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Purchasing keyword ads on search engines
There is no question
whether or not you should enroll in Google's AdWords campaign
and purchase keywords. You should definitely do that
as soon as possible. In fact, you may want to start
your SEO project by doing this.
Some people are still
questioning Yahoo! (and I personally think you can
hold off on purchasing Yahoo ads until your budget grows a little).
This is
supported by a
recent research paper on search engines: (pdf, page 15):
"When looking at
sponsored link overlap, it makes sense to focus on Google and Yahoo! and as they supply sponsored links to the majority of search
engines on the Web, including MSN and Ask.com. The study found
Yahoo! returned 34,306 sponsored links across the
12,570 queries while Google returned 30,194 sponsored
links. However, the majority of those were unique to
each engine".
When
purchasing keywords, make sure to try a few different
combinations and compare their performance.
For
quicker results,
use this
free tool
provided by Google to select the most appropriate
keywords.
Purchasing links
My clients often ask me
if I recommend purchasing links, i.e. listings in
various online directories or industry portals. My
answer to this is 'Yes', provided these directories
and portals are highly RELEVANT to your field of
expertise. It goes without saying that if you can
get listed in such directories free of charge, then
you should definitely do that. But the reality is such
that large reputable online directories make money by
selling advertising space, i.e. links and banner ads,
for the most part.
When purchasing links,
make sure to research the target advertising medium
properly, i.e. their target audience, number of unique
visitors per months, number of registered users (who
opted in to receive email newsletters and
announcements), etc. Many portals have varied
pricing options for various various pages and various
types of links.
If you are a technology
company, opt for listings in the 'Articles' or
'Technology News' sections. These listings are usually
cheaper than 'New Products', but they allow you to
promote your R&D superiority and establish 'mind
ownership', which are the two most important
prerequisites for successful sales.
THE most important
directory to be listed in is undoubtedly the
Open
Development Project (ODP). This is a free
non-for-profit directory maintained by human editors
who volunteer their time; these editors review new
websites manually, following a strict code of rules.
Quality is very important to this directory. Not
everyone can become an editor. In fact, the selection
criteria for
becoming an ODP editor is very strict. Not
surprisingly, not every website gets listed there, but
only sites that pass the ODP quality control. Why is
this directory so important? Apart from being one of
the best and largest online directories, the ODP is
important because it is used by
Google as its database resource.
When submitting your site
to the ODP, follow these simple rules:
-
Review the
ODP
submission guidelines carefully and make sure to
follow them 100%.
-
Make sure to select ONE
most appropriate category for your listing. Check a
number of paths to arrive at the most appropriate one.
Check to see where your competitors are listed (but do
not follow their mistakes). For example, for my
consultancy, I decided to select the following
category:
Top:
Business:
Marketing and Advertising:
Internet Marketing: Consulting
(56) ,
as opposed to also
possible
Top:
Computers:
Internet:
Web Design and Development:
Promotion: Search Engine Optimization Firms
The main reason I
selected 'Internet Marketing Consulting' as my main
category is because the range of services I provide
really belong to 'Internet Marketing' (not only search
engine optimization). The second reason I did not
select 'Search Engine Optimization Firms' is because I
did not want my listing to be lost in the ocean of
1232 other SEO firms (compare this with 56 listings
under 'Internet Marketing', wherein mine appears as
the very first one, given that my name starts with an
'a'). This is the type of reasoning you may want to
exercise when deciding on your dmoz category.
Now, once you have
selected your dmoz category, write it down.
Ideally, you would want to use this terminology for
your META tags (keywords and description,
primarily). In my case, I should include 'internet
marketing consulting' as the last item in my keyword
list and preferably as part of my description
sentence. Ideally, I should also optimize a few pages
for this particular keyword. I think you have already
guessed why this is a good SEO technique to use
(although not a requirement by any means): search
engines use directories like dmoz, which means that
they also follow the same semantic hierarchies used to
classify information (like all traditional
dictionaries and encyclopedias do). Although search
engines are able to "understand" synonyms, they
definitely like to "see" a 100% match.
Please note that using
dmoz category terminology for META tags and on-page
optimization is not an 'official' SEO rule. In fact,
don't be surprised if you never come across this
technique again. This is something I happened to
notice while working on my own websites.
Do not forget to
submit listings in local and regional directories.
These listings might not result in sales, but they
will greatly help boost your SEO ranking (link
popularity). Here again, only select appropriate
directories. Having unrelated links will DILUTE your
link popularity and may actually lower your
ranking.
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Purchasing webinars, demos, and surveys
Note from the
Ottawa editor
If there
are specific Web Marketing and Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) topics that you would like me to
discuss in this newsletter, please do not hesitate
to
drop me a line.
For
related Web Marketing and SEO information, browse
through the Resources
section on this site.
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Anna
Tulchinsky 
