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World Wide Where?? How to get the best out of Search Engines

Search Engine Submission Tips

The Minimum Budget: Yahoo

How much to budget? At minimum, you MAY want to cover submission to Yahoo's human-compiled directory for one year. This is because the flat $300 annual fee that Yahoo charges may help ensure that major crawler-based search engines pick up your home page quickly.

Huh? Pay to be in human-compiled results in hopes of influencing crawlers? Crawlers analyze links from across the web to decide which pages they should pick up and potentially rank well. Being listed in Yahoo's human-compiled directory is potentially one of the best links you can gain, to influence crawlers.

It may be that crawlers will find your page and perhaps rank it well even without the benefit of a Yahoo link. So if money is tight, wait two or three months after you launch your site and see how you do. If you still aren't doing well with crawlers, then spending the money with Yahoo may help you.

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I Need To Be Listed Fast!

Often, those who launch new web sites want to appear in search engines right away. A key way to do this is by using paid placement programs, as explained further in this guide.

The budget below will get you going for at least a month, in most cases. After that, it may be that you'll have some "natural" or "free" listings appearing. When this happens, you could potentially stop doing advertising -- though a wiser course is to continue with advertising as insurance against potential problems with your free listings.

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Paid Listings Budget

Overture Inc (a Yahoo Company)	$50
Google	$25
Total	$75

What about staying on top?

Although the prices above will list your site for you, what if you want to continue ensuring that your site is listed in the top rankings? Overture and Google both provide "pay-per-click" options. A "pay-per-click" concept is a paid service which will bring your site to the top of a search engine as a "sponsored site". In Yahoo it would be at the top of the page before listing the non-sponsored sites. In Google, they are along the right side of the page. This service allows you to choose which keyword(s) your site would like to sponsor.

Download Search Engine Placement Tips

There are tools available which will help you determine the cost-benefit of paying for keyword sponsorship. Try these resources for some interesting keyword information.

Keyword Selector Tool (Provided by Overture Inc) - type in a keyword of your choosing to see how many people have searched for that keyword in a given month. This will give you a good idea of what people are searching for and what terms they are using. Try a few closely related keywords to get a good sense of terminology.
Google Adwords Keyword Tool - This tool will give you alternatives on the keywords you are searching for. Google offers a variety in search settups for your keywords i.e., a global search would also list your site if there are related keywords.
View Bids Tool (Provided by Overture Inc.) - type in a keyword to find out who is currently bidding on it, and what they are paying to bid for this keyword.

Compare Google Adwords & Overture Inc

With so many options, I have provided the best unbiased comparison I could provide for CPC (Cost-per-click) services.
Consideration	Yahoo (Overture)	Google
Would like to do your own research?	Overture Inc. Web Site	Google Adwords Web Site
Coverage	Coverage includes Overture partner sites Yahoo!, MSN, InfoSpace and AltaVista	Google search engine and google ads on related sites
Competitive Pricing	You choose the keyword cost per click and monitor it through an admin panel	AdWords Discounter automatically monitors your competition and lowers your CPC to one cent above theirs. Eliminating the need for you to be paying more than one cent above your competitor.
Ranking	Ads assigned positions based solely on CPC. Allows for "squatting" in the top positions by irrelevant advertisers. Truly he who pays the most get the top rank	Rank is determined by combination of CPC and clickthrough rate. If an ad is irrelevant to users, they won't click on it and it will move down the page. Your relevant ads will rise, at no extra cost to you. If however, your ad isn't relevant, it will move you down the list regardless of your cost
Campaign Management	The DirecTraffic Center® - allows you to monitor and make any changes to your accounts online. You may view your account statistics, add or modify your listings, change your bids and much more any time you wish. Overture also has a dedicated team of Loss Prevention specialists and a Click Protection System that vigilantly monitor click activity. The Click Protection System prevents unqualified clicks from being charged by using a variety of proprietary techniques to review clicks on a near real-time basis.	Along with the capability to monitor and amend your keywords, AdWords Discounter takes care of your campaign for you, dynamically raising and lowering your CPC within the range you specify to keep you in the position you want.
Timing	Generally, search listings go online within three business days after they are submitted.	Ads go live almost immediately once you create them. No waiting for your ads to show up.
Minimum Deposit to Start	US$50.00 minimum deposit at initiation	$10.00 CDN total startup cost (Google will work in Cdn funds)
Monthly Minimum Fee	US$20.00/month - minimum cost per click is 0.10 US	None - pay only for clicks - minimum cost per click is 0.08 Cdn
Target by Country or Language	Automatically displays your ads to anyone who searches on your keywords, regardless of what country they're in or language they speak. There is no way to limit which country or region you wish to limit your services to.	You choose who should see your ads from among 250+ countries and 14 languages. You have control over your ads so you can be sure they are only shown to a highly targeted audience.
Ad Groups	Must set & monitor price for each keyword. Not possible to group ads or create campaigns.	Set a maximum price for an individual keyword or a group of keywords.
Campaign Assistance	With the Overture Fast Track® program, they will call you to confirm your contact information and to get more information about your site. Then they will send you a complete proposal (View Sample) containing relevant, pre-approved keywords, bidding strategies and titles and descriptions for your site within three business days. Once you e-mail them your approval of their proposal, and your agreement to their Advertiser Terms and Conditions, they will put your listings online. Cost is $150 US.	Google Jumpstart® is a full service method of signing up for Google AdWords, where Google specialists set up your AdWords account for you. Cost is $299 US. However, it is applied toward your initial ad clicks.(must be used within 6 months).

Now let's put it all together. Here's the ideal amount you would budget, if you want to show up in the widest range of important search engines within a matter of days:

Search Engine Submission Budget
Yahoo	$300 US
Paid Listings (one shot listing - Google and Overture)	$75 US
Total	$375 US

Supplemental Pay-per-Click

Pay-per-click	additional $100 US for Overture Fast Track $240 US for minimum monthly (1 year) $5 US for Google Adwords
Supplemental Total	$345 US

Again, you can get listed without spending a penny, as will be explained on the following pages. However, if your goal is to be seen right away in as many places as possible, you'll set aside the amount shown above, in the combined budget.