A Guide to Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

 
Traffic from search engines is the most cost-effective way to generate hits to your website. Customers acquired through search engine are the best in terms of required metrics such as unique visitors, online registrations and total hits etc. Also you can measure and increase online activities by viewers on a periodic basis.

The increasing popularity of search engines has led to the development of a whole concept that revolves around ways to "optimize" websites. The objective of search engine optimization is to increase website visitor hits by ranking very high in the results of searches using the most appropriate methods.

But first it is important to know how search engines work. A search engine builds its database either by getting list submissions from webmasters or by using software robots. In the case of former, the database is often built manually. On the other hand, Robot or Spiders are programs that browse through the web and store links and information about the pages that they visit.

The way a spider indexes and ranks a website is very much dependent on what information it receives from your website and how you have designed the site. Therefore it is essential to develop your website keeping in mind the search engine placements and optimize the website accordingly.

However no amount of search engine optimization will help if you get the basics wrong. As search engines (especially google) are all about trust.

  • Create an atmosphere of knowledge by giving expert opinion, having forum, directory, blog etc on your category.
  • Give a contact number/feedback form on site so viewers can get back to you for any clarifications.
  • Have a clear privacy policy.
  • Give some information about your company
  • Write helpful articles and post on the site (like this one!)

For webmasters, the major search engines are the most important places to be listed, because they can potentially generate maximum traffic.

The big four search engines (Google, yahoo, msn, aol) account for more than 95% of all search's on the web! If your not getting results there - you’re not really online!

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156221
 

The key parameters for Search Engine Optimization :

  1. Keywords
  2. Link Analysis
  3. Content
  4. Web Analytics
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