Though the fate of Excite as a search engine is shaky, it's still an important engine capable of bringing you some excellent traffic.

So, if you're having a difficult time getting top rankings in Excite, now's the time to learn more about Excite's alliance with FindWhat.com, which began in April 2001.

But, who is FindWhat.com?

FindWhat.com is an up-and-coming pay-for-placement search engine similar to GoTo. Users bid on keywords, and whoever is willing to dish out the most cash gets the top rankings.

According to Craig A. Pisaris-Henderson, President and CEO, FindWhat grew 120% in the fourth quarter of 2000. They have an average of over 600 million searches per month. Their typical user is between the ages of 25-45 with a median income of $55,000.00. FindWhat's supplemental data comes from Ask Jeeves and Direct Hit, rather than Inktomi.

But, FindWhat's true claim to fame is its new alliance with Excite, which is the #7 most popular search engine, according to Web Snapshot.com. And, Excite accounts for 2.8% of all searches which may sound like a small percentage but translates to over 148 million page views per day -- 4.4 billion a month. Again, there's a possibility that Excite will be shut down in the future. But for now, it's certainly an engine to consider.

Let's take a look at how FindWhat results are being shown at Excite in order to help you work this new alliance to your advantage.

FindWhat.com's Results at Excite

One thing that makes the FindWhat alliance particularly appealing is the way in which the search results are shown. In an email sent out to FindWhat keyword buyers, the company outlined how those results will be displayed.

"First, the top three listings in FindWhat.com's results will be displayed immediately under the 10 results provided directly by Excite.com.

"Second, after the top three listings provided by FindWhat.com there will be two hyperlinks for Excite.com's users to see additional FindWhat.com results for their search. One hyperlink will be below FindWhat.com's three listings and the other will be in Excite's "Info Resources" section. These links will bring a user directly to FindWhat.com's results page for the term being searched. This will allow all of our clients listed under the search term an opportunity to be viewed by Excite.com users.

"Third, on occasion, FindWhat.com's top listing may appear above the 10 results provided directly by Excite.com, in which case a total of four FindWhat.com listings will appear on Excite. It is important to note that Excite has complete discretion over whether to show a FindWhat.com result above the 10 results provided directly by Excite, and we have no ability to insure that if you have the top bid, or that your listing will get that placement on Excite."

Besides being shown on the first page of search results, the top three FindWhat.com results are shown at the bottom of every single page of search results. Yes, you read that right. Every single page of search results.

While we know that few searchers will go past the first three pages, or 30 results, if your site is in the top 3 results from FindWhat, your site will be shown on each of those first three all-important pages. This certainly increases your chances at getting click throughs.

Additional Advantages to Using FindWhat

Besides more visibility in Excite, the cost of purchasing keywords through FindWhat is considerably less than purchasing keywords through GoTo, as a general rule.

For example, at the time of this writing, the top site in FindWhat for the keyword phrase "life insurance" was paying $.06 a click through. However, the top site at GoTo went for $3.02 a click through. Quite a difference.

While you can certainly argue that GoTo's impressive list of partners makes it worth your while to pay more for GoTo keywords, and you'd be right, many companies can't afford the skyrocketing prices and they're looking for alternate solutions. With FindWhat's alliance with Excite, FindWhat has become a very attractive alternative.

Tips for Purchasing Keywords through FindWhat

If you're currently buying keywords through GoTo, those same general principles apply to FindWhat. However, Craig Pisaris- Henderson offers these helpful suggestions when purchasing keywords through FindWhat.com.

"1) Know your product and think like someone who does not know your product. What I mean is we have many advertisers who choose keywords and phrases that are familiar to them but not necessarily familiar to people looking for their product.

"2) Advertisers need to be as descriptive as possible and include the keywords they are targeting within their title and description. Users really do rely on titles and descriptions to further qualify the sites before they click on them, so if the title and description are not relevant to the search, people will not click on them and will pass them over to click on their competitor.

"3) Deliver people to the area of the site they are looking for. So many people come in andan account and point all users to their primary homepage.

"Here is a quick rule of thumb... if someone has to click 3 times to get to the product or service they are looking for, you've lost them."

For more tips related to purchasing keywords, read Getting the Most from GoTo.com.

A Word to the Wise

If you already have top rankings in Excite for a particular keyword phrase, save your money and purchase other keywords instead.

Jim Girardeau of SocialService.com explains,

"I'm a FindWhat advertiser. Since my site is already listed fairly well on Excite (#3-#8 on most keywords), and because the FindWhat paid listings are appearing at the bottom of Excite's results, I am now paying to have my FindWhat listing appear well below my free Excite listing!"

So, check your current rankings with Excite. Since FindWhat results most often appear below regular Excite results you should consider a different keyword choice in an area where you need additional coverage if you're already in the top 10 on Excite.

Keyword Bid Optimizer Now Includes FindWhat.com

In the event you already use the handy Keyword Bid Optimizer (KBO) for keeping track of your GoTo keyword purchases, you'll be very pleased to know that FindWhat.com has recently been added to the tool.

Jon Keel with KBO explains,

"We added FindWhat and Ah-ha about two weeks ago and plan to add Kanoodle, ePilot, Bay 9, 7Search, and GoClick within the next four weeks.

"One of the cool features now is that one can transfer all or part of his or her keywords from one pay-per-click (ppc) search engine to the other and quickly determine current bid amounts and position.

"Also, we'll have functional within several days the ability to select, from within the particular ppc search engine in question, which keywords should be actually bid on, generate a spreadsheet for that ppc, and submit the 'bid' all from within the tool.

"I'm talking with FindWhat tomorrow about getting access to their database so we can report, as we do with GoTo and Ah-ha, the previous month's searches for the keywords. This feature is not available to current FindWhat subscribers as far as we can tell. This feature will make it more desirable for FindWhat subscribers so they can check popularity of the keyword(s) in question."

Additional Tips for Getting Found in Excite

With LookSmart providing directory results to Excite, a sure way of getting more visibility in Excite is to submit your site to LookSmart.

Also, with Excite recently updating its index, many Web site owners have found themselves with excellent rankings in the engine. Bill Gentry of The Selling Source offers some suggestions for better traffic through Excite.

"I looked at traffic to our online casinos earlier this week, and at least 50 percent of the traffic they are receiving from our SEO services comes from Excite. I kept submitting pages to them even though they weren't refreshing the index, and I'm glad I did.

"Once Excite did refresh the index, we ended up with so many listings for dozens of search phrases in Excite, and immediately started getting significant amounts of pre-qualified, highly targeted traffic to our online casino clients and related gambling sites. My advice for getting visible in Excite? Persistence and patience, and lots of both!"

In Closing, what are FindWhat.com's Plans for the Future?

Pisaris-Henderson answers,

"FindWhat.com will continue to be the online advertisers greatest advocate online. Everything we do is structured around what helps drive quality targeted traffic to our advertisers as well as what provides the most convenience, in terms of management, for our advertisers. In regards to other alliances, I can not give comment to that outside of stating that we are constantly evaluating new relationships and will continue to bring on additional quality distribution partners."

So, if you need more visibility in Excite, consider purchasing some keywords through FindWhat.com. where a small investment could produce a worthwhile increase in targeted site traffic.

Robin Nobles is Director of Training for the Academy of Web Specialists. Robin has taught several thousand students in her online and onsite search engine positioning courses during the past several years. Her latest book Web Site Analysis and Reporting, as well as her past book, Streetwise Maximize Web Site Traffic, can be ordered through Amazon. Visit the Academy’s training site to learn more about their search engine ranking courses and products. http://www.onlinewebtraining.com

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