Now I know many people will say what? That goes against everything
most have learned. You start a website then submit to search
engines. That is something we need to do and something that
is very important but it's not the most important and not
the only thing we need to do.
We do need to submit to the search engines, but you should
not pay to submit to hundred's and thousands of search engines.
Think about it, there are only a handful of popular search
engines. You've never heard of the other thousand engines,
so chances are millions of other people have never heard
of them either. So why pay $50 or more to a company who claims
they will get you top spot in a bunch of search engines that
most people won't use.
You can be the only website listed in that engine and it
wouldn't matter. If no one is there to search on it, then
they can't find you now can they? There are also businesses
claiming that they will get you into google, yahoo, msn,
and other popular search engines in 24 hours. Those claims
are hard because I don't know the methods or if they are
even ethical, but most popular search engines, especially
google, can take weeks and months to get into and it's hard
to say whether or not this company is actually telling the
truth about letting you in.
There are many ways to get your website out there. After
submitting to the top search engines, search for popular
directories and submit your website. This can be more time
consuming because there are hundreds of directories. Start
with yahoo and dmoz directories. They are two of the most
popular ones. There are also software in which you can submit
to directories semi-automatically. Not fully automatic because
most directories need you to fill in information that the
softwares usually can't.
Another tip for getting your website noticed is to get a
budget you can live with and advertise with adwords. If you
do it right you can be spending less money than if you go
with an advertising company. They can cost hundred's and
thousands of dollars.
The most important one, but the hardest is getting sites
to link in. Linking in means that other websites have a link
to your website. It's really good because if this site is
in high standing with google, yahoo, alexa and has a good
page rank, then google will take notice that and your page
rank can go up. Doing this is hard because you need to find
similar websites that aren't direct competition and see if
they will place a link on their site or trade links, or even
sell a little ad space. If you ask 20 websites, then realistically
only 1 in that 20 might say yes. So like I said it's difficult.
Also only trade or get linked in with sites that complement
yours. If you sell clothes you shouldn't link to a site that
sells car parts. That will only hurt you with the search
engines.
Written by Marsha James
