Promotion Tip:
Search Habits And Web Site Promotion

by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.

Getting a top search engine ranking is easy if your keywords aren't popular. Getting a top ranking that actually brings visitors to your site is more difficult.

Successful web site promotion requires sites to make page content that targets popular keywords and keyword phrases for their topic. That strategy works because they understand how people use search engines. Do you?

A Change In Search Behavior Affects Web Site Promotion

In March 2002, the research team of Amanda Spink (Pennsylvania State University), Bernard J. Jansen, (US Army War College), Dietmar Wolfram (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), and Tefco Saracevic (Rutgers University) published the results of a multi-year study of Web searching habits.

The research team analyzed over one million data searches performed at the Excite search engine between September 1997 and May 2001. They found that Web search patterns are changing - but not in ways you might expect.

• 22 percent of searchers used the 100 most frequently occurring query terms.
  
  
• "More than 50 percent of 2001 users submitted a single short query, about 20% submitted two queries, and another 29% entered three or more unique queries."
  
  
• "Despite commonly retrieving a large number of Web sites, users tend to view few result pages per query. This trend appears to be increasing with the majority of Web users not browsing beyond the first or second page of results. "

In a related, but separate study, Major Bernard Jansen found that queries containing 4 to 6 words accounted for just 12% of all searches, while queries containing 1 to 3 total words were 81% of searches.

All these facts and figures are important because they describe how visitors will find your site - or not find it.

Let's look at the results one at a time.

Keyword Popularity Matters

Sure, you can target an obscure keyword phrase and easily rise to the top of the ranking for that phrase, but what good does it do you? Before you decide which keywords and keyword phrases to target, use our keyword popularity tool to find out if searchers actually use those phrases! The tool even suggests alternate phrases that might bring better results.

For instance, a Web site selling hand-knitted dog sweaters might target this keyword phrase:

"handmade dog sweaters"

But one glance at the keyword popularity of that phrase shows that nobody searched on that term at Overture during the month of October 2002!

The phrase returns just 6 results at Google. The site would immediately be in the top 10 search results, but who would be looking for it?

Instead, a less targeted keyword phrase could give the site much more exposure. We searched on a few alternates:

Meanwhile at Google, a search on the keyword phrases "dog sweater" and "dog clothing" returned over 4,000 results. The competition is larger - but the number of people searching on those phrases is larger too.

You've probably noticed that most of these examples are two-word phrases. That's in keeping with Major Bernard's study results that found the vast majority (81%) of searchers using just one to three words in their search phrase.

Get The Phrase Right The First Time

Most searchers don't spend a lot of time refining their search: half are likely to search just once on a single phrase.

That puts a lot of pressure on you when you're developing site content. You have to have a good idea of what phrases people will use to find you before you start designing your site.

Study your page content and HTML code to make sure you take every opportunity to use keyword phrases to your advantage:

Each time you use the keyword phrases that you've targeted, you're boosting your chance of getting a high relevancy score - and a higher search rank.

But beware of over-using your keywords. Search engines are alert for people who try to stuff too many keywords on their page because it's a common spamming technique. Let Page Primer evaluate your page content before you submit to search engines. It will alert you if you've used your keywords too often.

You Have To Make The Top 30

This is the one that strikes fear in webmasters everywhere because it indicates just how vitally important a high search engine listing really is.

Too often, webmasters think that just getting into a search engine or directory will bring them instant visitors and sales. It may, but don't count on it! 50.5 percent of searchers in the Excite study never looked past the first search results page and only 29.2 percent made it to the third.

Successful sites tune their Web page content to match how people search and optimize pages for particular, short search terms. That's another use for Page Primer. It helps you optimize your page for particular search engines and increase your chances of appearing at the top of the rankings for popular keywords.

Increase Your Presence On The Web

Although these statistics may sound discouraging at first, don't despair. You can take full advantage of visitors' search habits if you're willing to work at it. Just remember that your promotional efforts shouldn't stop at your home page. Webmasters often knock themselves designing a great home page, but ignore the promotion possibilities of the rest of the site.

But think about it. When you target 2 or 3 different keyword phrases on each page in your site, you've tremendously increased the odds of being found by searchers because there are a greater variety of keywords they can use to find you.

Try these three easy steps:

The deep submit option allows you to submit every page of your site that you've optimized. That increases your chances for a high search engine rank for every page in your site - not just one. If you're only submitting your home page, you're wasting a valuable opportunity to extend your site's presence on the Web and ignoring the realities of how people actually use search engines.

Web site promotion takes time and effort, but the increased traffic will be worth it!