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The Search Engine World
The world of the search engines is
changing rapidly, the last 12 months or so has seen the old free
listing services that were available from most engines & directories
now a thing of the past. Paid inclusion, paid placement, pay per
click and other $ bound services are a must have if you so desire
those visitor hits.
You can still have an
effective SEO campaign with the two major free Search Engine /
Directory players such as Google & Open Directory. It will take time
and some frustrating moments but eventually you can get there.
Regardless of whether you decide to take on the paid services, you
should still list with these two high rollers as they play an
important part to any good SEO campaign.
The Back Door
There are still options
available to those that do not believe in the paid services. It can
be slow and there is no guarantee that your site will be listed and
definatly no guarantee that you will receive the rankings your site
probably deserves. Be very wary of advertisements that tell you you
can get your site listed for free with the top players. The majority
of these options use software submission tools to bulk submit to the
search engines. If you are found to be using submission tools you
could end up with your website being black listed.
ALWAYS, ALWAYS use manual submissions
where possible!!!!!
If your site is non profit or a
charity then many options are available to you with most search
engines accepting free submissions.
Free Submission Links
Altavista
http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new
DMOZ (Open Directory Project)
http://dmoz.org/add.html
Google
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
All The Web
http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php
Why Go Paid?
- Fast inclusion
- Regular indexing of your site in most instances
- Paid listings are normally placed in front of free listings
- Gets you listed with partner sites
- Support is generally included into the price
Paid Placement
Paid Placement is where you
pay a higher price to have your site appear in the top positions of
search results. Most but not all paid placement services either have
you bid for keywords or you pay per click through (PPC see below).
My personal experience as a user is I rarely click results that I
know are paid placement but paid placement does seem to be growing
so there must be some benefits to the paying advertisers?
Paid Inclusion
If your are opting in for
paid services then Paid Inclusion is the method most widely used for
businesses with low Internet marketing budgets. Once your site has
been accepted into a paid listing program you are guaranteed that
your site will appear in the results, SOMEWHERE. Your listing will
usually appear before any free listings but you still compete for
rankings with other paid inclusion sites. You still need to have
good SEO in place to ensure those high rankings.
Paid Inclusion comes in two basic
forms with minor differences between participating engines.
- You pay per URL you wish included
- You pay to have your site included or indexed and is usually set
to a maximum URL inclusion
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pretty much self explanatory.
You are charged for every click received from users. This is a very
popular method being used by advertisers. In some instances the
click through rate being charged is fixed but more often you bid on
keywords or phrases with other advertisers. Be wary of PPC programs
that do not let you specify a maximum amount you would like to pay
per set time period or else you can find yourself far exceeding your
allocated budget! This method can get costly!
Examples of PPC are
Google Addwords. You create a small advertisement that appears
on the users returned set of search results. If that user clicks on
your advertisement then you are charged the going rate for that
phrase or keyword that triggered your add to appear. You can specify
daily spend limits and how much you are willing to pay per click.
Full tracking of your adds or campaigns are available. Suspend or
cancel any adds as you so desire. Minimum click through rate of US
$0.05.
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