Q. Why
is search engine positioning so important?
A.
From a marketing perspective, search engine positioning
can generate a better Return On Investment than conventional
forms of marketing such as direct mail, print ads and trade
shows. The quality of these leads are incredibly high
as these are people who are specifically interested in your
products or services ...right now. Having a top
ranking in a major search engine for one of your products or
services is like having a full page ad in the Yellow Pages in
every major city in the world.
Today's top U.S. search engines
(and directories such as Yahoo) are collectively responding
to well over 300 million searches per day! Google alone
currently has over 2 BILLION web pages in their index.
If your web site is not appearing within the first page or two
(when searching for your products and services), you are missing
hundreds, possibly thousands, of highly qualified leads. It
only makes sense to target people who are already looking for
you in the first place.
Q. How do high search engine listings
compare to banner ads?
A.
A study conducted
in January 2002 by NPD Group, a research group specializing
in consumer purchasing and behavior, tested the impact of search
listings, banner ads, and tiles across a variety of sites to
determine which was most effective. In every situation, search
engine listings came out on top. Results? Consumers are
5 times more likely to purchase your products or services after
finding your web site through a search engine vs. through a
banner ad.
Q. What about those who claim to
"Submit your Web Site to Over xxx,000 Search Engines"
?
A.
These "submitting
only" companies typically promise to submit your web site
to literally thousands of search engines on a weekly, monthly
or quarterly schedule for a cost of anywhere between $10 to
$149. They offer no real generation of top rankings within
the REAL search engines.
The term "search engines" can be broken into three
categories:
- REAL search
engines (which total less than 15),
- Directories
such as Yahoo, LookSmart & Open Directory (which use human
editors vs computerized "spiders" to index your
web site), and
- THOUSANDS
of FFA's "Free For All" web sites.
The average FFA "search engine" is simply a web
site hoping to capture your email address for spamming purposes
and many will sell your personal information, URL, and email
addresses to other like-minded individuals or lists.
A vast majority of these submitting
companies are simply individuals who use automated software
to submit your site and pay no attention to the spamming rules.
As a result, they can actually hurt your rankings as
the real search engines can detect and reject web sites that
are being submitted through most automated software and by tracking
particular IP addresses responsible for doing so. This is why
we submit each of your pages using proven techniques, in a specific
order, and at a schedule approved by the search engines.
We're in it for the long haul
so we have no intention of performing techniques that not only
hurt our client's rankings but also put ourselves and our business
in jeopardy.
