More Ideas for Search Engine Positioning
By Andrew Wetzler
President, Morevisibility.com, Inc.
(posted 8/7/2000)

It’s a typical scenario. A major company comes to us frustrated that after launching its Web site, it doesn’t show up in the search engines—or the ranking is something like 482 out of 6,798 entries.

About two months ago we had a software company call us. The company has a comprehensive and attractive Internet site. Thousands of dollars had been spent on designing it, but traffic to the site was lackluster. Company officials found that the site wasn’t ranked very well when typical key words were typed into popular search engines. Since it’s a computer related business, management gave an employee in the Information Technology (IT) department the task of improving the company’s search engine standings.

Unfortunately, many times personnel in a typical in-house IT department are oriented toward day-to-day computer and e-commerce issues and search engine positioning is a specialized sub-topic that’s not a core competency. So after some initial successful results, the company’s search engine rankings fell again. In the end, the company approached us with questions about improving its search engine positioning. 

Search engine positioning is an ongoing function. An outside firm is engaged because there’s a very high level of expertise required, and an investment in technology needs to be made in order to achieve the kind of results that most companies are seeking.

In an ideal Internet world, Bob’s Super Software will build a Web site, which is designed to sell software online. Once the site is up and running, Bob expects potential customers who type in “software” in a major search engine to find his site. The chances of that happening are slim.

There’s a direct correlation between the narrowness and specificity of a key word entered in a search engine and the chances of a site like Bob’s Super Software having a high ranking—a favorable ranking would be between the first and the 30^th listed. After that, the chances of a potential customer visiting a site decrease substantially. With the intensely competitive nature of the Internet, when a key word it typed into a search engine, the searcher could end up with hundreds or thousands of sites from which to choose.

Prior to starting MoreVisibility.com, I spent eleven years as a consultant in the call center inside-sales arena. It’s been my own experience that building a great Internet site with a very descriptive name—Telesales.com—didn’t automatically put my site at the top of each search engine list when someone typed “telesales”. My site could be number one for a few days, and then could be listed out of the top 30 when the search engines changed their criteria. I found staying prominently listed and obtaining qualified traffic takes constant monitoring and adapting.

Indeed, favorable search engine positioning is a time-consuming and results-oriented endeavor. It’s time consuming because to achieve the expected results, positioning must be monitored on a daily basis. It’s result-oriented because clients can easily see where they’re ranked when a key word is typed in a search engine. Clients also keep statistics on how a high search engine ranking converts to actual “hits” and then re-converts to sales and or clients.

It’s an ongoing and sometime daunting task to keep pace with the changes in the search engines’ submission criteria. We don’t consider it realistic to completely figure out exactly what a search engine may be looking for when it indexes Web sites. So what are realistic expectations when using a search engine positioning company?

First, search engine rankings should be improved over what a site previously enjoyed. Or, favored search engine positions should be created when none exist.

Second, while search engine positions are the vehicle, qualified traffic is the ultimate objective. A search engine positioning company’s effectiveness is measured by an increase in the number of qualified visitors to a Web site.

Finally, there must be an identification of the keywords and phrases that are most likely to gain a client the qualified traffic it’s seeking.

Rather than relying on a single tactic to obtain prominent search engine positions, a third-party service will use multiple platforms and distinct approaches for each keyword/phrase, for each client. This increases the ability to make an exponential impact. For example, if a hotel has a major property in New York, it’s unrealistic to expect a potential guest will find the hotel by typing in the word “New York” in a search engine. Using Yahoo!, “New York” will generate hundreds of category matches, and AltaVista has millions of pages under the word “New York.” But the chances of obtaining a good ranking are greatly increased with the words “New York Hotel.”

Although multiple avenues for each client may employed, each effort shares a common theme. All work is 100 percent external to a Web site, so no one will t need any access or passwords.

Given the impact positioning can make your business, don’t trust it to an in-house IT department—unless you know it has the wherewithal to tackle it effectively.

Andrew Wetzler is president of MoreVisibility.com (www.morevisibility.com).  He can be reached via email awetzler@morevisibility.com or by telephone at 800-787-0497.

Click here for past features.