LEARN TO SURVIVE GOOGLE'S LATEST UPDATE INSANITY, WITH THE TAO OF SEARCH ENGINE PROMOTION by Kamau Austin
It is causing a shake up in web marketing circles, and the SEO
industry is in chaos. It's the Florida Update, and many of us in
the web marketing industry have been taken by storm. Google's
latest update has totally dismantled certain niche markets,
delivering sparse results in relevancy, not to mention a display
of deference to ecommerce sites. Using Google now seems like a
throw back to a researchers tool, akin to the old days of the
scientist and professors exclusively using the Internet.
While allegations swirl about Google's upcoming IPO and the need
to force traditional SEO sites into the Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
advertising mainstream, and Internet gurus speculate, postulate,
and become apologist for Google's erratic update, I wonder if
Google will ever become again what it once was? Google's claim
to fame was the use of Page Rank to give such good results. Do
we know if the looming semantic web will be an enhancement to
Google's algorithm? I know search engine spam must stop, but is
Google's solution worst? Stopping email spam at all costs has
made it almost impossible to run an email business? Is Google,
in a similar fashion, throwing out the baby with the bath water,
or killing the golden goose with its bias against ecommerce
sites?
My results have been affected also however, I suspected that
this was in the works, and buffered my ebusiness from the
latest Google update my taking a more harmonized and balanced
approach to web marketing called the Tao of Search Engine
Promotion. So sit back and relax, and forget the stress of the
Florida Update. Refocus your energies. Visualize a high
traffic site without the dependence on Google, the new MSN
Search Engine, or anything else on the horizon...probably
created by Yahoo! Lets use this time to reflect on the basics of
synergist web marketing harmony.
Why this article is named the Tao of Search Engine Promotion is
because in Search Engine Marketing we will discuss two forms of
promotion: 1 Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising; and 2 Search
Engine Optimization SEO.
My Personal Philosophy is that you will need to Have Harmony
between Hard and Soft techniques, like Ying and Yang or Male and
Female Principles to restore balance in search engine marketing
going forward.
Search Engine Advertising - represents the Yang or Male
Principle, in that is very pro-active, aggressive, and your
presentation has to fire the imagination of the web visitors to
get a good response. Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising is paying
for the click-troughs to your site by the search engines. PPC is
putting your message out to the www in no uncertain terms, to
make your statement about your business. In PPC advertising you
control the ranking, message, and cost of your campaign by
bidding against others for your specific search engine key
terms. The major players in pay-per-click advertising are
Google, Overture, and Find What. While on the other hand.
3. Search Engine Optimization - represents the Ying or Female
Principle in that it is more fluid and receptive to the
algorithms of the search engines, which of course you - do not
control. SEO promotion is using known conventions and in some
cases deconstructing the algorithms of the developers of the
search engines and working with them. In other words it is like
Judo where you use the momentum and power of the search engines
to build your business. You will have to be constantly
vigilant, in order to try to stay abreast of the latest
developments in SEO promotion.
4. You have to employ both strategies at times - and both have
their place, in the media mix of your search engine marketing
strategies. We will explore how both can help you drive traffic
to your business. First let's explore some ebiz basics.
Why People Use the Internet?
A - Read Email and communicate
B - Find Information (not Entertainment)
C - Find information to buy something
The Net is Text-centric right now - with the 4 killer apps being
E-mail, Instant Messaging, clicking links and searching for
information. Without these four basic functions the web would
not work. This is important to remember because some people
think that Flashy animation, or graphics are the keys to a
successful e business. This is not the case. You have to have
good textual information on your site, that is optimized to be
search engine friendly, if you want high search engine rankings.
What is a Search Engine?
Think of a search engine as a database with a ranking
algorithm (or system) of web sites that are of a certain
quality or meets certain criteria.
In other words, search engines look for sites it feels will
be of value to its customers, which are Internet surfers
searching for information.
The most important concept to grasp with a search engine, is
that it uses an automated computerized system to find and rank
the sites within its database of web sites.
What is an Internet Directory?
An Internet directory is a large listing of categorized web
sites - however the concept that should be understood with the
Internet directories, is that they actually have editors that
decide what goes into the directory. Remember an Internet
directory is decided and managed by human editors, while in
contrast, a search engine is ranked by a computerized algorithm
or system. Directories are important to get links from because,
they will raise your rankings in the Google algorithm (which is
based on page rank or links from other sites to a great extent).
