When the World Wide Web began, it was easy to manage search engine listings. All one had to do was throw up some meta tags, be tricky about how you embedded your key words, and BANG! There you were at the top of the search engines. Well, those days are over. Now the search engines want money! And who can blame them . . . after all, that's why we're all in business, right?

There are still things you can do to give your site a chance to get listed at the top with natural or organic searches.

We can analyze and optimize your site to give it the best shot at achieving high rankings on the major search engines. We code your meta tags and use techniques such as keyword weighting, keyword density, keyword proximity, alt tags, hidden text, side door pages, and reciprocal links. We use Web Position Gold to give you a concise report as to your position in the search engines. We can monitor your movement and tweak your site as new information becomes available.

I recommend that you check out Search Engine Watch's Search Engine Submission Tips to learn what your options REALLY are.

I would also recommend:

• Checking Overture's "Term Suggestion Tool" to help decide what keywords are most popular to help you decide where you want to focus your money.
• getting listed with local directories like Buffalo.com.
• getting links from portal sites or professional directories in your industry.
• Trading links with others not in your industry (referrals are the best way of getting business).

Search engine optimization services are based on our standard hourly rate of $85.00 per hour for sites located on WebEditor's servers or $95.00 for sites located on other servers.

Facts and Myths of Search Engine Optimization

Note that optimizing does not mean that you simply submit your web site to Google or "1000+ other search engines," as those SPAM emails suggest. Instead, you need to correctly code your web site. This includes rewriting your copy text, editing your Meta tags, increasing your link popularity, and then registering your web site with various directories and search engines. Listed below are some facts and myths of optimization:

FACT: Reciprocal Links
As stated by Google, which provides over 80% of search results, the best way to ensure a top listing is for your web site to be linked to many other web sites. This is known as link popularity. Google's automated search robots jump from page to page on the Internet via hyperlinks. The more sites that link to yours, the more likely it is that Google will list your site. Creating reciprocal links with affiliates, clients, partners, and any other web site is a great idea. We are not talking about setting up your own Casino affiliate link whereby you plaster "GoldenPalace.com" on your web site to earn a 10 percent commission. Instead, your firm should create an affiliate directory section of your web site and request links from clients, partners, affiliates, directories, and other web sites that are related. With each new relevant link, your web site increases its rank. This will help drive targeted traffic to your web site. Google provides a tool to help you check your link popularity.

FACT: Relevant Content
Most potential clients will not search for your firm by name. Rather, potential clients will search for a law firm by typing in "attorney california osha." Search engines rank web sites higher if they offer relevant content that contains such words or subjects. For your law firm to be found, your site needs to offer authoritative information on your practice areas through articles, newsletters, bulletin alerts, links, statistics, and more. By offering this information, the search engines will associate your web site with key words that will allow potential clients to find your site. Other important factors are where your key words appear on the page, how near the top of the page they are, how close the key words are to each other, and how much text is on the screen.

FACT: Edit your Meta Tags
Meta tags are HTML-coded information that search engines look at when crawling on your web site for information. In the simplest form, meta tags consist of a title, a description, and relevant key words. To optimize the web site, you should decide on the most important words to place in title, keyword, and description meta tags. The description tag is where most search engines get the text that shows up under your listing. The title tag is the most important tag for key word optimization.

FACT: Register your Website
To capitalize on your firm's link popularity, meta tags, and content, your web site needs be registered with the top search engines and as many other web sites as possible. Your company's web site registration process should include:

Submission to free search engines, including Google, Open Directory Project, other major search engines/portals, and other community and local search engines; Submission to paid search engine, including Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves, Inktomi, FAST, Overture, Looksmart, Google AdWords and other industry specific directories. Exchanging reciprocal links with professional organizations, clients, trade groups, consultants, publishers, educational institutions, and other relevant organizations.

