HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU UPDATE? We've talked a lot recently about keeping your anti-virus software up to date. But how often should it be updated? The answer is - as soon as the software producer issues an update, which in many cases is daily. Even leaving updates for a week can significantly increase your risk of being hit by the latest viruses. Best of all are some of the latest packages that automatically check for updates every time you log on to the Internet.
CHRISTMAS South West eCommerce Strategies wishes everyone the best Christmas and we look forward to hearing from you all in the new year. |
24 December 2001
There are a lot of directories and search engines out there that will charge you to be included in their listings. Let's go through which ones are actually worth it. First though, the paid search engines can be split into two main types. The first type we could call paid directories and the second type we could call pay-per-click engines. Paid directories are basically search engines that charge a fee for you to be included. These types of search engines are almost always "human reviewed" search engines, meaning that every site that is submitted is reviewed by a human instead of a computer, and the human decides if your site should be included in the directory and, if so, where it should go. This raises a new challenge for people who are working on their search engine ranking as the usual rules for "search engine friendly" pages change - this time your page is more likely to be assessed on quality of information, asthetics, and general "usefulness". There are a number of paid directories, but two of the best that are definitely worth the money are Yahoo! and LookSmart. Yahoo! is a must because it is the biggest and most popular search engine in the world. Therefore being included in Yahoo! will ensure you get a lot of coverage. It currently has a one-off lifetime fee of US$299. The LookSmart directory is good because it feeds a number of other search engines under different conditions such as MSN and AltaVista. The LookSmart fee currently starts at US$149. Pay-Per-Click search engines offer a new type of search engine ranking, where you bid on particular search terms and web sites are ranked according to how much they bid. For example, if you want your web site to show up when people type in "caravan parks", then you enter a bidding price that you will pay each time someone clicks on the link to your site. If you bid, for example, $1.10 per click and that's the highest, you'll rank number one. If not, you'll rank lower. The advantage of pay-per-click engines is that you can choose what keywords you want to show up for and how much you want to pay. If you want to be number one, simply check what the current highest bid is and bid more - even 1 cent more. You then pay that amount each time someone clicks and visits your site. You then need to transform those clicks into sales to pay for it! One negative of pay-per-click engines is that prices for popular keywords have been slowly pushed upwards and are now quite high, so sometimes it's a challenge to find cheaper ones that still bring in traffic. Another problem is that there is a growing number of people who refuse to search using pay-per-click engines, preferring to use the free ones that return a wider range of results, rather than results that only include the richer and bigger businesses that can afford to pay. If you want to use pay-per-click engines, some of the most popular ones around are 7Search, About.com/Sprinks, A-ha, and FindWhat. With pay-per-click engines, it doesn't matter too much which one you use, as you basically only pay for the traffic you get out of it.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is designed to provide information only and is not a substitute for advice that is specific to your business. Before acting on any of the information above it is important you seek further advice from a professional who has taken into consideration the nature and circumstances of your business.
|
