VUMC Web Development

The Internet has become crucial to the marketing strategy of all businesses, large or small. Success means having information easily accessible to the largest population possible. Many Web sites fail to maximize search engine site placement because they do not research how they work.

The following information will offer ways to improve search engine placement, list web based applications that are available to aid in the process, and offer budgetary recommendations to maximize return on investment.

Improving Search Engine Placement:

Keywords or Target Keywords (words Internet surfers use to search for information) are essential to search engine robots, called crawlers or spiders. These robots scan every piece (images and text) of every page in a Web site. They index these words for searching purposes. When choosing keywords, employ keywords each audience would use to find the site. Audiences can range from referring physicians to perspective students to patients. In most cases, each audience will search a site using different terms.  Remember, medical jargon may not be familiar to all audiences.

Target Keywords should be unique and reflect site content. Because most Web sites use single target keywords or keywords, it would not be unusual for your site and other sites to use the same words resulting in competition. Therefore, make keywords at least two or more words long.

Search Engine Spamming is repeating keywords several times. Crawlers will not only index one instance of the keywords, but some are programmed not to index sites that employ spamming. It is unethical and can undermine site placement efforts.

Position of Keywords is Critical  Build the page title (contained in the “title tag” of a site’s code) around keywords or phrases. They should be relatively short and eye-catching, like a newspaper headline. Including keywords or phrases as high on the page as possible will allow crawlers to index pages faster and report pages higher in displayed results.

Structure of Web Page (html tables, images, JavaScripts, etc) affect the search result level in some browsers because the aforementioned items push site keywords lower in the page.  This and using images to display important text content will decrease a site’s search result ranking. Crawlers will index alt-text (pop up text used to describe images), but many times will skip over images in favor of visible text content.

Other tips to enhance site reporting are using html links to point to major inside pages, avoid using frames if possible, and use static pages rather than dynamically generated (created on-the-fly).

Submit Key Web Site Pages  Submit key Web site pages to several search engines.  They will index other pages based on the key Web site pages submitted. Therefore, we recommend submitting the pages that best reflect the content of the site. A word of caution, it is better to manually submit key pages versus using automated programs and services. By manually submitting them, submissions can be verified.  Further, submitting more than the top three pages of the site does not increase a site’s ranking in search results. It does insure that if a crawler has a problem indexing one page it has others it can use. As a rule of thumb, always resubmit pages that have been significantly changed.

There are no guarantees that a search will display a site in the top ten every time. Even though search engines are the primary means used to locate sites, other methods are effective. They include word-of-mouth, traditional media, newsgroup postings, and links from other sites. 

Web-based Applications
There are literally hundreds of online applications that can be used to submit, track, and analyze Website effectiveness. In this document, three have been identified. They are:

1. Google’s Custom “WebSearch” (a Google Business Solution) in conjunction with or used separately “Adwords” and “AdSense”
2. Microsoft’s “Submit It” (search engine submission management) in conjunction with or used separately “Fast Counter Pro” (Web site traffic analysis)
3. Overture’s “Marketing Console”, in conjunction with or used separately “Content Match”, Site Match”, and “Precision Match”

All three applications/tools are valuable, but this writer prefers Microsoft’s “Submit It” and “Fast Counter Pro” because their information was straightforward and easy to find.

Search Engine Budgets vary based on the results desired.  Free search engine submissions are a great place to start.  Submit to several at once.  Listing on free search engines will not result in immediate posting, but it is free.  The fastest way to get a site placed on search engines is by using paid placement programs. 

A minimum paid monthly budget plan for a new site would be approximately $75.00. 

Since crawlers usually run on a 30 day cycle, after the first month a site will gain “natural” or “free” listings. 

A second, more expensive monthly plan would help a site show up in a wider range of top search engines in a matter of days.  It would be approximately $375.00.

Summary

The information presented in this document is a general overview of search engine placement.  It has dealt with placement on the entire World Wide Web.  Site placement can also be restricted to specific geographic areas. The bottom line is that it can be very expensive to keep a site listed at the top of search engine result pages. Companies have several different packages, each with their specific counter methodology and payment schedules. To research if further, please visit SearchEngineWatch, the source for search engine marketing at:

http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/

This document was researched and written by Jason A. Coles, Web Developer, VUMC Communications, Web Team.