search engine submission & optimization services

Every search engine has its own process for submission of your site. Some search engines have free submission, some have paid and free submissions, and some are paid inclusion only. Also, some of the search engines are actually directories.

submitting your site to the search engines

search directory submissions

Search directories, such as Yahoo and LookSmart, have human beings whose job it is to actually review every submission and decide whether to include the site in their directory. The human reviewer may also decide on the website's rank, categorize the site as they deem appropriate, and may choose to reword your site description.

Your submission to a directory must be done by hand, not using an automated submission program. You include a brief description and specify the categorization for your website. The reviewer will then manually review your site for good content and visual appeal, and if your site is approved for inclusion, may rewrite your description or change the categorization of your site. Submitting to directories will cost you. Yahoo has a $299 US fee for submitting your commercial site, and the only guarantee is that your website will be reviewed within 7 business days, ad you will be advised of their decision.

To submit your site to a search directory, prepare your submission carefully and by hand. Using an automated program to submit to Yahoo or LookSmart will only cause you grief. You are paying for the privilege, so don't submit your site unless you have done your research and are willing to pay the fee.

search engine submissions

There are thousands of search engines on the internet that you can submit your site to, but the truth is that there are only a handful of popular search engines.

Search engines use automated programs (called robots or spiders) that take the URL you submit for your website and follow links throughout the internet to find your site, sites linked to it and sites you link to. The spider or robot indexes the text of your page (some spiders will index only the single page you submit, others will index more of your site) and stores information based on a combination your title, description, keywords and content, as well as link popularity, to determine your page rank and listing when a user searches on a relevant term.

It will be important for you to be listed, with a high ranking, on these engines:

• Google
• Lycos
• HotBot
• WebCrawler
• Northern Light
• Excite

Many of the smaller or less popular search engines actually use the index services or databases of the more popular ones. So, for example, if you are listed with the search engines above, you will likely be listed on many of the smaller ones as well.

The length of time it will take for your site to be listed varies with each search engine from as little as 1-2 weeks, to as long as 3 months.

You can investigate some automated submission programs for submitting your site to these engines. It is important to do some research to understand how often and when you should submit your site, when you should resubmit your site, and learn how to monitor your positioning with the search engines.

We can recommend an automated submission program, or develop a plan to monitor and report periodically on your search engine position, submit and/or resubmit your website as necessary, and suggest changes as appropriate.

paid listings, other options

There are numerous other options that you can consider to drive traffic to your site more quickly while you work on your search engine ranking over time. These options include paid listings, pay per click and banner advertising. Again, each search engine is a little different, as are their prices for each service. Finally, these options do not improve your page rank in the search engines, they work only to have you listed near the top of the page during the time you pay the advertising.

Some of these options include paying for keywords. If a user searches for a term related to your keywords, you can pay to be listed in the first 5 or so listings for that term. For some engines, you bid against other users for those keywords to achieve a top 5 position. Generally, the search engine results actually appear below the top 5 paid listings, and it is generally identified which are the paid listings.

You can also opt for other forms of advertising, including banner advertisements. Banner ads were once believed to be the best way to get traffic to your site, and continue to have some usefulness. However, many large companies that invested a great deal of money in banner advertising have since learned that this does not necessarily provide the best return on investment.

The most important consideration for paid listings, pay per click and banner advertising strategies is that these are strategies to drive traffic to your site, but may not provide the highest conversion rates from visitor to paying customer.

Most importantly, your site needs to be well designed, have good content, and meets the elements that search engines will use to appropriately list your site. Success will come when your site actually is what you've advertised it to be in the first place.

On the right-hand side are links to pages with more detailed information about each of these steps. Please read on for more information, or contact us any time by phone, fax or email for more information.