To maximise your website traffic through the search engines you need to focus on the Big3!

What/who are the Big3? They are Google. MSN and Yahoo search. This article will take you through these three search engines and what you can expect from them in terms of achieving results both in a short term, as well as a long term basis.

As a search engine, Google still continues to dominate, with Yahoo and MSN the next two choices for people utilising the search market. While in general Google is a clear leader as first preference for internet users when trying to find something of interest on the internet, this is not necessarily in all categories. In some categories you will find the website traffic coming from MSN and Yahoo search is considerably more than Google.

So it is important when optimising your website to target not just Google but all of the Big3 (Google, MSN, and Yahoo).

Some of our websites have achieved top 10 rankings and first place positions for main keywords in MSN whereas Google can take up to 3 times as long by comparison.

While the Googlebot will pick up a new website quickly, usually only a business name will achieve high ranking quickly, not your main keywords. Often new websites listed in Google's search results will not achieve high rankings for many months, and for very competitive key words six months plus. In saying that Google loves unique content; so for websites that are not in such a competitive market and providing something new and different, top 10 rankings can be achieved within a month or two.

Due to the amount of time it takes to achieve these ranking it is important that your website is always monitored and keywords are tracked on a regular basis to ensure you are keeping ahead of your competitors. Continual optimisation of your website may be necessary to ensure that not only do you achieve top rankings in the first place, but that you maintain them.

Note: Using a professional search engine marketing company like Quantum Web Solutions will benefit you considerably towards achieving these rankings. We also know various techniques that help drive traffic to your website much sooner.

The BIG3

Google Search: For those that monitor their website statistics (which is highly recommended if you want to ensure your website is doing well) you will notice that the Google spider can visit your website within as soon as a day of your website being launched for the first time. However, unless your website provides something new or unique, at this current time* it is highly unlikely you will achieve high rankings for anything other than your business name in a short period of time.

It is also possible there may be keywords that attain higher rankings, but if they are competitive keywords in a competitive market then this will be very unlikely. If you are offering a service or product that is new and/or unique, then you will certainly have more opportunity to achieve these high rankings as Google loves new content.

For very competitive markets you can look at up to six months plus to see your keywords bringing in the desired search engine traffic you are looking for. In these instances if you need to bring in traffic quickly, we suggest setting up a pay-per-click campaign. There are also other sources that can help bring in traffic to your site sooner than this, which we are able to provide as part of our services.

For new and/or unique website offerings, Google will give high rankings faster for a couple of reasons:

1. It is the opportunity to provide something new to the WWW.

2. There is less competition so there are not as many search results to compete against; therefore if your website is properly optimised achieving high rankings will be much easier and faster.

MSN Search: MSN is generally much faster in not only picking up a new website and listing it, but also if your website is properly optimised it is possible to achieve high rankings in the MSN search results in less than a month, even in markets that are relatively competitive. This is by no means guaranteed, but I have seen this happen on many occasions. So while generally MSN search will not always bring you the same volume of traffic that Google search will; it does have the advantage over Google that in the short term it will drive more visitors to your website.

Yahoo Search: While Yahoo Search can bring a steady flow of traffic into your website; the challenge lies in being listed in the first place with them. I have seen websites picked up by the yahoo spider and listed within a month, but these are rare occasions. Normally it can take at least three months if not more for Yahoo to visit your website in the first place, no matter what techniques are used. Once Yahoo search picks a website up however, it does not take very long for a website to achieve good rankings and to start driving traffic to a website.

There are many different search engines out there, but many of them feed their results directly from one of the Big3. By focusing most of your search engine marketing efforts around these three, you are highly likely to see website traffic coming in from other search engines. For anyone that is new to search engine marketing, the process of achieving high listings for your business may seem daunting. However with the right approach and focus it won't be long before you see string results coming not just from the Big3 search engines, but many other sources on the web.

* As the Search Engine market is constantly evolving, so too are the way search engines list websites in their results.

Andrew Seidel - SEO Specialist and Search Engine Placement Consultant in Sydney, Australia.

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