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How
Long Does it Take to Get Listed?
Here's the length of time it currently takes to get listed at
each of
the
major search engines once you have submitted your web page.
MSN Up to 2 months
Google Up to 4 weeks
AltaVista Up to 1 week
Fast Up to 2 weeks
Excite Up to 6 weeks
Northern Light Up to 4 weeks
AOL Up to 2 months
HotBot Up to 2 months
iWon Up to 2 months
Optimizing Text Hyperlinks
Is your site optimized properly?
Our Submit It! spider will check your entire site and warn you
of any
optimization problems it finds -- including your hyperlinks.
Plus, we guarantee your listing on major sites such as MSN®
and
About.com.
Sign up today!
Did you know that text based hyperlinks can help improve your
listing
in the
search engines? The search engines basically figure that if you
are
linking
to something from your page whatever it is you are linking to
is likely
to
be closely related to the content of your page. For that reason
some of
the
engines actually look for keywords in the hyperlinks and any text
immediately surrounding the hyperlinks. What this means to you
is that if
you can you should include your most important keyword phrases
in the
link
itself and possibly the surrounding text.
What it looks like:
A text based hyperlink is a standard HTML hyperlink like this
one (the
example link does not go anywhere).
Tag tips:
Try to include your most important keyword phrases within the
hyperlink
itself.
Try to include your most important keyword phrases in the text
that
immediately precedes, or follows the the hyperlink. Be careful not to keyword stuff! Make sure your links and surrounding
text
are still readable and make sense after you include a keyword
phrase or
two.
Optimizing Heading Tags
Although they are not used very frequently any longer HTML heading
tags
can
help improve your listings in the search engines too. Since they
are
"headings" the search engines figure that they are very
closely related
to
the content of the page that they appear on. So, just like with
all of
your
other optimization efforts you should include your most important
keyword
phrases in heading tags on your page if you can.
Is your site optimized properly?
Our Submit It! spider will check your entire site and warn you
of any
optimization problems it finds -- including your heading tags.
Plus, we guarantee your listing on major sites such as MSN®
and
About.com.
Sign up today!
What they look like:
HTML heading tags have 4 different sizes and are formatted as
you see
below.
<h1>Heading Size 1</h1>
<h2>Heading Size 2</h2>
<h3>Heading Size 3 </h3>
<h4>Heading Size 4</h4>
Where they belong:
Headings can go anywhere within the HTML of your page.
Tag Tips:
Try to include your most important keyword phrases in heading
tags on
your
page if you can.
Consider rethinking your page content. It is often very easy to
take an
existing page full of copy and find ways to break it up into separate
sections with headings.
It doesn't matter if you are selling a product or service, in
order to
Explode your profit on the Internet, you HAVE TO:
Drive NEW customers to your web site
Stay in touch with customers, keep your customers coming back
to buy
from
you
This is just what our products empower you to do!
Apex Pacific has developed ALL of the most powerful web promotion
and
internet marketing weapons in the battle for your business today
that
will
explode your profits on the internet. Our internet marketing promotion
tools
have been especially designed to help you drive more new customers
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web site for FREE and keep your existing customers coming back
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you.
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Text Attachment [ Save to my Yahoo! Briefcase | Download File
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Promoting
Your Web Site
Can't you just hire an expert to promote your site for you? Certainly.
Many
people, including the author of this article, offer Web site promotion
services for a fee. In fact, having someone help you with your
site
promotion is not a bad idea, at least if you find the right person.
But
even
if you use a professional submitter, you need to know the basics
of
site
promotion.
The first reason is that there is a lot of misleading, inaccurate
and
just
plain fraudulent information out there. The business of promoting
Web
sites
is as thick with shysters and scam artists as the used car business.
Many a
Web site owner has paid big money to some sharpie who made wild
promises,
only to get little or nothing for their money. The sad part is
that
many of
these pigeons never even know they've been taken - their nice
new Web
sites
are simply getting no visitors, and they don't understand why
not. To
learn
how to tell valuable site promotion resources from time-wasting
scams,
read
the article Step Right Up!
The second reason to educate yourself is that site promotion is
an
ongoing
process. To maximize your site traffic, you need to monitor it
constantly,
and make judgements about what you can do to improve it. If you
know at
least the basics of how the process works, you'll be in a good
position
to
decide whether it's best for you to hire an outside consultant,
train
someone in your company, or simply do it yourself.
