Continued from Part 2 (interview with representative from Used Cars Online)

Question: How much actual search engine optimization work do you do on the site?

Phil: This was one of the things we spend the most time on. Having a small advertising budget when we first started out, this was a crucial way of 'getting the word out.' We have directly correlated most of our success to Yahoo!, even though we are on many other search engines. Our biggest obstacle is Yahoo! continually shifting its index in the search for 'used cars.' We also worked a long time on our META tags, which are vital for a good position on most other search engines. In fact, we have noticed several competitors that directly copied both our tags and our wording, and they indeed get placed right with us on the search engines.

Question: Do you use cloaking technology on the site.

Phil: I'm not sure what you mean by cloaking technology, so I suppose the answer is no.
Question: How do you spend your advertising dollars for your Web site?

Phil: Most of our advertising is done through newspapers and trade magazines, as this is where people would look when they are going to buy or sell a used car. We also use a good amount of signage in the Baltimore/DC area where we are based. Also, there are many sources of free advertising on the Internet.

Question: Do you check your rankings periodically?

Phil: Yes, as this is vital for our income.

Question: Do you monitor your traffic? How much traffic do you get to the site (user sessions)? Do you analyze your traffic and use that knowledge to strengthen your site?

Phil: We do indeed monitor our traffic; however, we do not give out our actual numbers. Traffic is analyzed to determine the best way to attack any future advertising/search engine placement.

Question: Do you have a search engine marketing person on staff, or do you hire an outsource company?

Phil: I am in charge of this, and if you'll notice, we are not just top at Google, we are also at the top in almost every major search engine. There are some inside secrets to getting these positions, but I think the number one thing is longevity ...we have been around since 1996 which is ancient in the Internet world.

Question: How important do you consider search engine marketing to be in the success of a Web site?

Phil: Extremely important if you don't pay for national TV or banner advertising. It's the only way besides word of mouth to get hits. We started out with around 100 hits a day in December of '96. Then in January '97, Yahoo! put us at the top and our hits increased ten fold.

Question: How large is your Web site?

Phil: As far as number of pages, there are few for the actual site (maybe 10-15), but if you include the car ads themselves as pages, then there are hundreds.

Analysis of Used Cars OnLine

1) Again, incoming keyword links are the main ingredient contributing to the high ranking of this site.

Our search on LinkPopularityCheck.com, revealed the following numbers of incoming links...
Lycos: 855
AltaVista: 575
MSN: 120
HotBot: 87

2) Most interesting is the fact that Used Cars On-Line was consistently THE keyword link used in every case we spot-checked. Obviously, Phil or someone within the company suggested, precisely HOW their site's descriptive link should be listed. The success they've enjoyed as a result of this focused strategy is the payoff.

3) In addition, it should be noted that the biggest link relevancy gorilla on the block, Yahoo!, rated the site #1 for their target keyword phrase. This alone significantly enhances the site's relevancy because a Yahoo! link is given much more relevancy weight than virtually any other site on the net.

4) Worth noting is the fact that on the home page the title and description tags begin with the keyword phrase. Generally speaking, this strategy will always help, and will never hurt, a site's relevancy.

5) Another boost, especially on Yahoo!, is attributable to the fact the keyword phrase is present within the URL.

6) Another factor that can only help and will never hurt is that the target keyphrase appears in the company name itself.

7) Notice that the keyword phrase is only used once in the visible body text; evidence that repeating a keyword phrase within the text of a page isn't as effective as some webmasters believe it to be.

8) As with almost all high scoring sites, the focus is on one topic, or theme, only! ...and that theme is buying and selling used vehicles.

As Phil pointed out, the site has been around for a long time. Although he attributes a large portion of their success to "longevity," we suspect it's more attributable to the link popularity that blossoms from a strategic campaign focused on gaining incoming links. Such a strategy, of course, takes time to build resulting in erroneous reports that "longevity" is responsible for success when in fact it is the accumulation of incoming links over time that becomes the actual key factor.

And, when links like Yahoo! add a major degree of relevancy, site positioning can suddenly improve significantly and traffic can increase, as Phil noted, "ten fold" overnight.
Continued in Part 4. Contact Robin Nobles at RobinN@acws.com for the complete article