There used to be a lot of hype about online press releases. Recently it has died down a little bit. We are still finding that it works well for clients. But there are some very definite riles to follow.

When done properly press releases are a great way to generate publicity, drive traffic and boost search engine rankings.

The key to a successful press release is to have a clearly defined purpose.

Why are press releases important?

1. More consumers than ever are reading press releases online and consumers may be interested in a topic that the media may not be. So, there are releases where the target audience is the consumer and then there are releases were the target audience is the media. The releases targeted at the media are usually bigger news and more likely to be something that the media will run with and create an article out of.
2. Keep in mind there are journalists that have columns about websites; they cover what’s new, what’s hot, what’s popular on Blogs and sites. So, something that may not have been newsworthy to the “regular” media may be considered newsworthy to these new crop of journalists.

You should start by defining your target audience. Is this a story for the public, something that is potentially good for the mass media or something for the web reporters out there?

No matter who you target, your press releases really needs to be creative to catch the interest of the chosen audience.

Press releases need to be stand out among a sea of thousands of other press releases that are being released every day. So, you’ll need to create an interesting hook. How do you do that?

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who will care about what I’m saying and why will they care?

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The best way to create a user-friendly, powerful web site is to plan for it. If you’re going to invest time in building and promoting your site, you want to be sure that once visitors get there, they’re converted into buyers. Start by analyzing where you are at the present, where you want to go, and what steps will take you there.

If you compare the internet to a mall, then your web site is a store in the mall. A profitable store includes a well-trained staff, attractive displays inside, a nice sign out front and a killer window display. A store alone won’t make sales. You have to attract people inside, convince them you have something they need, and encourage them to act.

The same is true for an internet business. You have to attract customers and then sell them your product or service.

So, in this example, the store is your web site, the sign out front is your domain name, the knowledgeable staff is your content and the in store displays are the photos on your site. All you’re missing is the window display. And that is your marketing plan. It is the “it” factor that draws people in. And there are many ways to do this online:

• Banner ads
• Ezine Ads
• PPC
• Search Engine Marketing
• Joint Ventures
• Affiliates

Identify your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
This statement is the headline for your web site and all other marketing material where your business name appears. It communicates the benefits of doing business with you and identifies what differentiates you from your competition. In short, why should they do business with you instead of someone else.

Your USP should instill excitement about doing business with you or finding out more about what you offer. Position it at the top of your home page and underneath your logo throughout your entire web site.

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Most people are pretty good about getting their webpages optimized, however most people are missing an opportunity with other content. Keep reading to find out if you are too.

Most people don’t realise this, but you can actually optimize a PDF document.

A lot of my content is in PDF format. All my white papers are PDF, as well as my newsletters.

Why?

• PDF content will look good on everyone’s screen, unlike web pages where you have to consider various different settings and resolutions.
• PDFs are often downloaded to people’s desktop and therefore have a longer “shelf life” – they may come across the PDF in the future, but with a web page (even a bookmarked one) they are not likely to accidentally come across it again. They would have to actively go to your site to see the page again.

There are many other “pluses” for PDFs.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all content should be in PDF. It definitely should not be. But there is value to a PDF and it has its place within your content and your marketing plans.

There are ways you can make your PDF more search engine friendly to get maximum benefit out of it. Here are some of the steps:

1. Make sure your PDFs are text based. Using images is just fine, but don’t make the actual content within your PDF an image. Use images to enhance your content and illustrate your points.

2. Complete the document properties. Most people are unaware that this is an important step.

The most important property is the Title.

The Title property, if present, typically represents the words that will be displayed as the heading of the search result. It’s the equivalent to the html title tag.

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There is great opportunity on your website that is often overlooked by site owners.  The opportunity lies on the often ignored Thank You Page.

When people are in “buying mode” it is the perfect opportunity to pull out the big guns and really show them what you have to offer.  After someone has added one of your products to their cart, you have the following options:

• Let them check out with just that product and be happy with the sale.
• Offer a selection of best selling or other related products within your shopping cart before they check out, so you create an opportunity to get more revenue and the customer is exposed to more products they may be interested in.
• Let them complete the first transaction with no other offers and once they are transferred to the “thank you” page, offer them a special offer or other related products.

The thank you page is something people really pay attention to – after they have placed their order they want to see any important details regarding their order.  So you have a captive audience that is in buying mode.  It’s the perfect opportunity for you to increase the value of that customer (get more money out of them!)