Before proceeding further, let's define some terms.
Traffic - The number of people who visit your site. The more of
this
you
get, the better. Whether you're selling something online, putting
out
information about your company, or whatever, more traffic means
more
potential sales. If you don't promote your Web site, your traffic
will
probably hover around zero.
Promotion - Anything you do to increase your site traffic. This
includes
site submission, advertising, sending out press releases, etc.
Submission - The process of notifying the various search engines
and
related
sites about your Web site.
Search Engines - Sites that people use to search for information
on the
Web.
This is the primary way that people find Web sites, so a Web site
owner
needs to know as much as possible about search engines and how
they
work.
Although some popular sites such as Yahoo are more accurately
described
as
"directories," the term "search engines" is
often used to include all
sites
that act as tools for people to find other sites.
Submitting to Search Engines
What's the first step in promoting your Web site? Submitting to
the
search
engines? Not quite. Good Web site marketing is something that
begins
with
Web site design. Your site should be designed with promotion and
marketing
in mind. You'll see why, once you understand how search engines
work.
There are millions of Web sites out there today, and the total
number
of
pages must be in the billions. How do people find the information
they
want?
By using search engines and directories. True, some people type
in URLs
they
got from a TV or magazine ad, or that some guy whispered to them
on a
street
corner, and quite a few find sites by following links from other
sites.
But
the majority of Web surfers find stuff using one of the most popular
search
engines: Yahoo, Excite, Altavista, Infoseek, and Lycos (to visit
any of
these, just stick a ".com" on the end and paste it into
your browser).
Each of the search engines is slightly different, and people have
their
favorites, but they all work in basically the same way. The user
types
in a
word or a phrase, hits "search," and is rewarded with
a list of links
(the
"search results") that hopefully have something to do
with what's being
looked for. The words the user typed in are called "keywords,"
and the
search engine finds links by matching these keywords to ones found
in
its
database.
Do you suppose the search engine actually visits every site on
the Web
to
see if it can find the keywords, every time someone does a search?
Nope.
That would be like Santa Claus visiting every house in the world
every
Christmas Eve. No posible, Señor. No, the way it works
is this: a
search
engine has a database, which lists every Web site that the search
engine
knows about. When a search is performed, it tries to find matches
in
the
database for the keywords entered.
As a Web site owner, you want search engines to send you as many
visitors as
possible. Therefore, you want to make sure that you are in the
databases of
as many search engines as possible. This is pretty simple. All
the
major
search engines allow you to register your site free (Goto.com
is the
only
one of any significance that charges for listings, and it remains
to be
seen
whether this is a viable model for a search engine). You can simply
go
to
each major search site, click on "Add Your Site," "Submit
URL," or
something
similarly worded, and fill in your site information.
As this is a rather tedious process, there are several tools available
that
will automatically submit your information to several search engines
at
a
time. Instead of visiting all the sites and copying and pasting
in the
same
info a dozen times, you simply enter it once, and the "auto-submitter"
sends
it to the search engines. Auto-submitters include SubmitIt
(submitit.com)
and AddIt (addit.com). The best of them all is SelfPromotion.com,
which
submits to a huge list of engines, keeps track of all the submissions
you've
made, and includes a wealth of good submission information and
advice.
All
these services offer a basic free service, with additional features
available at a small price.
As long as you follow their rules, and don't attempt to "spam"
the
engines
with multiple submissions, most or all of the major search engines
will
be
happy to list your site in their database (although they may be
less
than
punctual about it). So far so good, but this by itself isn't enough
to
make
sure your site gets noticed. Think about what happens when you
search
for
something at a search engine. Unless your search term is something
really
unusual, the engine will come back with dozens, if not thousands,
of
links
that matched the search term. Of course, they aren't all displayed
on
one
page. Only the top 10 or 20 results will be displayed, with a
link at
the
bottom to click on to see the next 10 or 20 (most search engines
allow
the
user to specify how many results will be displayed on a page).
Guess
what?
Most people seldom or never click on the link to see the second
page of
results, much less the third page or the thirty-third. If your
site
doesn't
come up near the top of a particular search, then it almost might
as
well
not be in the database at all.
When someone searches for something that has to do with your site,
you
want
your site to come up as near the top of the list as possible.
In other
words, you want to optimize your ranking with the search engine.
