 Summary:
The changing world of search engine
optimization and internet marketing,
circa 2004.
For
years, almost anyone involved with the
promotion of their website, be it for
commercial or other purposes, has come
to either love, or hate, search engines.
Whether it is Yahoo, Google, MSN, Ask
Jeeves, or one of the literally
thousands of smaller search engines and
directories, website owners have known
that by “optimizing” their site for
search engines, they could hope to rise
to the top ranks of a leading search
engine when an applicable keyword or
phrase was entered in the search engine
by a user.
Back in 1997, when
I started a small retail website that
sells antique maps, http://www.vintagemaps.com
, all it took to get indexed in the
Yahoo directory was a free submission.
My site was dutifully submitted, and
within four weeks it was #1 for its most
important keyword phrase, and it
remained in Yahoo’s top 10 for at least
a year. Today, by contrast, it would
cost $299 to even submit a commercial
site to the Yahoo directory, and there
is no guarantee that it will even be
indexed!
The world has
changed. For observers of the search
engine phenomenon, it was only a matter
of time before the free ride was over.
How could it be otherwise? For years,
website owners such as myself had been
enjoying vast, and free publicity,
courtesy of various search engines and
directories. It could not last forever.
First came search engine optimization,
whereby savvy website owners hired
specialists to “tweak” their sites to
get better placement on the search
engines. As soon as the search engines
saw dollars being pumped into search,
they began setting up their own payment
models, including “pay-per-click”
methods that allow an advertiser to
display a small ad, adjacent to the free
search results, tied to specific
keywords.
2004 is turning out
to be the year when the free ride is
looking like an endangered species.
Everyone is getting into the act:
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Verizon, and
more. The phone company “Yellow Pages”
people are growing their internet
presence, and all these companies are
searching for just the right mix of
keyword/pay-per-click/paid directory
listing model. Already, the paid options
for website promotion far outnumber the
old-fashioned search engine placement.
Where it will end is anyone’s guess. But
what’s for sure is that the free ride is
nearly over. Exposure on the Internet,
like exposure in the rest of the media,
has become a commodity. In the future,
many ways of promoting a website will
resemble advertising models familiar
from the non-Internet world. To garner
promotional exposure, the website owner
will need to expend more resources than
ever. Whether the resources are supplied
personally by the website owner, or by
hired specialists, does not really
matter. The new reality is that
promotion on the Internet is already
looking a lot like promotion everywhere
else in the world. Vital, and valuable.
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