Boost Your Sales With Search Engine Optimization

Formal marketing efforts cost big bucks, certainly too much for many small system builders. Even low-cost Web marketing has failed to attract many system builders, mainly because so much systems building is done for local customers. As a result, the Web's worldwide reach has brought little benefit to system builders.

That is, until now. Especially with new localized search-engine features, the Web is a marketing outlet that no system builder can ignore.

In this TechBuilder Recipe, I'll show you how to make the most of search-engine optimization (SEO). It's a powerful way to extend your system-building business (or any other business, for that matter) on the Web in a way that will attract potential customers.

How Do You Rank?

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Without a doubt, major search engines carry an awesome amount of weight in the advertising and marketing arenas. Just look at the annual revenues of Google, Yahoo!, and Overture; the evidence is clear. As one of my customers put it, "Google and eBay level the playing field by allowing small companies to compete with the big boys."

The result: pure competition based solely on merit, not favoritism or deep pockets. To prove this, Google "Windows XP" and look at the third listing. I have never heard of Kelly's Korner, but you can bet the site gets millions of hits each day, owing to the huge popularity of Windows XP.

The goal of SEO is to get the highest possible ranking from a major search engine. Number 1 on the list is best, of course, though any spot on the first page is still great.

Of course, you need to appear for relevant search terms. For instance, a box builder in Los Angeles who fixes broken PCs would want to have its Web site come up No. 1 on a search for "PC repair Los Angeles."

Later in this recipe, I will discuss SEO strategies for local businesses, a new niche being targeted by Google and Yahoo! But for box builders who wish to distribute products worldwide, SEO knows no boundaries, international or domestic. For example, I have sold my own how-to manuals to customers in Nigeria, England, and Sweden through my SEO efforts. All of these overseas customers found my site on a search engine. Also, while I have not paid for a single click in more than 18 months, my Web site has attracted more than 200 new customers since January 2004 and gets about 1,600 hits per month based strictly on my SEO efforts. So let's get started on the journey toward optimizing your rankings on the major search engines.

Ingredients

Here's what you'll need to get started. I'm assuming you already have a Web site for your company. If you don't, then your first step is to build a site!

An E-commerce Web site with products or services for sale.
An active Overture or Google pay-per-click account, funded with a few dollars.
FTP access to Web pages on any site you've built, or may build in the future, for meta-tag updates.
Optional: A subscription to KeywordRanking.com. This is expensive, but worth it. The pricing is set at $1,000 a month, and you must commit for at least two years. You read that right: $24,000 over two years. That's big bucks for nearly any system builder. Yet if you're serious about Web marketing, then I highly recommend you consider this option.

Spider Bots and Search Engines

A good friend recently asked how the major search engines collect all of the information that's out there on the public Internet. She could not figure out how the entire Encyclopedia Britannica found its way on to Google without being placed there deliberately. At first blush, it seems as though the every site on the entire Internet is polled every time a typical search is executed from the Google search box. Of course, this is not what really happens. There are simply too many sites. Google says it now searches more than 8 billion pages, and such a search would take weeks to complete. The answer lies in the areas of indexing and Spider Bot crawling.

We already know Indexing from books. A book's index can save a reader hours of time when they need a reference to a word or group of words. Who would bother to scan every page of a book about cars for the word "Buick?" Instead, we look up the word in the book's index and find the references right away. In the same way, the major search engines are all indexed, allowing a search to be completed in a matter of seconds.

How are the indexes built? The search-engine's engineers write software programs called Spider Bots or Web Crawlers. As the names imply, these programs crawl the Web 24 x 7 to gather information from every site in the world. Then they delivering this information back to the "Mother Ship" for addition in the index, also known as the directory. The Spider Bots never rest; once they finish a complete tour of the Web, they start the process all over again. No one knows precisely how long this takes--except for the folks inside Google, and they're not telling. I would guess that a full tour of the Web takes the bots about six weeks.

Back at the "Mother Ship," all the information collected by the Spider Bots is then processed by a ranking index. This assesses a value to each site and then ranks it accordingly. That is why Microsoft comes up No. 1 in Google for "Windows" and why www.apple.com comes up first for "computer." Makes a bit more sense now, right? Relevance and Linking " The First Two Lines of your SEO Campaign

According to the book Google Hacks, written by two Google employees, the best method for achieving good rankings is deceptively simple. Quality content and relevance will be rewarded most quickly and to the greatest degree over all other techniques. Essentially, this means that if a system builder has a topic that's not only unique to their site, but also is described in a concise and relevant way, that system builder stands the best chance of getting good rankings on the major search engines. It's nice to see that even in the most cutting-edge areas of technology, good old-fashioned common sense still wins out.

Also, by having a great Web site, you may entice other well-established sites in your category to link to your site. Linking (as you may have guessed) is rule No. 2 for achieving good rankings. The major search engines use a separate algorithm for analyzing inbound links to a given site. They rely heavily on this program to determine which sites get ranked the best.

