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Monitoring Search Engine Positions
(C) Michael Rasmussen
All Rights Reserved
http://www.search-engines-revealed.com
Since search engines are the first stop for people on the Internet
looking for goods or services, the position your website appears
in search results is an important factor. If your URL shows up far
down the results list, the chances of the consumer never finding
you increase incrementally. Once you achieve a high search engine
position, it is essential that you make sure you maintain the high
ranking you have worked so hard to achieve.
This means you must come up with a strategy to monitor your search
engines positions. This strategy is crucial to the success of any
marketing campaign. Think of your search engine positions as your
online portfolio. Would you let your stock portfolio be ruled by
chance and market fluctuations, or would you keep close tabs on
your stocks so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This
is the way you must consider your search engines positions.
Be aware that at first, after you have launched your search engine
campaign and done all the right things to increase your rankings,
you will most likely see a continual upward climb. What you need
to be on the lookout for is the moment that upward climb reaches a
plateau. When this happens, your search engine position campaign
moves into stage two, the monitoring and protecting stage.
In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-term
fluctuations in your positions. These are similar to the subtle
rising and falling of stocks in a portfolio. Short-term movement
is an integral part of the whole process. It's the long-term
changes that you must watch for and prepare to act on immediately.
Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions is
imperative. The way in which search engines rank websites may
change at the drop of hat. If you are unaware of these changes -
many of which are subtle yet can be deadly to your ranking - your
position may drop to the bottom of the list before you can get
your bearings. To prevent this kind of precipitous drop, you must
create a system to monitor your positions on a monthly basis.
Devise a chart to keep tabs on your top ranking positions or your
top pages, and make sure to watch "the market" closely.
Each search engine uses a formula to compute website rankings.
When a search engine changes this formula in any way, it may raise
or lower your ranking. Some search engines use a number of
different formulas, rotating them so that a formula doesn't become
overused or outdated. Depending on which formula is being applied,
your search engine position may suddenly drop or rise in rank
significantly. Therefore, you must check your positions frequently
in order to catch when a search engine changes formulas and what
effect it has on your positions.
You must also deal with your competition - a crucial factor you
must always be vigilant about. Your competitor's position may
suddenly rise, automatically lowering your position. Or their
position may drop, pushing your position higher. Each month,
expect position changes due to the continual changes that are
occurring in your competitor's position, and be prepared to adjust
your marketing strategy to compensate for decreased rankings.
Monitoring these fluctuations will also give you vital information
about how to improve your website to increase your position in
search results.
Of course, you must discern what the most popular search engines
are in order for your monitoring efforts to be effective. Right
now, there are ten popular search engines that direct most of
Internet traffic to your sites. The challenge you face is that
these top ten may change from month to month.
This means that your must not only monitor your search engine
positions, but you must also keep track of the ranking popularity
of the search engines you are monitoring. Find out which search
engines people use most frequently every month and be sure to live
in the present! People are fickle about their favorite search
engines, and it takes constant vigilance to follow their
dalliances. The search engines they loved when you first launched
your campaign may be old news in the next few months. You must
adjust your list of engines according to the whims of the Internet
users. Check out http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html
for a current list of website favorites.
Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of your
positions in all search engines. This is not the same as monthly
fluctuations - this is a neon red warning sign! It could mean a
number of different things.
It all your search engine positions have plummeted, it may
indicate that search engines spiders - those sneaky programs that
seek out your site and rank their positions - have found some type
of problem with your website. If you have recently changed the
code, for instance, the spider may become utterly confused and
consequently drop your positions disastrously. If a spider creeps
up on your website when it is down for adjustments or changes, you
may actually disappear from a search engine index entirely. Or a
search engine may drastically change its formula, and suddenly all
of your website come up as irrelevant. If that search engine is a
current favorite, it may create a domino effect, causing all of
your position to drop in all search engines.
Some search engines rely on the results from other search engines,
and it is vital that you know which engines these are and keep
track of all the engines they influence. The biggest problem here
is that search engines will sometimes change affiliations, and
this can create a major shift in the geography of the Internet.
For example, recently Yahoo decided to display only results
gleaned from Google. So you must not only monitor your own
positions, but you must keep abreast of seismic shifts in the
landscape of the Internet as a whole.
Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are the
foundation bricks of the entire search engine system, and they
demand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts. If you have
found that a number of your positions have plummeted, it may mean
that a page of your website has become invisible or inaccessible
to search engine spiders. Or the competition for that particular
keyword or phrase has recently rocketed into outer space. In
either case, you must act quickly and efficiently to regain lost
ground.
Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. If costs
you time and money on a continual basis. Protect this investment
as diligently as you would your financial portfolio. In the same
way, track your positions from an objective perspective, and
monitor your positions on a regular basis. Make sure your time and
effort reap rewards by keeping your eye on the big picture - your
long-term marketing campaign.
Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant
and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing
online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make
money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to
his Free monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for
successful web site promotions that can help YOU!
Go to http://www.search-engines-revealed.com
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