By Christian Whiting
Since search engines are the first stop for people on theInternet looking for goods or services, the position yourwebsite appears in search results is an important factor. Ifyour URL shows up far down the results list, the chances of theconsumer never finding you increase incrementally.
Once you achieve a high search engine position, it is essentialthat you make sure you maintain the high ranking you have workedso hard to achieve.
This means you must come up with a strategy create a searchengine position report to monitor your search engines positions.This strategy is crucial to the success of any marketingcampaign. Think of your search engine positions as your onlineportfolio. Would you let your stock portfolio be ruled by chanceand market fluctuations, or would you keep close tabs on yourstocks so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This isthe way you must consider your search engines positions.
Be aware that at first, after you have launched your searchengine campaign and done all the right things to increase yourrankings, you will most likely see a continual upward climb.What you need to be on the lookout for is the moment that upwardclimb reaches a plateau. When this happens, your search engineposition campaign moves into stage two, the monitoring andprotecting stage.
In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-termfluctuations in your positions that you will see in your searchengine postion report. These are similar to the subtle risingand falling of stocks in a portfolio. Short-term movement is anintegral part of the whole process. It's the long-term changesthat you must watch for and prepare to act on immediately.
Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions isimperative. The way in which search engines rank websites maychange at the drop of hat. If you are unaware of these changes -many of which are subtle yet can be deadly to your ranking -your position may drop to the bottom of the list before you canget your bearings. To prevent this kind of precipitous drop, youmust create a system to monitor your positions on a monthlybasis.
Devise a search engine position report to chart to keep tabs onyour top ranking positions or your top pages, and make sure towatch "the market" closely.
Each search engine uses a formula to compute website rankings.When a search engine changes this formula in any way, it mayraise or lower your ranking. Some search engines use a number ofdifferent formulas, rotating them so that a formula doesn'tbecome overused or outdated. Depending on which formula is beingapplied, your search engine position may suddenly drop or risein rank significantly. Therefore, you must check your positionsfrequently in order to catch when a search engine changesformulas and what effect it has on your positions.
You must also deal with your competition - a crucial factor youmust always be vigilant about. Your competitor's position maysuddenly rise, automatically lowering your position. Or theirposition may drop, pushing your position higher. Each month,expect position changes due to the continual changes that areoccurring in your competitor's position, and be prepared toadjust your marketing strategy to compensate for decreasedrankings.
Monitoring these fluctuations will also give you vitalinformation about how to improve your website to increase yourposition in search results.
Of course, you must discern what the most popular search enginesare in order for your monitoring efforts to be effective. Rightnow, there are ten popular search engines that direct most ofInternet traffic to your sites. The challenge you face is thatthese top ten may change from month to month.
This means that your must not only monitor your search enginepositions, but you must also keep track of the rankingpopularity of the search engines you are monitoring. Find outwhich search engines people use most frequently every month andbe sure to live in the present!
People are fickle about their favorite search engines, and ittakes constant vigilance to follow their dalliances. The searchengines they loved when you first launched your campaign may beold news in the next few months. You must adjust your list ofengines according to the whims of the Internet users. Check outhttp://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html for acurrent list of website favorites.
Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of yourpositions in all search engines. This is not the same as monthlyfluctuations - this is a neon red warning sign! It could mean anumber of different things. It all your search engine positionshave plummeted, it may indicate that search engines spiders -those sneaky programs that seek out your site and rank theirpositions - have found some type of problem with your website.If you have recently changed the code, for instance, the spidermay become utterly confused and consequently drop your positionsdisastrously. If a spider creeps up on your website when it isdown for adjustments or changes, you may actually disappear froma search engine index entirely.
Or a search engine may drastically change its formula, andsuddenly all of your website come up as irrelevant. If thatsearch engine is a current favorite, it may create a dominoeffect, causing all of your position to drop in all searchengines.
Some search engines rely on the results from other searchengines, and it is vital that you know which engines these areand keep track of all the engines they influence. The biggestproblem here is that search engines will sometimes changeaffiliations, and this can create a major shift in the geographyof the Internet. For example, recently Yahoo decided to displayonly results gleaned from Google. So you must not only monitoryour own positions, but you must keep abreast of seismic shiftsin the landscape of the Internet as a whole.
Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are thefoundation bricks of the entire search engine system, and theydemand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts. If youhave found that a number of your positions have plummeted, itmay mean that a page of your website has become invisible orinaccessible to search engine spiders. Or the competition forthat particular keyword or phrase has recently rocketed intoouter space. In either case, you must act quickly andefficiently to regain lost ground.
Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. If costsyou time and money on a continual basis. Protect this investmentas diligently as you would your financial portfolio. In the sameway, track your positions using your search engine positionreport from an objective perspective, and monitor your positionson a regular basis. Make sure your time and effort reap rewardsby keeping your eye on the big picture - your long-termmarketing campaign.
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