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Secrets To Search Engine Success
By Alexis Gutzman
April 17, 2000

Based on the evidence above, you might be easily convinced that the keyword "computers" is five times more valuable than the keyword "Pentium III," and that the keywords "cell phones" is 42 times more valuable than the keyword "Samsung 3500." However, do you really believe that a visitor (looking to buy a new computer), who is searching on the word "computers" is more likely to make a purchase than the one typing "Pentium III?" I doubt it. With cell phones it''s a no-brainer. If the visitor knows the model number of the phone he wants, he''s far more qualified to make a purchase, and far further into the buying cycle than a visitor who''s just typing cell phones.

Don''t you want the most qualified visitors? Don''t you want to pay as little as possible (in dollars and in energy) for your high search engine rankings? If so, then you should be putting more energy into selecting the right keywords and less energy into being ranked highly for the most general keywords that describe what you sell. Does anyone looking for a portable CD player type "consumer electronics?" Yet merchants on GoTo.com are willing to pay up to $.68 per click for that keyword!

Location, Location, Location
You can waste a lot of time and money on being found for stupid or irrelevant keywords. One of the advantages of outsourcing your Web site rankings is that the company you choose may have some expertise in picking the right keywords. Then again, they may not.

The bottom line is that you need to know your site, know your products, and know what your customers want well enough in order to know what keywords your most qualified customers are probably searching on at search engines. Then, you need to take the time to communicate those keywords either to your marketing staff that''s working on your rankings, to the company you''ve selected to get you ranked, or to the search engines through appropriate text and META tags. There''s no shortcut to being seen in the right places.

Alexis D. Gutzman is an E-commerce Technology Author and Consultant and author of The HTML 4 Bible, FrontPage 2000 Answers!, and ColdFusion 4 for Dummies. She can be reached at agutzman@internet.com

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