donni: July 2008 Archives

Utilizing online marketing as a strategy in boosting sales performance is not as simple as one might think. The accessibility of internet tools used in website optimization makes online marketing highly competitive and dynamic. Hence, if one is engaged in endorsing products and services in the web, then, keeping oneself updated with the latest tools and techniques is a must.

An effective online marketing campaign does not solely rely on a single SEO campaign, rather, it calls for an arsenal of various optimization techniques and link building strategies in order to be at the edge of the competition. To shed light on this matter, here are general tips to insure quality traffic and, eventually, sales increase in every online marketing campaign:

 1.)    A flourishing Internet marketing campaign may drive organic traffic to web pages, but it may also include the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages. This may imply an additional cost on the part of the company but it can definitely maximize the optimization process.

 2.)    Creating excellent web pages to engage and persuade visitors is an optimization in itself. The functionality and interactivity of a site keep viewers attention on the page which increases the possibility of an eventual service and product purchase. This would further mean that the site must be catchy without sacrificing its content and interactive features.

 3.)    Resolve technical problems that may block search engines from crawling and indexing those sites. Successful websites are SEO-friendly. This would mean a number of considerations like avoiding animations based on java, writing informative content, an organized sitemap planning, and an appropriate IP address, among others.

 4.)    Create "analytics" programs in order for site owners to measure their successes, and to enhance the site's conversion rate. Evaluating an optimized website is necessary as this will inform the owners and the developers on the site's strengths and weaknesses, making them prepared for the next SEO and link building campaign.

 Seomoz.org, a top-ranked SEO blog site, reports that: "Search marketers, in a twist of parody, receive only the slightest share of traffic from search engines." This would mean that their major sources of traffic are inbound links from other websites.

Undeniably, SEO can generate returns on investment. However, search engines are not compensated for organic search traffic, their algorithms are constantly reconfigured, and there is no assurance of continuous referrals. Due to this uncertainty, businesses that rely greatly on search engine traffic can bear major losses if search engines ceased to send visitors. Hence, it is believed to be a wise business practice for website operators to free themselves from total reliance on search engine traffic and venture on discovering fresh means to significantly drive traffic to their websites.

Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft are the leading search engines in global online marketing. Though it's a prevailing notion that Google is the first among these search engines, such issue has no place in this discussion as what will be tackled here is how the said internet tools index various sites in order for the latter to gain good rankings, notable traffic, and remarkable sales.  

The search results generated by these internet tools are aided by web crawlers also known as spiders. These software agents process data from the countless sites in the web. They create copies of visited web pages for eventual processing by search engines. This process is called "indexing" wherein pages are downloaded for fast search results.

            Initial stages of indexing include the listing of URLs which the spider subsequently crawls on or visits.  This list is termed as "seeds". As the spider crawls on these URLs, it identifies the hyperlinks and stores them in the list of URLs to be visited known as "the crawl frontier". Hyperlinks and URLs saved in the frontier are recursively visited based on a set of policies adopted by search engines.

            The search process is guided by algorithms. It is a sequence of instructions that guides calculation and data processing. Algorithms in search engines are changed from time to time because when webmasters uncover the sequence in algorithms, it enables them to manipulate search results at the prejudice of others. With the constant alteration of algorithms, unscrupulous webmasters are hampered from doing illegal manipulation in SERPs, and relevant search results are insured.

            Generally, indexing of web sites and pages are automatic. The spider randomly navigates within the web and visits all sorts of web sites. However, there are search engines that have paid submission service such as Yahoo!. Such service guarantees inclusion in the database but does not guarantee particular rankings in search engine result pages. In fact, Yahoo!'s paid submission service draws plenty of criticisms from advertising companies and competitors.  Hence, it is still advisable to optimize a site to make it to the rankings rather than employing paid submission services because the results of the latter is short term in nature and is not practical in terms of cost-effectiveness.

            Indexing, spiders, and algorithms, among others- these are the basics in processing a site and its pages for search engine visibility. It is essential to point out though that search engine crawlers may look at so many different factors, not affected by those mentioned above, when crawling on a site. Not all pages are indexed by search engines. Distance of pages from the site's root directory can also be a factor as to whether or not the pages get crawled and evaluated. Therefore, to rank high in leading search engines, the best option is still to make a winning website that is optimized with acceptable SEO techniques, designed with interactive features, and written with information-rich content. 

In web searches, a problem arises when site operators fill their Web pages with hundreds of irrelevant terms so search engines will register them among legitimate addresses. This process is called "spamdexing".

Spamdexing is spamming and indexing combined together. It engages in a variety of techniques, such as repeating extraneous phrases, to influence the relevance of resources indexed by search engines, in a manner inconsistent with the principles of the indexing system. In turn, search engine results turn insignificant as net browsers did not find the pages they are looking for.      

The prevalence of spamdexing way back in the mid-nineties makes the leading search engine at that time useless. A number of errors occur in search engine result pages as unwanted websites sprouts like mushrooms from nowhere. Most of these sites contain explicit and illegal materials. A number of endorsed products popped in an instant as net browsers click on a link making them embarrassed with the results at hand. Irrelevant sites make it to the top pages while the genuine ones are indexed perhaps on the seventh page. That would be strenuous to browse, right? The browsing experience is so upsetting which would defeat the main purpose of the internet in the first place.

But in the late 90s, an innovation in web searching arrives when Google combats keyword stuffing and other forms of spamdexing. An example of which is its PageRank link analysis system where it checks the relevance of a linked site to another. While in battling content spam, it checks the URL, Meta keywords, and body text of a site. Aside from those, its algorithms are also changed from time to time. Algorithms are highly confidential as they dictate the result in every search, yet, they are still not exempted from being spamdexed. These are just some of the methods employed by Google in order to bring back the relevance of search engines. From then, different methods had come on the surface in order to insure the usability of search engines. Though it is undeniable that spamdexing can still be felt, still, it's good to know that search engines companies are very aware of this and are very keen in devising methods to continually fight spamdexing and eventually eliminate it.