Simple Search Engine Savvy

By Michel Fortin

Unquestionably, obtaining a favorable position on the search engines is both an art and a science. Unfortunately, the web is replete with marketers who rely quite heavily on search engines alone for building their traffic or, worse yet, on search engine tactics that amount to meager results.

I'm far from being a search engine expert.

But, I'd like to give you some of my own tips and tricks that have helped me, and which could benefit your overall strategy or at the very least enlighten you and hopefully dispel some common myths.

First, successful Internet marketing is not a single process -- or a simple one, for that matter. It is a combination of multiple principles, strategies and tactics that are, directly or indirectly, focused on three essential elements:

1. Building traffic,
2. building trust and
3. building sales.

Every single marketing activity you perform must revert to, result in or improve upon any if not all of the above three guiding principles. The less you adhere to any one of these three rules, the more attention, time and energy that rule will demand of you. A vicious cycle.

Here's an example.

Will top positioning on the search engines bring you a lot of traffic? Ostensibly, the answer is "sure." But the more important question to ask is: will that traffic be qualified for, and interested in, what I have to offer?

And therein lies the key: should your website be ranked higher based on a broad, general keyword? No. Of course, being visible on search engines based on generic words may generate a lot of traffic. But keep in mind that the more generic the keyword is, the more generic the visitor will be.

The quality of your traffic hinges greatly on the quality of the manner in which your site was discovered. Similarly, the quality of your traffic hinges greatly on the quality of the keywords under which your site was ranked.

I agree that the above may appear simplistic. But you would be amazed to learn how many people try to rank higher using single, generic keywords in order to produce an abundant quantity of traffic, which in the end will never be qualified for, or genuinely interested in, what is offered.

Some proponents argue that search engines drive up to 75% of the Internet's traffic. While true, it is somewhat misleading. When you distribute that traffic among 30 million websites, it amounts to little per site, while keeping in mind that only a handful of websites is relevant to any given search and that an even smaller number enjoys the majority of this traffic.

About 85% of people using search engines leave after the first two search result pages given. Unless a site is located in the top 10 or 20 listings, search engines will never be helpful. So, how do you become visible (i.e., in the top 20) in a way that it generates targeted, qualified traffic to your site?

The key to obtaining optimal ranking is through more audience- targeted keywords. And note that I used the word "optimal" and not "top," here. Achieving top rankings requires hard work and persistence. Since search engines change sporadically, there is no rock-solid way of doing it.

As my friend Jim Daniels of http://www.bizweb2000.com/ once rightfully noted, his best rankings occurred when he abandoned his search engine efforts altogether (mostly by happenstance, if you will). It's a perfect example of the adage "a watched pot never boils."

Should you abandon your search engine efforts completely? Not at all. Far from it. In fact, if you read Jim's article, he attributes his success with the search engines to continually adding fresh, keyword-rich content to his website, and to focusing more on his customers rather than on search engines (see http://www.bizweb2000.com/confess.htm.)

Simply stated, Jim followed the Pareto Principle.

The Pareto Principle (a.k.a., "80:20 Rule") applies to search engines, too. Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist and sociologist (1848-1923), studied the distribution of wealth in a variety of countries in which he discovered a common thread: about 80% of the wealth in most countries was controlled by a predictable and consistent minority (about 20% of the people).

Since then, his rule has been applied to other areas, such as 80% of the results are produced by 20% of the people (or the activities). With search engines, it means only 20% of your efforts will yield 80% of your results. It also means that 80% of your traffic will stem from 20% of search engines.

Therefore, forget broad, generic keywords or expressions. Look at it another way: the more targeted the keyword is, the more targeted the visitor will be. To help you, read  http://successdoctor.com/articles/article79.htm and check out the "Targeting Model." In the same way, attract quality traffic by choosing keywords that are:

1. audience-specific,
2. audience-related or
3. audience-oriented.

The same goes for checking your visibility.

If you use web-based services or software that analyze your position in the search engines based on specific search words or terms, you could be easily misled if you use generic or untargeted keywords.

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  An example

  Keywords