Google is the Most Important Search Engine to Optimize Your Site
for since it powers 66% of searches on the web. Google's claim
to fame is a ranking concept known as Page Rank. Which in its
most simple form is: receiving links from other sites as a vote
of confidence. The more links your site receives from other
sites, the more it is viewed as an authority site by Google.
Remember Google technology presently powers the search engines
of Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. This is soon to change, but
right now... primarily concern yourself with Google.
However, since a whole industry was developed to share links,
called reciprocal linking, Google has recently changed its
algorithm to filter or penalize for reciprocal linking. Some
people may not agree with this assertion but this is my position
until someone can show me otherwise. Therefore, I suggest
writing articles with link resource boxes and indirect
reciprocal linking to build higher rankings.
How do Search Engines Index the Net? They follow links from
sites already in their database. Therefore, if you want to get
listed for free, get a link from a site in their database.
Better yet listed in an Internet Directory because these sites
(since they rely on human editors), are given utmost credibility
and high page ranking status. A link from an Internet directory
like Yahoo, Dmoz http://www.dmoz.org , Joe Ant
http://www.joeant.com , or Gimpsy http:http://www.gimpsy.com
could be worth 20 links from an unknown site.
Why are Search Engines Important?
Search engines will drive about 47% of Internet
traffic according to surveys of Internet users. Links will
provide about 29% of new traffic to your site. Therefore a good
link based search engine strategy will drive about 76% of new
business to your web site!
How Search Engines Help Pre-sell Your Products and Services. In
contrast to advertising, where people come to your site or
business some what resistant to your perceived marketing
message, on the other hand search engine discovery is viewed
more as an empowering and pro-active experience, by the visitor
that discovers your site. You can tap into the more positive
flow of information, your site visitor feels, if you now have a
web site that inspires trust, rapport, and builds a long term
relationship with the site visitor. If you do this you will
eventually turn your site visitor into a long time customer.
It is important to realize that most people will not buy at your
site the first visit. Therefore, make sure you have a way to
capture email addresses with a great free offer, in order to
build more of a trusting long term relationship with your site
visitors. It is the only way, in most cases, that you will be
able to turn site visitors into site customers.
Strike a Balance between Pay-Per-Click and Search Engine
Optimization (SEO).
Tips and Tricks in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
* Watch Your Costs because PPC advertising is One of the most
expensive Forms of Advertising
* Avoid Bidding Wars - and bidding frenzy
* Create a Landing Page - with a Most Wanted Response (MWR) and
Backup Response
* Make Sure You Have Site Statistic Software to monitor
conversion rates...by obtaining usable and comprehensive site
statistics
* Do Extensive Keyword Research
* Develop Effective Sales Copy.
Capture E-mail addresses to Cultivate Trust and Rapport with
your site visitors.
Since PPC advertising is so expensive use it in moderation by
setting daily and monthly budgets (otherwise for high volume
searched keywords you could go broke). After setting budgets,
which you do in the Overture and Google advertising interfaces,
use PPC to test your conversion rates for subscribers, sales,
etc., and constantly monitor it and fine tune it. You want to
increase your conversation rates.
This is critical because as we discussed in our last session the
typical major ad agency or corporate brand only spends $5 - $15
dollars to reach 1000 people(CPM). Although they may go higher
for responsive direct mail lists like $100 or $150 to reach 1000
people. In PPC advertising small business are usually paying at
least 35 cents on the dollar (for any word with any real
competition) to reach 1000 people or $350 dollars. I have seen
and experienced people paying $2.50 a click or $2250 dollars to
reach a 1000 people. Any small business using PPC should have
an outstanding product ready for prime time to see any return in
investment ROI. Alternately, they should only use it for limited
testing or to get a product quickly to market on-line.
Conversely speaking, SEO is a long term process that you never
really control. It takes about 2 months to see any decent
rankings using traditional SEO. However, once you have a
higher ranking it will save you a lot of money. Furthermore,
once you know the basics and constantly keep up on new
developments you can really boost your traffic. SEO shouldn't be
your only on-line strategy because you don't want to put your
business at the whims of the search engines.
Do other forms of web marketing like responsible message
board posts at large portal sites, Web PR, Blog listings, write
articles, build ezines or e newsletters, and buy PPC advertising
in moderation and soon you will be getting thousands of site
visitors to your site. If a regular guy from the tough streets
of Bed Stuy Brooklyn can do it... so can you!
Kamau Austin, helps small and minority business make more money,
by creating, search friendly web sites. He is the owner of
http://www.Ebizbydesign.com , http://www.Einfonews.com , and the
creator of the Free Search Engine Promotion Tele-course
at: http://www.SearchEngineplan.com . He can be reached at:
973-655-8866
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