7 Step to Get Your Site in the Right Results

If the Internet were a mall, Google would be the biggest department store and the Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Ask department stores would be the smaller stores in between. But a mall is more than just its department stores: You can also shop in dozens of specialty stores, food venues, merchant carts, and so on. In this chapter, you meet the specialty stores of searching, the vertical engines, and find out how to make sure your product (your Web site) displays on those stores’ shelves.

1.Seeking Traffic, Not Ranking

First, a couple of reminders are in order. Your search-engine-optimization efforts, if done well, can earn your site a higher ranking in search results pages. However, do not confuse the means with the end. Keep in mind your real goal — getting lots and lots of people to visit your Web site. What you really want to do is drive more Web traffic your way, and ranking represents just one means for achieving that end. In this chapter, you discover another reason to set your sights on traffic rather than ranking — technological advances (namely behavioral targeting and personalization) are causing ranking to become less important.

2.Avoiding Spam

In the search engine world, cheating is known as spam. Spam involves deliberately building Web pages that try to trick a search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant, or poor-quality search results. It’s not only unethical, but can also get your Web site removed from an index entirely, so you definitely want to avoid it.

A note about spam: Spam is largely based on perception. When you get e-mail that you do not want, you consider it spam even though you might have opted to receive emails from that company. However, if you’re planning a trip and get e-mail about your travel destination, you don’t think that e-mail is spam, even if it was unsolicited. Your interest makes the e-mail not spam. Search engines do the same thing by targeting ads to your interest. This leads to more clicks and higher user satisfaction surrounding advertising.

3.Understanding Behavioral Search Impact on Ranking 

Search engines use a technique called behavioral search to customize a results page based on the user’s previous search behavior. Behavioral targeting basically tracks the searches you’ve run and adjusts new search results to include listings the search engine assumes will interest you based on your recent and past searches. It doesn’t replace all of the results you’d normally get with a regular search, but it may throw in a few extra ones it thinks would be useful to you.

Search engines can individually customize search results based on the user’s:

 ✦ Recent search behavior ✦ Location ✦ Web history ✦ Demographic information ✦ Community

4.Using Verticals to Rank

Getting into a vertical of a general search engine (like Google, Yahoo!, and Live Search) is fairly simple and requires little extra work. Ranking is another story. Ranking in a vertical is a lot like ranking in a general search engine. In order to optimize images, video, shopping, news, blogs, and RSS feeds, you must tailor your listing so that certain attributes are even more specific. In the next few sections, we highlight the most important attributes for ranking in each vertical.

5.Showing Up in Local Search Results 

Getting your site into the local engines has another benefit. The traffic for local terms in a broad-base engine (such as Google) far outweighs any sort of search volume in a local-only search engine. Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search are the first stop for a consumer in search of a solution. However, listing your business in the local search engines also ensures that your site shows up for general searches that include geo-targeting (search queries that contain a city, ZIP code, or other geographic term). For example, if you have a florist’s shop in the Bronx, your shop’s Web site would come up when someone searches for [Bronx florist].

6.Getting into local search results

Much like their main search index, Google Local is the most popular local vertical out there. Submitting your site to Google Local enables you to show up for local queries, appear on Google Maps for searches there, and of course, appear for relevant general queries via blended search when Google detects that a local result is appropriate. 

Here is a step-by-step guide to getting your site listed in Google Local:

1. Check Google Local (local.google.com) to see if your business is already listed. Search for your company name or type of business, followed by a space and your city or ZIP code. 

2. If your listing isn’t there yet, go to https://www.google.com/ local/add/login. 

3. Sign in to your Google account.  If you have ever signed up for a Gmail or iGoogle account, you can enter that e-mail address and password. If you don’t have an account yet, choose Create a New Google Account and sign up for free. 

4. Submit your free business listing by following the online instructions.  

You can specify your hours of operation, payment options you accept, and descriptive text. Click Add Another Category and choose up to five categories for your business — these help people find your business when searching, so be sure to choose well. 

5. Select a verification method, either by 

• Phone (immediate), or 

• Postal mail (within two weeks)

7. Signing up for paid ads in the various search engines 

 Your best bet for the widest reach when you’re getting started with PPC ads is to advertise on one of the three larger engines. Keep in mind that for the most visibility possible, you should probably advertise on as many as you can. In this section, we break PPC ads down for you in terms of how to buy on each of the engines, how much you’ll be paying, and who is going to see your ad.I probably recommend Adwords.Google AdWords( adwords.google.com) is Google’s paid search program. It lets you create your own ads, choose your keyword phrases, set your maximum bid price, and specify a budget. If you’re having trouble creating ads, Google has a program to help you create and target your ads. It then matches your ads to the right audience within its network, and you pay only when your ad is clicked. How much you pay varies greatly depending on the keyword because competition drives the bid price