Emerging Methods for Effective Search Engine Ranking

Search Engine traffic has always been and continues to be one of the best ways to drive qualified traffic to a web site - it presents information about goods and services when the interest level is high and it can be acted on immediately. Up till now opt-in e-mail marketing has been an effective complement to search engine ranking campaigns; but the never-ending deluge of Spam is rapidly ruining the effectiveness of opt-in e-mail and helping to add luster to the value and cost-effectiveness of search engine traffic.

Unfortunately, the increasing popularity of search engine ranking methodologies is helping to raise the barriers to entry - as more businesses, ad agencies and SEO firms concentrate their efforts on creating highly optimized web sites, the competition for keyword rankings and qualified traffic is increasing significantly. The rules are changing rapidly and if you expect to succeed you must deploy a sophisticated methodology that blends technology and processes. Here is a list of five bottom line requirements that must be adhered to if you expect to generate qualified traffic:

Link Strategy: The web is maturing and search engines are putting more and more emphasis on link popularity or page rank or "PR" in Google's vernacular; i.e. the number of web sites pointing back to your own. If you are to be successful you must develop and deploy a systematic process to establish links to your web site with others that are in your market segment and setup an outbound "link to" resources page via your own site. This takes an investment of time and resources - typically you need between 400-800 links back to your web site to achieve a good "page ranking." Here is a link to an excellent detailed article on setting up an effective link popularity strategy:

http://www.website101.com/arch/archive143.html

Keyword Fundamentals: Keywords are the fundamental building blocks of any search engine ranking campaign - many/many companies waste significant resources optimizing for keywords that are either wrong; i.e. not targeted for their market or there is too much competition and rankings will never be achieved. You must utilize keywords that are targeted for your market and find those that can effectively drive page 1-3 rankings - WordTracker www.wordtracker.com has rapidly emerged as the defacto industry standard technology tool for researching keywords - we've used it for years and highly recommend this cost-effective and comprehensive service to our clients and business partners.

Keyword Saturation: Search engine "spiders" or "bots" are automated software applications that constantly roam the web to assess what is called "keyword saturation" via web site content (pages) to identify how a site should be listed in a search engine database. They typically look for 3-7% usage of keywords versus the text on a specific page - you must adhere to their standards if you want to achieve keyword rankings for your selected keywords. And, to further complicate matters, top tier search engines all have different rules for keyword saturation - we highly recommend and use this software application to help us ascertain and setup the correct keyword saturation for our client's web sites:

http://www.se-optimizer.com/

Optimized Content: Highly optimized content is still very important as far as search engines are considered - the more search engine optimized content on a web site the better. Search engines prefer content that is thematically grouped, loads fast, is textual with minimal graphics, is highly optimized for keywords (keyword saturation fundamentals are addressed) and incorporates one or two of your primary keywords for a specific page in the page title.

Site Maps Essential: Site maps are frequently overlooked when search engine ranking processes are deployed. A site map not only serves as a quick reference and/or navigation guide for anyone visiting your web site but it's also used by search engines to "crawl" (the action a spider or bot takes to review your web site) your web site to find pages and links. Make sure you include a basic site map in your optimization plans, it's very important to help search engines navigate through your site.

About The Author

Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc. http://www.intelective.com, a marketing services company which provides strategic and tactical marketing services exclusively to small to medium sized companies. Lee@intelective.com.

Reprinted with permission from Intelective Communications - this article may be reprinted freely, provided this attribution box remains intact. (c) 2002-2003 by Intelective Communications, Inc.

Lee@intelective.com

---

The Search Engine Of The Future: Mobility Has A Pricetag

We all know the ease of using a search engine... Read More

Search Engine Optimization Strategies Guaranteed to Skyrocket your Rankings

The point of optimizing your website is so that you... Read More

Keywords, Choose Them Wisely

By now you have likely heard that keywords and keyword... Read More

Google, Adsense, SEO, and How It All Works

Google uses an algorithm to determine the search engine results... Read More

Hiring An SEO Constultant - 10 Reasons Why You Should

It crosses every webmaster's mind anytime they see an ad... Read More

Attack Smaller Searches To Get The Big Ones!

Searching online can not only be fun, but you sometimes... Read More

Link Exchange Tips, No Tricks

Use text links, avoid image links. Anyhow, if you... Read More

Is Page Not Found Making Google Tell The World Site Not Found?

Search Engines are hard to tame, that's for sure. But... Read More

Boost Your Website Rankings with Expert Content

The chase for a high web ranking is constantly on... Read More

Crash Course in Getting a #1 Google Ranking

First, here's the rundown of some of the terminology I'm... Read More

Search Engine Rankings for Beginners

Search engine optimization is best left in the mystical land... Read More

Five and a Half Ways to Amp Up Your Search Engine Optimization

Statistics show that 85% of pages visited on the Internet... Read More

Getting To Know Google

Having greatly benefited from my relationship with Google in the... Read More

Dont Get Banned by Google

There are many Black Hat techniques that people use to... Read More

Answers Count - Matching Keyword and Phrase Density

What's more important to your business success - the question... Read More

Its The Same Deal For Both Search Engines And Real Estate

It's all about location, location, location!In the past...back in the... Read More

Link Building for Hilltop

Hilltop is one of the major concepts underpinning Google's search... Read More

Google Is Taking Descriptions From Alexa!

In a recent study looking at the "descriptions" of website... Read More

Anchor Text Optimization

Anchor Text (also called phrase linking) can significantly improve your... Read More

The Other Side of the Search Gods Abracadabra!

Thousands of servers ...billions of web pages.... the possibility of... Read More

How to Make Better Use of Web Site Page Titles and META Data

We got down to the basics with web site page... Read More

Why Do You Want to Link With A Home Business And Affiliate Website?

No, it's not a general question for all and sundry.... Read More

These 7 Back Link Strategies Will Get You a Top Ranking on Google Guaranteed

Google use a very complex function to determine which search... Read More

Google Ban - How Not To Get Banned By Google!

Given that Google now provides over 75% of all Internet... Read More

The First Search Engine Marketing Method: Content That Meets Customers Needs

For your business web site, good search engine rankings and... Read More

How to Verify and Monitor Your Search Engine Listing on Google?

Being listed in search engines and ranked high on searches... Read More

How MSN and Yahoo Sells Your Traffic

Yes, it really happens. Now you might find it hard... Read More

Selecting The Title Of Your Link Exchanges

I want to touch base with selecting the title of... Read More

Should You Be Linking for Traffic or Rankings?

Just for a change, rather than a technical article, I... Read More

The 7 Best Stealth Techniques to Improve Your Google Rankings

Stealth as in Spying. But Knowing What your Top Competitors... Read More

Its All in the Title

Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. You may... Read More

Optimum SEO Keyword Density ? A Real-Life Case Study

So you've built your website, you know what keywords you... Read More

KEI Concerns and CID Alternative

Like many folks, I have been using KEI for some... Read More