Introduction to Online Search Engine Marketing SEO

by Wesley E. Warren

Build it and they will come. That might work in the movies, and it may have worked in the early 1990's but with the amount of pages on the internet today, estimated in the billions, just building a site is not enough. You may have head the term SEO or Search Engine Optimization, this is the method of increasing a web sites position in search results pages in order to drive more traffic to a website.

Since almost everytime a person begins to look for something on the internet, they begin at a search engine. Google has become the 800 lb. gorillia in this arena but there are also several other smaller contenders (albeit with a much smaller market share) such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask and many other smaller specialized engines and directories.

It is critical to be listed on the first page, as most users (estimated at 90%) will not click past the first page of results. In order to reach these positions the site must be optimized.

There are two ways to get a site listed on the first page of a search engine. The first way is to purchase pay-per-click advertising that will be listed under sponsored links on Google. This can be a great way to quickly get listed on the first page of Google. With Googles pay-per-click ads (called Adwords) you create text links that appear to the right and sometimes above the natural or organic search results. The amount you are willing to pay for each click determines the position your ad appears. You bid against other advertisers for higher posiion on the page. Depending on the competition you can pay from a few cents to up several dollars for each click. If you are in a very competative business, this can get very expensive. A moderately priced keyword that cost $4 per click can quickly add up to hundreds of dllars per day. This is only for the click, so the visitor may or may not actually make a purchase from your website.

The key to having a successful web site, bringing in a consistent flow of users is to make sure your web site is regularly checked by search engines (this is known as indexing). Additionally a site should rank well for search terms (eg. keywords), ranking refers to the position a site appears in the search results. For example, if you search the term "widgets" in google, the top position, or number 1 spot is currently occupied by widgets.yahoo.com, the default format for most search engines, including Google is to show 10 listings per page.

Stay tune for Part 2