This
obviously makes the next question "How do search engines
determine
rankings?" The answer has to do with keywords.
Using Keywords to Maximize Search Engine Positioning
Search engines use the number and relative importance of keywords
to
determine how a page will rank in a particular search. For example,
if
someone searches on "butterbeans," then a page which
is titled "The
Butterbean Bazaar" and has the word "butterbeans"
on it in a dozen
places is
likely to rank near the top of the list. A site that has the word
"butterbeans" on it once or twice will rank somewhat
lower. A site that
has
the word "beans" on it will rank near the bottom, and
beanless sites
will
not make it into the search results at all. Every search engine
has its
own
formula for ranking search results, and they're as jealously guarded
as
secret barbecue sauce formulas. The basic idea, however, is that
the
more
instances of a certain keyword a page has, the higher it will
rank in
the
results of a search for that keyword. Also, greater weight is
given to
keywords that appear in things like page titles, section headings,
and
so
on.
This well-known fact has led many smart-alecky souls to load their
pages
down with endless repetitions of words like "sex," "free,"
and whatever
else
they think people search for. Every sneaky trick in the book,
like
invisible
text, keywords hidden within HTML tags, etc. has been employed
in the
mad
rush for higher rankings. Such ploys are counter-productive, however.
If
everyone chose to use excessive and/or inappropriate keywords,
then
search
engines would quickly become useless. Sooner or later, no matter
what
you
searched for, all you would get would be MLM and porno sites.
Therefore, the
search engines wage an ongoing battle against "keyword stuffers"
and
"spamdexers." If they suspect you're trying to abuse
the system, they
can
and will bar your site. As just one example, many search engines
will
disqualify any site that uses invisible text.
The point of all this is twofold - in order to maximize your rankings
at the
search engines, it's important to be sure that your pages include
plenty of
appropriate keywords. However, it's also important not to overdo
things, and
do harm to yourself in your zeal (see How to Avoid Spamming the
Search
Engines) This is why we said earlier that submitting to search
engines
is
not really the first step in site promotion. The first step is
designing
your pages to be "search-engine friendly." This means
not only using
keywords appropriately, but also avoiding certain design techniques
that can
confuse search engines, such as frames and certain types of dynamic
page
delivery.
The proper use of keywords can be an arcane subject, and we won't
get
into
the fine points here. Basically, what you need to do is to think
of all
the
words that someone might type into a search engine if they were
looking
for
a site like yours. Visitors who aren't looking for butterbeans
(or
whatever
it is you have) do you no good, so pick only keywords that relate
to
what
your site is about. Normally, most or all of these keywords will
be
found in
the text of your site. Once you have a list of keywords, you want
to
craft a
site description that uses some of the keywords. This should be
a brief
(many search engines have a limit of 25 words), readable sentence
that
sums
up what your site has to offer. For example, if you're selling
butterbeans,
and you've come up with the following list of keywords:
Butterbeans
Beans
Lima beans
Biscuits
Southern cooking
Then a good description might look like this:
"We sell butterbeans and lima beans, which taste great with
biscuits
and
other Southern cooking. Free butterbean recipes and a butterbean
discussion
forum."
Notice how we worked in all the most important keywords (in reality,
your
list of keywords should probably be longer, perhaps 10 to 20 words
or
phrases), and we even managed to mention the most important one,
"butterbeans," twice. However, the description reads
like a normal
sentence,
not just a list of keywords. Notice also that we mentioned a couple
of
site
features that might entice people to visit.
Craft your site description carefully, because it will be used
in
several
places. When you submit your site to the search engines, you'll
be
asked for
a description. This description will come up when someone finds
your
site in
a search, so make sure that it will make people want to visit
(but
never use
marketing copy like "The leading company…" or "The
most useful site…").
This
description, or a variation, should also be used in your TITLE
tag.
The TITLE tag appears in the HEAD section of your HTML page. When
a
surfer
views a Web page, it is the TITLE that appears in the top bar
of the
browser. If someone selects your site to be a "bookmark"
(Netscape) or
"favorite" (MS Explorer) in their browser, the TITLE
will appear as the
name
of the "bookmark" or "favorite." Also, some
search engines assign
greater
weight to keywords that appear in the TITLE tag. Your TITLE tag
should
begin
with the official name of your Web site. It should also include
a very
brief
description of the site. For example: <TITLE>The Butterbean
Bazaar - We
sell
butterbeans and lima beans, and offer free butterbean recipes
and a
butterbean discussion forum.</TITLE>
Resist the temptation to make your TITLE a mindless list of keywords
-
it
will hurt more than it will help. And never include useless verbiage
like
"Welcome to the Web Site of…" in a TITLE tag. It's
a waste of important
virtual real estate.
