well?
Pay them.
Not necessarily. Several if not most search engines have active robots or “spiders” scouring the web looking for pages. Ever look at your IP request logs and find requests for a “robots.txt” file? That’s them. Someone will be along shortly to explain how to use robots.txt, but there’s another way to get listed, and that’s to use META tags in your HTML code. I’ll give you a sample from my website just to show how it’s done:
<meta name="keywords" content="stars,astronomy,constellations">
Of course that’s just a small sample, and you can have many more keywords than that. Also you don’t want to use the same keyword more than 7 times or the search engines will skip over it; this is referred to as “spamming”. But in my personal experience, shortly after I put up these keywords my site was coming up in page 1 of Google searches for one of my product names.
You can also visit the search engine and submit your URL; for example the submission page for Google is http://www.google.com/addurl.html
But in order to get a good rank on Google, it also helps for your site to be linked from other sites; see if you can persuade some webmasters of relevant sites to add you to their ‘links’ page (with an offer for a reciprocal link, of course).
Being heavily into SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I can write a bit more on this topic.
Google (and all the other search engines) reward websites with good content, a clear and closely defined theme/topic, and with good inbound links with good search engine rankings.
Many SEO’s think that all you need to do to get good ranking is optimize your websites text and copy to include the specialized keywords you want to attain ranking in.
Other SEO’s swear by “reciprocal linking”, whereby you exchange free text links with other websites in the same theme/topic as yours. This allows your website to become a resource of links to other websites with a similar theme as yours, and the search engines reward highly for this.
My personal website sells t-shirts. We link with all sorts of clothing, apparel, t-shirt, and shopping websites. We started working with “inbound links” in January with a PageRank of 0/10 and are now at a PageRank of 6/10.
If you have any other questions, PM me, but I’m sure many people can tell you that there is alot of money to be made in optimizing websites for all the search engines. I’m not going to divulge my secrets here, but NO SINGLE COMPANY/PERSON has it all together.
For help, visit: http://www.gorillawebsitemarketing.com It’s where we got our information from and is clearly working!
There are really two questions in one here.
Q1. How do you tell search engines that your website exists?
On the home page of most search engines and directories there is a facility to submit the URL of your site. This means your site will be paid a visit by their spiders or robots (bits of software that roam the web and send indexing info about sites back to Head Office).
If you get a good book on HTML, you can read about ways to use meta tags. Meta tags can feed info to the spiders about your site and how you would like it to be indexed - but there are limits to how influential the mata tags are. You can also use meta tags to invite spiders along or to block their access to certain pages or directories.
Exchanging links with other websites is another good way to make sure the search engines and directories pay your site a visit.
There are companies that offer to submot your site for you to dozens of search engines. It’s money down the drain. Just do it yourself and cover the five or six most popular search engines, and the rest will find out about you any way.
Q2. How do you achieve good search engine rankings, so that your website gets listed above that of your competitor?
The short and sweet answer is: you can’t. There is a large industry which consists of people selling each other information on how to achieve great search engine rankings, and most of it is not only snake oil, but out of date snake oil. Stay away and save your money. The people who run the search engines work very hard to stop website owners trying to achieve any kind of unfair advantage, and their ranking algorithms are being improved, changed and refined at least every month, and possibly even more frequently, to try and ensure everything is fair.
As soon as people develop a new strategy to try and win high rankings, the search engine people change their systems to render it useless. I worked in the IT industry for many years, and once did some work for a company that was devoting more resources than anyone else to develop a sell-able system for achieving high search engine rankings. I can’t divulge any of the specifics because I signed a non-disclosure thing. Well, the venture failed because it just can’t be done unless you are going to update the method for every client almost every week.
All you have to worry about is this: run a good website, keep it focused on your core business without too many frills and side-issues, and provide an item or a service that people actually want. If you do, then over time you will attract customers, whether or not you are high on the search engine rankings (people will always find you if what you are selling is any good). You might achieve high rankings anyway, but that will be incidental.
I run a business and my site doesn’t come anywhere on the search engines. Yet my website alone generates more than enough money for me to actually live on. There are many others in my field who are higher up the search engine ranks, but they are stony broke. My explanation is that THEY are spending all their time trying to climb up the search ranks, whereas I spend MY time just providing good products and good service.
I agree with Ianzin on most of what he posted, but I differ in this area:
I think with most people who attempt to “abuse” Google/Yahoo/MSN’s results by “spamming” their websites, this statement DOES apply. But I can tell you truthfully that if you go to Google/MSN/Yahoo and enter “car wax” or “car care”, you won’t get Turtle Wax, Maguier’s, or Zaino. You get 5 Star Shine.
Glen Canady has had the #1 ranking position for “car wax” and “car care” in many search engines for over 3 years now. He doesn’t have to adjust his website every month or every week. He’s just stuck to what works, and has started http://www.gorillawebsitemarketing.com to share what he knows.
