Focused Web, Inc.- Total Website Management, Design, Hosting and Promotion

Web Site Marketing

"Build it and they will come -- Not in the real world"

Web site marketing is a very complex subject. A couple of years ago it was simply a matter of posting your web site address to a list of search engines. Hundreds of "Web Promotion" companies continue to offer this type of service. Unfortunately this method of promotion can get your site "black listed" on some of the major search engines

Getting listed in the major search engines should be the first step in any web site marketing program. The top 20 search engines and directories are responsible for 400,000,000 searches a day with most of them resulting in a "click through" to a web site. Tens of thousands of search engines and directories exist on the Internet but 90% of the traffic is generated by the top 20. A high ranking with the top 20 search engines and directories is the most cost effective marketing activity associated with the Internet.

At Focused Web we consider high search engine ranking as a central focal point effecting all aspects of the web site design process. We use the same starting point for a new design or an overhaul of an existing site. We ask clients to pretend they are web surfers trying to find a company like theirs while following this four step process.

Step 1		Create three or four key phrases that you imagine someone would use to find your site.
Step 2		Create three or four key phrases for each of the above key phrases using synonyms of the key word component found in the initial key phrases from step one.
Step 3		Write a two or three hundred word description presenting the virtues of your web site.
Step 4		Edit the (200 -300 word) description for a key word density of 5%.

We use the information provided in the above four step process combined with our detail knowledge base containing the most current characteristics of each of the top search engines. The knowledge base is continually updated with our experience along with input from two outside consulting companies that specialize in reverse engineering search engine behavior.

What do search engine robots consider while indexing a site? Key words. Each search engine or directory have different factors that influence their indexing process. We consider 17 major factors and several minor ones when we fine tune a web site for top search engine ranking.

The presence of key words in the URL.
Key words in the Title and the order of use.
Key words in the Meta description.
Key words in the text of the site. The right balance is critical.
Key words used for link names as part of the navigation scheme.
Keys words used as alternate text descriptions for graphics.

The points above are a few of the obvious ones. The others are more subtle but very important.

At Focused Web we don't try to beat the search engines using some clever trick or quirk to gain an undeserved advantage for a short while. The the search engines and directories want to supply the best and most accurate information to their visitors possible. The better they do this the more visitors will return again and again. More visitors directly equates to more revenue from advertisers. We work closely with the technical staff at each company to stay abreast of the latest criteria for robot evaluation.

The major search engines and directories have historically not charged for a listing. This situation is changing. We view this change as positive. Both Yahoo (the most important one) and LookSmart offer a special priority evaluation program for a fee of $199. With this special program it can take as months to get listed in Yahoo. Yahoo represents 50% of all search engine traffic.

For the web sites under management we set up a regular schedule of resubmission within the established guidelines. We periodically run our own robot program that determines the position of a web site, based on various key word searches. We continually reevaluate the structure of each web site in light of the changing search engine criteria. We make minor changes to balance the structure of the site in an effort to continually improve the ranking of a site.

Web Site Marketing for Realtors