Implementing a thank you page offer doesn’t have to be complex, but here are a couple things to think about.

You should create a sense of urgency, so make it a time sensitive special offer.

You should also include customer reviews/testimonials of the products, to help increase the trust factor.

Don’t let your customers off too easy, most customers will tolerate (and often welcome if the product is well chosen) a couple of up-sell / cross-sells within their transaction.

If you don’t have any other products you can up-sell consider promoting products you are an affiliate of that are related to their initial purchase.

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In order to increase sales and the number of subscribers you get, you want to keep visitors on your site longer.

If people leave too quickly they aren’t seeing all that you have to offer.

Work on keeping people on your site longer and you will definitely notice an increase in opt-ins and sales.

Some tactics to try:

Link from one page on your site to other relevant pages on your site. If your site is about a particular theme, it should be easy to interlink pages that are related to each other. The more your visitors navigate through your site, the more engaged they become with your content. Therefore, your conversion rates should improve.

Write concisely and use formatting to break up your text. Imagine you are the visitor that just landed on your site. If the text is long, with no formatting to break it up, it’s too hard to read. Your visitors are likely to leave your site in search of a site that is easier to read. Remember that on the web all other sites (your competitors) are just a click away. Try using formatting to break up your text, such as bolding key words, using frequent sub-titles, bullet points and white space between blocks of text.

Make it easy for people to order or opt-in to your list. Use calls to action to guide your visitors to take the action you desire. If they have to hunt for the order button or the opt-in list you’ve lost them. Depending on the length of the page and the layout you could ask for the order (with text and order links/buttons) 2 or 3 times (or more for long pages).

Don’t clutter your pages with useless information. Before you put any content, links, images or videos on your page ask yourself:

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One of the trendiest takes on Internet marketing these days seems to be this notion that securing top search engine rankings “no longer works.” Where it started, I have no idea.

But rarely does a week go by when I don’t see one or more Internet marketing “experts” claiming that search engine positioning is largely a waste of time and should not be a primary focus of web site owners.

Well…as the saying goes, “there are two sides to every story.”

But let’s not make this article about my side, or your side, or anyone else’s side. Let’s forget about my opinion and other “experts” opinions and stick to the indisputable facts, as reported by highly credible 3rd party sources:

• According to a Forrester Research Media Field Study, getting a loyal audience in the first place is best done by Search Engine Placement.
• According to a GVU Users Survey, 84.8% of Internet users use Search Engines to find websites.
• In a study released by ActivMedia Research in September 1999, Search Engine Positioning was ranked as the #1 website promotional method used by eCommerce sites.
• And look what I just found in the April 2000 issue of Target Marketing Magazine. (Source: IMT Strategies – imtstrategies.com)

“Top Ways Websites are Discovered”

• Banner ads: 1%
• Targeted email: 1.2%
• TV spots: 1.4%
• “By accident”: 2.1%
• Magazine ads: 4.4%
• Word-of-mouth: 20%
• Random Surfing: 20%
• Search Engines: 46%

You’ve now seen the numbers and know that search engine promotion is very much alive and kicking. But let’s take this a step further. Let’s talk about the *quality* of prospects coming to your web site through search engines as opposed to other advertising mediums.

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Your copy (website content) acts as your sales person. Your copy is what makes people take action on your site.

Your copy is the most important sales tool you have on your website. Here are some tips to improve your copy.

Tell the story. Everyone loves stories. Nothing informs, engages, and entertains like a good story.

Your copy should be heavy on the verbs. Action words create action. Too many adjectives can create too much hype. Tip: Check out: Words That Sell by Robert Bayan. It’s a fabulous resource you should always have handy when writing your content.

Know your prospects and write for them. Make sure you understand their jargon, their concerns, and what motivates them. Write in a way that will resonate with them and use phrases and buzz words that they will connect with. Tip: An excellent resource to learn more about various inner languages is at www.thewordsthatsell.com.

Make your copy believable. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. A great promise may get someone in the door, but if it isn’t fulfilled you have to deal with an angry customer. So, keep your promises real and deliverable. Secret Tip: A great way to build trust is to reveal a flaw in your product! I know it’s surprising, but we all know nothing is perfect – so show us the flaw and we believe in you.

