Today we're talking with Tim Jahn, the creative force behind Beyond The Pedway, a weekly online video series that explores Chicago-based entrepre......
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When people talk about getting found online or their ranking, they're talking about whether their web site can be found when someone types in a word(s) in Google, Yahoo, or other search engines. This can make the difference between consumers knowing you exist and wanting to learn more about you, or never knowing you even have a web site (much less a store). One of the processes to make this happen is called search engine marketing.
According to the Wiki definition, search engine marketing, or SEM, is a set of marketing methods to increase the visibility of a web site in search engine results pages. The three main methods are:
- Search engine optimization: attempts to improve rankings for relevant keywords in search results by improving a web site's structure, content, and relevant backlink count.
- Pay per click: advertising uses sponsored search engine listings to drive traffic to a web site. The advertiser bids for search terms, and the search engine ranks ads based on a competitive auction as well as other factors.
Paid inclusion: can provide a guarantee that the web site is included in the search engine's natural listings. However, as of 2006 the leading search engine, Google, does not offer this service.
As I was conducting research on this subject, I discovered many definitions and articles didn't give tips on what most people miss with their own search engine marketing. Here are 15 items I suggest looking into (Part 1 features the first 8 items):
- A robots.txt page needs to be created – this is your invitation to be crawled by search engine spiders.
- Don't have duplicate content on different pages. This can be deemed as spamming and can get you banned from the search engines altogether.
- Do not make cookies mandatory on your web site or eStore. (Unfortunately, we do this with one of the magazines I manage for subscription reasons.)
- Don't have dynamic URL's if you can help it. (Sometimes created when a database runs the back end of your web site. Look at the domain name address.)
- Do you have a 404 error page?
- Provide a site maps of your web site. This gives the spiders a guided tour of the content you feature.
- Do you have a lack of content on your pages? Be sure to have a consistent page theme with content that is both relevant to your site, as well as informative for your readers. Sounds simple, but many sites don't follow this tip.
- Do you have pages locked behind password access? Don't hide valuable content from search engines. If you do, this means people who are searching cannot find what they need from you (they'll find it from someone else).
