Internet Marketing 101 EZeCom eCommerce Software

EZeCom^™ Powered by MAP eCommerce

Internet Marketing 101

There are two audiences that your website will cater to: 1) existing customers who are familiar with your brand and 2) new customers who have never heard of your brand. This EZeCom Communiqué focuses on the latter by providing valuable tips on leveraging search engines to optimize your chances of attracting a new customer to your website.

Step #1 - Define your top ten key words or phrases

A “key word” is a word used by a search engine in its search for relevant Web pages. Identify the ten words (or phrases) for which you would like your web site to rank highly whenever someone executes a search using these words (or phrases). Rank them in order of importance (e.g. the most important word (or phrase) is at the top of your key word list).

Tools like the Google Sandbox (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox) are extremely powerful at helping determine relevant words and/or phrases that people are actually searching for on-line.

Importance

Key Word (or phrase)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Step #2 - Use your key words within your website

The more often you use a key word on your Home Page, the higher your Home Page will be ranked by (most) search engines.

Revise your tag line text, categories, and product descriptions/model numbers to include your key words as appropriate. Repeat, within the tag line text, the most important key words as often as possible without diminishing the readability of the text. Additionally, use important key words in your web site title.

Note the repeated key word “Ford Diesel” in the following tag line text example:

Note the thoughtful text used to name the categories in the following example. The categories could have been simply named “Air induction,” “Discharge pipes,” “Electronics,” etc. However, the key phrase “Ford diesel” was added to the category name so that this key phrase would appear on the site more often.

Note the use of key words in the Home Page Title in the following example. The Home Page Title can be edited from the Administrator Home page in the EZeCom Admin Panel. Your Home Page Title should not be “Welcome to Insert Company Name Here.” In fact, we do not recommend using the word “welcome” in your Home Page Title or in your Tag Line Text.

Step #3 - Determine which search engines to submit your domain name to

For the most part, potential customers who have never heard of your business before will come to your site because they found your site listed in a search engine. While your internet marketing consultant will provide guidance on which search engines to submit to, it is our opinion that the current most important search engines are: AOL, AltaVista, AskJeeves, Excite, Google, GoTo (Overture), HotBot, Lycos, MSN, Netscape, and Yahoo. However, the nature of your product line might suggest that other search engines are more important to you. You can use sites like Search Engine Watch (http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156431) to help identify which search engines might be most valuable to driving traffic to your web site.

Step #4 - Submit your domain name to the desired search engines

Just because you have a web site doesn’t mean that someone will be able to find it by doing a search within a search engine. Most internet marketing consultants recommend submitting your site to the search engines on a monthly basis so that you can optimize relevancy and improve your rankings accordingly.

You have two primary options to submit your site: do it yourself, or hire someone to do it for you. If you want someone to do it for you, consider contacting an internet marketing specialist like Pro Boost (www.proboost.com). If you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars with advanced internet marketing support, you might consider the $99 package at World Submit (www.worldsubmit.com). This seems to be a good value for a monthly re-indexing.

Companies like Submit Express (www.submitexpress.com) provide tools that allow you to submit your web site to some (not all) search engines for free.

Submission to Google can be made at http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl.

Submission to MSN can be made at http://beta.search.msn.co.uk/docs/submit.aspx?gcs=1.

Submission to Yahoo can be made at http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html. Note you will have to create a Yahoo ID/PW to do so.

Step #5 - Identify which search engines have indexed your website

Even after submitting your web site to a search engine, it may take 4-12 weeks before it is “indexed.” The easiest way to determine if a search engine has indexed your web site is to perform a search on your company name (used in your Home Page Title and in your Tag Line Text). If your web site does not appear in the results, then you are probably not yet indexed.

Step #6 – Determine your web site’s ranking for each of your key words

Every month, you should document your ranking resulting from a search of each of your key words on the most popular search engines. If you have hired an internet marketing consultant, ask them to send you a report each month showing the same.