Believe me, I don’t work for Glenn and have never even met him. But what he’s doing is obviously working, the results speak for themselves. Rarely, if ever, can a Search Engine Optimization company produce lasting and solid results like that. His proof speaks for itself.
Your best bet to get your website listed in all of the major search engines quickly and fastest is to link with a few “well-spidered” websites. The GoogleBot and other search engine spiders will visit those websites you have links with and will get to your site MUCH faster than if you try to submit your site at every search engine, or even use a “bulk submitter”.
Just get a few closely related sites to link to you and link back to them. You’ll show up in Google and other engines soon enough!
I’m not sure I agree with this entirely. Taking just the example of Google, while they make tweak their scoring system, the fundamental PageRank algorithm remains the same. It’s a recursive system whereby an important page is defined as one which is linked to by other important pages, with the text of the link being used to determine context. It certainly is possible to game this system; the most compelling evidence of this is the proliferation of Google Bombs, pages which come top of the search rankings for a given query, with “hilarious” consequences.
While I’m sure that there are a lot of con artists out there promising top search results, the fact remains that Google at least assigns importance based on local link density. Increase the number of sites with whom you exchange links, and the PageRank will inevitably increase. Google don’t make frequent changes to their basic algorithm; to do so would be a vast undertaking. They may act to prevent flagrant abuses, but do not and can not manually tweak the rankings for all of their indexed pages. If they did so, there’d be no point in their technology at all.
Hmmm, sounds like it’d be easier to just pay them. A friend of mine has a site that is consistently in the top twenty with Google and several other search engines and it costs him about $20 month. I tried to get a site on for free but it was always a hassle. He says the $20 a month is chicken feed compared to the revenues brought in from his increased exposure.
Ask OpalCat she apparently knows, try typing her name in some time and see.
Opalcat knows what? I mean, it’s not like she’s competing with ten thousand other OpalCats for top billing. If you put my first and last name into Google, the first hit is my dinky little personal website. It doesn’t mean I paid Google a dime; it just means that my name is somewhat distinctive.
I don’t think that Google even ranks for money, at all. But it’s quite possible that your friend got suckered by some company unconnected to Google claiming that they can increase his page ranking. In this case, it’s just the usual combination of luck and an actually worthy page that’s giving your friend his high rankings.
Remember, it’s a search engine’s job to give a high rank to the pages a user actually wants to see. And Google is very good at that job. So if you want a high ranking, put something on your page that people want to see.
Maybe your friend is talking about Google AdWords where you pay for ads that appear at the top and right of the search results window. Basically, you target a few keywords: “shirts”, “pants”, “jeans” and bid on clicks from those words
If you bid high enough per click, you get your ad at the top of the Google search results in the “PAID” section, so maybe your friend is equating that to their actual Google ranking. It’s not the same however.
AdWords is a good way to get business once you’ve gotten off the ground. It’s NOT a good way to get your website indexed by search engine spiders however.
[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
Google don’t make frequent changes to their basic algorithm; to do so would be a vast undertaking. They may act to prevent flagrant abuses, but do not and can not manually tweak the rankings for all of their indexed pages. If they did so, there’d be no point in their technology at all.
QUOTE]
Yes they do – it’s called the “Google dance,” and most webmasters know all-to-well how painful each new version can be.
The “Google Dance” SHOULDN’T have dramatic effects on websites that aren’t trying to “cheat” the system. Alot of guys who are heavily into SEO and getting their websites’ keywords optimized continually are the ones who are hurt by the “Google Dance”. These guys tweak individual words on their pages in order to get higher rankings for key phrases. They use all kinds of weird methodologies that are “custom geared” for a specific search engine (usually Google)
That’s why they get hurt so bad. They are trying so hard to “beat the system” and they forget to diversify. It’s VERY similar to day-trading on the stock market. ALOT of people make good money, but many many others lose alot. It’s not a gamble I’m willing to play.
A good webmaster should be able to design a website and get good link partners that keep their ranking despite the “Google Dance” updates that come along. Most of the quality websites I know of have weathers many storms with little ill effect. It’s mainly the guys who try to “cheat” the system that are getting hit the worst.
Diversify, Diversify, Diversify!
I remain skeptical. I don’t know who Glen Canady is, and for all I know he’s a swell guy and his wax is the best you can buy. Good for him. However, I entertain serious doubts about his sales pitch for his $39.95 e-book. In my opinion, the book probably doesn’t contain any special secrets and won’t enable you to attain high search engine rankings. I also believe that even if it did enable you to do these things, this wouldn’t necessarily lead to either great sales or wealth. Let’s think about it.
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I maintain my opinion, backed up by almost everyone in the industry, that there is no sure-fire way to get top search engine rankings, and if there were then the search engine people would take steps to close the loophole. Also, see point #2.
