Search Engine Optimization

—or—

“How Can I Get Listed Better on Search Engines?”
by Todd Roseman

Search Engine Market Share
	56.4%
	21.1%
	9.2%
Source: ClickZ Slightly Different results at Search Engine Watch

Being at the top of the list can be a BIG deal. For some companies, it's a major source of referrals that become sales on their websites. For any company it's a good idea to be ranked well for at least a few keywords. And it's not just any search engines that matter.

As you can see from the table on the right, Google is very important for search engine placement with Yahoo still quite strong. A good strategy starts with Google and Yahoo and then focuses on the lesser-used search engines.

But search results are not the only thing on the page — so let's clear things up. Advertising shows up on the page labeled as "Sponsored Links." The natural listings, as shown on right, are the unpaid results from Google. On some keywords there are additional ads above the "natural listings."

These natural results come from Google's technology that looks at web pages and comes up with a sorted list of pages that match the keyword. While Google doesn't tell us exactly what makes a site rank higher than another, they do give many hints.