The Tools of the Trade Teacher: Sumantra Roy Perhaps I should have named this article "The Tool of the Trade". This is because there is one and only tool that you will need when you are trying to improve the ranking of your web site in the search engines. It's called WebPosition Gold - an award winning software that almost every search engine ranking expert uses. So, what is WebPosition Gold? Well, I doubt if there can be any software which can be called the "ultimate site promotion tool", but if I were to choose one which comes close to it, I would blindly choose WebPosition Gold. Why? Have a look at what it can do for you: 1) WebPosition Gold's Reporter allows you to find out the search engine ranking of your web site and that of your competitors for different keywords. You can also find out whether any of the pages in your site are listed in the search engines. It also records the position of your site over time so that you can watch out for any downward trend in the search engine ranking of your site. 2) The Page Critic allows you to compare the keyword frequency, the keyword weight and the keyword prominence of your page with the top ranking pages in the search engines. If you can make your page have the same keyword frequency, weight and prominence as the top ranking pages, you could soon find yourself at the top of the search engines. The Page Critic also lists the average keyword frequency, weight and prominence of the top ranking pages for a search engine based on research conducted by FirstPlace Software, the company which makes WebPosition Gold. 3) With the Upload Manager, you can upload the optimized pages that you create to your server. 4) With the Traffic Analyzer, you can analyze the traffic that your web site is getting. This will tell you which of the search engines are sending visitors to your site and the keywords which people are using to access your site from the search engines. 5) The Scheduler allows you to schedule common tasks such as reporting and submitting for after hours, thus saving you hours of valuable time. However, there are two features of WebPosition Gold that I do not recommend you use. They are the Page Generator and the Submitter. The Page Generator allows you to automatically generate doorway pages. However, if you use the doorway pages that WebPosition Gold creates for you, you could be penalized by the search engines for spamming. While FirstPlace Software claims that the latest version of WebPosition Gold will not create doorway pages which can cause you to be penalized, I am not so sure. In my opinion, instead of using the Page Generator, you should manually create the pages which are optimized for the search engines. The Submitter allows you to automatically submit pages to the search engines. However, the search engines often penalize you for using automatic submission tools. While FirstPlace Software claims that the Submitter manages to make it appear to the search engines that your site is actually being submitted manually, in my opinion, the top search engines are simply too important for you to run the risk of being penalized for using an automatic submission tool. Submitting a particular page to all the major engines will not take more than 30 minutes of your time. Hence, you are better off submitting your pages manually than using WebPosition Gold's Submitter. Better yet, why not use our Submitter, available at http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/submission.htm. It allows you to submit your site to many of the search engines manually without having to go to the search engines' Add URL page. And it's absolutely free! There's also another point that you should note. As I mentioned earlier, the Page Critic not only lists the keyword frequency, weight and prominence of your page and that of the top ranking pages for your target keywords, it also displays the average frequency, weight and prominence of the top ranking pages for a search engine based on research conducted by FirstPlace Software A common mistake that people make is to try and emulate the average keyword frequency, weight and prominence in their doorway pages. If you do this, however, you are unlikely to get a top ranking. What you should do is to emulate the frequency, weight and prominence of the top ranking pages for your target keywords (as displayed by the Page Critic) - don't emulate the average keyword frequency, weight and prominence that the Page Critic lists, since they are based on keywords which are not applicable for you. Apart from these issues, however, WebPosition Gold is a top-notch program. The Reporter is by itself well worth the cost of the program. In fact, the product is so good that it received a ZD Net Labs 5 out of 5 star rating. Also, here's what Dr. Ralph Wilson, the editor of the famous Web Marketing Today newsletter had to say about WebPosition Gold. "After spending several months using the beta version of WebPosition Gold, I am convinced it is the best product of its kind on the market, bar none." (Web Marketing Today, Issue 54, March 1, 1999) WebPosition Gold also comes with an unconditional money back guarantee - if you are not satisfied with the software, you can return it within 45 days for a full refund. Furthermore, FirstPlace Software also offers a 200% guarantee - if, within 45 days from the time that you purchase the software, you can find any other product that does everything that WebPosition Gold does for less money, they'll pay you double your money back for your trouble. You can download an evaluation version of WebPosition Gold from: http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/webpositiongold/ About the teacher: Sumantra is one of the most respected search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. To have Sumantra's company place your site at the top of the search engines, go to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/ For more advice on how you can take your web site to the top of the search engines, subscribe to his FREE newsletter by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/newsletter.htm