Frequently Asked Question's

1. What do "Search Engines" And "Search Engine Placement" mean?
2. Why Do I Need To "Position" My Website With The Search Engines?
3. How Do Search Engines Evaluate And Reference Websites?
4. How Do Search Engines Index And Rank Web Page Content?
5. How Can I Improve My Search Engine Positioning?
6. But I Have Already Submitted My Website To The Search Engines.
7. How Soon Should I Get Started And How Long Does This Whole Process Take?
8. How Quickly Can I Expect Results?
9. What Does Search Engine Positioning Cost?

1. What do "Search Engines" And "Search Engine Placement" mean?

A "search engine" is a software algorithm and system that is designed and programmed to search the Internet and retrieve websites that match the online surfer's search words.

Every search engine tries to give you the best and most relevant sites you are looking for, based on the search words you use. They do this because they know you will only try another search engine if their results are unsatisfactory. In other words they try to make the way they list information relevant to the way search engine users looks for information.

Well known search engines include Yahoo, Google, AltaVista, Lycos, MSN, Excite, HotBot, etc. The results obtained from a search on these sites will be shown with the most relevant sites listed on the first few pages, according to each of the individual search engine's unique indexing and ranking algorithms. Each search engine will actually produce very different results because they use very different methodologies.

"Search engine placement is the art and science of making changes to your site, both visible (what you actually see) and invisible (source coding), so that the search engines will list you in the first relevant few pages of the results displayed".

2. Why Do I Need To "Position" My Website With The Search Engines?

Over 70% of websites are actually found by using search engines to direct the online searcher to relevant sites. Advertising, media coverage and word-of -the-mouth are much lower sources of new website access.

It is therefore critical to be strongly listed and ranked by the search engines. - or you won't be found!

Search Engines are however so effective at listing website references that the results they produce from an online search will generally list thousands of useful (or useless?) web page sources. The real problem is that, over ninety percent of online searchers rarely go beyond the first 20-30 listings (first 2 or 3 pages) of search engine results to find what they are looking for.

Strong search engine positioning simply means being listed on these first two or three pages of results. Unless you get your website into these first 20 or 30 listings your website is basically invisible in cyber-space. And the only way to get there is to "position" your site!

3. How Do Search Engines Evaluate And Reference Websites?

A search engine uses a "spider" or an unmanned program that scans and surfs the Web just like you would. As it visits each website, it records all the relevant words and phrases on each site and notes links to other sites.

Because the World Wide Web has become so large, it is no longer feasible to index and list everything. How many pages or what content any given spider will index is not entirely predictable. Nobody except the search engine developers themselves know exactly what happens and why after web pages have been submitted to and analyzed by each particular search engine.

In fact every search engine has its own strategies and algorithms to do this indexing work. The problem is these change constantly. And the only way to understand how they work is to be in constant analysis of each search engine's methods.

Search engines are also highly selective in what they will analyze, and are especially "hard" on attempts made to overstate the role of a website. This can even result in websites being excluded entirely from a search engine's total listings!

This process of optimizing results from the major search engines is a job for professionals like ClixPlus who regularly test how each search engine is currently indexing and referencing website content.

4. How Do Search Engines Index And Rank Web Page Content?

Search engine spiders that come visit your website look at the content on each of your web pages. You must of course have a site with rich, relevant and timely content that people want to visit and come back to. However this is only part of the process. It is not only the visible content of a website that is evaluated by the search engine spiders. Spiders also evaluate the background source coding and other text material in the "invisible" side of a website.

You can check what this invisible component is by going to "view" and "source" for any website. If all you see is a lot of meaningless program code you can be sure the invisible side is very poorly developed and doing nothing for the site's positioning with the search engines.

Also, some early and major "search" sites such as Yahoo don't actually use algorithms to list information. They do it manually and build what are called directories. Since a "directory" (like Yahoo) evaluates all submissions by hand, the better and more relevant the visible and invisible content of the website the better the positioning.