In other words, inbound links are very important. If, for example, I could persuade Bill Gates to add an inbound link from the Microsoft homepage to my site, my rankings would skyrocket in a matter of days. (That is, after the search-engine Spiders got over their initial shock of indexing my site and placing it in Microsoft's link index!)

From the perspective of search-engine rankings, the most important page on a site is the home page. To prove this, download the Google Toolbar. When it's installed, look at the green Page-rank meter on the toolbar. This meter is another indicator of Web page popularity. You will see that in general, the homepage of a site is ranked higher than all of its inside pages.

Below is a snapshot of my site with two links to other sites that sell Medical software (I am an affiliate). If you are looking to promote your site with SEO, it's a great idea to try to get as many of these inbound links as you can. A box builder may also try mass e-mailing to applicable webmasters in their field, canvassing, networking, or even picking up the phone and cold-calling. System builders may also try link swapping, if done with quality Web sites in similar categories; otherwise it's a waste of time, and can even lower your rankings.

But it's not a good idea for a box builder to swap with "undesirables" such as porn and junk sites, Web sites that fall into unrelated categories, poorly ranked websites, and "link farms." Link farms sprang up over the past five years, essentially as a scam to lure unsuspecting Webmasters into paying a few bucks for "instant links" to and from other Webmasters. In my opinion, they are a waste of money and can hurt your current rankings.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

I believe Google and Overture (the engine behind Yahoo!, Excite, and MSN) are the only real pay-per-click services. Whether systems builders should spring for pay-per-click is a tough call. Making a profit is not easy. In fact, in my own case, I have found it nearly impossible. In once case, I spent about $400 to make $100 worth of sales--not a good business proposition. Yet in another case, I did manage to get into the international phone-card game for only a $30 investment, and maybe an hour of my time. For that I was rewarded with $12 in commission having made $105 in salesnot bad for an experiment! If I started working this program more diligently, I might break into the black.

Both Overture and Google Ad Words are simple to set up. So take some time writing your ad. Here are the step-by-step instructions for writing an overture ad.

Login at Overture. Once logged in, click on "Manage my Account."
Manage Sponsored Search.
Add listings.
Add category and select keywords.
Write your ad " and submit (follow the directions on-screen)/
Bid (in dollars and cents) for your keyword.

Meta Tags

For novice HTML writers, I recommend meta tags in your Web page headers. They are undoubtedly the biggest targets for the spider bots. But meta tags alone will not guarantee you a No. 1 ranking if, for example, somebody Googles for "Compaq," and you happen to be an authorized Compaq reseller. But because Google is impartial, it's not impossible for this type of thing to happen. Since meta tags are normally listed right below the title in the head section of your HTML code, they cannot interfere with your Web page if used with the proper syntax, as shown below:

<title> Computer Support - Computer Reliability - Troubleshooting - Speed - Maintenance " Documentation </title>

KeywordRanking.com

As soon as I have the $1,000 per month (for 24 months) to invest in a subscription with KeywordRanking, I am going for it. They are the only company in the world that guarantees a first-page ranking on Google for keywords of your choice. The only caveat is that your Web site must be a quality site with good products to sell. KeywordRanking.com leverages its world-class knowledge of SEO with your products to create value and profitability.

I realize that I am suggesting an expensive solution here, so I'd also like to prove that this service is really worth it. Do a search on 'light bulb' in Google and look at the third listing, which is www.lightbulbs.com. This company is a customer of Keywordranking.com. If you examine the header source code of the lightbulbs.com homepage; you'll see the name of keywordranking.com's parent company (WebSourced Inc.) in bold text.

Google Local

System builders generally service local clientele. Therefore, they can use the services of Google Local, which offers the same type of exposure as the local Yellow Pages. As the name implies, Google Local lets customers search for services by city and state. In this way, all you need is a computer and an Internet connection, and you literally have the Yellow Pages from every town in the USA at your fingertips! For Google's information and signup page regarding Google Local (and other FREE services), check out this Google page.

Have a look at this link, which takes you to the page below on Google:

The instructions are simple enough. Just put in the type of business you are searching for and the town you want to be searched, and the results are accurate and relevant. My guess is that SEO rankings apply to this page just like normal Google pages (but the only people who know for sure are those who work at Google.) The rest of us can only make our best estimate.

I hope you'll agree that SEO is a worthwhile investment of time and money. To do your own due diligence, just ask your colleagues and customers if they have ever made a purchase over the Internet as the results of a search. Look at all the sponsored ads on Google and Yahoo!, some of which cost as much as $5 per click, and the proof is certainly there. SEO and search engine marketing is here to stay. Please use this recipe as a roadmap, and best of luck in boosting your revenues. Nothing succeeds like success!

DAVID KARY is the founder and CEO of rippt.com, which offers PC support, troubleshooting, maintenance, diagnosing, problem solving, and documentation.