Even More Tips For Getting A Top 10 Search Engine Ranking… And The Secret For Keeping Your Competitors From Stealing Your Spot!

In the last issue of Marketing Tips, I spent some time discussing the 5 different options you have for getting your web site listed in the search engines. Just to make sure that we’re all on the same page, let’s quickly review…

1. Use A Free Submission Service: As you’ll recall, I do NOT recommend that you use a free submission service because they submit the exact same information to all of the search engines, destroying your chances of ever getting that top ranking position you deserve.

   Each search engine has a different rule book (a different set of "algorithms") that it uses to evaluate your web site – so submitting the SAME information to all of the search engines is pointless!

2. Use A Low-Cost Automated Submission Service: The only real difference between the low-cost automated submission services and the free submission services is that the low-cost ones will charge you about $40 to $80 to submit the same information to all of the search engines. Like I’ve already said, this is pointless! While your site may get submitted to as many as 900+ search engines, you’ll be lucky if it appears in the top 100 listings, never mind the top 10!
   
   
3. Do It Yourself Manually: If you have the time and the patience, this is one of the best ways to submit your web site to the search engines. You study the rules of each search engine and then visit each one individually to manually submit the information for each page you wish to have listed.
   
   Obviously, the two drawbacks to this strategy are that it can be a lot of work and there are no professionals looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re doing everything right. But if you have the time, it can be a good option.
   
   
4. Use A Professional Search Engine Consultant: The advantages of using a professional are obvious – you get the advice and assistance of experts who work hand-in-hand with you to make sure you get the top ranking position your web site needs. But the drawback to this strategy is equally obvious – the cost can be pretty high.
   
   
5. Use Submission Software: If you’re going to use software to submit your web site to the search engines, then I can’t stress enough the importance of making sure that it will prepare an individual submission form for each search engine you will be submitting to. Most of the software out there does the same thing the free submission services do, so it’s useless. The ONLY submission software that I recommend is SitePromoter.

Now this is why the e-mail started pouring in…

It seems that many of you had questions about whether or not the SitePromoter software submits your web site to the directories (i.e. Yahoo! and Looksmart)… some of you were skeptical about whether or not search engine submission software could actually get you a top ranking position when it does everything automatically… and MANY of you wrote to ask why we didn’t mention another highly regarded software, WebPosition Gold.

Knowing that for every person who e-mails me with questions like these, there are hundreds more of you who are silently wondering the same thing, I’ve decided to do two things in this article. First I want to clear up any confusion by answering your questions.

I know the sheer volume of information about search engines can be pretty overwhelming. So I’m going to do my best to condense things down into this one short, understandable article!

And second, as promised in the last issue of Marketing Tips, I’m going to explain how you can KEEP your top 10 position once you get it. (If you’re not careful, your position in the search engines can start to slide down the ranks, so you’ll want to pay close attention to this!)

Question #1:

"You talk about using submission software to get your web site listed in the search engines… but what about the directories like Yahoo! and Looksmart? They’re an important source of traffic, too!"

Answer:

Okay! You caught me… sort of. Directories and search engines are obviously different. Listings in directories are compiled and managed by human editors who manually process your submission. Search engines, on the other hand, use a "spider" to crawl the Web and analyze your site to decide where you’ll be listed.

Frequently, though, you’ll hear directories and search engines lumped together under the blanket term "search engines" – and that’s what I did. Sorry for the confusion!

The SitePromoter software does, in fact, submit your web site to the top 150 search engines AND directories – including the "biggies" like Yahoo! and Looksmart.

Question #2:

"If you don’t recommend free submission services… and you don’t recommend low-cost automated submission services… why would you recommend submission software? Won’t the software just produce the same poor results?"

Answer:

Like I mentioned in the last issue, I actually didn’t start recommending submission software until recently because YES – most submission software does exactly what the free and low-cost submission services do. They submit the exact same information to all of the search engines and directories.

Every search engine – and every directory – is different! So it stands to reason that if you want a top-ranking position, you can’t just give them all the same information. That would be like applying for the position of CEO at a Fortune 500 company with a general resume and cover letter that says something like "I could use the extra cash." It just isn’t going to work!

If you want to get the top-ranking position you deserve, then you need software that will prepare an individual submission form for each search engine and each directory. This is the ONLY way to make sure that each one gets the exact information it needs!

And there are only 3 ways to do this:

1. 1. Learn the rules of the search engines yourself and submit your web site manually to each one.
   2. Hire a professional.
   3. Use a submission software like SitePromoter.

