Discover The Best Kept Secrets For
Top Placement On Search Engines 

By Patrick Anderson & Michael Henderson, 
Editor & Publisher, Hits To Sales 

[Editors Note: I'll share my resources and secrets, 
but first I must pop a few bubbles... call it a 
reality check or call me a cynic, but until "60 Minutes" 
does an expose, I feel compelled to set the record 
straight. However, if you already know why no one can 
find your site, click here to skip ahead.] 

Part One: Exploding The Search Engine Myths 

Myth #1: There must be an easy way to get to the top of the
major search engines... 

Sorry. Over 4 million web pages are listed on Infoseek when
you search for the word "business". You are shown 10 of 
them at a time. What makes you think that you have any 
more chance of getting listed on the top than the other 
3,999,990 pages?? 

If it was really easy to figure out exactly how to get 
placed on the first page, everyone would do it. Then, 
however, everyone would still not be on the first page. 
It's just like the freeway at rush hour traffic. 
You want to find a direct route home. So does everyone 
else. What happens? 
Think about it... you are walking into a huge crowded 
room and you want special preferential treatment. How 
are you going to get it? The rules have not changed. 
It has just been computerized. The fact is that the 
people at the top of the search engines are the ones 
who really, really, want to be there. And they got 
there first! They have spent the money and they have
taken the time to discover the tricks. They continue to 
monitor their placement and resubmit their pages to make 
sure that they are always on top. 

There is competition for those top 10 seats. There is 
serious competition. People are trying to take away the 
top spots every day. They are always trying to fine tune 
and tweek their HTML code and learn the next little trick.
The best players even know dirty ways to "bump off" their 
competition while protecting their own sites. Think I'm 
kidding...? 

So what is a search engine anyway? It is a complex, 
"search and sort" database algorithm written by 
intelligent hackers and computer science majors -- 
owned by businesses who want to insure that pages that 
have the most interest to their reader will come up first. 
Otherwise, the appeal of their website as a destination 
resource drops in value significantly. Which directly 
relates to their advertising revenue. Got it? That means 
they don't want people to use "AAA111" for the page title.
They do not want people to stuff keywords to trick and 
fool them into putting those pages on top.
And they certainly don't want the same pages to be listed 
repeatedly at the top of their website. That would ruin 
their credibility and no one would use their Search Engine. 

Since clever computer people will try anything to get the 
top spot, the Search Engines have taken on a "Spy vs. Spy"
attitude. They are now on the lookout for people who are 
"spamdexing" and using sneaky tricks to artificially bump 
up their page. If they catch you, they kick you out for 
trying to cut into the line -- just like the bouncer at a 
crowded concert. 

To stay ahead of the game, the major Search Engines change
their methods for determining relevancy rankings every 
few months. This is usually when they discover that a lot 
of people have learned the latest technique and are all 
sneaking into a side door. They also try to fool the
tricksters... sometimes they put irrelevant pages at the 
top of the list just to cause confusion. 

Myth #2: As soon as my site is submitted to all the rest 
of the search directories, everyone will find me... 

Not really. First of all, it takes time for the computers 
to process all of the hundreds of thousands of requests 
that they have everyday. Even if you knew the latest 
tricks and were able to write a Web page that would sort 
to the top of the list, you are still not going to see 
that page show up for several days or several weeks. 
But a lot of people assume it is something that happens 
instantly. It is probably because of outrageous claims 
like "Put your site on 300 search engines for $39 dollars".

Secondly, you will never be on all the search directories. 
There are several hundred around the world. Most people 
can not name more than 20 of them. And finally, even if 
you automate the submission process, you can't automate 
the ranking process -- since each directory has unique
criteria for sorting and listing the pages. A computer 
is not able to determine which categories would give you 
best exposure or rewrite your headline to make it stand 
out on the page. And more unfortunately, many useful 
resource sites are now simple depositories for automatic
submissions, so no one will ever look at the pages that 
are listed there. 

