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Monitoring
Search Engine Positions |
By James Williams
Since search
engines are the first stop for
people on the
Internet looking for goods or
services, the position your
website appears in search results is
an important factor.
If your URL shows up far down the
results list, the chances
of the consumer never finding you
increase incrementally.
Once you achieve a high search
engine position, it is
essential that you make sure you
maintain the high ranking
you have worked so hard to achieve.
This means you must come up with a
strategy to monitor your
search engines positions. This
strategy is crucial to the
success of any marketing campaign.
Think of your search
engine positions as your online
portfolio. Would you let
your stock portfolio be ruled by
chance and market
fluctuations, or would you keep
close tabs on your stocks
so you could buy and sell when the
time is right? This is
the way you must consider your
search engines positions.
Be aware that at first, after you
have launched your search
engine campaign and done all the
right things to increase
your rankings, you will most likely
see a continual upward
climb. What you need to be on the
lookout for is the moment
that upward climb reaches a plateau.
When this happens,
your search engine position campaign
moves into stage two,
the monitoring and protecting stage.
In stage two, do not be concerned
about the short-term
fluctuations in your positions.
These are similar to the
subtle rising and falling of stocks
in a portfolio.
Short-term movement is an integral
part of the whole
process. It's the long-term changes
that you must watch for
and prepare to act on immediately.
Analyzing the long-term trends of
search engines positions
is imperative. The way in which
search engines rank
websites may change at the drop of
hat. If you are unaware
of these changes - many of which are
subtle yet can be
deadly to your ranking - your
position may drop to the
bottom of the list before you can
get your bearings. To
prevent this kind of precipitous
drop, you must create a
system to monitor your positions on
a monthly basis. Devise
a chart to keep tabs on your top
ranking positions or your
top pages, and make sure to watch
"the market" closely.
Each search engine uses a formula to
compute website
rankings. When a search engine
changes this formula in any
way, it may raise or lower your
ranking. Some search
engines use a number of different
formulas, rotating them
so that a formula doesn't become
overused or outdated.
Depending on which formula is being
applied, your search
engine position may suddenly drop or
rise in rank
significantly. Therefore, you must
check your positions
frequently in order to catch when a
search engine changes
formulas and what effect it has on
your positions.
You must also deal with your
competition - a crucial factor
you must always be vigilant about.
Your competitor's
position may suddenly rise,
automatically lowering your
position. Or their position may
drop, pushing your position
higher. Each month, expect position
changes due to the
continual changes that are occurring
in your competitor's
position, and be prepared to adjust
your marketing strategy
to compensate for decreased
rankings. Monitoring these
fluctuations will also give you
vital information about how
to improve your website to increase
your position in search
results.
Of course, you must discern what the
most popular search
engines are in order for your
monitoring efforts to be
effective. Right now, there are ten
popular search engines
that direct most of Internet traffic
to your sites. The
challenge you face is that these top
ten may change from
month to month.
This means that your must not only
monitor your search
engine positions, but you must also
keep track of the
ranking popularity of the search
engines you are
monitoring. Find out which search
engines people use most
frequently every month and be sure
to live in the present!
People are fickle about their
favorite search engines, and
it takes constant vigilance to
follow their dalliances. The
search engines they loved when you
first launched your
campaign may be old news in the next
few months. You must
adjust your list of engines
according to the whims of the
Internet users. Check out
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html
for a current list of website
favorites.
Another factor to monitor carefully
is a sudden drop of
your positions in all search
engines. This is not the same
as monthly fluctuations - this is a
neon red warning sign!
It could mean a number of different
things.
It all your search engine positions
have plummeted, it may
indicate that search engines spiders
- those sneaky
programs that seek out your site and
rank their positions -
have found some type of problem with
your website. If you
have recently changed the code, for
instance, the spider
may become utterly confused and
consequently drop your
positions disastrously. If a spider
creeps up on your
website when it is down for
adjustments or changes, you may
actually disappear from a search
engine index entirely. Or
a search engine may drastically
change its formula, and
suddenly all of your website come up
as irrelevant. If that
search engine is a current favorite,
it may create a domino
effect, causing all of your position
to drop in all search
engines.
Some search engines rely on the
results from other search
engines, and it is vital that you
know which engines these
are and keep track of all the
engines they influence. The
biggest problem here is that search
engines will sometimes
change affiliations, and this can
create a major shift in
the geography of the Internet. For
example, recently Yahoo
decided to display only results
gleaned from Google. So you
must not only monitor your own
positions, but you must keep
abreast of seismic shifts in the
landscape of the Internet
as a whole.
Finally, pay attention to your
keywords. Keywords are the
foundation bricks of the entire
search engine system, and
they demand individual scrutiny in
your monitoring efforts.
If you have found that a number of
your positions have
plummeted, it may mean that a page
of your website has
become invisible or inaccessible to
search engine spiders.
Or the competition for that
particular keyword or phrase
has recently rocketed into outer
space. In either case, you
must act quickly and efficiently to
regain lost ground.
Your search engine marketing
campaign is an investment. If
costs you time and money on a
continual basis. Protect this
investment as diligently as you
would your financial
portfolio. In the same way, track
your positions from an
objective perspective, and monitor
your positions on a
regular basis. Make sure your time
and effort reap rewards
by keeping your eye on the big
picture - your long-term
marketing campaign.
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About the
author
James
Williams is
a retired
bricks and
mortar
retail
executive
who now runs
his own home
based
Internet
business,
publishing
and
marketing
how-to
business
information.
Website:
www.DigitalDollars101.com
Email:
jim2000bizinfo@aol.com
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