Shoestring Marketing Strategy 2:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

While important, just registering your webpages with the search engines isn't likely to lift you above the clutter of billions of webpages currently on the Net, unfortunately. If your site doesn't appear in the top 10 or top 20 results for a search, your site will seldom be visited. To achieve high ranking you need to enter the complex world of search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine positioning.

Algorithms and Alchemy

Every search engine has a complex method of determining which webpages come up as the top 10 choices when you put in a search word. Long gone are the days when you could repeat the words "widget widget" 100 times hidden in white text at the bottom of your webpage and trick the engines into placing you in the number one spot. Now the placement algorithms or formulas are very complex and are constantly changing to outsmart the army of determined positioners vying for top positions on competitive keywords. The exact algorithms that a particular search engine uses is a closely guarded secret, but positioners are constantly doing tests to see what works best. The algorithms seem to include "keyword density" in various sections of the webpage, the title, keyword META tag, the first 100 words of body text, headlines, etc. Search engines aren't looking for high keyword density, but what they consider "normal."

Gateway or Doorway Pages

While it's wise to design your webpages to score high on search engines, you don't want to make your content subject to the changing vagaries of search engine preferences. Instead, you build a series of gateway or doorway webpages that point to your main website. Sometimes these gateway pages may employ an HTML frame system that contains your main webpage within it. That way the words in one frame of the system can be altered without changing the content of your main webpages.

Let's say you wanted to show up in the top 10 of a search for the key phrase "economy widgets." Since each major search engine has different and sometimes conflicting algorithms, you need to build a separate webpage -- fine-tuned for "economy widgets" -- for each search engine, perhaps 6 to 10 different gateway pages per keyword or key phrase. If you desire to score high for several search words or phrases, you'll need to create a set of gateway pages for each. You can see how this can get complicated (and, unfortunately, increase clutter on the Web even further). Then throw in the complication that algorithms often change. Furthermore, you need to be careful, since some search engines have been known to ban domain names or IP addresses associated with search engine spamming. Consequently these gateway pages may be hosted on a domain other than your primary website.

Do-It-Yourself

It is possible to do search engine optimization yourself. There's only one product that I know of that enables do-it-yourselfers (and professional positioners) to do search engine optimization adequately -- WebPosition Gold (www.webposition.com/d2.pl?r=AQH-55E7) which costs $149 for a single domain. This software is constantly updated to provide you with the latest intelligence about changing search engine algorithms. Its Page Critic feature will analyze your webpages, compare them to top-scoring pages, and point out which elements to change to help you score higher on a particular search engine. In addition, you can use WebPosition Gold's automatic submission and reporting features to monitor your progress. I use the program myself for regular submissions and monitoring, and was able to achieve a #1 ranking for the very competitive search word "e-commerce" on Infoseek and #2 on Excite -- for a short time. The problem is that the amount of time required to maintain your position on competitive search words is considerable. And it must be sustained over a period of months as you submit, wait weeks for new rankings to appear, monitor your progress, make appropriate adjustments, and then resubmit again for a new cycle.

Paying a Service

Because of the tedium and time investment involved in search engine optimization, I recommend that small businesses consider outsourcing this task to experts. Expect to pay $1,000 to $1,500 for an initial positioning, and then $100 to $300 per month to maintain your position. You can find vendors in the "Search Engine Placement Improvement" section of the Yahoo! directory. Be sure to ask for references and then contact them before you sign a contract. If possible, ask to have the gateway pages hosted on your own website under a domain name that you own, or you may find your hard-won positions disappear the moment you stop paying a monthly maintenance fee. You want to own your position, not rent it, in case you decide to maintain it yourself or switch to another SEO firm.