Myth #3: There has got to be a way that everyone can 
find my site without me spending any time or money... 

Guess again. Some people are using the "free" and "easy" 
ploy as a come-on for an upsell opportunity... (but you 
already knew that, right?) 

My dad always said "anything worth doing is worth doing 
well." This has never been more true of anything than 
Search Engines. If you want the traffic and the exposure, 
you are going to pay for the education or you are going 
to pay for the service. There is no other way to do it. 
It is not easy. It is not magic. It takes time, effort, 
and knowledge. Then it takes continual monitoring to 
keep the position you worked so hard to get in the first 
place.

Please do not misunderstand -- the competition is fierce 
and severe for those top spots, which is why the Search 
Engines can charge so much money to sell keyword banners. 

You must be passionate about being on top and you have to 
learn to do it well. Anything else, quite frankly, is not 
worth doing. If you are not going to take the time to do 
it right, then just use a free service and amuse yourself,
thinking that you have "done" something. Pretend that you 
may someday get exposure while knowing in your heart 
that this is worthless. It will not get you any return 
at all unless you do it properly. 

Part Two: Our Tried And True Search Engine Placement 
Strategy 
1.Find the perfect spot for your homepage on Yahoo!
Act like your customers. Look through Yahoo! to find 
useful information, bargain deals, or great entertainment 
sites related to your business. Skip the pages that have 
a thousand listings. Get a little more specific and 
settle on a category that has 40 to 100 pages.
This is where your customers will also be looking. 
Write a snappier headline and more interesting description
than anybody else. Change your TITLE tag to match this 
new headline. Be sure to start your headline with the 
letter "A" or "B" (you can see why, right?).
And finally, erase all the meta tags and keyword stuffing 
tricks from your homepage before submitting. 

2.Carefully select three to six key words or key phrases.
This is the most critical element to your success. 
The right keywords will attract buyers. Forget about the 
words you would use and think of the interests of your 
customers. How many people really search for "professional
marketing consultant"? Research your competition and 
select "View/Document Source" to see what keywords they
have chosen. If you want an immediate education and 
insight into the surfer mentality, take a look at the 
Search Voyeurs at Webcrawler & Magellan. Pay attention to 
the keyword searches that are actually taking place this 
very moment in cyberspace. (ADULT WARNING: this is not 
for the faint of heart). 

3.Find the popular synonyms for each keyword.
Go to Excite and type in your keywords. Notice the 
checkboxes for "Select words to add to your search.."? 
Take advantage of Excite's extensive vocabulary research. 
Write down the most suitable synonyms and related words 
from the list they display. Keep in mind that these are 
pre-selected keywords which are highly likely to be
chosen by web surfers, so you definitely need to target 
them. 

4.Pick someone's brain. Find a trusted resource for 
up-to-date information.
Buy these two books and give them to your web designer. 
They are the best there is (but don't take my word for 
it... they're completely guaranteed so check them out 
for yourself). 

Stephen Mahaney, "The UnFair Advantage Internet Book on
Winning The Search Engines War" 
John DeUlloa, "The Step by Step Guide to Successfully
Promoting a Web Site"

5.Now it's time for some competitive research!
Go to the major search engines and enter your main 
keyword or key phrase. Here's a tip: instead of doing 
this one at a time, use the Super-Seek WebSearch research 
tool. It will automatically create separate browser windows 
for each of the major search engines (quite a time saver!). Then pay attention to the pages that are listed.
Are these sites closely related to yours? If not, you 
better consider different keywords! What makes you want to 
click on some sites but not others? Take notes on the 
headlines and descriptions that got your attention! 

