Time Warner is fielding offers for AOL, which has grabbed the attention of MSN, Google and Yahoo. So, what does it all mean in the search engine wars?

Horse and Buggy – AOL

In one of the great bum rushes of all time, Time Warner and AOL merged in 2000. Although it was actually AOL that purchased Time Warner, those in the search engine game snickered at the prospects of the new supposed media giant. Time Warner executives apparently failed to realize AOL was going to have major problems as surfers switched from dial-up to broadband Internet access. Well, Time Warner knows it now and is looking to sell.

As is well known, AOL has an antiquated business model since it dominates a dial-up market that is circling the proverbial drain. As DSL and cable broadband services become widespread, members are bailing on AOL at a prolific pace of millions a year. Time Warner appears to be seeking some way to get out of the loss of revenues, but who would buy a company that missed out on the evolutionary process?

Market Share

Despite the dire outlook, AOL still has tons of members. In fact, between 20 and 21 million people still use the platform. In a very smart move, AOL has also opened itself up to non-members, a move which has resulted in former subscribers continuing to use AOL.com even though they are now on broadband. These numbers represent a significant chunk of the domestic Internet search engine market.

While Yahoo has decided to try to gouge sites with Site Match instead of entering the AOL fray, MSN and Google consider it another part of their ongoing war. There are a variety of reasons for this war, foremost being Google’s penchant for swiping…err, hiring executives from Microsoft. With AOL, MSN has a chance to punch back.

Google provides search results to AOL. The Google Adwords advertisements are all over AOL. Hmmm…anyone see why MSN might want AOL? If MSN were to purchase AOL, you can be assured Google would be shown the proverbial door as soon as possible.

Keep an eye on this situation because it the proverbial catch-22 situation. How much is MSN willing to pay for the short term benefits of controlling AOL while knowing it is a turkey in the long term? More so, how much can Google drive up the price MSN is willing to pay? Will Google panic and buy a chunk of AOL to stop MSN? Whatever the result, it will make for good reading.

Whether you like it or not, MSN is finally getting off the mat in the search engine games. It is launching a pay-per-click service for MSN.com, which means Overture or whatever Yahoo is calling it these days is going to lose some luster. If MSN takes the plunge on AOL, it will pick up search engine market share and become a bigger player. With software sales lagging, many think MSN is looking to the Internet as a way to generate revenues.

If you start a business on the web, you will quickly learn that internet search engine placement is the name of the game. Without it, profits will be hard to come by.

Internet Search Engine Placement

There are a variety of ways to advertise your site on the web. Banner ads were popular in the late 90’s, but now are just a good way to throw away money since nobody clicks on them yet they charge by impressions. Email campaigns were also all the rage for a bit, but spam laws are so broad that you can break them without even knowing it. Internet search engine placement is the one marketing platform that has and will always work.


Admittedly, internet search engine placement is a vague term. For some people, it refers to buying link placement on pay-per-click search engines such as Google Adwords, Overture or the new paid platform of MSN. For others, search engine placement is all about optimizing a site to get top rankings in the natural listings for Google, Yahoo and MSN. In truth, internet search engine placement encompasses both of these platforms.

Pay-per-click search engine placement is a popular method for obtaining immediate traffic to a site. The advantage of this approach is, well, you immediately get traffic. Less obvious, however, is the fact you can test the content of your site to see if it converts. If you find the conversion rate of visitors to sales is to low, you can tweak the site and try again till you find a good approach. The downside to pay-per-click search engines is two fold. You are paying for the traffic, which means you must monitor your return on investment. Second, you run the risk of people clicking on your links with no intention of buying, a concept known as click fraud. Perhaps 20 to 30 percent of all clicks fall in this category.

Search engine optimization is extremely popular because high rankings in the natural listings in the search engines produce massive amounts of free traffic. For instance, one our personal finance sites will receive upwards of one million visitors a month during the tax season with the obvious benefits. The downside to optimization is it can take three months to see the first rankings on MSN and six months to a year for the same on Google. Obviously, the process involves a lot of patience and hard work, but ultimately is very worth the effort.

