Submitting your website to search engines.

1) Submit each specific web page individually.

Remember that when people are searching for that specific search term, they expect your link to take them to specific information. If your link only takes them to your home page, the vast majority of visitors will not search your website for that information -- they will leave. In other words you should have one webpage for each topic that you are submitting keywords for and the page should discuss that topic in detail. This is important because not only will the search engines be looking for relevant content, but so will your visitor.

2) Finding the right search engines.

Try to target search engines that will bring visitors that will potentially purchase your products or services. For example, if you don't have a very unique product or service, you'll find it difficult to sell outside of your own country for many different reasons; trust, contactability, patriotism. As a result, if your business is in the US, you probably don't want to waste time submitting your web pages to search engines in, say, South America.

Find search engines that have a reasonable amount of traffic. You can use Amazon's service, www.alexa.com, to both search for engines and determine their overall ranking in the world. This way you can be reasonably sure that there is enough traffic at the search engine before you take the time to submit your URLs.

Alexa also offers a toolbar that you can install in your web browser. You'll have instant access to the ranking of any site visited with this toolbar. It also provide related website links that can help you find what you're looking for. The toolbar also includes a pop-up manager to help control pop-up ads. You can download and install this toolbar from download.alexa.com.

One of the most important directories you'll want to be listed in is http://www.dmoz.org. Please be sure to read their submission guidelines carefully to ensure that your website gets placed in this important directory.

3) How to submit your web pages (URLs).

Once you've identified your search engines, visit their websites and look for a "Submit a Site" or "Add URL" links and follow their submission process. Please note that some search engines are actually directories and do not allow you to submit multiple URLs -- if you do submit multiple, they may ban your pages altogether.

Be sure to submit your web pages with "tracking" URLs. For example, a web page submission for antique roses on the Lycos search engine might be http://www.flowers.com/roses/antique/antique_roses_flowers.htm?source=Lycos. It is important to know where your visitors are coming from and using this form of URL will make sure you're compatible with available tracking systems, should you decide to purchase a service.

You can pay for a service to do submissions for you, like SubmitFire.com. They also help with search engine optimization and analysis; track search engine rankings; and all-important link popularity. You can also purchase software, like Dynamic Submission 2000 (www.apexpacific.com), which you can install on your computer and will submit your web pages automatically. These programs and services only submit to the thousands of smaller free submission search engines. If you want to be included in the larger engines, you need to pay to be included (Paid Inclusion). These prices vary from US$299/Year to be included in the Yahoo directory (www.yahoo.com) to only $39 per year to be included in major engine networks like Inktomi using the Priority Submit service (www.prioritysubmit.com).

It is important to note that search engine submissions can take 3 to 4 months before they are reviewed and your website is included.

4) The easy way out.

The larger search engines started a new concept some time ago called, "Paid Placement". The basic idea is that you bid against other people to obtain a specific position in the search results. This bidding is done on a pay-per-click basis, where you pay each time that a visitor clicks on your listing. What makes this approach so easy is that you don't need to worry about making sure that your web pages are found and placed well in the search engine results; this is done as a result of your bid on specific keywords and not search engine placement algorithms. The largest paid placement company is Overture (www.overture.com) and your web pages will be displayed in search results on MSN, Yahoo, Lycos, and AltaVista just to name a few.