Monthly Archives : April 2002

Search Engines want to make money too

The Search Engine world is ever-changing. Getting into the search engines isn’t free anymore. In fact, it isn’t even cheap! This quarter, I will discuss the various costs of submitting to the search engines and directories. Each engine charges for a different service and has a different payment schedule. It gets pretty hectic, so to follow along, put your thinking cap on.

Below is a chart of the costs for a business to get into the search engines. All prices in this article are in US dollars.

Search Engine Cost Schedule Service Comment
Yahoo $299 Annual Just to be considered
LookSmart $299 One time fee Just to be considered Option to pay $149 and
wait 8 weeks
Inktomi $25 Annual
Per page
Inclusion 48 hour refresh
The first page is $39
MSN MSN uses results from LookSmart and Inktomi,
so see LookSmart and Inktomi for their fees
AOL AOL uses results from Inktomi,
so see Inktomi for their fees
Altavista $19 Every six months
Per page
Inclusion
Weekly refresh
The first page is $39;
the next 10 are $29
Lycos $12 Annual
Per page
Inclusion
Weekly refresh
Also an Annual
membership fee of $18

Overture
Overture still shows its top three results on many search engines including MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Altavista and Hotbot. If your ROI is high enough, it is worthwhile bidding at Overture. See Last month’s article for details about Overture.

Google
Throughout this sea of fees lies the rock-steady island of Google. Google charges no fees, and consistently wins awards for “best search results”, “most webmaster friendly search engine”, as well as others. Google makes its money by selling ad space. You can see their ads on the right side of the screen, next to the search results for high demand keywords. For example, a search for “art prints” turns up ads for www.oneposter.com and www.easyart.com. Google’s system is similar to Overture’s.

How to get a good ranking in Google?
Two words: Link campaign.

Getting other sites to link to your website is probably one of the most time intensive and frustrating tasks a search engine optimizer must do. In fact, it usually doesn’t work unless you have set up a reciprocal link on your own site. The best sites to get links from are the directories: Yahoo, LookSmart, and the Open Directory Project (Dmoz.org). If you would like to get a link campaign started with Red Carpet Web Promotion, send us an email at details@redcarpetweb.com for details.

How to get a good ranking anywhere else?
Two words: Credit card.

  • Inktomi, Altavista and Lycos offer free submissions, but you get a boost (and a worthwhile one) when you pay their fees. You also get refreshed on a weekly basis. This allows you to post promotions on your website and, within days, they will show up in the search results.
  • Yahoo and LookSmart require a fee just to be considered for entry into their directory, unless you are a charity or solely an informational site.
  • Overture charges a fee for every person that clicks on your result.

Here are my suggestions on how to budget a submission campaign

  1. Pay to get into Yahoo and Inktomi. These engines are most likely to get the best results per dollar invested.
  2. If you can afford it, pay to get into LookSmart ($149 if you can wait the 8 weeks). LookSmart feeds the MSN search engine, and MSN is putting up a good fight with Yahoo as the top referrer.
  3. Start up an account at Overture and bid on the keyphrases with the best ROI. The minimum bid is 5 cents, so make sure that you make over 5 cents per visitor or you will be losing money. Remember that the minimum you must spend per month is $20.
  4. Altavista and Lycos are also worthwhile, but only if you have a high return on investment (ROI).

In another six months, all these numbers (and fees) will change again. That’s the search engine optimization business. It keeps us on our toes.

Next issue, I will update you on other changes in the industry.

Shawn Campbell is the co-founder and Chief Search Engine Optimizer at Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc.
Shawn shares search engine news in each issue.

How to Profit from Seasonal Shopping April 2002

When our last newsletter was published in January, the Holiday shopping results were not yet in, but reports over the last three months have made it clear that online holiday shopping is a growing phenomenon. For example, the traffic to shopping sites for the five weeks preceding Christmas over the last 3 years has been:

Holiday season Average weekly unique visitors
1999 26,303,000
2000 34,265,000
2001 51,318,000

In terms of unique visits, there is a 50 percent increase compared with the 2000 holiday shopping season and a 95 percent increase versus 1999.
(Statistics provided by Jupiter Media Metrix). Click here for a weekly breakdown for 2001.*

In terms of actual sales revenue, online sales in the fourth quarter of 2001 totaled about USD10.5 billion, up from USD10 billion last year according to ComScore Networks (ComScore’s estimates do not include online travel sales).

