By Guest Writer Paul J. Bruemmer

(October 19 2002) The 2002 holiday season is fast approaching, so it's time to ensure that your website ranks well in major search engines and directories. Why? To begin with, search portals get all the traffic. Six of the top ten U.S. properties shown on Nielsen-NetRatings for October are search sites (MSN, AOL, Yahoo!, Google, Lycos, About).

Secondly, Jupiter Research predicts $13.1 billion dollars in online sales for November-December, a figure that's 17 percent higher than last year's holiday sales. And a figure that represents 32 percent of online spending for the entire year!

The Jupiter report also suggested shoppers will start spending early this year, up to four weeks before Thanksgiving. So the time to ensure search engine visibility is now -- to take advantage of the holiday selling season.

Shoppers Use Search Engines

Studies of online buying patterns consistently reveal that the online sale begins with a search engine listing. Jupiter found that 55 percent of e-commerce transactions originated from a search engine link. The 10th GVU User Survey reported 84.8 percent of users find Web pages through search engines, and 85.7 percent of these are searching with intent to buy.

How good are your search engine listings? If you need better visibility, here's what you can do to ensure being found by online shoppers during the holiday season.

Fast Track to Search Engine Visibility

There are two ways to achieve good search engine visibility, one is through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and the other is through search engine optimization (SEO) editorial listings. If you need to jump-start your campaign, buy some paid listings for quick exposure.

PPC Advertising

You'll get instant traffic, but it can prove costly, depending on the popularity of your keywords. PPC campaigns also require copywriting expertise, constant tracking, and tweaking to ensure a decent ROI. Here's how to get started with a PPC campaign.

Keyword Research. Always start off with keyword analysis. You must be aware of what terms your audience uses to find you, then use these keywords in your text ad. You can perform keyword research on any search engine. The best source might be your Web logs. Don't neglect keyword research tools like WordTracker or the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool to help you brainstorm for profitable keywords. WordTracker offers a free trial.

Bidding. Keyword bidding usually starts at US$ 0.05 per click with a $50 minimum. Create an account online, write your ad, and voila -- you're listed. You only pay when people click. Sounds easy, right? But that's only half the battle You must have a good offer on the landing page to close the sale.

Copywriting. When writing your ad, editorial rules vary for acceptance. Google allows 25 characters in the title and 35 characters each in two lines of description. Overture limits the number of characters in the title to 40 and in the description to 190.

There are copywriting guidelines as well. Google doesn't like a generic call-to-action like "click here," so be specific. Overture likes to see the search term in the title and description, but doesn't like superlatives, exclamation points, and unnecessary caps. Both Overture and Google want your landing page to be relevant to the terms in your ad.

Testing. You must refine your ads by testing multiple ads simultaneously. You'll quickly learn which ads result in more clicks and drop poor performers. Testing should continue throughout your campaign to achieve your best CTR.

Budgeting. You can set a fixed monthly budget for your PPC campaign. If you exceed your budget before month end, your listings will drop and reappear next month. Compare revenues with and without PPC to see if additional expenditures are warranted.

SEO Editorial Listings

These listings take longer to appear, but are the most cost-effective and longer-lasting approach to search engine visibility. You can speed up your campaign with paid inclusion and trusted feed programs (some guarantee listing in 48 hours), as well as directory submissions.

Keyword Research. As stated above, it's important to identify the words that your target audience uses to find you. Be aware that most people use 2 to 5 words in a search query so be imaginative in your keyword analysis.

Copywriting. Use your strategic keyword phrases several times in your Web page copy, but don't overdo it and don't repeat the same word consecutively. Your most important text is that in your title tags and in the visible text at the top of each page. This is the first thing your audience reads so it must be compelling for customers and keyword-optimized for search engines.

Site Design Tips. Ensure that your site is legible with good navigation and consistency in layout. It should load quickly and permit users to find information easily. Navigation is particularly important for both customers and search engines. Search engine spiders can benefit from a site map (a list of links to all the important sections of your site). In sum, search engine spiders like keyword-rich text, navigation that's easy to crawl, and quality content that attracts in-bound links.

Directory Submissions. Submit first to the directories, namely Yahoo! and ODP (Open Directory Project). This is advantageous because search engine spiders crawl the Web to index sites from directory databases. Now that Yahoo! is displaying Google results, it might be possible to forgo a Yahoo! listing if you rank well in Google. LookSmart is also an option, but it has PPC pricing.

Paid Inclusion. Take advantage of paid inclusion programs to speed up visibility. You can submit pages selectively (those you want found), and you can remove and enter new pages as you see fit. Another advantage is 48-hour refreshes to reflect site changes, so you can monitor the impact on traffic and conversions as you update your site. Popular paid inclusion programs are offered by AllTheWeb, AltaVista, AskJeeves, Inktomi, and Lycos.

For example, Inktomi offers Search Submit for an annual fixed-fee depending on number of pages submitted. This provides good reach with partners like Overture, MSN, HotBot, LookSmart, About, Lycos and others. Inktomi also provides good reporting, with keyword and click-through data from sources like MSN.

Larger sites might consider trusted feeds (AltaVista, Inktomi, FAST, Lycos, etc.) rather than bidding for keyword position. Benefits include fixed pricing, consistent traffic, and low-involvement for the advertiser.

Manual Submissions. Submit manually to major search engines like AllTheWeb, AltaVista, AOL Search (through ODP), AskJeeves, Google, Lycos (through Fast) and MSN (through Inktomi or LookSmart). Each engine has its guidelines, which should be followed closely. Maintain a record of the dates and details of your submissions.

Verification. Monitor your listings, which should start appearing in four to six weeks. If you're not listed in six weeks, re-submit and check monthly until you can verify your listings.

Link Popularity. It's important to have a number of quality sites linked to yours. This is accomplished a lot easier if your site is well designed and displays relevant content. Seek links from sites offering information of interest to your target audience.

Track and Tweak Your Campaign

Track your costs for PPC and SEO editorial listings. As your campaign progresses, you'll find that many of your "free" listings will reduce the need for PPC listings. You might find that an Overture or Google PPC listing appears in addition to a regular editorial listing. So cancel the PPC ad, you don't need to appear twice. Once in place, the editorial listing can last forever. That's the advantage of SEO over PPC. It takes longer to establish, but is worth more over time.

About The Author

Paul J. Bruemmer is founder of trademarkSEO. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including ClickZ, MarketingProfs, Marketing Today, WebProNews, SitePoint, SEO Today, SEO Consultants, MarcommWise, Pandia, B2B Interactive and Search Engine Guide.

TrademarkSEO is a search engine optimization firm based in Santa Ynez Valley, California and serves clients nationwide. His company provided search submission services to over 10,000 websites, including many of the most prominent names in American business.