Search Engines and Directories

Search engines and directories are an essential way to drive traffic to websites: a US study found that around 85% of people use search engines to find sites (Georgia Institute of Technology Study, 1998: www.gatech.edu), while in Australia almost 15% of all internet traffic is to Search Engines and Directories (Hitwise: www.hitwise.com.au). More than this, a recent US study (iProspect July 2002) has shown that a third of all searchers assume that the brands that appear at the top of the search engine listings are the top ones in their respective business categories - providing a significant opportunity to promote your business online.

It is crucial to know which search engines to submit to, and how, and to be aware of the complex and ever-changing relationships they have with each other. This is a highly specialist area that requires comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge to be successful.

As an example, many still submit to Excite & HotBot - two of the original search engines - expecting to get listed. Unfortunately, they no longer use their own index of websites but instead are now metasearch engines that use other search results. Similarly, two popular Australian search engines, Anzwers and Go Eureka, do not have their own index of websites either: Anzwers results are from Google and Yahoo!, while Go Eureka's are from the payment directory LookSmart.

Search Engine-friendly sites

We develop our clients' content to be optimised for search from the very beginning of the development process. However, an active campaign is advisable, certainly in the early days of a new site. Our marketing package offers the monitoring, analysis & revision of your site over a 6 month period to ensure it attains and maintains the best possible targeting, traffic and search ranking.