Keep ‘em glued to your message. If visitors remain on your site long enough to get your marketing message and act on it, then your content has done it’s job

Think Benefits, not Features. Bought any good features lately? Didn’t think so.

What people buy are benefits/experiences/solutions. People pay for the experience your product or service provides.

Does your Web site offer a benefit, or an experience? Does it explain the benefit/experience your product or service delivers?

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As more websites compete for valuable search engine “real estate,” Search Engine Optimization is becoming much more complex.

And *keyword selection* remains one of the most important (yet least understood) pieces of the puzzle.

“Why keyword selection is so important and how to select the best keywords for your website”

To clear up the mystery, let’s break it down into bite-sized pieces by answering our most frequently asked questions about keyword selection:

“What’s the difference between a keyword and a keyword phrase? And which should I use?”

Put simply, a keyword is a single word, like “Maui.” But a keyword phrase is a more descriptive string of two or more words, like “Maui vacations.” Your approach to keyword selection will vary, depending on your industry. For certain niche markets, using single words can be a good strategy (as long as they are specific to your product or service). But regardless of your industry…

Well-researched keyword phrases will attract quality, targeted visitors to your website who *specifically* want what you are selling.

Let’s assume you sell Maui vacations, and your website is listed at the top of the search results for the keywords “Maui” and “Maui vacations.” Let’s look at the characteristics of two groups of visitors you’d attract.

Those who perform a search on “Maui” are searching for a wide variety of topics. Such as Maui’s history and culture, snorkeling, botanic gardens, hiking trails, sailing, golfing, and yes – some will be looking for Maui vacations. But only a small percentage of the people who perform a search on the keyword “Maui” are qualified prospect for your vacation packages.

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Success in business requires a willingness to measure your performance.

So the most important message we can convey is that you must test everything!

Your preferences and likes and dislikes do not matter.

The market place dictates what they like and what they will respond to.

If something isn’t pulling in the results you want, create other versions and test them against each other so you can come up with a winner!

You should test headlines, graphics, sales offers, price, and different opt-in methods. There is nothing that can’t be improved. The only way to determine whether the new or old version pulls better results is to TEST.

How do you go about testing? It’s simple. Create 2 pages with the same content. Try one header in blue font, and one in red font, or one with your price as $19.95 and another at $29.95.

Then drive traffic to each page, and after about 100 actions on each page (or 200 total actions), you can determine which pulled the best results.

There are many different software programs, such as Split Testing Pro which help you run tests. You will often hear these tests referred to as split tests or A/B splits.

Google AdWords allows you to split test ads in your PPC campaigns.
Some true examples of split tests:

A sales letter site with a header graphic and one without were split tested. The one without the graphic header resulted in a 35% sales increase!

Without spending any extra money, by simply improving one thing on the site, that person was able to increase SALES by 35%. That is pretty powerful.

A shadowed back ground on a sales letter produced a 33% increase in sales over a sales letter with no shadowed background.

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I’ve already written about why it’s important to write articles, and it seems a lot of you agree because I keep getting emails saying that you want to write articles but don’t know what to write about.

It can be hard to decide what to write about, especially if you are trying to write a lot of content and get it out into the world.

Every industry is different and it is definitely harder to come up with topics in some industries – but if you get creative you can always find something.

Here are some suggestions I’ve given to clients recently:

Lingerie industry:
- How to care for lingerie so it lasts longer
- How to feel sexy even if you don’t have the perfect figure
- How to use lingerie to add romance to a marriage
- How to pick lingerie
- Best occasions to make sure you have new lingerie (honeymoon, his birthday, romantic get away, second honeymoon etc)
- Wear lingerie for yourself – it’s not always about looking sexy for a man, you can wear pretty lingerie under your clothes to feel good about yourself

Pest control industry:
- The cost of ignoring insect problems (especially termites)
- What to look for in a pest control company (or how to pick the best pest control company)
- What should you expect to pay a pest control company
- Common household pests and what they do – just annoying or do they actually damage your house?
- Insects and knitwear or clothing – how to protect your items

Tool industry:
- How to pick the best tools for the job
- What tools you should always have on hand
- How to use a …(jackhammer, saw etc)
- Tool brands – their reputation, your insights and reviews
- Weekend projects you can do with a hammer (saw, table saw etc)

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Testing is vital to the success of your website; it is a powerful strategy for increasing the effectiveness of your site pages.

