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Craft Site Medic's goal is to promote your website using a wide range of resources which will provide your with a
significant increase in visitor traffic resulting in increased sales and
profits. Depending upon the promotional package selected, this may include
banner and avatar advertising, top site listings, directory listings,
plugboards, etc. Links to your
site are placed on many popular link pages, classifieds, new site resources, and many
general indexes. Most clients report a good deal of traffic being generated from
this large-scale promotion. If you have access to your site traffic statistics,
you generally will see where Craft Site Medic resources and domains provide plenty of
additional traffic - often more than any other single source. These resources include:
Another
major goal is to significantly increase the amount of traffic your receive from popular
search engines and directories. It is not enough to simply submit your
site to these resources. First, your site needs to be
"optimized" so that the resources can properly determine your
web site theme and important keywords which leads to improved search
engine positioning. With our "annual" packages, we provide you
with suggestions for improving your search engine "readiness".
This includes fine tuning your top page "meta tags" and top page
text. Only about 10% of all Internet sites are properly optimized - thus
our suggestions can definitely give you an advantage over many related
online businesses.
A few
years ago there were over a dozen top search engines dividing up the
market. Names such as Excite, WebCrawler, AltaVista, Lycos, and others
were dominant. Then came Google. This firm revolutionized search engine
technology and soon became the overwhelming premiere search engine. A
recent check of our web site statistics showed Google providing over 90%
of all search engine traffic generated traffic. Obviously, they are
the search engine to focus upon when it comes to optimizing your web
pages. a new name is just starting to enter the picture: Bing. With less
than a 4% market share, they are not yet a major concern. Thus our major
concern is with Google.
Your Google keyword
position is
determined by a number of factors (some of which are outside of our direct
control), such as:
-
the amount of
competition you face
-
domain name &
web address (URL)
-
link popularity & Google PageRank
-
paid keyword
positioning
-
website design
Comments
Competition ... there may be many, many web
pages competing for the same terms you are. For example, here are the
number of web pages indexed by Google for a few popular terms:
| country
crafts - |
7,410,000
|
|
potpourri
- |
1,650,000
|
| scented
candles - |
1,110,000
|
|
wood
crafts - |
5,090,000
|
| craft
patterns - |
2,860,000
|
|
primitives
- |
2,270,000
|
Obviously, it is harder to achieve a top search engine
position if there are millions of pages indexed for the term. You can
easily check Google to see how much competition you have - just enter the
search term { without quotation marks), then look in the upper right
corner of the results page to see the total of number of "pages
found".
Domain name - url
...
Web sites which have keywords in their URL have a natural advantage, such
as "www.countrycrafts.net"
or "craft-patterns.us" If you share a URL. such as "www.geocities.com/bobaloo/"
- you are at a disadvantage.
Link popularity & Google PageRank
- if there
were two identical sites, but the first had 2000 links inbound and the
second had 20 inbound links - the first would almost always have a higher
search engine position. It is deemed more popular or
"important". Google also checks the importance of the inbound
links, and factors that statistic into the ranking algorithm. Links from
site with a high Google "PageRank" are normally positioned
higher than low PR sites. Part of the Craft Site Medic marketing plan
includes efforts to improve your PageRank.
Paid keyword positioning ... Some popular
search engines such as Google, Yahoo, AlltheWeb, Lycos, MSN, and others
allow website owners to bid on popular terms. The highest bidder can have
their site ranked higher. Once your site is listed, you pay a set amount
for each click-thru to your site. This paid positioning trumps all other factors.
If a lot of your competitors make use of this system, your position for
important terms will be affected.
Website design ... Search engines have a hard
time properly indexing web pages which are dynamically generated and which
are in frames. Many modern websites employ both of these systems to
minimize maintenance and facilitate ease of setup. The use of a non-frame
"intro" page will help, but you still would be at a disadvantage
compared to a site which is "handmade' and frames free.
As you can see, many of the factor affecting your
search engine position are beyond our control. However, we have been
very successful getting excellent search engine traffic to our
clients' websites. If you were to look at the top 30 sites listed for each
of the six terms mentioned in the "competition" section above,
you would find our clients in large numbers. We cannot promise you a
top 30 position, but we can certainly help improve your search engine
traffic. There are firms who will
guarantee a top 10 position. They generally charge $300-$500 per term per
search engine.
Suggestions
We
would strongly suggest our clients focus upon building their link
popularity and Google PageRank. It is time very well spent.
Consider
joining a number of "top site systems". These can provide lots of
additional traffic, especially if you identify the more popular and highlight
them on your site.
Consider paid
ad placement on additional craft markets and primitive marketplaces. Many charge
only a few dollars per month to feature your avatar on their top or more popular
pages. Such ads help your web visibility and may help improve your google
PageRank.
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