Four Reasons Why The Smaller Search Engines Matter
By Bill Platt, the Phantom Writers© 2006
These days, all search engine optimization gurus only seem to
talk about Google, as if Google was the only search engine on
the Internet.
Of course, we all know that there really are hundreds of search
engines and directories available to us, and we know that some
of the smaller search engines serve a very tight niche of users.
Honestly, I can understand why there is a lot of press on Google,
because after all, granddaddy Google is the biggest of the big.
We know that millions of people use Google daily for their search
activities, and we know that our websites receive a lot of
traffic from Google.
There are actually four reasons why you would want to extend your
search engine marketing activities beyond Google. I will discuss
each of those reasons here:
Reason #1: Targeted Traffic
Niche content search engines can be a very powerful force in
your marketing arsenal.
For example, suppose you have a website dedicated to helping
sell real estate. Does it make better sense to list a house for
sale in Google or in one of the many real estate search engines?
Let’s face facts. When we look for tightly focused content such
as real estate listings, we generally seek out a search engine
that will serve our search the best. When searching for a new
home, an individual may begin his or her search at Google to find
the real estate search engines, but once the niche search engine
has been found, there is no need or desire to return to
granddaddy Google. The real estate search engine will allow the
individual to search through cities and neighborhoods, prices,
features and pictures, to find just the house they feel might
strike their fancy.
Even in the game of Internet marketing, a niche content search
engine or directory can be a very powerful addition to your
marketing portfolio. It is only a matter of searching out and
locating the niche content search engine or directory that serves
your particular niche the best.
Reason #2: Costs Management
The Big Three have each developed their own pay-per-click search
models. And, because they are the Big Three search engines, they
can also afford to charge advertising rates that permit them to
be among the most profitable enterprises on the Internet.
The perception of pay-per-click pricing at the Big Three is that
the little guy can afford to advertise with them. But with every
Internet marketer on the web trying to compete for Big Three
search traffic, their five cents per-click easily increases to
sixty cents per-click, and in some industries, it can climb to
five or fifty dollars per-click.
The pay-per-click “auction mentality” really kicks into hyper-
overdrive in some industries. And the Big Three eat it up, as do
their stockholders. Each day, they dance their way to the bank
with your money in tow.
The smaller niche search engines may not serve as much traffic,
but they definitely allow you to reach more people for the same
money. You can reach people who are more inclined to buy your
goods and services, because they were searching on a niche
website, and you can get their traffic for a lot less money than
it would cost you to get the same prospect from any of the Big
Three search engines.
Reason #3: Linking for Google Placement
For those of you who are still involved in the Google PageRank
chase, the smaller search directories can be counted on as a
really valuable asset in your linking portfolio.
Many of the smaller search directories carry some pretty decent
PageRank with them.
For example:
- Blog-Search.com carries a PR6.
- Search66.com carries a PR6.
- GoArticles.com carries a PR6.
- SearchWarp.com carries a PR5.
- SitesOnDisplay.com carries a PR5.
- SearchRamp.com carries a PR5.
- MixCat.com carries a PR5.
- TorontoMalls.com carries a PR5.
- OutdoorHits.com carries a PR4.
- FindYourForum.com carries a PR4.
As you are already aware, the PageRank of a website that is
pointing to your website plays a role in determining the value of
your own website in the Google PageRank calculations, thereby
increasing your chances of gaining ground in the Google SERP’s
(Search Engine Result Pages).Targeted directories pass their PageRank value to the websites
that list with them, which is great for your website.
Additionally, getting placed into these directories is often
cheaper and easier to accomplish, than with any other method of
linking for the purposes of increasing PageRank.Reason #4: Extra Traffic
Yahoo, MSN, WindSeek.com, ExactSeek.com, and many others are
making changes, improving their results, and trying to position
themselves to compete toe-to-toe with Google or to compete for
searchers not happy with Google’s search product (yes, there are
actually people out there who do not like to use Google). These
non-Google engines are currently serving millions of additional
searches a day or month.The Big Three: Google, Yahoo and MSN only served 73% of the
Internet’s search traffic in July 2005
(http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/3099931), and
81% of the search traffic in November of 2005
(http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156451). These
percentages are based on a rough estimation of just over 5
billion searches per month.Even on the November 2005 numbers, search engines that are NOT in
the Big Three are delivering 950 million searches per month. That
is a lot of additional traffic!If your search engine marketing activities are focused only on
the Big Three, or even worse, only on granddaddy Google, you are
throwing away anywhere from 20% to 53% of your potential customer
base!Locating The Smaller Search Engines and Directories…
Here are a few resources that can help to find hundreds of the
smaller search engines and directories that may be available to
you:Independent Search Engine & Directory Network – http://www.isedn.org/
Yahoo Search Engine & Directory Listings – http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/
World_Wide_Web/Searching_the_Web/Search_Engines_and_Directories/International Directory of Search Engines – http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/
Small Search Engines and Directories Really Do Matter…
I have just outlined four reasons why the smaller search engines
and niche directories should matter to those of us who market our
goods and services on the Internet. I have also given you a
starting point for locating these excellent search websites.Sure, it might take a little bit more time to get listed in these
smaller resources, but if you calculate how much time you spend
developing your positioning in the Big Three, then it really is
not that much of a time investment after all.The smaller directories can help us to improve our Google
PageRank. They can help us to get more mileage from our
advertising dollars than what we can get from the Big Three.
They allow us to tap into additional sources of targeted traffic
with a real potential for increasing our sales and profits. And,
the best reason to use the smaller search engines and directories
is that they actually serve another 950 million searches a month.
============================================================
Bill Platt is the owner of http://thePhantomWriters.com
Article Distribution Service. He has been ghost writing for
clients since 1999, and he has been distributing client articles
since 2001. Bill regularly maintains his database of submission
resources, and he applies the human touch to every article
distribution. By reviewing every article and manually selecting
where it will be distributed, publishers and webmasters trust
that he will send only the most appropriate articles to them.
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