Search engines and directories like Google, Yahoo and AltaVista are the internet’s tool for helping visitors find your web site. If you want your site to be easily found — and be listed high enough to be visible to searchers — you need to submit your site to search engines.

Before you start filling out search engine submission forms, you need to pay attention to “search engine optimizations,” or SEO. What’s that? Simply, it means that your web site’s content and design needs to be crafted so the site will appear at the top of the list of results when web users enter keywords into a search engine. If your site is not designed properly, you could submit it to search engines (even pay them!) and end up at the bottom of searches (where visitors probably won’t find you).

Below we describe three major issues in submitting to search engines in away that will get you the results you want: Keyword-Rich Site Content; Fee or Free; and Submitting.

All-important: Keyword-Rich Site Content

The first step to being found is to make sure that the content of your site is keyword-rich on every page. A few years ago, keywords (words people type into search boxes) were used only in the meta tags of your pages (these are hidden codes designed to be found by search engines). Web designers still put these hidden meta tags on every page but today, search engines rely much more on keywords on your content pages rather than the ones found in the meta tags.

Therefore it’s vital to include important keywords in the text of your site, especially on your home page and especially near the top of your home page. Be sure to put keywords in your headings and links as well. (This is why all-graphics, flash or “splash” home pages are a bad idea if you want search engines to find your site easily.)

Keywords are important in the titles of your pages too. Make sure each of your pages has a unique title that includes keywords. (This is the phrase that appears at the top of each browser window.)

How do you decide which keywords to use?

1. Start by making a list of all the keywords or terms you think people will use to find your site.
2. Then run your words through WordTracker, a specialized keyword database, to find out what keywords or phrases people are really searching on.
3. Once you have your list of the highest scoring terms, choose 2-4 and work them into the content of your page.

We’ll be glad to help you out with optimising your content for search engines, or we’ll point you in the right direction if you’d like to try it yourself.

Fees or Free?

Search engines or directories may charge several different kinds of fees.

Review fee: You pay the search engine or directory a fee to review your submission application, but without a guarantee of a placement. Yahoo and LookSmart, two of the major directories now charge this kind of fee. Most SEO experts say that good listings in Yahoo and LookSmart are essential to being found on the web these days. (Listings in these two directories improve your ranking in crawler search engines like Google.)

Inclusion fees: You pay a fee that will generally guarantee placement if you adhere to their submission policies, and the placement will happen within a specified (usually short) period of time. AltaVista and AskJeeves / Teoma offer this kind of program. It can be a good choice if you are in a hurry to be added to those particular search engines.

Paid placement fees: These are essentially advertisements, although they may be disguised to look like listings. Overture (formerly GoTo) and Google AdWords offer this kind of program.

Free search engine submission is still available, but the paid programs will speed up the process and will most likely generate more traffic for your site. Free submissions are available at Google, AltaVista, and the Open Directory Project, among others.

Whether you pay for submissions or not, you won’t notice an increase in your site traffic for several months. It won’t happen overnight, but if you work your entire marketing plan, your traffic will increase.

Ready to Start Submitting?

We’ll be glad to submit your site to the major search engines for you. Just give us the word, and we’ll design what we think is a good search engine submission strategy to meet your unique needs and you can forget about the grimy details.

But if you’d like to do it yourself, or just want to understand more about the process, we recommend that you check out SEOCHAT.COM before you begin. You’ll find everything you ever wanted to know about search engines there.

We’ll also be glad to email a current list of submission links to our clients who want to do the search engine submittals themselves. We keep the list up to date in this rapidly-changing field, and we note which links refer to free submissions and which ones charge a fee.

If you’re considering paying for a multi-submit service — one of those companies that claim to submit your web site to “thousands of search engines” (for a hefty fee, of course) — please don’t. It turns out that these services are generally failures at attracting visitors, but they excel at getting you tons of spam (unsolicited email). There aren’t “thousands” of relevant search engines anyway. SEO guru Danny Sullivan recommends manual submission to the most important search engines and directories. However, some multi submit tools like IBP can be an excellent way to target the many minor search engines that aren’t worth the time investment of doing a manual submit.

Happy submitting! And should you find it all overwhelming, remember— you can always contact us to help you!