Search Engine Optimization - Part IV

If you’ve read our last three marketing tip installments (if you haven’t visit the archives below), you now know you have to create meta tags, alt tags, hypertext links and keyword text on your web site, so now it is time to get your hands dirty submitting your site to all of the major search engines. The most efficient way to get a search engine “robot” to find your site and index it is to submit your URL directly to the engine to get it processed.

Using Alta Vista as an example, let’s give you a simple walk through of search engine submitting. Go to Alta Vista’s main web page and scroll down to the bottom until you find the hyperlink titled, “Add A Page” (some engines will hide this link in a small font at the bottom, while others — Hot Bot for instance — will locate it on a side bar near the top of the page).

Click on this “Add” link and it will whisk you away to their submittal page you will see a submittal form asking for your url. HELPFUL HINT: Before you submit, make sure that you bookmark these submittal pages so you can find it easily for future submittals. Now type in your url and hit “submit”… it’s that easy.

Here’s a helpful list of search engines submittal pages:

AltaVista
AOL Netfind
Excite
HotBot
Infoseek (Go.com)
Lycos
MSN Search

Many people don’t realize that you can submit multiple site pages to search engine (pages besides the home page). For example, you can submit your contact us pages, FAQ’s, and other main pages within your site. Sometimes these pages may even be ranked higher than your homepage since they may contain more search terms than your home page does. However, you must be careful with this… some search engines consider more than one submittal a day spamming and might even kick your site out of their index if this is done too often. A safe bet is to keep your submittals to once every two weeks.

“Directories”are another story altogether. With directories, your submittals are reviewed, accepted and indexed by an actual human being so it may not be so simple. Yahoo, the largest and most popular directory, requires you to find the exact category page your site belongs in, and then you must look for the “Suggest A Site” link at the bottom of the page. When submitting to a directory, it is always a good idea to keep a file with your site’s urls, titles, and descriptions that you can copy and paste.

Finally, there are also many free tools out there on the Web that you can use to submit your URL to multiple search engines at one time. Some of these are PromoteItHere and Add Me. One negative aspect about these tools is that there is no visible verification that your site was actually submitted. This is why the best way to submit your site is to do it manually.

Also try to stay away from those “Submit to 800 sites for $50″ deals… you usually end up with an e-mail box full of Spam for the money you pay for this. After a couple of weeks or so try searching for your site on the engines that you submitted to by first using your company’s name to see if it shows up at all, then search using your keywords. Keep an active log of your site’s ranking every month to track the rises and falling in the engine’s ranking.

Now it is time to submit your site — good luck boys and girls!

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