Table 1 below is an example table containing actual MSN rankings, for real key words, from a real EZeCom client:

Date: 9-20-05

Client: RF Houtz & Son

URL: www.rfhoutzandson.com

Key Word

AOL

AltaVista

AskJ

Excite

Google

Lycos

MSN

Yahoo

Cub cadet used parts

2

Cub cadet mowers for sale

2

Cub cadet tractors for sale

1

Cub cadet zero turn

2

Cub cadet parts

11

Cub cadet for sale

5

Cub cadet tractors

4

Cub cadet mowers

4

Cub cadet mower

11

New cub cadet parts

6

Table 1

How good is the index ranking of the above site? In our opinion:

A “bad” index ranking is anything >50.
A “good” index ranking is 21-50.
A “great” index ranking is 11-20. This means your site is listed on the second page of results. Many companies spend tens of thousands of dollars with internet marketing firms and only achieve a “top 25 ranking.”
An “outstanding” index ranking is 1-10. This means that you are on the first page of results for the key word (or phrase) searched. Many companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with internet marketing firms to achieve a “top 10 ranking.”

As you can see, the performance of the above site is truly outstanding.

You have three options to determine your web site’s index rankings for identified key words:

If you have hired an internet marketing consultant, simply clarify that you expect them to provide you with a report, similar to the table above, each month.
Google offers a tool called “Google Rankings” (http://www.googlerankings.com/index.php) that you can use to determine a site’s rankings for a specific key word (or phrase) on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. If these three search engines are important to you, then this tool would allow you to complete these columns of the above table in less than ten minutes. You will need to sign up and get a API key (it is free) to use this tool, but it is painless. This is also a great tool to use to determine if your site has been indexed by these search engines.
Obviously, you can go to each search engine, query your key word, and find where you rank by flipping through the pages. This is reasonable if you are in the top 100, but there is probably little value in taking the time to determine if your site is #394 vs. #462.

Step #7 – Compare your web site’s current rankings vs. those of last month

If you have not created your own version of Table 1 above and established your web site’s “performance baseline,” then we recommend:

- Create your own Table 1, and determine and record your current rankings

- Submit your web site to the desired search engines for re-indexing

- Refrain from making any Tag Line Text changes to your web site for a period of 30 days (Google may take longer) after submission.

- Determine and record your new rankings on Table 1.

If you are satisfied with the performance of your web site regarding search engine rankings for your key words, congratulations. If not, proceed to step #8.

Step #8 – Revise your web site to achieve higher index rankings

Often, “fine-tuning” your web site is a give and take scenario. You might realize more traffic with a #2 ranking for one key word, and a #10+ ranking for all others. Or, you might realize more traffic from a more balanced result of a #10 ranking for 6 key words, and #20+ ranking for all other key words.

If you are working with an internet marketing consultant, be sure to clarify that you expect a report on what they are doing to improve your web site’s index rankings based on Table 1 results each month.

Step #9 – Re-submit your web site to the search engines

See step #4 above.

Step #10 – Wait at least 30 days before re-evaluating your web site’s index ranking

Avoid making any further changes to your Tag Line Text (and other rank-important areas such as your Home Page Title and Categories) until the search engines have had time to re-index your web site. In general, Yahoo and MSN are relatively fast to re-index (2-4 weeks). Google is notoriously slow (4-8 weeks or more). Right or wrong, many webmasters use Yahoo and MSN results to predict how their site will index in Google, thus bypassing Google’s slow index response time.

Remember that if you have a #2 ranking this month, you could be #11 next month even though you didn’t make any changes to your site. When your competition sees your enviable #2 ranking, they will likely react by making changes to their web site to displace you. This is the competitive nature of an on-line presence and its direct relationship to traffic and sales revenue. Luckily for you, you have EZeCom to efficiently make the changes you need to consistently achieve the index rankings you desire.