Search Engine Positioning Services - Do You Need Them?

With so many business sprining up on the Internet, do you need to use search engine positioning services, or is this something that you can handle yourself? There are thousands of search engines, but only a handful worth considering. Together with the top directories a major search engine accounts for more than 90% of all searches carried out on the Internet.

The main thing to realize is that when you submit your website to a directory it will be reviewed by a human editor before it's inclusion and these days, you'll have to pay a fee for the review. Paying the fee does not guarantee you'll get listed and you must make sure your website meets each directories specific rules first.

With search engines, each page of your website may be "indexed" automatically. Each search engine has a specific "spider" which follows all the links it finds on your website. Spiders also attempt to determine the "keywords" that apply to your website, some take account of hidden "meta tags" that may be included, some don't.

Each search engine will determine the relevancy of your website and under which keywords, based on a set of ever changing "algorithm's" and it's this changing of the rules - what it likes or doesn't - that is mostly responsible for poor results that many people see when trying to get traffic from them.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't try or shouldn't even bother to submit your website to the search engines, but it does mean that if you're serious about getting listed on the first page under a set of keywords that you know will result in buyers for your products or services, you would be well advised to consider hiring a professional search engine positioning services, unless you have the time and inclination to study them in detail and continue to study their rule changes and adjust your pages continually.

I'm not talking about companies that submit your website to 1000 search engines for $50 here - that's nonsense you're money would be better spent on an Ezine ad - I'm talking about professional services such as "1st Search Ranking" who'll guarantee you a top position under the keywords of your choice, but they don't come cheap!

Deciding to use a professional service is very expensive initially, you should consider this as a long term investment that will pay you back handsomely in the end and can eliminate your paid advertising campaigns entirely if you want. Bottom line -- if you expect to be in business this time next year, then do the math accordingly. Work out your current monthly expenses using pay per click engines etc, then balance that figure against the total cost for a year of professional ranking, remembering to take into account the first 2 or 3 months while you wait for your SE traffic to arrive.

The 8 major SE that will bring your website the most traffic are:

• Alta vista
• All the web
• AOL
• Google
• Hotbot
• Lycos
• MSN
• Northern light
• Yahoo

There are 4 major directory listings you should consider submitting to..

• Looksmart
• Netscape
• Open directory
• Yahoo

You can find a list of the major Pay Per Click SE as well as direct access to the major SE & directories here.

With PPC you have the opportunity of bringing ONLY targeted traffic to your site, you just pay for each customer that is sent to you. How much you pay is up to you. You research keywords that YOU think people would type in order to try and locate someone like you, and then you place a bid on that keyword. It could be as little as 1 penny per click. But, you must take care with your selected keywords, otherwise you will end up with visitors that did not really want to come = no sales!

All is not lost however, here is a link to the definitive and BEST book by far on fighting the PPC battles.

Instant Website Traffic

This is a worthwhile investment! It is a complete step by step guide for everyone starting out on this road.

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There is an up to date news desk on the subject of search engine positioning here as well. It is an excellent internet search engines resource because it is updated daily.