How To Sneak Up Behind Your Competitors And Pass Them In The Search Engine 500!      

It's a fierce race you're in, and it's going to get more complex the longer you're in it. Search engine strategy is the most frequently asked question I get on various discussion boards and expert panel websites. The reason people ask the question "How do I get listed on Yahoo!" so much is because the answer to the question is a constantly moving finish line you'll have challenges getting to. I'm going to describe a very simple, free tool I like to use, and I'll show you how to use it in a unique way to improve your search engine ratings. I know, I know, you've heard it all before, right? This is a different way of looking at things. Not only is your website going to be listed by popularity, but it will also depend on something called weight. This is a different kind of strategy I thought of while considering a software tool I found and thinking, "What if?"

The name of the tool is Keyword Extractor, written by my favorite, radical software company "AnalogX". ( http://www.analogx.com ) It's not new. It's been around for about a year now, and it's free. You'll find your copy of this great tool by visiting their website. This nifty piece of software installs in about 5 minutes, and you'll want to register it (it's free) to let them know someone appreciates their software. Before actually running the software, you should have some idea who's crushing you in the big search engines.   You can find out who by typing in some of the keywords you think describe your site into your favorite search engines. You'll want to enter the words you'd like to be listed under in the top of the listings. Pick the first 10 or so websites who dominate your favorite keywords and write down their website addresses in your newly created "Search Engine Strategies" notebook. Just choose any binder notebook you feel comfortable working out of. Open the Keyword Extractor tool and enter each URL by clicking on Process, Load URL. You'll need to type in the http:// in front of each address. Press Go, and it's off! You'll begin to see a list of keywords the tool extracted from their webpages. Check the weight column to see the occurrences of each keyword in their pages. These are keywords that exist in their metatag keywords section and in the text of their webpages. I'll tell you a secret: One of the biggest Internet marketers in the business who claims to have made 5 million on the Internet in 1999 is using words like "hooters" and "Microsoft" as his keywords.

I don't recommend putting any words on your site that don't match your site's subject matter. Search engines are getting smarter and banning cheaters from their listings. Boy, is his Momma gonna be mad! [chuckling]

Pick a list of 50 words that are used by your competitors. Use them. Do manual submits to your favorite search engines. Save the money you were going to spend on that super-duper "Submit your site to 50 trillion search engines" software. Avoid frames if you can. Write content at your website containing those keywords that are putting them ahead of you.

One last bit of advice: I devoured Frederick Markini's new book "Search Engine Positioning". You'll find it here: http://www.seedyourweb.com/mbooks.html

It's complex and can get pretty technical, but then again - the subject can be pretty complex at times anyway. In order to answer the search engine question for yourself, it helps to understand how they really work and where they're headed.

Lynne Schlumpf is the author of 'The Little Website That Could", a book that’s been setting sales records on the Internet and took 8
years of research to write. You can find Lynne on the Internet here: http://www.littlewebsitethatcould.net