Mark Nenadic When it comes to getting the very most out of your SEO efforts, you need to make sure that you’re search engine optimizing with the right search engines in mind. This means that you need to cater to the Big Three. What search engines make up this ever-important trio? The answer is Google, Yahoo! and MSN. The following techniques will help you create both a long and short term SEO strategy for success, with the Big Three search engines in mind. Google is the clear leader among search engines, so this should be your primary focus, however, Yahoo! and MSN do hold a substantial part of the internet using community’s attention, so they should not be ignored. It should be remembered that while Google does get the most traffic, Yahoo! and MSN can provide better results when it comes to certain specific categories of interest. This is why it is so very important that you cater to all three of the major search engines for your SEO and not just Google. Since ranking is such a lengthy process, it is important that you continuously monitor and improve your site and its keywords with tracking in order to keep ahead of your competitors, and to ensure that your site keeps its high ranks. This requires continuous optimization through growth and updating. When it comes to the Big Three, the SEO techniques that matter are as follows. Google: • Whenever you launch a website, submit it to a search engine, or update a site, a spider from one or all three of the big search engines may crawl your site. However, unless you provide that spider with significant keywords for ranking your site, you’ll never actually achieve rankings that are anywhere near where you want them to be, other than your business name itself. Therefore, make sure that when you are building or adding to your website, it has keywords within its text and in its coding to allow the spiders to index and rank in a way that is favorable to you. • Use keywords that will ensure better rankings. To best complete your SEO, you need to understand that some keywords will provide you with better results than others. However, if these “best” keywords are already being used by quite a high number of other sites, since the market in your industry is competitive, then it is unlikely that the best keywords will ensure the best ranking. The only time that the ideal keywords will ensure the best results for you is if your service or product is extremely unique or new so that the keyword has not already been used extensively throughout the world wide web. In fact, if you are supplying a new product or service, then you will almost certainly receive great search engine ranking, since the Top Three adore fresh new content. In extremely competitive markets, it may take up to six months for you to see the results you want from your desired keywords. In such cases, a pay-per-click campaign may be required. The reason that the search engines give such preference to websites offering things that are new and unique are as follows: • It gives them the opportunity to provide something new • There is less competition against something new or unique, so as long as the website has proper SEO, then great rankings are almost automatic. MSN: • MSN is typically much faster for crawling, indexing, and listing sites. In fact, if you have done your SEO properly, you can achieve a high MSN ranking within a month, even within the most competitive markets. Therefore, while Google may be your long term SEO goal, MSN can provide for you on the short term. Yahoo!: • Though Yahoo! can provide you with a steady traffic flow, actually getting listed can present quite a challenge. While some websites will be crawled as early as a month from their submission, this is a rare occasion, with the standard being closer to three or four months. Once the site is crawled, however, it doesn’t take long for it to be indexed and ranked. As long as your SEO is good, then you may achieve a good rank and see results before Google has even thought about sending a spider your way. Though there are practically countless search engines out there, it is the Big Three that have you covered for both the short term and the long term for your SEO.