6.Write a key paragraph that is entirely focused on one
keyword and its related synonyms. Repeat this for all
keywords.
You will need to write several short paragraphs that 
refer to your website. Concentrate on the clear benefits 
of each separate product or service that you have. Why do 
your customers care? What keyword is in their mind when 
they try to find this information? Resist the temptation 
to write advertisements -- these should look like the
opening paragraph in a Reader's Digest article. Talk 
briefly and specifically about the problems that your 
customers face, then say "Click here to discover..." or 
"Click here to learn how to...". Listen to HardCopy or 
Paul Harvey and you will learn how to write short "hooks" 
that make someone want to know "the rest of the story...". 

7.Now create a separate "intro" page to target every 
search engine & key paragraph combination.
When you read the books you'll understand why this is 
critically important. If you have 3 keywords to put at 
the top of the 8 major Search Engines, you'll need 
24 pages. If you have 5 keywords, you'll be making 
40 pages, and so on. Stuff these pages with all of
the tricks from the two books -- using different 
refinements for each individual search engine. 
Use TITLE tags, META tags, heading tags, comment tags, 
alt statements, and hidden body text to create the 
maximum percentage of keyword density. Name the file after
your keyword and save it in a subdirectory named after 
your keyword. (If you already knew all of this, then call 
me -- you're hired!)

8.Submit all of the pages you just created to the major 
Search Engines.
This is the easy part. Just cut and paste the URL into 
these submission pages (add your e-mail when necessary). 
That's it! 

AOL NetFind
AltaVista
Excite
HotBot
Infoseek
Lycos
WebCrawler
Yahoo!

9.Start submitting your pages to the huge list of Internet 
Link Sites.
There are two ways to place your submission requests on 
the search directories. One is by hand. You actually go 
to the page and fill out the questions and answers. The 
second way is automating it. In almost every case, the 
automated routines do not take into account the fact that 
you can have longer descriptions, and more keywords on 
some directories and less on others. Most auto-submit-it 
sites do not ask for different categories or multiple
length descriptions. You have to do a few of these by 
hand to understand what they are and how they work. 

Here are two great places to start, The Huge List and 
1,200 Specialty Directories. Breeze through these listings 
and you can quickly determine whether you want to be added
to the directory, what area is most appropriate for you, 
and how you want to describe your page to the other 
readers. 

10.OK, you quickly got tired of doing this by hand and 
want to automate the task, right?! Here are my 
recommendations:

Limited budget? Get the www.SitePromoter software 
(or try a FREE download). Buy it once and use it 
repeatedly. Great for the do-it-yourselfer or webmaster 
with a few clients to promote. This is a very sophisticated
and intelligent program that a novice can learn to use. 
Online downloads keep the search engine submission database
constantly updated. 
Limited time? Check out WebPromote. Fill out the form and
press a button. Easy. Automatic. One of the few auto-submit
sites that asks for categories and multiple length 
descriptions. 
Serious about your traffic? Give us a call at
1-800-701-8176. One of our knowledgeable technicians 
will help you find the right resources. 

 11.Now check the results of your efforts.
You have to check out Rank This! and Position Agent. 
These two sites will save you a significant amount of 
time by searching for your website and telling you how 
well it placed. In the "old" days we used to do this by 
hand... very tedious. Hat's off to these guys for figuring
out how to keep providing these resources for FREE! 
Another resource is WebPosition. You have to buy this one, 
but we use it and it's definitely worth the price. 

12.Continually monitor the search words people are using 
to find your site.

To do this, you need access to referer logs from your ISP 
or a CGI program like KeywordCapture. This will tell you 
which search engines people are looking at to find your 
website and what keywords they used. This feedback is 
essential. You want to keep identifying new words and 
themes that you can use to create additional "intro" pages. 

When you catch on to this idea, you'll realize that the
strategy is to leave your website alone. Your website
becomes the rod & reel. The "intro" pages are flies that 
you cast out at the different search engines to see which 
ones they bite on. It is a continual process of tossing 
out different ones to see what works! 

That's about it -- it's late and my brain is drained. 
But call me sometime and I can probably give another 
pointer or two... <grin>
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Original source:
http://www.hitstosales.com/2search.html
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