FACT: Pay-per-Click Advertising Campaigns Work
If you pay for listings you can guarantee that your traffic will be increased. It is important to make sure that the words and phrases you pay for are properly targeted. If you do not have the time or cannot produce results from search engine optimization, then you can always "buy your way to the top." A pay-per-click ad campaign enables you to list your site at the top of the search engine results (or on the side in some search engines, such as Google). You do not want to pay for words that are too general. You will waste your money when people get to your site and leave immediately when it becomes apparent that you don't have what they need.

It should be noted that Google AdWords and Overture provide ads to different web directories and search engines. Thus, you may want to consider advertising on each. Each provider also has a slightly different pricing structure, content requirement, ranking algorithm, and listing/ad setup.

FACT: Banner advertisements are a good way to generate more link popularity.
While the Google Adwords and Overture text ads are slowly taking over (due to low cost, ease of maintenance, and great results), banner advertisements are still quite useful. It gets you listed on sites that have a high relevance. This can only help your rankings.

FACT: E-newsletters are a good tool
Publishing an e-newsletter keeps you in the mind of your clients. They may also help with your search engine rankings because you can use them to target key words or phrases. They are also a good vehicle for you to offer reciprocal links to other sites without being as blatant as a links page.

FACT: Blogs & Web Logs are important.
A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically, like a journal. The content and purposes of blogs vary greatly from links and commentary about other web sites. If you can get bloggers to mention your site, this will drive more traffic to your site from blog readers and add another link to help your link popularity.

MYTH: I should submit my site to 1000+ Search Engines.
We're sure you've received an email claiming to submit your web site to all search engines. However, can you even name 500 web sites off the top of your head, let alone 1,000 search engines? These companies simply register your web site using an automated computer program. This does not achieve desired results and can actually hurt your web site's ranking as the search engine may reject your listing as spam. Further, there's no need to submit your web site to 1,000 plus search engines as almost all web traffic comes from a handful of search engines (80% from google.com).

MYTH: All search engines are equal.
The top three search engines are Google, Google, and Google. Either through their web site or affiliated web sites (Yahoo! and AOL), Google serves over 60-80% of ALL search engine results. Some other popular portals and directories include MSN, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo!, AOL, Netscape, Hotbot, Lycos, Excite. But note that many of these web sites receive their data from third party sources, such as Google, Open Directory, Inktomi, Overture, FAST, and Teoma.

MYTH: You can optimize for all search engines.
There is no holy grail. However, there is Google. Since Google serves nearly all of the search engine results, if you optimize for Google, you essentially optimize for nearly all results.

MYTH: I don't need a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist.
I can take pictures of my kids, but it does not look like a portrait done by a professional photographer. On your own you can probably achieve decent search engine results for a few keyword phrases. But remember: your competitors are trying to do the same thing, with many of the same words. A SEO specialist knows the little quirks and tricks that can make a big difference and give you the edge. You might think you are doing the right thing when you actually could be hurting your ranking. Trying some of the tricks that used to work a couple of years ago might get you blackballed by the search engines today.

MYTH: Quick fixes like jump pages, cloaking or hiding content will increase my rankings.
While unethical tactics do not hurt anyone like a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), search engines view these techniques just the same. Each search engine has its own code that permits them to ban web sites that use these spam techniques. Use these techniques at your own peril.

MYTH: Software can automatically optimize my web site.
There is no program that can do it for you. There is software that can help you analyze your site and how it compares with sites that are listed higher on the search engines. The software can make suggestions to you, but it will not do it for you. Software can also generate reports to show you your current ranking on the search engines.

MYTH: Link popularity is key - at all costs.
We encourage clients to create reciprocal links with related companies; we do not recommend creating spam links to artificially boost your web site's rating. Further, you should never link your site to spam sites or to sites that contain thousands of web sites in a database.

MYTH: A good optimization specialist will guarantee top results.
No firm can do this - if they're honest. Search engines rankings change on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis - so no guarantee can be set in stone. All we can do it optimize the site and the rest is up to the search engines.