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Apply some common sense. Suppose you and I both want to sell wheelbarrows on the web and we both buy Glenn’s fandabadoozy secrets. Are we both going to be first in the rankings? This is impossible. So I guess Glenn’s claims only hold up provided all his customers are chasing different markets. Now, how does he know that… or how do I with my wheelbarrows, or how do you with your wheelbarrows? For all you know, he just sold the same e-book to twenty people in the same line of business as you. If they nab the top twenty ranking spots, where does that leave you? I’ll tell you - it leaves you 40 bucks poorer and it leaves your money in Glenn’s bank account.
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If Glenn gets good rankings for his company, good for him and I wish him all the success in the world. But this isn’t necessarily the result of any special secrets. Maybe he’s just got a good website that sticks to the basics (see point #6 below). Maybe his website has been around longer than others. So what? There is no reason to suppose that whatever factors are responsible for his success will also pertain to your business.
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In my opinion, the ‘proof’ that Glenn offers is logically flawed. Glenn says that if you enter the words he tells you, into the search engines he lists, his site will come up tops.
In my view, this misses the point. The point is not whether his site comes up using the keywords and engines he tells you to use. (If this proved anything, I could claim as much expertise as him: I guarantee that if you enter ‘Ian Rowland’ and ‘magic’ in Google, my website will come up tops. Big deal.)
The point is whether a random punter looking for some waxy stuff for his car will find Glenn on the internet. What if Punter chooses Alta Vista? I just entered ‘car wax’ on AV and Glenn was nowhere. What if Punter chooses to use slightly different wording? I just used Google for ‘car waxes’ and Glenn came fifth. For ‘car turtle wax’ he came even lower. You see the difference? The ‘proof’ on Glenn’s site is the wrong way around. Telling us which terms and engines to use is rigging the game in his favour.
- Coming out tops on a search engine doesn’t mean you’ll get the business. If Glenn’s product is superior in all respects - quality, price, availability, performance etc. - then people will buy from him. Maybe it is, I’ve no idea. If it isn’t, then all the top rankings in the world won’t do him much good, because in marketing it’s word of mouth that rules. And the same goes for anyone else with a commerical website. If you’re selling something people want, you’ll do OK, even if your rankings are in the toilet. If you’re not, you won’t be in business for long, even with all the top rankings in the world.
Even if you buy this 40 bucks worth of ‘secrets’, the rules don’t change: you still have to have something to sell that people actually want. And if you have, then you really don’t need a 40 dollar e-Book.
- Here are the basics about optimising the performance of your commercial website.
(a) Keep it focused. Write the text of your site so that you maintain good frequency of the key words that you want the search engine spiders to notice, and back these up with meta tags. You mustn’t try to spam the spiders, because they can usually tell and they’ll punish you. So don’t write ‘wheelbarrows’ 500 times. Just make sure you write a lot about wheelbarrows and everything about them, but in normal prose.
(b) Trade links, and try to get as many people within your market to link to your site. This wins ranking points.
(c) Get old. Run your website and keep it there for years, no change to the URL. Age and longevity count in your favour.
(d) Er… that’s it.
Now send me 20 bucks for having saved you the need to buy Glenn’s book. What’s more, in my opinion I deserve the money more than him because I’m more literate and I write better. See point #7.
- Either Glenn is less literate than I am, or he enjoys intentionally using words inappropriately. The term he is looking for is ‘guerilla’ marketing. ‘Gorilla’ marketing doesn’t mean anything, except either trying to sell gorillas or trying to sell things to gorillas. All the same, his car wax may be fantastic. Maybe he should stick to selling wax instead of trying to write.
Considering the logo is a big ape I would say he knows very well what he means. Furthermore, what the heck is “guerilla marketing”? Where you kidnap people and force them to purchase at gunpoint?
ianzin,
You certainly can type. That was a novel! Ok, back on track…
- There is no loophole in Google that exists (at least indefinately) and therefore everyone who attains good ranking for various search words/phrases has to work very hard to get there for “competitive” words. Competitive words being phrases that are highly and hotly contested for by many many websites out on the Internet today: (“shopping”, “clothing”, “housewares”, “gift baskets”, etc)
Never did I imply that getting to the TOP 10 in any search engine was easy, or that Glen can get you there in 3-6 months. HE doesn’t even propose that in his book! It takes ALOT of time and hard work.
- With Glen’s methods, even if 100 companies get his e-book and all are selling wheelbarrows, it doesn’t matter. 98 of those companies will give up on Glen’s methods because they take work and are hard to do. I REPEAT: THEY ARE TIME CONSUMING, TAKE HARD WORK, AND AREN’T A “GOLDEN ROAD” TO SUCESS.