Split testing is also known as A/B testing. It is the process of taking one page (your control or page A) and then creating another page (page B) with one single change and then driving equal traffic to both pages to see which page gets a better result.

I love split testing because it takes the guess work out of your marketing. I really love it when testing proves me wrong – it’s a great way to learn and it improves my results. If I were to just go with what I had thought would win, I would be constantly getting lower results than I can now get with my new page which has proven to pull better results.

Recently this happened, I created a sales page (page A) with a great headline, and then I created my page B with a different headline in place. I had fully expected my page A to win. But it didn’t!
The truth is we just don’t know how the market is going to respond and even with proven marketing concepts in place and great copy, we just can’t predict the response. With testing, we don’t need to predict. We can accurately and scientifically determine what is going to work and improve our results.

Think about it, you are running various campaigns and driving traffic to various pages anyway. Why not get the most out of those pages and increase your response without increasing your expenses?

Here is a quick and simple breakdown of how to split test:

Step One: Identify a page with an offer on your website that you would like to test.

Step Two: Create another variation of that same offer (in order for an A/B test to be accurate you can only change one thing on the page)

Step Three: Place your split testing software code on your site, and drive traffic to the pages.

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I personally have been Tweeting for a few months. But I use the term “tweeting for a few months” loosely. I haven’t been all that consistent with it, and I definitely didn’t have a strategy. I just thought it was kind of cool.

Recently I’ve started paying more attention to it for a few reasons; my mother-in-law was at a librarian conference recently and attended a session on Twitter. I got into a conversation with her about it, and then the next day I saw John Reese’s email about Twitter. It seems like there is a lot of twittering about Twitter going on.

What is Twitter?
According to the Twitter FAQ, “Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing.”

Wikipedia says, “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates via SMS, instant messaging, email, to the Twitter website, or any one of the multitude of Twitter applications now available”.

Basically Twitter asks the question, “What are you doing?” and allows you to send a short update (your tweets are limited to 140 characters) to your followers (family, friends, colleagues, customers, potential customers etc).

Twitter allows you to send and receive updates (also called tweets) via your browser, email , instant messaging clients and SMS (using your cell phone). No matter where you are, you can tweet!
I haven’t been following Twitter since day 1, so I’m not going to comment on it’s evolution but I will speculate that as its popularity grows, as more and more marketers use it, 2 things are inevitable:

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Driving traffic to your site is one of the first requirements to a successful online business.

Without traffic, your site may as well not exist. There are numerous ways you can drive traffic, so let’s take a look at some of them and evaluate them. Keep in mind, this isn’t a comprehensive list, but it is some of the more successful ways. I invite you to share any other ideas that have worked for you.

• PPC
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Affiliate Programs
• Article Syndication
• Press Releases
• Blogging
• Banner ads
• Joint ventures
• Offline campaigns (that drive traffic to your site)
• Advertising (on other sites, ad networks and industry publications)

Let’s look at the pros and cons of a few of the methods, to help you determine what methods are viable for your business. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3, as we work our way through the list above and determine the pros and cons.

PPC

Pros

You can drive traffic quickly – That’s a good thing!

Your traffic is targeted if you select the right keywords – Also a good thing!

You can use PPC to test things (headlines, landing page copy) – Great way to use PPC, in addition to just driving traffic for sales. Be willing to sacrifice some profits and use PPC to test ideas before you fully role them out.

You control the settings and can turn it on and off any time – Control is good.

Cons

There is a lot of research and set up required (unless your outsource it) – Not necessarily a bad thing, unless you don’t have the time to learn and implement or the budget to outsource. Your best bet is outsourcing, if your budget allows it. You should be running your business not becoming a PPC expert.

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“If you build it, they will come…”
“If you build it, they will come…”

While this is a great line from one of my all time favorite movies, “Field of Dreams,” it is frighteningly also a principle that far too many web site owners inexplicably live by.

Let’s face it. In the world of online marketing, “building it” means nothing. The new mantra must be “If you PROMOTE it, they will come.”

So what’s the best way to promote it?

Virtually all credible third party statistics would suggest search engine optimization.
Consider the following statistics:

• In a study released by ActivMedia Research, Search Engine Positioning was ranked the #1 web site promotional method used by eCommerce sites.