Bizrate, on the other hand, estimated online spending for the fourth quarter of 2001 to be USD12.4 billion (up 35 percent on last year) and its estimate for the holiday season is USD 6.4 billion.

In order to profit from an online seasonal rush it is important to think ahead. Unfortunately, most promotion activities take a few months to kick in. However, there are some short term tactics that you can use before an upcoming lucrative season to bring the customers to you. These tactics can be used for any seasonal rush, be it for holidays, sports seasons, back to school or even events such as Formula One Racing, the World Cup Soccer or the Olympics. Below is a breakdown of some short-term marketing tactics that have immediate results, as well as long term tactics that take more time to mature.

Short-term tactics:

Inktomi

  • You can submit specific web pages to the Inktomi directory for under $40 each and they will add you to their database in less than 48 hours! This is great for seasonal specials. However, it is up to you to make sure that your page is well optimized to increase your potential for high rankings. In other words, the page that you submit should be about the keyphrase that you are targeting. Once you are in the Inktomi directory you can also be found in the following search engines: MSN, AOL, Overture, Hotbot, Iwon, LookSmart, About, and Espotting.

Pay-for-placement

  • Starting a pay for placement campaign produces very fast results; but you can bet your laptop that you will not be the only one to bid on terms like “Christmas Gift” next December. Nevertheless, if you have a page on your site relating to something specific, it is a good idea to bid on that item in Overture when the demand is highest. Overture is also useful for seasonal specials since any changes made to a listing are posted the same day. See our previous issue for more details on pay-for-placement bidding.

Long term tactics:

Search engine and directory submissions

  • The most cost-effective way to attract traffic (even for something seasonal like ski equipment) is to work at it all year round. For example, if you have a summer collection and a winter collection of products, you are much better off having two sites instead of flip-flopping your site with the seasons. This way each site will have the whole year to climb in the search results pages and your traffic will be better with each coming year. To switch collections to accommodate each season on the same site would entail having to start from scratch at the onset of every season.

Keyword Research

  • In any search engine positioning campaign, it always pays off to conduct proper keyword research. Knowing which keywords are most in demand, and which ones are overloaded with competition, is essential to making informed decisions about which keywords to focus on.

Other interesting 2001 Holiday shopping facts:

  • In marked contrast to their offline counterparts, few online retailers slashed their prices towards the end of the holiday season. (ComScore)
  • There was a strong growth in clothing and consumer electronics sectors in particular. (ComScore)
  • The number of online holiday shoppers grew from 53 million adults in the 2000 holiday shopping season to 64 million in the 2001 holiday season. (Jupiter Media Metrix)
  • The average spend per order was up 13 percent ($126 USD from $112 USD last year). Consumers also spent an average of 27 percent more on shipping, and 87 percent of orders were delivered on time.(BizRate)

In terms of the top shopping sites, Jupiter Media Metrix provided the following list of average daily unique visitors over the five week 2001 holiday season. These top sites should give you an idea of the holiday shopping mentality.

# website 2001 Holiday Season
Average Daily Unique Visitors in the U.S.
Home/Work Combined
1 ebay.com 4,515,000
2 amazon.com 2,519,000
3 mypoints.com 2,016,000
4 bizrate.com 683,000
5 half.com 660,000
6 mcafee.com 652,000
7 columbia house sites 598,000
8 eshop.com 588,000
9 americangreetings.com 563,000
10 toysrus 515,000
11 barnesandnoble.com 447,000
12 walmart.com 434,000
13 bestbuy.com 416,000
14 dell.com 408,000
15 bmgmusicservice.com 379,000

If you are wondering which products or services to promote, visit these sites to see what they are offering. If you can combine the right product with the right keyword, and promote it so that shoppers can find you, then you will truly profit from the public’s growing love affair with e-shopping during the holidays.

Jason Campbell

If you have any comments on this article, please respond to news@redcarpetweb.com

Jason Campbell is the co-founder and President at Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc.