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Discusses the most common question--how do I get to the top of the search engines?
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You'll find reflected throughout this site that success on the Internet is a war of intelligence. Nothing short of a thorough knowledge of your company's product and capabilities, and the ability to state them relevantly, will work in a world where page views by customers are measured in seconds.
Your goal should first be to make a relevant site, and one which will answer the most likely questions your clients will have. Your responsibility is to clarify your policies and principles early on to give the client a sense of comfort with you. If your site is informative and accessible, it only follows that it must be a reflection on your company's way of doing business. And that gets results.
Once the site satisfies these requirements, it is time to start submission to search engines. We are partners with Overture.com, a leading search engine based in Pasadena, CA with reciprocal agreements with such major portals as google, Alta-Vista, Yahoo, and AOL Search. We are pleased to have gotten several of our clients in the top four in several categories.
There are several other entry-level articles below. Please contact us via email or through our information page for an initial consulatation and quote on your project.
- Current economic status of Search Engine Companies
You are probably aware that after 1999-2000 many companies realized that their business models on the internet were simply not realistic. That applied for search engines such as Yahoo, MSN search, Altavista, and others. Over the last few years we have noted consolidation of the industry (some of our favorite search engines have been bought out), and pooling of resources (reciprocal agreements for search results, i.e. if you are listed on one search engine, you will by agreement be listed on others). Paid submissions cost more and free submissions ... well, good luck.
The most innovative model is from a company called Overture.com. Overture is one of the few search engines posting a profit. Compass Point Media uses Overture extensively, and we have numerous articles in our knowledge base on this search engine. Overture uses a "pay per click-through" model, and recently Yahoo has developed a feature similar to this.
We encourage you to read further at overture and in our knowledge base.
What it all boils down to is this: search engines simply do not have the budget to review every website and catalog all of the details. This doesn't hurt commercial sites much because their goal is to make a profit, but for technical, research, and historical sites this is a setback, because the odds are there IS an article that addresses exactly what you want to know on the Internet (Industrial movement as it influenced art in Communist China between 1948-1960 for example), but this obviously takes time and intelligence to organize.
Eventually we believe a sucessful business model will emerge whereby a search engine will be able to catalog to such excruciating detail as our Communist China Example above, and the revenue will come from end users who get enough utility to justify paying the money for it.
- Other ways to direct traffic to your site: HTML Email, Banner Ads and links from other sites
Picture the typical small business starting out. A lot of the initial work is calling other companies and letting them know you're there. It's also smart to call companies with services complementary to you (i.e., not competitors) and see if they would refer certain type of work to you. This may involve some rejection at first but once you establish a relationship of this type, you're "in", and sometimes the last phone call of the day will secure a lead that will vault your business to the next level.
As it turns out, the Web works the same way, only the goal is to seek links to your business on other Websites. The logic is simple: If they like that site, they'll probably be interested in your product as well; if they trust that site, they will trust yours as well.
Additionally, search engines "spider" (automatically go though) the Internet, and finding links to your site on other sites increases your ranking with most search engines; they figure that if a lot of people list you as their source, you must be pretty relevant to that particular topic.
During the start-up phase of an e-business or e-presence, we recommend that you give at least an hour a day toward research and contacts of this nature. Ultimately this will pay off on the web and will help build business relationships as well.
Our knowledge base contains several articles on HTML email strategies and how to maintain your client base. Be aware that we do not advocate unsolicited (SPAM) email and will not promote emails to anything else besides a voluntary subscription base.
Further Resources in development:
- Explanation of Search Engines and Search Engine business model
- Page impressions, click-throughs, and SALES! -- a guide to getting results
. how Search Engines determine ranking of websites
Compass
Point Media
Los Angeles, CA
310 701 3129
213 386 8829 Fax
info@compasspointmedia.com
