Things to Know Prior to
Submitting Your Site to
the Major Search Engines and Directories

Step 4 of Pacific Business Marketing's
"Ten Steps to Web Site Success"

Knowing the major search engines, understanding how they work and how to make them work for you is one of the most cost effective web strategies available!!

Broadly speaking, there are two basic components to putting search engines and directories to work for you:

1. Understanding the basics of how search engines and directories work, and
2. Understanding the basics of preparing your pages prior to submitting!

Before we begin, we should point out that this step (Step 4 of
"Ten Steps to Web Site Success") should not be commenced unless you are satisfied that your site is complete for the moment. You don't want to make significant alterations to your site immediately after completing this process!

However, if your site is ready for submitting, read on!

Understanding the Basics of How Search Engines and Directories Work

What's the difference between a "search engine" and "directory"?

These terms are often used interchangeably. Indeed, many of the sites we refer to as "search engines" or "directories" are in fact BOTH.  For example, the most popular search tool on the Internet, Yahoo! uses a directory type structure to help you find your topic. Similar to the familiar "Yellow Pages" telephone directory, the visitor determines his or her category of interest, selects the category and continues selecting sub-categories until a site listing appears. For example if you wanted to look up a list of business schools, you might select "Business and Economy" from Yahoo!'s main page, then "Business Schools" from the resulting sub-category listing and then scan the resulting list of business schools alphabetically for the site you wished to reach.

On the other hand, a "search engine" generally refers to a site that asks you to type key words in a search field. That search engine will then provide a list of sites ranked in the order by which the search engine's algorithm determines the relevancy to your search (in many case the algorithm also takes into account the site's popularity). The exact method by which each search engine does this differs by search engine. In turn, from time to time each search engine will change their own algorithms. Excite, Infoseek, and HotBot are examples of true search engines. Understanding the differences in algorithms between search engines and the effect on how they will rank or "index" your site is one of the keys to getting your site ranked higher than your competitors.

How do I get my site registered with search engines?

This step is easy and most cases, it's free! The main page of all the major search engines and directories provide a link that will take you to submission page. Submitting your site to each of the search engines one at a time can be a time consuming and costly process. We strongly recommend that you check out Net Submitter Pro as one of the better tools available for submitting your site to over 500 search engines and directories in a single "session".

Who are the most important search engines and directories that I should be registering with?

The following search engines and directories are generally considered to be the most important "general" search engines (if your product is more niche market oriented you might want to check out some of the industry specific search engines):

• AltaVista
• AOL/NetFind
• Excite
• HotBot
• Infoseek
• Lycos
• Magellan
• Netscape
• Northern Lights
• Yahoo!
• WebCrawler

Pacific Business Marketing provides a handy link page which takes you to the submission page of most of these search engines.

Try Net Submitter Pro for a great tool for submitting to hundreds of sites in a single session.

What are the differences I should be aware of when registering with these sites?

The key difference among search engines is that they do not rank your site in the same manner. Simply put the fact that your site appears in the top ten in HotBot does not mean that it will appear in the top ten in Excite (or vice versa). Why? Each search engine uses a proprietary and normally closely guarded algorithm for determining how your site is ranked when certain key words are entered. The algorithms are typically closely guarded secrets for one simple reason: there are millions of pages in cyberspace - not everybody can be ranked in the top ten!

There are however, certain tricks, tips and practical tools that you can take advantage of to ensure that you have done everything morally and ethically possible to give your site a fair chance at being ranked highly by each of the major search engines when a potential visitor types in certain key word.

Preparing Your Pages Prior to Submitting

<TITLE> your web site with a good deal of consideration!

What wording you choose to put between the <TITLE> </TITLE> tags in the header of your page will have a great deal of impact on the where you appear based on a key word searches.

Here are some basic guidelines for your title tags:

• Don't use more than seven words (search engines use what appears between your title tags as the first link in search results - many don't show more than approximately seven words)
• Avoid using generic words or phrases such as "hot" or "the best". Generally speaking, these are not relevant to your sites unique products or services and "dilute" your relevancy
• Don't use your company name unless your potential visitors are going to be looking for your company name! For example, use "pet grooming" rather than "Nancy's Paws Shop"
• Make certain that the key words you use in your title are repeated in your key word and description meta tags as well as the first and last paragraphs of your page

Pick you fights! Keywords should consist of two or three word phrases that your customers are likely to use when they search. For example "ice skating", or "ice skating rinks".

Start out with paper and pencil and make a list of the keywords your customer might use to find you. Make this list from your customers point of view, taking into consideration what words they would use to start the process of searching for a company in your industry.

Before submitting the pages which make up your site, test your top 10 keywords/phrases by doing your own searches with some of the major search engines and see what sites come up.

After submitting your site, be patient!

It can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks for the major search engines to accept your submission and include your site. The reason is simple, they're swamped with submissions! At the same time, keep in mind that they are such a high volume of incoming requests that a few submissions may "slip through the cracks". So be prepared to re-register as necessary. Remember Net Submitter Pro for automating your submission process!