Studies show that the vast majority of all web users arrive at any particular website through the use of a search engine. That being said, the inner-workings of search engines are very complex and busy business people can have difficulty finding the time to get up to speed on how to use search engines to their advantage. The purpose of this article is to give an executive summary of how search engines operate and how to get a website to appear in search results.

Dissecting the Search Results Page

There are two different ways that a website can appear on search engine results:

1. Pay Per Click (PPC) results appear in the sponsored results area which is generally on the very top and along the right side of the results page. Advertisers pay to have their links appear in that area through a bidding process.
2. Natural results appear in the main content area of the results page. Results in this area are determined by the search engine’s proprietary formula and cannot be purchased by advertisers.

I should also take this time to state that almost all search engine traffic comes through Google and Yahoo!. For 95% of websites in existence those are the only two search engines that matter right now.

How does Pay Per Click work?

Paid advertising through search engines is pretty strait forward. You bid a given amount for a specified keyword or phrase. When someone searches for one of your keywords or phrases in the search engine you are advertising on, your ad is displayed. If a user clicks on your listing to visit your website, you pay the search engine your bid price. Often one can set up a campaign and start seeing results in less than a day. Google and Yahoo! have excellent budgeting tools that allow the advertiser to closely control their budget. Results (web traffic, leads, or sales) can easily be tied to your spending which makes the bean-counters in all of us happy.

How do you run a Pay Per Click campaign?

1. Set up an advertising account with Google or Yahoo!.
2. Craft a list of desired search keywords and phrases and ad copy to be displayed.
3. Determine a workable testing budget, and start bidding based on that budget.
4. Watch the campaign results and make adjustments as necessary.

How are natural results chosen?

Search engines maintain their own proprietary formula for determining the order that natural search results are displayed. The exact formulas are very closely held secrets, however there are a two factors that experts agree the formulas utilize:

A) Website Content The most important thing in getting a website to appear early in search engine results is to have quality content about the given search phrase on the website. Content quality can be determined by volume, age, the search engine’s ease in reading the content into it’s database, format, organization, etc. It’s as simple as this…if you want to have your website to show up when users search for the term “frogs”, you better have a lot of good information on your site about frogs. Search engines make money by selling adverting space. The more people find what they are looking for using a given search engine, the more they will use that engine and the more advertising the search engine can sell. Therefore if you want the search engine to choose your site to come up for “frogs” then you need to put yourself in the user’s shoes and make sure that your site is the site they would want to find when they search for “frogs”.

B) External links to your site One of the best ways for search engines to determine (in an automated format) the quality level of your content is to see how many other websites are linking to yours. All other things being the same, if your frog website has 2 websites linking to it and your competitor’s site has 200 websites linking to it, your competitor’s site will come up before yours.

How do you get your site to rank higher in natural search engine results?

Ah that the rub isn’t it? The process of working to get a website to rank higher in natural results is know as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Unlike PPC, an SEO campaign is a long-term process that can take a long time to gain traction and is difficult to track spending to traffic/leads/sales. Of course, the upside is that you are not paying for traffic on an individual visitor basis. That alone usually makes it a worthwhile effort. Due to the secrecy of search engine placement formulas there are a dizzying array of opinions about how an SEO campaign should be run. That being said, at the most basic level there are two things that all successful SEO campaigns should have in common:

A) Website Content Seeing that search engines place a premium on quality content, then part of any SEO campaign should be to provide quality content. This work could include-

• rebuilding the site so it is easier for search engines to read (using more text and less images/flash animation)
• adding fresh content with search phrases strategically placed
• setting up a schedule to constantly add new quality content (blogs can be an excellent way to achieve this)

B) External links to your site Seeing that it is agreed that search engines rate the quality of your content by the quality and number of websites that link to your site, it makes sense that a thorough SEO campaign would include an effort to recruit inbound links. There are a number of different ways to go about this which could include, valid participation on other website’s blogs/forums, press releases, offline marketing campaigns, participation in community based (Web 2.0) websites, etc.

SEM Diagram

Most successful SEM campaigns will utilize both the PPC and SEO model. I need to mention that this article is just the tip of the iceberg. It would be easy for me to develop each sentence in this article into another article. I have greatly simplified many concepts here so keep that in mind before you start running too fast with that newly sharpened pair of scissors. Please contact us if you have any questions or you would like to discuss what it might entail to have BP manage your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign.

The first decision you make about your Web site is critical – the developer you choose to design and construct your Web site can make or break the project’s success.

Before you begin your search process, it’s important to understand that there are different types of developers that offer different services in different price ranges. The custom web development industry breaks down into three categories. It’s important to keep in mind that each category has it’s purpose.  I am not proposing that any one category is better than others. What’s crucial to you is to determine which category is the best fit for your company.

1. 95% of Web developers are one-person shops. While these developers offer the least expensive option, they approach projects from a single, limited, often technical perspective.
2. 2.5% are mid-sized operations, typically a team of three to 10 experts (graphic designers, programmers, copywriters, marketing professionals, etc.). Developers in this range – including Bright Productions – offer a complete panel of services, plus a marketing focus.
3. 2.5% are large-scale companies, developing six-figure projects.

Here is a checklist that can help you determine whether the developer you’re interviewing is right for your needs.

• Can the developer offer a firm quotation rather than a broad, ballpark figure? (This assumes that your Web project is already well defined.)
• Is the developer’s proposal well written, detailed, and professionally presented? Does it address all the issues in your RFP?
• Is the developer experienced? Is the firm a full-time operation with a substantial, successful track record?
• Can the developer provide referrals, references, and testimonials?
• Does the developer approach your project from a strategic marketing perspective, and not strictly from a technical point of view?
• How does the developer handle unexpected problems? Will they resolve issues no matter what happens?
• What is the developer’s process – what are they doing when you’re not looking?
• Is there a single responsible party? Someone you can contact easily and quickly; who has authority to act; who understands your issues?
• Does the developer demand payment in full up front? (50% deposit is standard in the industry.)
• Will you own your site once the final invoice is paid? Will the developer give you all the source materials and release necessary copyrights to you?
• Can the developer host your site if you so desire (one-stop-shopping)?
• Does the developer have any special expertise in search engines or online marketing?  Are they certified by Google?