August 2006

The Truth about Search Engine Ranking

A question frequently asked by our clients is, "Why doesn't my site rank higher in the search engines?" The next question is generally, "Why doesn't my site get more traffic?"

The short answer is this: it depends on what search terms are used by potential visitors, as well as how many other websites offer a similar product or service.

Real-world search example

Let's search for a fictitious small bakery — Nancy's Gourmet Cookies.

Nancy worked with a web designer and has an attractive, easy-to-navigate ecommerce website with beautiful photos of her mouth-watering cookies. Now she is waiting for the Internet sales to roll in.

Guess what? After a few months on the web, nancyscookies.com isn't on the first page in Google, or MSN, or Yahoo, or any other search engine. And, boy is she upset! "I spent all this money on a website and haven't seen any new sales! Why not?"

First, Nancy does not have a unique product. We don't know how many other people are baking cookies and trying to sell them on the Internet, but there are a lot.

The following results were actually obtained on the Google search engine on the day this article was written. If you follow along, you'll probably get similar results. The actual search terms used are shown in [brackets].

First attempt

First we searched for the single term [cookie]. Results? 304,000,000 pages — yes, that's 304 million pages with the term "cookie" on them! These results include Internet cookies, which are pieces of information that a website puts on your computer so that it can remember something about you at a later time. The word [cookies], which is the term most people will start with, yields even more forbidding results — 830 million pages, including those Internet cookies. With that much competition, nancyscookies.com is nowhere near the first page.

Getting more specific

Let's now assume that potential cookie buyers are discriminating enough to want gourmet cookies, so maybe they'll actually type that term into a search engine. If someone types ["gourmet cookies"] (with the quotes), they'll narrow down their results to 535,000 pages. If they don't use the quotes, there are 11,200,000 results.

And, who doesn't love chocolate? Nancy happens to make wonderful chocolate cookies, so let's now add that term to our search. When we look for ["gourmet cookies" chocolate], we get down to 260,000 results. But that's still too many pages for a potential cookie buyer to wade through — and Nancy's site is not on the first several pages here either.

Narrowing the search even more

Nancy uses chocolate chunks — no ordinary chips are good enough for her cookies. So, let's see how that helps to narrow the search. Our new search term is ["gourmet cookies" + "chocolate chunk"] and we get down to 10,100 results. This is definitely better. If Nancy uses dark chocolate chunks, and the potential buyer is savvy enough to add that to the search term ["gourmet cookies" + "dark chocolate chunk"], we get 21 results. Finally — a reasonable number!

getting up the search engine results ladder If Nancy's site has been on the Internet long enough to have been spidered and added to the search engine's database (and thus is included in these 21 results), she now has an excellent chance of getting noticed.

You can see, however, that getting noticed depends on the willingness (and patience) of potential visitors to refine their search terms. Regardless of how long your website has been on the Internet and how many times the pages have been indexed, finding your site is at the mercy of users and how savvy they are about searching for things.

By the way, did you notice that we put search terms in quotes? Many people don't know that technique for narrowing search parameters.

To see how likely your website will rise to the first few pages of a search, try this exercise yourself with your own industry or field.

Your website is just one tool

Your website is just one element of your total marketing effort. Like your business card, brochure, direct mail campaign, etc., your website is another way to tell your story. But, seeing how many millions of other websites your site may be competing with, you might wonder whether having a website is really worth it.

The answer is yes. That's because your customers and potential customers expect you to have a website. In today's business world, a website confers credibility and legitimacy. An attractive, easy to navigate website that portrays your company in a professional manner is a plus when potential customers are comparing you to your competitors. And, depending on your product or service, a website lets you provide a way for people to purchase your product or initiate service requests at any time that is convenient for them.

Promote your website

So, just having a website isn't enough. If you want people to come to your website, you must actively promote your website. Gone are the days when a passively maintained website will somehow attract a casual Internet passerby and yield worthwhile results.

In reality, you must let all of your customers and prospects know about your website. It goes without saying that you should include your website address on your business cards and every printed piece you produce (letterhead, brochures, flyers, postcards, signage, newspaper and magazine ads, yellow pages ads, etc.), as well as in the signature block you put at the bottom of every email you send. Mention your website when you talk to clients and potential clients.

Furthermore, you should continually "work your site" — regularly update your site to keep it fresh and give people a reason to visit multiple times. And, each time you update your site with a new article you've written about your industry, or add a new product, service, or new staff member, or have some other newsworthy item to report, send an email to every contact in your rolodex and let them know.

What about paying for placement?

You could consider paying for search engine optimization and for search engine ads if your business has a national market. But, frankly, if yours is a small business and you primarily deliver your products and/or services locally, it is probably a waste of money to advertise globally.

For web savvy businesses, the name of the game is website optimization. But judging from the number of online businesses that offer website optimization services, you might easily (and probably rightly) conclude that there simply are no magic bullets for quickly elevating your website to the top of the search engine results. Like everything else related to marketing and promotion, it's a matter of always working at it with persistence and consistency. Your website is an important tool that requires both.

If you'd like to learn more about how to work your site so it can work for you, please us!