Search Engine Secrets
By Robert Smith   ©2004 All Rights Reserved

Developing highly targeted traffic free from the search engines IS the cheapest strategy available to drive customers to your website. And everyone who has ever tasted success has developed a working strategy for attracting targeted traffic.

One single page with a high placement in a major search engine like Yahoo or Google can drive thousands of free visitors to your website each and every day for years. Most folks haven't a clue how to gain a top listing so a little bit of knowledge can be a valuable asset. The downside is that there are millions of websites and everyone wants a top listing. Most likely you will not get a top listing without some kind of effort and at least a basic understanding of how the search engines work. Success with the search engines requires developing an ongoing strategy for months - even years. I am on year 6 and earn over 5,000 visitors a day. I did it by developing quality content. This article should help you get started developing a working strategy on obtaining a top position.
Search Engine Secrets Each search engine is an independent business separate from the others. Every search engine or directory is developed serve the needs of their identified niche and to supply the best quality CONTENT for every search. Each Search engine can and does have different rules for inclusion in their results pages. It's also in the search engine's interest to make their ranking policies as unclear as possible. It's difficult to get the top placements free unless there is little or no competition in the keyword phrases you choose. With well over 200,000 new pages being submitted per day it's getting more difficult to be truly unique. Most people don't type in single words into search engines and it's almost impossible to be found with a single keyword. Promoting or buying single words in is a waste of time, a better strategy is to use 2 and three word keyword phrases.
Pay-per-click Placement Most Search Engines now offer Pay-per-click placement services. Pay-per-click search engines supplement their own listings with results generated by other search engines in order to fill out the listings especially on non-commercial topics. Search engines (even the Pay-per-clicks) love and need good content to get people to use their engines over again and again and will always move good content as high as possible while moving commercial content as low as possible, anything unique or rare is rewarded in placements. A much overlooked free backdoor to achieving a good position in the Pay-per-clicks is offering compelling content that people are actually searching for using less commercial keywords and phrases several times within your page content.
Product Promotion On The Search Engines Search engines are at war with businesses trying to use the search engines to promote their product over someone else's. The search engines make their own rules so it's a game you and I can't win. The key is to give them what they want. Develop useful and compelling content that will attract traffic, and use that traffic to gently lead them to what you are selling. The good news is there are only a few of the major search engines really worth spending a lot of time and money getting a good position in the listings.
Yahoo Is The Most Popular Search Engine It's been asserted that almost 50% of all Internet searches begin at Yahoo. I don't know if that's true or not but Yahoo was rated as the number one Search engine again in May 2002. Yahoo charges to review commercial websites, they will take your money to review your website but they offer no guarantee they will actually list it. Yahoo usually only lists the main index page of your domain in their directory. If your website isn't unique or special enough; or is substandard in any way; or you don't follow the submission rules, you'll will be wasting your time and money and it will not get listed. The possible backdoor here is to create and submit a non-commercial domain or resource website dedicated to providing valuable information related to a need or solution your product or business offers. Use their "Suggest a Site" URL to submit your resource for review and wait till it's listed before even linking to your commercial website.
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
There is a ebook dedicated to the process of securing a good Yahoo listing I know several people who have used it to obtain first place listings in Yahoo. For example try typing "resell ebooks" or "free to sell ebooks" in yahoo, it's well worth the $17 cost for anyone considering investing in a Yahoo submission.
http://www.smithfam.com/ebw/yahoo/index.html

Google is Powerful and Free Yahoo uses the Google results engine to supplement their search results. One of the easiest and best ways to be found in Yahoo is to submit your website to Google using more unique keyword phrases. Google searches the Internet for pages and indexes them automatically, some feel the best listings are obtained when the spider finds you on it's own. Google is my favorite search engine, and I get a thousands of free hits every day because my website is rich in content. Positioning results are based on popularity (how many people visit or link to you) so it can be a long but rewarding process to obtain a good Google listing. A lot of folks obtain higher Google placements by giving and getting links from other websites, the process requires some time and the popularity of the websites that you link to and the websites linking to you are very important. If you have developed a useful tool or resource you will find many quality websites will link to you without you even asking.
The Looksmart directory Looksmart engine results are used to supplement several of Pay-per-click engines and power other search engines such as; MSN; IWON; CNN; and AltaVista to name a few. Listings start at $49 per page. They offer a "Performance Pricing" option costing .15 cents per click-through, which can be a little or a lot, depending on how profitable your product is, and the number of targeted visitors required to generate a sale. If your product is more unique you may be able to obtain a higher placement with Overture or one of the other pay-per-click engines for as little as .05 per click.
http://listings.looksmart.com/

Overture - Formally Go-To.com Overture is the most used pay-for-click search engine but don't pay for the top position. Overture lists 40 webpage results in their first results page. For example, if you search for "money" the number one position costs $1.47 per click while number position 33 only costs a $.10 cents. Bidding for Pay-per-click placement can be too costly for many businesses, for example, the number one position for the term "Casino" costs $19.00 PER click, and the number 40 listing costs $2.51 per click - too much to earn any profit, even for most Casinos.
Professional Placement Services If you have a commercial site and the profit is high enough, then paying for Professional Placement and using the Pay-per-click engines and ezine ads are faster and may work best, but it's not cheap. If you have a low profit product or are selling someone else's product - forget about using professional placement services. Most so-called "placement professionals" can't do what they say they can do for you and most can't offer any kind of guarantee, with one notable exception. Sumantra Roy has developed a unique approach that has worked well, he runs a reputable business and is the only professional offering targeted traffic for only .05 cents per click?
http://www.smithfam.com/sumantra.html
Sumantra Roy has a series of very good articles telling you exactly what he does for his customers and you and I can do basically the same things free.
http://www.1stsearchranking.com/articles.htm

Software For Search Engine Placement There are only two programs I would consider. WebPosition Gold is the oldest and the industry standard placement tool that positioning professionals use worldwide. I found it difficult to learn and to use but it was worth the effort and an excellent choice, especially for the smaller more unique websites. There is a free downloadable demo version available.
http://www.smithfam.com/wpg/
The Traffic Seeker is the easiest to learn and use and the most automated submission tool available. I have a large website and submissions are very time consuming and tedious. There are about 140 search engines worldwide and only about 100 will accept submissions from websites in the English language from the United States. Traffic Seeker submits everywhere that accepts automated submissions. While 99% of these places are free classified, and Free For all links sites it's a numbers game and submission to over 800,000 places regularly does generate traffic I wouldn't have the time to generate any other way. There is also a free demo available at the following URL.
http://www.smithfam.com/ts.html

In Summary Getting high quality free-targeted traffic from the search engines can be a daunting task, but for many of us it's the only affordable method. That's why there are SO many books written on the subject. If it was easy, anyone could do it. The key to success with the search engines is providing unique and compelling content related to your product, service, or solution in order to earn your visitor's confidence and credibility BEFORE you ask for the sale.

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ROBERT SMITH helps thousands successfully market their Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web site at: http://www.smithfam.com/. eBook2004 Internet Marketing CD
http://www.ebook2004.com/special/cd.html
You can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST
and by email at. Contact Robert Smith

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