If you have the time and inclination, then you can learn the rules of all the individual search engines and submit your site manually. Honestly, though, this is a pretty rough road to take. The search engines are changing their rules constantly, and if you’re relatively new to e-business it can be really confusing. Heck! I find it confusing sometimes…

But if you’re really committed, it CAN work. I just worry about steering you in this direction because of how easy it can be to make mistakes…

Hiring a professional is a good option too, though it can be expensive. The professionals live and breathe the search engines, so they know exactly what to "feed" each one to get you the top-ranking position you deserve.

Of course, at $600 to $900 per site, I know this won’t fit into many of your budgets. And that’s why I’ve pointed you in the direction of SitePromoter, software that was designed by the same search engine professionals that we use here at IMC.

This software is the quickest, easiest way to get the benefit of the professionals’ expertise and get the top-ranking position you need without being forced to learn the rules of each individual search engine… or pay really high consulting fees.

Question #3:

"But what about WebPosition Gold? Why do you recommend SitePromoter instead of WebPosition Gold for search engine submission?"

Answer:

Wow! Was I ever swamped with questions about the difference between WebPosition Gold and SitePromoter! I’m really glad to see that you all are doing your homework… So let me take a moment to explain the key difference between these two powerful tools.

First of all, let me tell you that I’m a BIG fan of WebPosition Gold. It’s a really powerful tool that I do recommend… just NOT for search engine submission! Yes, WebPosition Gold will submit your web site to the search engines, but only to about 10 or 15 of them. And it does not prepare an individual submission form for each engine!

SitePromoter, on the other hand, will submit your web site to the top 150 search engines using an individually prepared submission form for each one – so you’re guaranteed that each search engine and directory gets exactly what it needs for a top ranking!

You see, what WebPosition Gold is really good for is monitoring and maintaining your search engine position once you’ve secured your top 10 listing.

Know If Your Web Site Is Slipping In Rank – And If Your Competition
Is Sneaking Up From Behind…

Make no mistake, submitting your web site to the search engines is only half the battle! Next, you’ll need to turn your attention to monitoring and maintaining your position. You need to ensure that your competition doesn’t outrank you and that your site doesn’t begin slipping down the ranks! And this is where software like WebPosition Gold can come in really handy…

Monitoring your ranking in the top 10 search engines – for each page you’ve submitted and for each keyword you’ve submitted under – is almost impossible if you’re trying to do it all by yourself.

Let me explain by visually doing the math for you. This should help make things a bit clearer...

• Let’s say that you’re marketing 2 products.
• And let’s say that you want to maximize and monitor your ranking in the top 10 search engines.
• For each product, you have a list of 15 keywords and phrases you want to be listed under.

So this means that you have:

2 products X 15 keywords for each product X 10 search engines = 300 positions to monitor!

Yipe! Who has time to check 300 positions? I know I sure don’t! This would take days of effort, and you haven’t even done checks on where your competitors rank yet! But if you want the search engine traffic, you need to stay on top of your rankings and you need to know when your competition has outranked you so that you can take corrective action!

Really, the only solution to this is automation. And that’s what I highly recommend you use WebPosition Gold for.

WebPosition Gold will ensure that you don’t neglect your search engine positioning… and that you don’t lose this important source of traffic! It automatically generates reports that will show you exactly where your web site ranks in each search engine under specific keywords, keyword combinations, and search phrases, so you can make improvements, correct problems, and increase your web site's traffic.

Plus, it can save you hours of work every week by monitoring where your competitors are ranked in relation to you, alerting you of any problems.

If one of your web pages has been gradually slipping down the rankings, you can quickly identify the problem and correct it. Without WebPosition Gold’s powerful reports, you have no way of knowing a problem even exists… until your site traffic slows down and you start losing sales, that is!

Final Thoughts:

Look. If you are really serious about search engine positioning, then you should know that, together, SitePromoter and WebPosition Gold make a killer team that can dramatically increase your ranking. I highly recommend this software duo to anyone who wants to funnel traffic to their web site via the search engines.

It would be impossible for you to manually do the crucial marketing tasks that WebPosition Gold and SitePromoter do automatically – it would just take you far too long to be cost effective.

Sure you might be able to manually submit your web site to a handful of search engines? But 150? And give each one exactly what it needs? Plus, there’s no way you’ll convince me that you have time to monitor and maintain hundreds of different rankings and pages and still run a profitable business.

You know me and how strongly I believe in automating everything – leaving you free to grow your business and look after more profitable promotions. I don’t want you to get caught in the trap of running your business when you could be growing it!

(As a final note, if you'd like more information about either of these software, you can click here now to learn more about SitePromoter and click here now to learn more about WebPosition Gold.)