• Search engines create more awareness about Web sites than all advertising combined including banners, newspapers, TV and radio (IMT Strategies, a division of the Meta Group).

The cold, hard truth is that if you’re not successfully optimizing your site (and if it’s not search engine friendly), you’re losing hundreds and thousands of hits from the very people you most want to visit your site – people who demonstrate a serious desire for what you have to offer, by proactively typing keywords related to YOUR business into the engines.

So what SEO (search engine optimization) techniques are working and producing results in 2003? While an entire book is probably needed to fully answer this question, here are a few useful components of search engine friendly sites:

• Less is more – avoid using frames, java script and database-driven text.
• Professional copywriting
• Keyword-rich text (in your tags as well) will make or break your site.

Simply put, here’s what search engines do.

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How To Create An Effective Landing Page

Driving traffic from PPC (pay-per-click), an email campaign or any advertisement to your home page is a mistake.

Sending your prospects to your homepage, which is filled with so many different options and hoping they take action is a recipe for disaster.

You want to drive your traffic to a landing page that focuses on conversion. Your landing page should be independent of your main website, and its sole purpose should be converting traffic.

A landing page is focused on a single action that you want visitors to take – with the theme or topic of that page being relevant to the keyword or topic of the PPC ad, email campaign etc.

Warning: This list may seem a little long, but each point is very important to the creation of an effective landing page.

Here are some key points to consider when creating your landing pages:

Many visitors will scan your entire site before deciding whether to read your copy. So you must design your landing page with scanners in mind. Do your headline and subheads tell your story?

Go through your copy and reading only the headlines and subheads to make sure they are compelling.

Typically Landing pages work best when designed as a single column. However, please test this theory for yourself.

Remove any navigation elements. Your regular navigation will just serve as a distraction. You want to keep the prospect moving forward, and not have the eyes wandering all over the page.

Graphics and copy unrelated to the offer can be a distraction and interrupt the flow through your Landing page.

Keep your critical elements “above the fold.” Research shows you have anywhere from 3 – 8 seconds to convince users to stay on your site.

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An easy to understand introduction to the search engines:

Think of the engines like teachers handing out gold stars for everything that you do well. Google currently has about 200 factors in their algorithms that determine how your site will rank. Imagine your teacher with a clipboard and checklist with 200 items on it and she assigns you gold stars for each of the things you do well.

Remember, some of the items on the list are more important and you may get multiple gold stars. No one knows for sure how the algorithm works, but we test and monitor the industry to come up with a technique that works well for getting sites ranked.

The number of gold stars you achieve will determine how well your site will rank. There are no shortcuts and there are no tricks (none that are safe to use and won’t result in trouble down the road).

If you plan on optimizing your own website, there are quite a few areas that you will need to focus on.

Here are the areas you will need to learn about (listed in the order I believe you should address them):

Keyword Research

• Keywords are the foundation of your campaign. If you don’t have the right keywords, you won’t succeed.o You should look for a balance of “low hanging fruit” (keywords that are very targeted, have low competition and less search counts) and some shorter more competitive phrases. That way you will see results quickly for the low hanging fruit, while you are waiting for your more competitive words to kick in.
• You should always select keywords that are relevant and likely to convert for you.

SEO Friendliness – Diagnosis & Correction, plus Competitor Analysis

• You should look at the foundation of your site and make sure it is SEO Friendly. SEO Friendly means have clean code that the spiders are able to spider.

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Your website copy has several very important jobs. The first and most important job is to draw readers into your site. Additionally it has to answer questions, sell your product or service, get people to join a mailing list and more.

To make sure you are writing power copy that is sure to grab your prospects attention and make them beg for what you have I am going to share some copywriting tips and secrets.

Let’s get started with the first and most important element…Headlines.

Discover The Top 3 Crucial Tips You Must Know To Create Powerful Headlines and Stop Losing Sales

With only a few seconds to grab the attention of your site visitor and pull them into your site – your headline is the most important element of your website.

Many people think of their website as a store, and they open with “Welcome.” After all if you have a store and someone walks in, you are going to welcome them to your store. This is a mistake for websites. Let me explain.

When someone lands on your site, they are not actually in your store yet. They are standing outside your store – they are looking at the sign and the window display and trying to decide if they want to come in.

Your headline is your sign and your window display – it is what has to entice visitors to come in and browse.

