SEH/TS: Understanding Search Engine Ranking

Targeted Traffic Makes Money
Understanding Search Engine Ranking

Approximately 77% of Internet users will access one or more of the major search engines during an online session. Utilizing search engines to navigate the web is second only to checking email according to Statistical Research, Inc. Additionally, an estimated 85% of the average web site’s traffic comes from search engines, making search engine registration and ranking a priority to serious marketers using online channels. Whether you offer services or sell products online, to stay competitive, it is essential that your website is set up properly to rank high in the search engines.

The most often asked questions in Marketing is “How do we stand out from our competition?” To fight the battle, every small and medium sized business needs search engine optimization to some extent. How much you invest in “getting to the top” should depend on your marketing goals and how you target potential customers. By targeting the right stream of traffic from the search engines, you will experience a wealth of new, targeted leads, bringing higher profitability to your online channel. This will make you stand out with the right people, prospective customers.

It is not unusual for companies wanting to optimize their web site to ask “Why are Search Engines different and which ones are important to me?” There are Yellow Pages, Search Engines and Directories. Yellow Pages and Directory are lists of information just like printed Yellow Pages and other Directories. Search engines gather, assimilate and display information from their index or repository each time that it is requested. They index and rank web sites based on criteria of the search engine providing fresher information than static or printed lists. Search engines gather information on a regular basis to update their index. If you want to do transactional business, or eCommerce on the Internet, Search Engines are more important to you than Yellow Pages or Directories. If you have multiple locations and want potential customers to find the location closest to them, you will want to provide information to Yellow Pages and Directories as well.

Search Engines come in different varieties. Crawler-based and human-powered are the most predominant type of search engines. Crawler-based search engines crawl the web to create their listings. Many crawlers power other search engines. Example, MSN is powered by InfoSeek and LookSmart and GoToNet.com uses AltaVista, Excite and 4-5 other crawler-based and human-powered sites as its base engine or gathering tools. Crawlers, sometimes called spiders or robots, find pages to add to their web page indexes. The larger a search engine’s index, the more likely it will list many pages of your site, giving you deeper penetration of the site resulting in more access to targeted audiences.

Human-powered search engines do not crawl the web to get information; they rely on a human, using a database, spreadsheet, list or text to present their information. Human error is always present and if these sources are not updated, the information is stale and the web sites in the response may not even be on the Internet at the time of your query. Example, Yahoo is a crawler-based site, but has human review on certain content.

Picking the right type of keywords and imbedded data types is crucial to ranking in the search engines you choose as most important for your purposes. Search engines send out what are called spiders, crawlers or robots to visit your site and gather web pages. They take the information they’ve gathered and stored in their index and present it based on how much it relates to the exact words you used in a search inquiry. Example, if the titles on the home page of your web site contained all the words in a search it might be listed in the top 5 responses because it was 100% response to your search. If your web site contained only half of the words in the search might be listed much further down the list, even several pages into the response because it was only about 50% response to your search.

The spiders, crawlers and robots leave traces behind that the webmaster can track. The webmaster can tell exactly what the robot has recorded and indexed to see if they need to do any more work for placement with that search engine. As you can see, this becomes a living process that evolves as you gain knowledge about getting to your targeted traffic.

Search engines typically gather words, phrases and in some cases visual pictures to include in their index. Most search engines index the full visual body text of a page, but some exclude text and copy deemed to be spam or junk. Search engines such as Alta Vista, InfoSeek and WebCrawler instantly crawl or spider any pages submitted to them by a webmaster. That doesn’t mean that they have looked at all of the pages, but it is an instant response by the search engine.

Knowing what you need, when you need it and in what order or priority you require it is the most important part of project planning. Updating functionality or graphics on your web site will not drive traffic to it. Driving traffic to a site that is not set up for your targeted audience will not make them want to purchase once they get there.

Successful marketers understand the role of traffic, exposure and revenue as the backbone to any business. Because each is dependent on one another, where one fails or falls short, the others suffer. Therefore, if you aren’t treating your web site like a sales tool and responding to new customers and leads in a timely manner, you’re going to lose the competitive battle. And you can’t be responsive if you don’t gather information on visitors. If that is the case, you are standing in your own way of being responsive to customers and leads.

Conclusions

The first step in developing a revenue generating web site is to design the site for your targeted audience. The next step is search engine optimization, which will make it more visible to people on the Internet. Drawing more targeted traffic (potential customers) to your website to see the products you offer helps your goals of generating steady income and brand awareness, another critical marketing goal.

For smaller companies, developing an expandable, scalable and ongoing project model to update and upgrade your web site over a period of time is more realistic than trashing what you have and starting over. With an ongoing project of this type you can get some immediate revenue benefits while keeping cost in line with the budget. Once the web site begins showing marked increases in converted traffic (site vists converted to buyers/revenue), budget dollars will become more available for future updates and upgrades to the site.

Adaptability in the web site is a key to keeping targeted traffic steady and remaining in the top tier of search engine rankings. Just as important is blending sales responsiveness with technology to convert traffic to revenue and buyers to loyal lifetime customers.

For more information or to talk with a technology expert about your own unique needs, contact SEH/TS at 612.758.6728.

Search Our Site | Contact Us