Search engine positioning refers to the ability to get your web site to show up in the top twenty or so listings when users from a particular search engine enter a search term relevant to your site. Having researched this myself, I can tell you there is a LOT to know if you want to achieve a top search engine ranking. Page titles, meta tags, key words, link popularity, knowing which are the "main" search engines, and how they evaluate page content ... the list of factors goes on and on, and to make matters worse, the field evolves constantly and rapidly.

Seems a lot simpler to pay an expert to do this for you, which, in fact, is exactly what the software and web sites below provide. You can buy software, or pay a consultant, or pay to subscribe to a newsletter, but sooner or later you will need one or more of these services. If people can't find you, they can't view your site. Until you learn the search engine secrets, you'll be invisible.

Knowing where and how to submit your site is only the beginning. Do you know the difference between a "directory" and an "index"? Do you know how to effectively use key words, page titles and meta tags? You can learn a lot from these links, and they will help you to clean up your act, not to mention automating the task of search engine submission, which in and of itself can be daunting.

WebPosition Gold makes it easy to monitor your search engine listing position, and offers search engine submission, page title, key word, and meta tag usage analysis, doorway pages, and keyword prominence and density analysis of your pages. Compare your pages to the top-ranking pages for a given keyword at a given search engine. The various wizards and reports are not only handy, but extremely user-friendly and educational. No pun intended, WPG is considered by many to be the "gold standard" in SEO software. It's all here, and they even offer a free trial. It took me a few hours to get the hang of WPG, but now I wouldn't want to be without it.

Easy SEO is a great little starter program, especially if you're on a budget. This program focuses on keyword density analysis of your own pages, and also of the pages of other sites which rank high on any search terms you select. You also get meta tag generation help, and a semi-automated submission tool for submitting your pages to the search engines. They also have an online help library. If you're just getting started learning search engine strategies, Easy SEO can be a great learning tool at a very modest price.

GR's Search Engine Optimizer helps you find all the nasty bugs in your pages that could get you penalized by the search engines, or simply render your pages difficult for browsers to read and interpret. SEO critiques your pages on 62 different factors thought to be important for top search engine ranking, and gives you tips tailored to each of the major search engines and directories. This tool is intended to be a complement to the Page Critic in Web Position Gold, (or easySEO). The first time I used this program, I found several critical errors in my pages that I would otherwise never have known about.

Search Engine Watch will give you a real education, if you're not up on what's involved in search engine strategies. You might even want to sign up for the newsletter they offer. Similar sites exist, but we've heard that this one is considered by search engine pros to be among the very best.

Search Engine News, is a monthly newsletter considered by many to be the best of its kind. This is a no-nonsense source of information on how to keep your site scoring high with the search engines. Optimization with software is an excellent starting point, but you need a source of ongoing information as the search engines evolve and change their algorithms. Your subscription to SE News includes a copy of the "Unfair Advantage" book. Check this out! Highly Recommended!

Don't forget that Link Popularity also has a dramatic effect on your Search Engine Positioning. We have some suggestions of cool tools you might want to check into there, and also on our Traffic Tools page.