Ben Heard About Search Engine Marketing

Ben had been in net marketing for sometime. He had his own websites created. He was promoting both affiliate programs and his own ebooks. He wasn't getting the result he had expected. He was kind of walking on the spot.

Ben :"Hello Max, my websites can use a lot of traffic. I often hear people say search engine marketing. Can you tell me more about it?"
Max :"Hi Ben, I am fine thank you (smile), you should learn to relax when talking, bud. Ok, you can see search engine as a shopping directory. If you wanna buy shoes, you simply look for shoes-related words like sports-shoes, leather-shoes etc. Those are called keywords. You can optimise usage of keywords in your sites. Submit your sites to search engines. People do use search engines to find something. They type certain keywords. Say their keyword is "shoes". Say also the sites you submitted to search engines are about shoes. The search engine will then show your sites together with other "shoes" sites they have. It is then up to the people to pick which site(s) to visit. That is your seach engine marketing, bud."

Ben :"Optimising usage of keywords in my sites so I can rank high in the search engines, thus increasing the likelihood to get visited....how do I do that?"
Max :"I am no search engine expert, but I tell you what I know. Get a good domain name is a good start. Make sure it logically pertains to the subject matter of your site, isn't too long to remember, and isn't easily misspelled. Try to avoid numerals or abbreviations... Search engines weight TITLE elements heavily when determining the relevance of a page to a user's search. Try to make your titles easy to understand and rich in the keywords that your customers will be searching for."

Ben :"Gee.. I never paid attention to my page's TITLE..Ok, I got that, please continue."
Max :"Now you are more relaxed (laugh). You will also benefit from providing rich content on your site. It is important that you include at least a few paragraphs of copy full of keywords, which will enable search engines to better classify your pages. Use the keywords you included in your META elements, and don't be afraid to use them many times within your copy. But, of course, what you write should make sense and be easy to digest, as readability is vital. You should also display text on your site as text, not as images, which search engine crawlers cannot read. Use ALT tags for pictures you do use, so that crawlers can get some information out of them, and incorporate HTML navigation wherever it is possible, even if this means adding redundant navigation at the bottom of your pages."

Ben :"Wait a minute now, bud. Search engine crawlers...what exactly is that?"
Max :" Search engines use automated programs called "crawlers" or "spiders" to create an index of the Web, to determine what sites are most relevant to users' queries. These programs essentially visit Web sites, read the pages' content, and follow any links to other pages, repeating the process on the sites where they end up. By also retrieving information on link destinations and frequency, among other things, the search engines are able to better "understand" Web sites than if they only took site text into account. Therefore, the key to better placement in search results is making sure it is easy for crawlers to gather useful information about your site. Search engines particularly take into account the location and frequency of keywords on your pages in determining your site's relevance. There you go."

Ben :"All right, now I know. Please continue, bud."
Max :"Do leverage links. Web sites that are linked to from lots of other sites are usually more popular and get a higher ranking in search results. However, more important than the number of links is the quality of those links. Contact owners of other Web sites that score highly for key phrases related to your content, and ask them if they will provide a link back to your site. Make sure, too, that the content on your own site is properly linked together. Crawlers will often start with your home page and then follow links from there to other areas of your site. Thus, if you fail to provide working links to all your pages, some of your content may end up unindexed."

Ben :"(hearing certain sound at the background) Is that your baby crying, Max?"
Max :"Your ears are sharp as always (laugh), yes that's my baby. You need to be patient with this search engine thing, bud. If you've spent a lot of time optimizing your sites and you still aren't seeing results, it may not make sense spending more time tweaking it so it will surface higher. There are still other ways for you to drive traffic to your sites on which your time would be better spent."

Ben :"I see what you mean. Go to your baby now (the cry got a lot louder). Thanks Max."
Max :"Bye now."