Web Site Marketing—Search Engine Submission
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You might have the best Web site ever created, but if people don't know of its existence, what good is it? Marketing is a major factor in the process of "creating" your Web site. to their sites. In this article, I will tell you about Web It is not an easy task to attract visitors. Many Webmasters don't know which tools to use to bring more traffic sites that will help your site to get noticed (especially using search engines), without spending lots of cash.
Search Engine Submission
As you have guessed, search engine submission is definitely the most effective way to start marketing your Web site because most visitors still use them to find your Web site. But submitting your pages is not as easy at it may seem. First, you must figure out what keywords and Meta Tags to use, and you have to decide where and how to submit your site.
The following lists some things to keep in mind before submitting:
Web sites using Macromedia Flash: If your page is made up mostly out of Flash, it will be harder to find it if you do not use Meta Tags, keywords, and so on very efficiently. The problem is that because the text that will appear in your Flash file is not in the body of your page, but inside the Flash file, search engines won't find keywords and phrases in the body text of your document. You might want to consider using a technique known as "page copy," in which you can type in some of the most important phrases and text that appear in the Flash file into the body document, so that search engines can find it. It's not easy to keep your pages looking neat and non-repetitive, but you should definitely give it a try.
Web sites using frames: Frames have always caused trouble when submitting to search engines. The problem is that most search engines list only the one page that you submit. When submitting a Web page with frames, this can lead to only the frameset being indexed (which actually has no content in it except for the "links" to the different frames used, which are then not indexed). What you can do about this is add some "page copy" (see previous bullet) or other information into the <NOFRAMES> tags. These are placed before the closing </FRAMESET> tag. They are used to show information to users whose browsers are not compatible with pages using frames (which would usually display a message such as "Sorry, your browser is not compatible with frames"), but because nearly all Internet users now have frame-enabled Web browsers, virtually nobody will ever get to see what you put between these tags. It can, however, be used for search engines to find keywords and phrases. If you want to make sure everybody can see your site, you can even place a complete (non-framed) page here.
Using Javascript for navigation: Be careful when using Javascript for navigation because many search engines do not read links in Javascript, so your site may not get "spidered" (the process, done by the search engine, of finding all pages on the Web site by following hyperlink, and then indexing all of them). This may result in only one page being indexed for search engine use. This also goes for sites using image-maps for navigation.
Some tips on keywords: Keywords are the words that visitors use to find your Web site on search engines. Needless to say, they have to be specific to your product and location on the Internet. Do not try to use "popular" keywords that have nothing to do with your site (some people think it is a good idea to include vulgar language in their page's keywords). Although it might get you more hits initially, it certainly won't keep people on your site. Keep your keywords specific and simple. I have also seen sites in which people try to use a color text that is the same as the background color and then try to stuff the page with keywords (that you then don't see on the page). DO NOT try this. Search engines can see this as spam and then blacklist your site.
Some tips on Meta Tags: In previous years, Meta Tags were incredibly important when submitting your site. They were the primary source of keywords/links that search engines looked at. However, people started "abusing" Meta Tags by filling them up with keywords and phrases (which is obviously not the point because Meta Tags are supposed to provide clear and simple information to the search engine—such as product, location, country, etc.). Although Meta Tags are still important, they are not as useful as many people think. Do not have your keyword Meta Tags exceed 1000 characters in length, or you might get blacklisted.
After you check the previous tips, you can now choose to either go through the process of submitting your site manually or pay a fee to have a marketing company do it for you. There are also various software packages available that help you go through the process of adding keywords, adding Meta Tags, and then submitting your pages.
There are lots of search engine submission and marketing services offered on the Web. Here are some links to paid services and a brief explanation of each.
http://www.101registerme.com/search_engines.htm. This site offers five different packages of search engine submission and marketing, ranging from $29 to $119 USD. The cheapest plan submits to 1000 search engines, directories, and link listings; whereas the most expensive plan covers more than 600.000 (!). Includes some "paid" search engine submissions.
http://www.usubmit.com/. This site offers search engine and listing submission. Its setup fee is $50 USD with separate fees for each submission, which costs $0.15 upward per submission. It also has a "bulk" rate of $75 USD per month, which covers just about everything in terms of submissions, listings, directories, etc. A good service for big Web sites that are willing to spend money to get noticed. No adult-related Web sites allowed.
http://www.submitexpress.com/. This site also offers search engine submission. It promises submission to more than 75,000 search engines, review and ranking advice before submission, and detailed submission reports for each site. Its prices range from $24.95 for one URL submission to $189.95 for a monthly submission during one year. Discounts are offered when ordering several submissions for different sites at once.
http://www.buildtraffic.com/. This site offers paid submission, starting from $19.95, which submits to 330,000 major search engines, directories, free for all links, classifieds, and what's new sites. Not a lot of additional information is available from the site.
There are many other sites providing paid submissions for Web sites, and I suggest you try the ones listed here, and try running a search on Google.com or Altavista. (If a site appears high on the list when you enter your search, it probably knows what it's doing!)
You can also choose to submit for free (often manually) to many search engines. Some sites that offer this free redirect service or have links to submission pages of search engines include the following:
http://www.addme.com/submission.htm. This site offers free search engine submission to the "top 20 search engines and directories." You are asked to place its banner on your site in return, although I am not sure if this is actually a requirement.
http://www.submitexpress.com/. This site promises free submission to more than 40 search engines and directories. Fast and easy!
http://www.ineedhits.com/add-it/free/. This site submits your site to 24 popular search engines. Not as fast as submitexpress.com, but offers a free email address to get the confirmation emails sent to.
http://www.college-scholarships.com/free_search_engine_submission.htm. This site submits your site for free to 100,000 (!) search engines. The catch is that it wants you to place four "icons" on your site before it submits your site. Check the site for more information.
When submitting to free search engine listings (or even some paid services), you might (temporarily) get spammed on the email address that you submitted with because almost all search engines send confirmation emails telling you the site has been added successfully, or ask you to click a link to activate the link. You might want to use a secondary email address (if you have one) to avoid all this spam.