The Point: Search engines are the leading form of online referral and can guarantee Web traffic.

Tom Dahm explains how to get your company to the top.

Eighty-five percent of Internet users find websites through search engines. Eight-five percent!

Clearly, search engine placement should be the first step in any online marketing strategy. Unfortunately, nothing in this important arena is as easy as it seems. Just getting listed with a search engine can take anywhere from two weeks to six months, and a search engine listing by itself doesn't guarantee traffic. Internet users are too impatient to drill down through three pages of results to find your site. If you're not in the top 20, you might as well not be listed at all.

I recently used AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com/) to search by brand name for a Weber barbeque grill. My search returned plenty of results, but the manufacturer's website was the thirty-fourth site listed. Thirty-fourth? But it's the manufacturer's website! Why isn't it ranked No. 1? Obviously, this company isn't getting many customers through AltaVista. But it's not AltaVista's fault; it's the manufacturer's search engine optimization tools (or lack thereof) that are to blame.

To a search engine, each webpage is just a document filled with words. The search engine has no way of knowing that the author of one document is the product manufacturer while the author of another is just a retailer, fan, or competitor.

For a page about barbeque grills, it has to figure out that the words "barbeque" and "grill" are important -- and that "chicken" or "beef" aren't. The rules for doing this are complicated and include frequency, emphasis, and placement of words on your page. Other factors, such as your domain name and the number and subject of other websites linking to your page, also play an important role. To make things more confusing, each search engine uses different rules to determine what your page is about, so factors that improve your ranking with one search engine may have no effect with another.

Welcome to the arcane world of search engine optimization!

Choosing a search engine optimizer (SEO) is the core of your search engine strategy. There are two ways you can do this:

In Search of Software Packages

First, you can do it yourself using one of several software packages. These packages typically feature keyword tools that identify popular search terms, page graders that tell you how to improve your pages, information on some of the top engines about how they will rank your page, and submission tools and trackers to report where your site ranks in the results.

Search engine optimization software typically costs between $100 and $300. FirstPlaceSoftware makes a popular desktop package called WebPosition Gold. My company, NetMechanic, makes an online package called Search Engine Power Pack.

If you use one of these software packages, expect to budget at least two weeks to optimize your website based on their recommendations. After that, expect to spend another four hours per week tracking your rankings and adjusting pages to improve them.

In Search of a Search Engine Optimization Consultant

The second approach is to hire a search engine optimization consultant. Typical costs for a good consultant run from $1,500 to $5,000, with top firms guaranteeing a top 20 ranking. If you go this route, keep in mind that your Web staff will still have to budget time to implement site changes recommended by the consultant. Whichever route your chose, be patient. Be prepared to wait at least three months before you see any real improvement. But when you do, you'll be happy you spent the time and effort evaluating your options to get the end results: incredible rankings and increased site traffic.

About the Author: Tom Dahm is COO at NetMechanic Inc., a leading developer of online maintenance, monitoring, and promotion services for small- to medium-size business websites.