User generated content, social networks and virtual media are rapidly replacing the way how traditional marketing works. And companies have already begun using the bandwagon of social media and SEM (search Engines marketing), to reach their niche business. As they are highely interactive and sensitive in nature, its equally important to understand and use them effectively. Now, the next step in the evolution to market directly is to learn how these search engines works.
There is no doubt that Google is the leader in search today, however Yahoo, MSN and AOL contribute up to 40% of the search engine market. It’s a known fact that, search engines display only top ten results in their first page and most searchers tend to click on the top few results. As pointed by Aaron Wall in SEO basics, “if you rank at the top business is good, but if you are on the second or third page you might only get 1% of the search traffic that the top ranked site gets”. Hence, it’s very important to get the basics right before marketing online. He also identifies the two most powerful aspects of search engine marketing:
• Users type what they want to find into search boxes, making search engines the most precisely targeted marketing medium in the history of the world.
• Gaining traction in the search results allows small business to compete with large corporations, with much ease.
Unlike traditional medium online is very transitory in nature, every five minutes there is something new and search engine factors changes constantly, But there are few things about search engines that are basic.
Below listed are some of the findamental SEO basics about popular search engins, pointed out by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin in their book “Search Engine Optimization an hour a day”.
Google Basics
URL www.google.com
Percent of search traffic 58.4%
Primary results Robot crawler
Organic listing also influenced by Open directory
Ways to submit your site XML site map, or wait for the robot to find the site
Keep an eye on Google analytics
Yahoo Basics
URL www.yahoo.com
Percent of search traffic 22.9%
Primary results Robot crawler
Organic listing also influenced by Yahoo! directory
Ways to submit your site Paid submittal to Yahoo directory, XML site map, or wait for the robot to find the site
Keep an eye on Yahoo! Go, Alibaba
MSN Basics
URL www.yahoo.com
Percent of search traffic 22.9%
Primary results Robot crawler
Organic listing also influenced by Open directory
Ways to submit your site Submit URL form, XML site map, or wait for the robot to find the site
Keep an eye on Major acquisitions and Gatineau web analytics
AOL Basics
URL www.aol.com
Percent of search traffic 4.6%
Primary results Google results
Organic listing also influenced by None
Ways to submit your site Get indexed through Google
Keep an eye on Future partnership deals
There are radically different opinions about these search engines, their algorithm and raking factors. However, some elements that strongly influence organic ranking include:
- HTML page titles, description and keywords
- Page content in compliance with the metas and over all theme of the page
- Relevant alt text that support the web content
- Number of inbound links and
- The number of relevant outbound links referring to the web page
- Easy navigation and image sizing
- Site authority, Age and
- Transparency also influences the organic ranking.
It’s true that it takes more efforts to rank well in organic search results. But, its low cost, high relevancy and high conversion rates make SEO an ideal marketing tool for almost any business. Since it’s an ever changing medium it’s very important to track what’s new in the online world to stay on “TOP”.