So this is a moot point in most search categories. (EVEN IF he was putting other “wheelbarrow” people in competition with us, that doesn’t matter. We’d still have to compete with those websites regardless of whether I was the only one with his book or if there were 1 million people with his book.) If THEY had his book as well, we’d just have to work harder. That’s what business is all about anyway.
- Glen’s “Proof”. (I feel like I’m defending the guy, and I don’t even know him, have never talked to him, and probably won’t…definately a weird feeling)
I don’t see how telling you what words to use to search for and find him at the TOP 10 of Google or other search engines is bad at all. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT PEOPLE WILL TYPE INTO THE VARIOUS SEARCH ENGINES ANYWAY!! If I am “Joe Schmoe” and I want to wax my car, I go to Google and type “car wax” or “car care”. Therefore, for the target market of Glen’s wax, he is listed at or near the top few results. Glen doesn’t care to be #1 for “5 star shine wax” or “glen’s car wax” cause NOBODY types that into Google. However, people DO type in “car wax” and “car care” ALOT.
Who even bothers to click through past the first 10 results in Google? I certainly don’t. Google even releases statistics on how many times various search phrases are entered each month. FOR EXAMPLE: I know that in Dec 2003, the phrase “t-shirts” was entered into Google as a search 178,000 times. If my website ends up on the TOP 10 (even if at #10) and only 1% of those 178,000 that search for “t-shirts” click my link, I still get 1780 mostly unique visitors to my website each month. That’s JUST a 1% click through rate!
See how this could be incredibly lucrative if you already have a website that sells a great product? Without spending a dime on marketing, banner ads, or paper ads, you get 1,780 people at your webstore each month for as long as your website is in Google’s Top 10 for “t-shirts”.
THAT’S JUST GOOGLE as well! If you do well in all the other search engines, you get many many times that 1,780 unique monthly visitors! THAT’S JUST 1 PHRASE as well! With other phrases in the Top 10, you get tons and tons of traffic each month.
So, I think your reasoning on #4 is quite off.
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I agree with you here. No matter whether you get 1 million people a month to your website, unless you can sell a quality product to people and create a desire and need in their minds, you won’t sell a blessed thing.
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I agree with all the points you put in here. All of them are good suggestions on how to get good ranking in the search engines. All of the engines will reward these kinds of activities.
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I’m with “sailor” on the “guerilla” vs. “gorilla” thing.
In my previous post points, points 1-6 were serious and point 7 was a little jokey. I figured everyone would realise this. However, just for the record, ‘guerilla’ marketing is a term recognised by most people in marketing, and is the subject of more than one book (e.g. by Levinson and Godin).
In a nutshell, it refer to a situation where your competitors may enjoy a marketing advantage in terms of funding, training, equipment and other resources. The point is that you may still be able to win the marketing battle by out-thinking the opposition, and using your own ingenuity, speed, originality and creativity to achieve a marketing advantage. A lot of it comes down to realising that the big companies have lots of money to throw at marketing, but they are also slow, lumbering, bureaucratically constipated and tend to be set in a rut… hence easy to beat. This is absolutely true, and I’ve demonstrated this many times for lots of clients.
I’ve enjoyed the exchange with tubbytreats. I still hold that my point (4) is correct. If you are allowed to specify the search terms and the search engines to use, almost anyone can make themselves look like a web marketing genius. After all, if you can choose the cards in play, you can be a winning genius at poker as well! What I was trying to illustrate what that there are going to be countless situations where a guy might want car wax but won’t enter exactly the search terms Glenn advocates or use the web quite the way Glenn suggests.
But look, life is too short to re-hash this, and if my last post wasn’t clear enough to get the point across then this won’t improve the situation! Everyone’s entitled to their view, and if you really want to part with 39 bucks, don’t let me stop you.
Ianzin,
I’ve enjoyed our exchange as well, and I hope it has served to bring to light several key concepts in how the various search engines rank websites. I know there is a ton to be learned about Website Marketing, and I certainly am no pro. I’ve been working on my own site for 3-4 months with good sucess I’d say. I’m nowhere near #1 for the words “t-shirt” “clothing” or “apparel”, but I’m moving up in the rankings each and every day.
I think it’s very important to note that right now NO search engine can be “Paid Off”. It won’t work, and if it ever did, that search engine would have to say bye bye. No one wants or expects “fixed” search results from the major search engines. So paying them for ranking just isn’t going to work without the monetary clout of Donald Trump I would venture.
Any other opinions/thoughts on website marketing? I was NOT trying to sell Glen’s book for him. I just wanted to substantiate that it IS possible to have high ranking for several years in a row. That’s all.
To expand on ianzin’s point 4, I just entered the terms “auto wax” (surely, just as logical a term as “car wax”) into Google, and 5-star shine wasn’t the first hit. Nor was it on the first page, nor even the first 30 pages. I gave up after 30 pages, because I realized that by that point, I was getting less than half of my hits relating to auto wax any more.