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There are a variety of approaches to getting your site listed in the search engines, and we've tried most of them. The quickest, most manageable, and
affordable way is to create an advertiser account with companies like
Overture.com
.
When you advertise in Overture Premium Listings, your business appears in the top U.S. search sites: MSN, Yahoo!, InfoSpace, Lycos, AltaVista, Netscape, and more. This
allows you to reach over 80% of active Internet users.
You set the price you're willing to pay for each sales lead and pay only when your
customers click through to your site. Independent research shows that advertisers receive the highest ROI from pay-for-placement search when compared to other forms of advertising.
OVERTURE DRIVES POWERFUL RESULTS
- Reach: With one advertising buy, you can reach up to 80% of all Internet users because you’ll be listed on some of the best search engines and portals on the Web.
- Targeted Leads: Customers who click on your search listings are pre-qualified, motivated and looking for what you have to offer.
- Bottom Line Results: You control the cost of acquiring new customers, and you pay only for targeted leads. This translates into a high return on your advertising investment. Learn more about Overture
Overture has a well organized system where you bid on keywords or key phrases within search results. You pay only for click-throughs to your site. You can bid for rankings and
also choose the description and title you want, which provides highly targeted traffic to your website. You can control your bids at all times and adjust them daily on the quality
of your results. Especially handy is the Search Term Suggestion List, which shows you how often people search for a particular word or phrase. Be sure to read our article on Keyword Research Tips.
This is an outdated list for sure, but from our own experience we have compiled the
following list of search engines that use Overture:
Aol Search, Ask Jeeves, DMOZ (Open Directory Project), Centrapoint.com,
Google.com, Dogpile.com, HotBot.com, Metagopher.com, Infoseek.com, Goto.com, Go.com, Msn.com, Yahoo.com, Altavista.com, Lycos.com, Nbci.com, Netscape.com, Mamma.com, Search.com and others...
The list is constantly growing.
To see how your listings can appear, search for "kettle corn" on any of the sites listed
above and look for "Start Your Own Kettle Corn Business". This is one of our customers (kettlecornmachine.com). He is bidding for the #1 position on Overture and pays 5 to 10
cents each time someone clicks to visit his site (so please, just look... don't click!). He spends about $50 each month for the advertising expense, but he is selling his $3,000+
product faster than he can manufacture it... so it's definitely worth it.
We have our own account with Overture, and are bidding on about 30 different keywords
relevant to our business. In some cases, we pay $0.05 for words that get searched a few hundred times a month… and up to $0.75 for words that get thousands to tens of
thousands of searches. The nickel bid might make you #1 but only send 10 people a month to your site… perhaps leading to a sale or two at an advertising cost of 50 cents.
The quality of the lead depends on the keyword you've bid on, the clarity and specifics of your descriptive text, and the ability of your site to "close the deal". For many online
businesses, spending $25 a month through Overture is the only advertising expense you'll need, and that will drive plenty of new business to your site within a day or two. If
you need more traffic, just login to your Overture accounta and add new bids or raise your bids (and placement) for a couple of popular keywords, then wait for the visitors to
arrive on your site. If you get more traffic than you can handle, just login and reduce your keywords or bids, and business will slow down to a manageable level.
An analogy we frequently use with people when describing the way Overture works is "What if you could put a full-page color advertisement in the New York Times, for free,
and you only pay if someone shows up at your business and says that they saw your Times ad? Then, when you get too many people showing up, you remove the ad
immediately to stop the cost and traffic at your option".
Basically, it's worth a try. If you've ever paid hundreds of dollars for a small 1-column ad
in a newspaper or magazine, you know that it's very risky and you're not guaranteed than ANYONE is even going to notice. With Overture, you are GUARANTEED that they
will notice you, for better of for worse, because you only pay AFTER they click a link to visit your site.
More Info
We first decided to give it a try a couple of years ago, opening an Overture account with a $25 deposit, and within a few hours we had SEVEN new web design project leads via
emailed questionnaires... much higher than normal. We managed to sign 3 new customers out of that batch… thousands of dollars in work, for a cost of $25. If we spent
$300 for an advertisement in a local newspaper, we'd feel very lucky to get any new business out of it.
Enough said. Just open an account at Overture.com, and you'll see how it works. If you have any questions about the process, or would like a seasoned veteran to setup your
account and create the keyword/descriptions for you, we charge $150 for this service (because it takes at least a few hours to do it right).
For the rest of the 1000+ search engines out there, you can submit directly to each one… or use software specifically designed for this purpose. We own a couple of these
programs, and charge $100 for setting up and submitting your site to about 500 English speaking search sites and portals.
Please let us know if you'd like this service by calling Envision 2000 today at (206) 200-2000. You can also request to have us call you by completing our online Contact Form or Web Development Questionnaire.
Click the banner below to open your own Overture.com advertiser account today.
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