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"Use Search Engines to Convert Online Surfers Into Spenders"
by Andrew S. Linick, Ph.D., The WebologistŪ
Alan Bercovitz , President of the Cranston-based Rhode Island Mortgage Store (RIMS) called me when he felt it was time to rejuvenate his marketing efforts. I suggested aiming the company's services at the Internet and I knew exactly what to target. Search engines instead of e-commerce sites.
According to senior analyst David Hallerman of the eMarketer research firm, "Considering the popularity of online searching, the growing use of search sites for marketing is nearly a no-brainer."
So, if like other companies, you're looking to increase your visibility and boost sales, where should you begin? Google, FAST, Inktomi, AltaVista and Teoma are some of the hottest engines. Crawler based, they rely on technology to periodically "spider" the Web to find key terms. With this in mind, you'll want to make certain that your Web pages are carefully constructed to attract these search engines.
You're probably wondering how this is done. The HTML title tag of the name unique to every web page appears in the very top bar of the browser window. This is your launching pad. It's critical that it be crafted around two or three key phrases reflected within the copy on the page below. This will require some research on your part. To help you determine what phrases consumers use to find products and/or services like yours:
1- Go to a specialized database such as Wordtracker.com.
2- Include two or three key phrases per page, at least three times each.
3- Give these same phrases top billing in headlines, subheads and in ad around hyperlinks.
By the way, be certain to create copy with 250 words or more on each important page. This helps to boost your ranking as crawlers eat up all these elements. Adding persuasive, solution-oriented copy to your site, also increases your chances of converting surfers into clients who spend.
Meta description tags are equally important. An invisible piece of source code, this tag uses the marketing statement you want your prospective customers to read. Remember those "spiders" I mentioned? They sneak behind the scenes to read your source code and, except for Google, post them verbatim in their search engine results. Google posts a small portion of text that appears around the search query.
There is one other search engine you should consider-the Open Directory Project (ODP). For additional exposure, meticulously follow the ODP guidelines for gratis submissions. (There is also a Yahoo! Directory that costs money and usually yields powerful results.) Besides a listing in their directory, you'll draw traffic to your site, and hundreds of other search engines and portals, including AOL Search, Lycos, DirectHit, HotBot and Netscape Search, will be informed that your Web pages exist.
Dr. Andrew S. Linick-The WebologistŪ, America's Visionary Internet-Direct Marketing StrategistŪ is one of the top creative master copywriters specializing in traditional and internet direct marketing. He offers fresh insight, sound advice on a money back guarantee and step-by-step guidance for entrepreneurs and small to medium-sized firms. With over 36 years experience in direct response advertising/marketing/pr/sales promotion, Andrew has had great success with direct mail and email campaigns for himself and hundreds of clients worldwide. Andrew's expert guidance can help you make sound decisions about your products or services, offers, creative copy, lists, fulfillment, method of measurement (roi), search engine optimization and many other interactive services-allowing you to start and run smooth, professional, results-oriented email and cost-effective direct marketing campaigns. For further information contact: Copywriters Council of America (CCA) The best creative direct response advertising copywriters-at below market rates! Voice: 631-924-3888 Fax: 631-924-3890 Email: cca4dmcopy@att.net Website: www.lgroup.addr.com/CCA.htm .
RESOURCES
SuccessWorks Search Marketing Solutions, Inc.,
URL: SearchEngineWriting.com
A pioneer in search-engine writing techniques. Offers some free guidance on maximizing search engine visibility.
Open Directory Project
URL: dmoz.org
For free tools to check your site's link popularity and search engine visibility:
marketleap.com (1-888-201-9982)
A search-engine marketing firm specializing in paid inclusion.
searchenginewatch.com
Offers a wealth of information on search engine know-how.
Search Engines Worldwide which is a list of global and local search engines sorted by countries in the world. Search Engines Worldwide
A huge but bare link page to just about every search related engine and site I've seen.
Click Here
A good guide to SE promotion. Althought the articles are outstanding, I couldn't help but find the navigation system to be a welcome relief from most of the other promotion sites. This is a very well designed site. There really is promotion power in the return of the low impact page layout that we've seen in 2004. www.apromotionguide.com
Stand Alone Search Engines:
* Fast AllTheWeb.com
* Google
* Teoma
* WiseNut
* Altavista
* Webcrawler
* Excite
* Lycos
* MSN
Prominent Meta Searches
Kartoo
Dogpile.com
MetaCrawler
Ask Jeeves
Mamma.com
Pay-For-Play
Overture.com
FindWhat
Ineedhits
AskJeeves
LookSmart
Inktomi
kanoodle
simplesearch
ah-ha
ustarthere
onesearch
rocketlinks
hotrate
sprinks
3apes
brainfox
cleansearch
curioscape
discountspider
dxcart
explode2000
7search
findit-quick
findwhat
goclick
godado.co.uk
hitsgalore
net-busterlist/
netflip
pageseeker
sabril
searchcactus
searchhound
hotways
slapsearch
win4win
zcoolweb
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You are also welcome to write in to
fran@modernopportunity.com about questions you may have about your site, search engine optimization or new product/service testing.
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