickly become quite time consuming, especially if you are adding
your web site to numerous different search engines. However, despite
the time necessary, many companies still choose to follow this
submission route in an effort to take advantage of the different
specifications and search criteria of the individual search engines.
All Search Engines are not created equally
The individual search engines are fashioned using a different set of
criteria for searching the Internet. Some search engines send out
"spiders" that crawl the Internet searching for information to add
to their databases. Other search engines search the "meta names"
found in a web site's source code, while other search engines
document the first 200 words of text found in a web site. Since
there are so many different sets of criteria that search engines
use, there is unfortunately no simple solution for getting the top listing
in each search engine. Because of this, we recommend that you
implement a variety of techniques including:
Description
Paragraph |
Develop a consistent paragraph that accurately and
concisely describes the services your company has to offer.
Use this description paragraph in the submission forms for the
search engines. |
| Title |
Some search engines simply search based upon the
title listed in the HTML code of your web site. Because of this,
your title should accurately describe what you want the customers
to know. For instance, a customer using a search engine to find
Virtual Servers will likely find "Pete's Virtual Servers" before
it finds "Pete's Page" - even if Pete has lots of information about
Virtual Servers in his page and meta names. |
| Meta Names |
Meta names are a listing of keywords that outline
the services and products your company has to offer. These meta
names should be placed within the head section of the source code
of your document. For more information on these, please view the
meta names contained in the source code of any web site. |
| Body Text |
Since many search
engines simply search the first
200 or so words of a web site, it is important to include as many
of the keywords you listed in your meta names in the beginning body
text of your web site. For companies seeking to market
Internet hosting services, care should be taken to include reference
to these services in the beginning of a web site's entry page. |
Major Search Engines
Over 95% of all links come from the following locations:
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