It is only once they start reading your copy and checking out what you have to offer (clicking other links, looking at pictures etc) that they are actually in your store.

So, you could have great copy, wonderful products or services at great prices, an exciting offer or breaking news and it just doesn’t matter unless people read it.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking your site doesn’t need a headline.

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You probably are – and you don’t even know it.

Before we get into that, let’s quickly recap what has happened up until this point. It is relevant, I promise.

As the internet grows larger daily, and the number of searches online increase – we see people getting fanatical about getting their sites ranked. And why not? It’s a great, constant source of traffic leading targeted visitors to your door!

If only getting the results was easier!

I’m sure some of these statements will ring true for you.

• SEO is simple but not easy.
• SEO is time consuming and requires knowledge that only a small handful of business owners truly have, (since their real focus is and should be running their business) but is needed by everyone, not just a small handful.
• SEO is maddening but EFFECTIVE and NECESSARY.

So, what do you do when you know you need SEO, but you also know it is sometimes frustrating, it’s time consuming and it’s not your area of expertise? The consensus seems to be that you have 2 options:

1. Hire a professional SEO Firm. This frees up your time to run your business, and leaves it to the professionals who are equipped with the proper knowledge and time.
2. Learn SEO yourself, either through a current and up-to-date manual or some consulting.

Both scenarios have pros and cons. As part of a free evaluation, we can help you determine which method is best for you. Simply contact us today for your free evaluation.

However, that is not the point of this article, the point is whether you do it yourself or you hire an SEO Firm, you need to be 100% sure that the big picture is taken into consideration, and that you aren’t unintentionally sabotaging your own efforts.

Let’s look at SEO through the years, not in chronological order – just by highlighting a few key events.

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SEO MYTH # 2: Search engines are not as valuable as other media.

SEO TRUTH # 2: Search engines are the NUMBER ONE way people find what they are looking for on the internet.

Target Marketing Magazine.
(Source: IMT Strategies – imtstrategies.com)

“Top Ways Websites are Discovered – It’s Not What You Think!”

Banner ads 1%
Targeted email 1.2%
TV spots 1.4%
“By accident” 2.1%
Magazine ads 4.4%
Word-of-mouth 20%
Random Surfing 20%
Search Engines 46%

An article on the front page of USA Today, last month talked about why companies are willing to pay for SEO and SEO Friendliness:

“Companies pay because about 80% of Internet searches are performed with Google technology, says an online newsletter. That’s 200 million searches a day, whether on Google or on affiliates such as America Online, Yahoo and CNN.com.”
(Source: For Google, many retailers eagerly jump through hoops ; Jefferson Graham. USA TODAY. Feb 5, 2004. pg. A.01 )

Now, ask yourself the following:

1. What are my costs for direct mail, banner ads, print ads, booths at trade shows, etc? Compare that to your SEO costs.

2. Would it be worth $10-20 per day to my business to have every aspect of SEO taken care of by professionals who guarantee results? Can I really afford NOT to have this exposure in the engines that my competitors do?

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All Optimized and Going Nowhere?

It happens sometimes. Here are some of the common reasons you may not be indexed

Here are the most common reasons why you can’t find your Web site or Web page in search engines:

Index Time: It hasn’t been indexed yet. The amount of time before the engine indexes your site should be listed on the search engine’s submission page, but these aren’t always accurate or may be out of date. On the average, index times range from one to eight weeks depending on the engine. Some engines like AltaVista and Inktomi offer paid options if you wish to be indexed more quickly.

TIP! Time frame and expectations: Allow up to 4 months, if you are number 10 and want to be number 1, then it may just be time that is needed – but if you aren’t showing up at all, then you need to look at keywords, content, title, description and keyword tags.

Already Indexed: The major engines won’t tell you if you’re listed; it’s up to you to find out. The method to discover if a page or domain has been indexed varies from one engine to another. Never assume you’re not indexed just because you searched through keywords and you never came up in the first few pages of results. You could still be indexed and end up at the bottom of the heap.

Roadmap from Home Page: Some engines have been known to drop pages that cannot be traveled to from the home page. HotBot has been rumored to do this. Think of your site links as a series of roads from one page to another. If there’s no road from your home page to the page you want indexed, a search engine may decide the page is unnecessary.

External Links: Some search engines like Google and HotBot have been known to refuse to index Web sites that don’t link to any other sites.

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