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By Scott Buresh
Increasing numbers of companies
are recognizing the importance of high search engine
positions as part of their overall marketing strategy.
Unfortunately, many do not recognize that search engine
marketing is an ongoing process, rather than a one-time
"quick fix". Protecting high search engine
positions, once attained, is critical to the ongoing
success of any search engine marketing initiative.
It is also important to approach your monitoring efforts
with a solid strategy and a proper mindset. The following
five tips can help.
1. Treat your search engine
positions as a portfolio.
Search engine management is an inexact science. Typically,
the first several months of a campaign (especially
if the site is monitored and adjusted for maximum
effect) will show a steady upward trend. At some point,
the increases in search engine positions begin to
level off and the campaign reaches the "monitoring
and protection" phase. In this phase, as with
a stock portfolio, it is important not to worry about
the short-term ups and downs, as they are inevitable.
It is, however, extremely important to measure the
long-term trends. You would not consistently judge
your stock portfolio performance based solely upon
comparing the present month to the last- you would
base your judgement upon how the portfolio performed
over a long period of time. Your search engine positions
are no different. Unless you have a system in place
to chart your overall performance each month (such
as creating an ongoing monthly chart of your overall
number of "top 50 positions" or "top
three pages"), you cannot determine whether the
value of your "portfolio" is trending upward
or downward.
2. Monitor your search
engine positions on a monthly basis.
Changes in the search engine landscape are frequent
and numerous, and any number of them can have an influence
(positive or negative) on your month-to-month positions.
Individual search engines often make subtle tweaks
to their algorithms that can improve or degrade some
of your rankings. In addition, most engines have several
different sets of data (for example, Google has www2.google.com
and www3.google.com). These different data sets are
all in different stages of "freshness",
and your search engine positions can sometimes vary
widely based upon the one that is currently in use.
In addition, your competitors may undertake search
engine initiatives of their own, pushing some of your
positions lower, or lose positions themselves, pulling
your positions higher. For whatever reason, monthly
changes are inevitable. However, it is much more desirable
to proactively discover a large monthly loss in search
engine positions as it occurs rather than accidentally
discovering it sometime later as a result of lost
sales. By taking the time each month to monitor your
positions and react to unexpected losses you are protecting
your initial investment (whether it was time, money,
or both). In addition, monitoring allows you to discover
areas in which you can improve your search engine
positions, and then to track the effectiveness of
the initiatives you undertake to do so.
3. Monitor the engines
that are currently popular.
A common mistake that people make when monitoring
their search engine positions is including the wrong
engines in their analysis. The top ten search engines
account for the vast majority of search engine traffic
(studies vary from between 85 and 98 percent). However,
the top ten search engines can change on a monthly
basis. A search engine campaign that was launched
just a few years ago may have targeted engines such
as Excite, DirectHit, or iWon (which have slipped
out of fashion) while ignoring Google and AskJeeves
(which have seen dramatic increases in popularity).
This illustrates the importance of keeping abreast
of the most recent search engine popularity figures
and basing your monitoring strategies on engines that
people are using in the present, not the engines that
people were using when you launched the initiative
to improve your search engine positions.
For a recent list of the most popular engines, see
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html.
4. Look for big losses on any particular engine.
As mentioned above, it is fairly common to see a wide
range of losses and gains in any given month, which
tend (on average) to equal out. However, a large downward
shift in all of your search engine positions on any
one engine bears some very close scrutiny. In some
cases, a search engine "spider" (the programs
that search engines use to index web pages) may encounter
problems at your site. These could include recent
changes to the code that confused the spider (such
as the addition of a large block of javascript), a
subtle but disastrous change in the navigational structure,
or an attempted spider visit while your site was temporarily
down. In other cases, an individual search engine
may extensively overhaul its ranking algorithm, causing
most of your site to be deemed less relevant (and
if the engine is one of the most popular, some fairly
extensive site changes may be needed to reestablish
your lost search engine positions). In still other
cases, a search engine that relies primarily on another
engine for their results (such as MSN or AOL) will
suddenly shift alliances (a recent, stunning example
was the switchover of Yahoo to displaying pure Google
results). Of course, the first step toward correcting
any of these scenarios is to be aware of the problem
through careful monitoring of your search engine positions.
5. Look for big losses
across a variety of engines for a particular keyphrase.
It is also important to make certain that you haven't
lost your search engine positions on a variety of
engines for any particular keyphrase (or set of keyphrases).
Such a loss can indicate that a page of your site
has suddenly become inaccessible to most search engine
spiders. It could also indicate that there was a sudden
large increase in competition for that particular
phrase (and that you should take steps to regain lost
ground). Keyphrases are the building blocks of search
engine campaigns, so be sure to pay them individual
attention when monitoring your search engine positions.
Conclusion
If you have taken the time and energy (and/or money)
to initiate a search engine marketing campaign, it
is crucial that you protect this investment by regularly
and objectively monitoring your search engine positions.
Following the five tips above can help ensure the
long-term success of your search engine optimization
campaign. For the volumes of motivated prospects that
search engines can bring to your site, it is certainly
worth the effort.
© Medium Blue 2007
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