Internet search engine placement is all about combining these two approaches, not picking one over the other. Since it takes time to see results from optimization, every campaign should start with a pay-per-click effort. As rankings begin to appear, the corresponding ads in the pay-per-click accounts are simply turned off. This allows you to cover your industry from the start while gradually phasing out your paid marketing positions. This is a time tested approach that always works.

Okay, your site is up and published. The question now becomes, “How do I get traffic to the site?” To obtain immediate traffic, you can use a pay-per-click campaign, but the real focus should be on search engine optimization. SEO is a better long-term solution because it produces free traffic, which maximizes profit potential. Linking is a key aspect to achieving top rankings in search engines.

Link Popularity

Link popularity is one of the key factors search engines use in determining where to place sites in search results. Generally, the more links pointing to your site, the more “popular” your site is. The more popular, the higher the site appears in search results.

Obtaining Links

To build links, you can hire a seo firm such as Marketing Titan. If you prefer to have a go at it yourself, always keep in mind you should only trade links with sites that are relevant to the subject of yours. A real estate site should not trade links with a casino site.

The first link building method involves reciprocal link exchanges. Essentially, you agree to post a link on your site if the other party does the same for you. Make sure you check back with the site each month to verify your link is still on their site.

The second way to build links is to submit to directories. Directories are looking to build content by listing relevant sites in categories. Simply search for “directories + your site subject” and start submitting. Read the submission rules closely, as they may want a reciprocal link on your site.

Publishing articles is an excellent alternative to trading links. There are loads of sites looking for article content. Simply search for “your subject article + submit” and a list should appear. When you create the articles, make sure to include a byline with a link to your site. When other sites publish the article, the byline will count as a link to your site.
Make absolutely sure that you read each sites article submission guidelines. They often have very specific requirements.

Checking Links

So, how do you determine how many links point to a site? You can type a link qualifier into each major search engine. Following is an example for BusinessTaxRecovery.com:

Google

“link:www.businesstaxrecovery.com”

Yahoo

“link:http://www.businesstaxrecovery.com”

MSN

“link:www.businesstaxrecovery.com”

Keep in mind the Internet is huge and it will take a few weeks for the search engines to find the links. Also, Google typically will only show links from sites that it considers particularly relevant. Don’t get concerned if Yahoo shows 200 links, but Google only shows 30.

As the number of links grows, your site will start moving up the listings. Your site will typically move up first on MSN, then Yahoo and finally Google. Although the process can be frustratingly slow, it will pay off when free traffic starts to hit the site.

That’s it. Your site is up, running and ready to move up the listings. If you followed each step outlined in these articles, you are way ahead of competitors. Let the good times roll.

• How to Start a Web Site
• Domain Names – Purchase
• Accept Credit Cards – Internet
• Local Businesses and Web Sites
• Web Hosting for E-Commerce Sites
• How To Start An Internet Business – The First Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Second Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Third Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Fourth Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Fifth Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Sixth Step

Okay, you have a domain name, layout and content. Now we get to a step that will go a long way to determining how the site will rank. Yes, we are going to focus on two infamous topics, meta tags and keyword density.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are html code blocks that “tell” a search engine what is on a particular site page. Meta tags are not visible on the pages of your site, but search engine robots focus on them. Three different meta tags should appear on each page of your site.

Meta Title

The meta title essentially acts as the title of the page. When you do a search on Google, the meta title is the first underlined text in each listing. The content of the meta title should include the keywords you want to push with the most important being listed first. Each word should be included no more than 2 times and the total word count should not exceed 13 words.

Meta Description

The meta description tag allows for an expansion of the meta title. Use short sentences to emphasize the who, what, why and where of your business. Make absolute sure that every keyword in your title also appears in your description.

One of the aggravating things about search engines is how they use meta descriptions. Most pick only certain sections of your description. When your link appears in the search results, the description may make little if any sense. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about it.

Meta Keywords

Historically, meta keywords were a very important factor in the ranking process. How times have changed. Google doesn’t even look at them, while MSN and Yahoo give them marginal value. You should still use them, if for no other reason then forcing you to focus on your keyword phrases when creating content.

Keyword Density

Keyword density simply refers to how often keywords appear in a page as a percentage of the total text. A few years back, it was common practice to cram and hide keywords all over a page. You probably remember seeing pages with thousands of keywords listed at the very bottom. This no longer works and is considered spamming by search engines.

