Search Engine Submission, Ranking, Link Popularity and More

Web site promotion is the most important step in making your business succeed online. To help you promote and maintain your web site, we have dedicated a whole section of our web site to site promotion. We hope that you will find these articles, guidelines and tips useful.

Some people mistakenly believe that as soon as a site is on the Internet, the search engines will automatically index their site and people will start visiting their site from Day 1. This is not true.

Once your site is live (i.e. uploaded and accessed through the Internet) you need to concentrate on web site promotion. This is the step that will really give you a powerful Net presence. It's easy and it's fun so let's jump right into it.

Let's start with the basics

There are many methods that you can use to promote your web site. But one rule remains the same. Make sure that your web site is 100% ready to be submitted before you begin with promotion. You don't want to give anyone a chance of rejecting your web site and you don't want to disappoint visitors who come to your site.

1. Submitting to Search Engines
   
   The first and most important method of promotion is submitting your web site to search engines and directories. The webmaster fills out a form that tells the search engine or editor (in case of a directory or site) to visit and index the suggested site.
   
   
   1. Preparing your web pages - Meta tags
      You must submit your web site only after you have prepared your web pages for the search engines. This means you have to insert appropriate meta tags on all your web pages (keywords, description and title).
      
   2. Web site Optimization
      For your site to score high with search engines, you will need to optimize your web site (improve your HTML, load time, browser compatibility and other factors to cater to search engines). Only after optimization should you submit your site.
      
   3. Finally, it's time to submit!
      After optimization, it's time to submit your site. We recommend submitting to all the major search engines, since search engines generate approximately 90% of web site traffic. Top search engines have a form for site suggestions. A link to this form can usually be found from the home page; it may say "Add a site" or "Suggest a URL." You can jump to our article which has links to all submission forms and tips on submission, so you don't have to spend hours looking for them.
      
2. Submitting to Directories
   Once you have submitted your web site to all the top search engines, it is time to submit your site to the important directories, like Yahoo, Looksmart, AOL etc. Submitting to Directories is different from submitting to Search Engines as human editors review your site and accept or reject your site according to its quality. Before submitting to Directories, you need to make sure that your site is 100% ready. You also need to carefully follow their guidelines while you submit your site.
   
   Note: There are a number of free search engine submission tools available but I suggest that the first time you submit your web site, do it manually. And never use these free tools while submitting to Directories. This must be done manually. Don't worry, submitting to search engines is very easy. It's only preparing your web pages with the appropriate meta tags that takes time.
   
3. Other Internet Marketing Techniques
   You need to know that web site promotion is an ongoing process, as there are thousands of web sites being added every day and the competition is getting tougher by the minute! Most of the sites listed on the search engines are getting lost as there may be 100 -10,000 other web sites in the same field. We all know that most people don't look at more than 2-3 search result pages. The web sites that are not found in these pages are lost in the competition. New promotion techniques are coming out every day to get around this problem. We will discuss these new promotion techniques soon. Some of them are as follows:
   
   
   1. Link Popularity
      This is a very important Internet marketing technique which is rapidly gaining importance. The term "link popularity" refers to the number of sites that are linked to your site. Search engines check your link popularity and based on how popular your site is, give you a higher ranking. Try getting as many quality links as possible to boost your search engine position.
      
   2. Writing Quality Articles
      Get visitors flocking to your site by writing quality articles. Write articles that are related to the content of your site. Most people come to the Internet for quality information. Articles build your credibility and reputation and your visitors may use your services in the long run. You also get more links to your sites through this method.
      
   3. Publish your own ezine or newsletter
      Ezines (or e-mail newsletters) are the latest buzz for marketing on the Internet. Everyone is talking about how you should publish your own ezine to increase traffic, hits and sales. Popular ezines usually give current information and resources that will keep subscribers informed and updated. Ezines are also a great way to keep in touch with your visitors.