Many of you have heard of submitting your website, but what
does this really mean? What places should you really submit
your website? What about submitting to thousands of search
engines and directories through some website promotion service?
WHAT PAGES TO SUBMIT:
At the minimum, you should submit your home page. Many search
engines will promise to find and crawl the rest of your website
automatically (in their own good time). But if they don't discourage
you from doing so, I would submit several of the important
pages in your site. For example, a site map is definitely something
I would want to submit, since it should have direct links to
the rest of your website.
Also, if I get another webmaster to link to my website, it
I like to submit that page as well. I want the search engines
to recognize that this resource has changed - it has a link
to my website and I want the credit for it.
WHAT TO PREPARE:
For the search engines, I would make sure that the website
is properly optimized. At a minimum, I would do a double check
the meta-tags to ensure that the title, meta-description and
meta-keywords properly describe the web pages and have some
of my desired keywords in it. I would also run a website validator
on the pages I intend on submitting - to keep the search engine
spiders from choking on my website. (
http://validator.w3.org/)
For more information on optimizing a website for the search
engines, go to http://website-optimization-2.blogspot.com/.
For the directories, I would normally prepare some commonly
requested information. This really helps to speed up the process.
I normally use a generic text editor like Microsoft Notepad
and save the following data before I go and submit to the different
search engines and directories. This enables me to use copy
and paste.
This should have:
* Your email
* Your website url
* A good title for your website
* A description for the website
Since Yahoo will allow you to submit a list of URLS that are
in a text document (or an RSS feed) I would encourage you to
prepare one to help them out. These should be at the root directory
of your website and be updated whenever there is a change to
your pages. That way you can just submit the location of the
RSS feed or the text file and let Yahoo use that to find the
rest of your pages. It is a nice time saver. Personally, I
like using an automated RSS feed since Yahoo can use it to
determine when the last changes occurred and decide what pages
to re-crawl first.
(If you don't know what RSS is, here is a great article on
it:
http://feedvalidator.org/docs/rss2.html.)
Google uses a similar technology to help it find all of your
web pages. It is called a "Google Site Map". That is the subject
of another article. I wrote one that has a lot more info on
the
Google
Site Maps, for when you are ready to build one. Google
also has a special way to submit these. Just follow their instructions.
If this is too complicated, contact a webmaster or a SEO specialist
who is familiar with this feature.
WHERE TO SUBMIT:
I would recommend submitting your home page to the major search
engines individually, at least initially. However, there are
several services that do groups of them for you - and is a
big time saver for the rest of your site. The following is
one of my favorites:
http://www.freewebsubmission.com/ I
have always deselected Google, though, since I submit to them
manually through the Google website. I submit my web pages
to the following search engines manually (without a special
tool) just to ensure that it is done.
*
Submit
to Google
*
Submit
to Yahoo
*
Submit
to MSN
You will need a Yahoo account to submit to the Yahoo search
engine. And don't fret if you don't see immediate results.
Your site should normally exist in MSN within about 6 weeks,
in Yahoo in 8-12 weeks, and in Google within about 3 months.
(You will not likely get much search results from Google for
the first year though - but hold out and keep working on the
other tricks. In the long run, Google will normally give you
about 60 - 70% of the search engine traffic if you follow these
methods.)
Also, if you have the
Alexa
toolbar installed, navigate to your website and click on
the "info" button on the toolbar. Then you will have to fill
in information about your website. Once this is registered,
you will start seeing how your website's Alexa rating looks.
There has been some rumors that Google considers the Alexa
description in its searches - so make sure it is relevant to
your website as a whole and has at least one of your keywords.
You should also
submit
your website to DMOZ. This is a massive directory that
is republished in several other websites. It is managed by
humans, and is therefore considered to be of special relevance
by other search engines. I strongly recommend reading all their
rules before submitting - and follow them closely. Make sure
that you try to get listed in only one category - the most
relevant one for your business. It can take a month or two
to get listed, but it really helps with your backlinks and
overall relevancy as a website.
After DMOZ, here are the most important list of directories
to be listed in.
*
Yahoo
Directory website submission ($299 annual fee)
*
Business.com
website submission ($199 annual fee)
*
Microsoft
Bcentral Directory website submission ($49 annual fee)
*
Best of Web
website submission ($40 annual fee)
*
goguides.org
website submission ($40 lifetime fee)
*
gimpsy.com website
submission ($40 lifetime fee)
*
joeant
website submission ($40 lifetime fee)
*
Tygo website
submission ($40 lifetime fee)
*
Skaffe.com
website submission ($40 lifetime fee)
*
wowdirectory.com
website submission ($25 lifetime fee)
If you haven't used directories before - try browsing these
before you fill out the form to submit your site. They are
organized by category. You need to find the most relevant category
to put your website before you start to fill out the form for
each of these. Have a pen and paper as you browse - and write
down directory paths of where you want to be.
Being in some directories just adds some good backlinks. (When
another webmaster links to your website, this is considered
a backlink.) Others, like Yahoo and DMOZ, tend to get some
special relevance to certain search engines. After you get
familiar with these well-known directories, look for niche
directories that are specific to the type of business your
website is about.
There are specialized directories that focus on a particular
category of links. These can be valuable - you will just have
to do a bit of searching to find them. These may be considered
as part of your overall strategy.
Being listed in a search engine there doesn't guarantee that
you will have a good ranking - this is just the first step
- letting them know that you exist.
IF YOU SEE AN OFFER TO GET LISTED IN HUNDREDS OF DIRECTORIES
AND WEBSITES AUTOMATICALLY - BEWARE! Many of these will
list you in hundreds of FFA (free for all) sites. These sites
are considered SPAM by search engines and I would strongly
encourage you to avoid them. Did I mention to avoid these?
Check out what Google has to say about these:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html .
They may get you quick backlinks, but they are from the "wrong" type
of site. These are just a list of sites - and they stay there
temporarily. Only the latest 100 submitted or so are displayed
there and you need to be resubmitted regularly to stay there.
Few humans use this - it is just a linking game to trick the
search engines about your popularity (and search engines don't
like it). Don't bother.
TO WRAP IT UP:
Get backlinks - but avoid FFA sites. There are some
important directories, but being listed in "THOUSANDS OF WEBSITES
AND DIRECTORIES" is likely a promotional trick to get you listed
in FFA sites. The most important backlinks are from web pages
with content related to your website and those that your customers
visit. If it isn't likely to draw your customers, it may not
be very important for your website traffic.
Robert Fuess is a veteran website designer who specializes
in making dynamic search engine optimized websites.
http://www.SpiderwebLogic.com |
http://www.SchoolAndTeacher.com