There are two other tags that appear in the HEAD section which
are
important
to site promotion: the META DESCRIPTION and META KEYWORDS tags.
Some,
but
not all, search engines use these tags to determine your ranking.
The
rules
for the META DESCRIPTION tag are basically the same as those for
the
TITLE
tag, although it's fine for the two to be slightly different.
The META
KEYWORDS tag is basically a list of keywords. There's nothing
to be
gained
by packing this tag with an endless list of words - most experts
believe
that the search engines don't index more than a certain number.
Pick
the
ones that you really think people are going to use to search for
sites
like
yours. Most of the gurus agree that these keywords should be all
in
lowercase, separated by commas or spaces.
The most important place to include keywords is in the body text
of
your
pages. Again, don't go wild - write in a normal, readable style.
But be
sure
that your most important keywords are mentioned at least once
or twice,
and
consider using some of them in page headings and subheadings.
Ready to submit?
Well, we've mixed up the order of things a bit, but it's necessary
to
understand how search engines work in order to realize why keywords
are
so
important. Once you've got your pages nice and optimized, make
a final
system check before you start submitting. Never submit your site
to the
search engines until it's 100% ready for the public. See the article
Before
You Submit for a list of things to check before you submit your
site.
As we mentioned earlier, there are actually two different kinds
of
search
site, which are often lumped together under the term "search
engine." A
search engine proper uses an automatic software agent called a
"spider"
to
search (or "crawl") the Web for sites to index for its
database.
Theoretically, it's not necessary to submit your site to spider-based
search
engines, because the spider will sooner or later find your site
on its
own.
Of course, no wise Web owner would leave such a critical matter
to
chance,
so you can and should submit your site to all the major search
engines.
It's
only necessary to submit your home page, however - the spider
will
automatically find and index all the other pages by following
links.
Although the search engines hate (and punish) overzealous souls
who try
to
use tricks to get more listings, they have nothing against auto
submitters
(at least the major ones), so I recommend using one to save yourself
a
lot
of tedious work.
At the risk (nay, the certainty) of repeating myself, here is
a fact
that
may save you a lot of wasted time. There are not, repeat not,
a
thousand, or
even a hundred, search engines that are worth submitting to. Yes,
there
are
thousands of sites claiming to be, or wishing to be, search engines,
but
most of them are simply attempts to get your money, or to get
your
email
address so that they can send you spam. Almost all search engine
traffic
goes to the top twenty or thirty search engines. Submitting to
all the
piddly little ones is a complete waste of time, and will net you
only
spam.
The exception is specialty search engines, which focus on a particular
topic
or geographic area. They are well worthwhile, and will be discussed
in
more
detail later.
The most important "search engine" of all is more accurately
described
as a
"directory." This is Yahoo, by far the most popular
search site on the
Web.
A directory does not use an automated spider to find sites to
index.
Instead, real human beings comb through the trillions of sites
submitted to
choose which ones are worthy of being listed. For the searcher,
this is
good, as it means that Yahoo includes far less flotsam and jetsam
than
search engines do. For the Web site owner, it's not so promising,
because
Yahoo is very hard to get into. If you do get in, you'll see your
traffic
climb immediately, so it's well worth putting some time in to
try to
get
listed.
Resist the temptation to submit over and over - it won't work.
Submissions
are reviewed by real editors, so follow their instructions to
the
letter,
and really try to convince them that your site is a useful resource.
Some
good tips are to be found on the rather obscure page called "How
to
Suggest
Your Site," and selfpromotion.com also has some good Yahoo
tips.
Another directory that's very important is the Open Directory
(http://directory.netscape.com/). It's far easier to get into
than
Yahoo,
and unlike Yahoo, it's pretty easy to get listed in multiple
categories, or
to have several pages from your site listed (assuming that they
really
have
different types of content). You shouldn't use an auto submitter
to
submit to
Yahoo and Open Directory. Take your time and craft your submissions
carefully to these two important sites. |