5." How Can I Improve My Search Engine Positioning?"

Here's how:
ClixPlus will regularly analyze your visibility across the key words and phrases that define your website's business and its client interactions. We do this for each word and phrase and across each of the major search engines. The results tell us where we need to focus all future search engine submissions.

ClixPlus also identifies and searches the competitor sites that come at the top of the major search engines and analyzes how and why the search engines are ranking these sites highly. ClixPlus review the key words, the titles, the meta tags and other source content to analyze why other companies in your field are successfully listed near the top of the search enquiry results.

To be effective, this must be done at least quarterly and preferably monthly - because search engines are constantly changing the way they index and reference their existing databases and all new submission material. They do this because thousands of sites are added daily and it's therefore very easy for your website to get "bumped" further down the results list, unless you constantly monitor and adjust for this.

Finally, you need to recognize that your competitors will also be "tweaking" their sites with new phrases, key words and tailored search engine submissions to ensure they get good positions. The business of search engine positioning is therefore one of constant review and upgrading that you must commit to long term.

6. "But I Have Already Submitted My Website To The Search Engines."

Yes... and so have all your competitors!!

Search engines receive thousands of website submissions every day. The search spiders that index and rank the material on websites are extremely sophisticated. Unless the website has well developed and accurate navigation, has clear page links across the site (and with other relevant sites), and is very "rich" in positioning information on both visible pages and source pages, the rankings it will achieve will be very poor.

Surprisingly most websites fall into this "poor" category. Even those that do get top rankings have really only achieved this through their long history on the web. The reality is, any new website that is well positioned -- and that means highly tailored for each of the search engine algorithms -- can soon get top rankings, even against major competitors.

7. How Soon Should I Get Started And How Long Does This Whole Process Take?

If your website is invisible, has poor quality traffic, or even if it has high volume traffic, but poor loyalty or e-commerce results, then... you better start now.

As the web grows exponentially that doesn't mean the opportunities also grow exponentially. In fact from a targeting perspective it gets harder every day. Staying on top of an ever-growing pile of competitors, all getting savvier with each passing day, is a real battle.

Surprisingly, the whole area of search engine positioning is one that few domain operators have recognized as critical for online success. Many website owners have spent huge sums of money offline with mass media campaigns in a futile attempt at creating awareness, trial and repeat visits. This has been one of the main reasons for the shakeout in the Internet sector in recent times.

Ignorance of the potential that can come from search engine positioning means that there are still excellent opportunities for online development of website traffic and the bringing of quality and engaged, spending intent and loyal visitors to your site.

ClixPlus will carefully monitor the results achieved over the total "campaign period" (earlier agreed with you). We continue to correct and adjust submissions and website content during this campaign cycle to achieve the highest possible rankings.

Implementing critical website diagnostic improvements and packaging your website seach engine optimization is only Stage 1. Stage 2 requires Clixplus to carefully monitor...

8. How Quickly Can I Expect Results?

The timeline for successful results is never consistent, but the effects will be strongly noticed over a 2-3 month period from the implementation of initial site diagnostics, keyword and phrase development and signposting and submission strategies. Once the first round of submissions to the search engines are completed ClixPlus normally expect to see the first effective results 4-6 weeks later.

Because this is a competitive battle, it is essential you commit to an on-going maintenance package designed to identify positioning strengths and weakness. This will help to focus signposting and specific search engine strategies where the maximum effect can be delivered.

As the whole process is subject to the efficiencies of the search engine robots and their changing algorithms, there isn't anything ClixPlus can do to accelerate the process. So as a client you need to be patient within the general time-frame our experience tells us will work for you.

9. What Does Search Engine Positioning Cost?

A total annual package of search engine positioning, including on-going maintenance, starts at about US$15,000 to US$25,000 depending on the signposting strategy adopted. In our experience there are three broad strategies that define the range of search engine positioning options you could adopt :

Niche Market Strategy Market Dominance Strategy Brand Competitive Strategy

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