Much like the meaning of life, the best keyword density percentage is a hotly debated topic. Theories and opinions ranged from 1.5 to as high as 20 percent. We recently ran a test with a page that only had a keyword phrase on it, thus representing a 100% keyword density. The only search engine that reacted was Yahoo, which listed it at number 1 for 25 days before dropping it. Notwithstanding this test, the simple fact is that nobody really knows the optimal density, except for programmers at the search engines. Rumor has it that the programmers are permanently hidden in secret labs in the Himalayas, so there isn’t much hope of getting any information from them.

Our experience is keyword density really doesn’t matter if you have flowing text on the page. The point of your site is to sell, so write copy that accomplishes that goal. Once you have completed the copy, modify it to make sure the important keywords appear at least once in the first paragraph. Do not force the keywords into sentences; just make sure they appear at least once. We have clients with number 1 rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN that have keyword densities ranging from .5 to 18.5 percent. Yes, these rankings are on keywords with lots of competition and traffic.

In Closing

In my opinion, meta tags and keyword density are mystified far too much. They are important factors, but the content on your pages is far more so. Be judicious with your content, pursue a targeted linking campaign and the rankings will follow.

• How to Start a Web Site
• Accept Credit Cards – Internet
• Local Businesses and Web Sites
• Web Hosting for E-Commerce Sites
• How To Start An Internet Business – The First Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Second Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Third Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Fourth Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Fifth Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Sixth Step

This step of how to start an Internet business involves the layout of your site. When organizing it, two audiences must be considered. Obviously, visitors to the site are the first audience. You must also keep in mind the second audience, search engine robots. Both audiences are extremely important and, fortunately, both want the same thing.

Lean, Mean, Fighting Layout

Your site needs to be clean and quick if you want to be successful. Slow, cluttered sites inevitably fail because visitors and spiders get distracted and leave before taking the action you want. Let’s take a closer look.

Visitors

The layout of your site should allow visitors to quickly find information and solutions. To achieve this, every page should be no more than two clicks from the home page. Have you ever been on a site where you have to hunt to find a particular page? Poor layouts are aggravating and hurt conversion rates.

Make things as easy as possible by interlinking between the site pages. Every page should have links to primary pages and as many other pages as possible. If you look at Marketing Titan, links to primary pages are listed across the top and bottom of each page. Links to specific services are always listed on the left hand side. You can easily negotiate the pages of the site. It may look like overkill, but make it as easy as possible for your clients to move around.

Spiders

Search engines use programs called “spiders” to surf the net and index sites. When a spider finds a page, it reads the code from top to bottom and left to right. If the code is clean, the spider will index the page and follow the links to the other pages of the site.

If the code is not clean, spiders stop indexing pages. If pages are not indexed, they do not appear in search engine results. What stops spiders? Following are the most common problems:

1. Frames – Don’t use them.

2. Dynamic Pages – Your pages need to be static. If they are dynamic, the spiders often will not index them because they aren’t sure of the content.

3. Bottlenecks – Make sure each page of your site links to every primary page at a minimum. You do not want a spider to get stuck on a page and miss key pages.

4. Bad URLs – A huge mistake is to put database parameters in the URL. The URL should contain only the domain name and keywords for the page. A good URL reads: http://www.marketingtitan.com/internet_marketing_services. A bad URL with parameters would read: http://www.marketingtitan.com/id#us57486&095783

5. Images – Don’t overuse images and don’t put text in images. Images slow down your site, so make them small and optimized. Robots do not read text inside of images, thus text needs to go outside of the images.

Evaluating The Layout

Once the site is designed, TEST IT! Surf the pages and see if you are able to flow through the site. Add internal links wherever possible. Finally, test the load times of your site on a 56k dial-up modem. If the site loads in under 20 seconds, you are headed in the correct direction.

Your site layout is important. Make sure it caters to the needs of the visitors, whether human or spider.

• How to Start a Web Site
• Accept Credit Cards – Internet
• Local Businesses and Web Sites
• Web Hosting for E-Commerce Sites
• How To Start An Internet Business – The First Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Second Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Third Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Fourth Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Fifth Step
• How To Start An Internet Business – The Sixth Step