Search Engines and Directories a pragmatic look.
If you have been a subscriber to my newsletter to any period of time, you know that I always try out new methods and avenues of promoting my website on the internet. I change my main website page fairly often and then see what happens. I then pass the informaiton along to you about what happened, the good and the bad. You must remember that you have to look at these results on a ninety (90) day or more time frame to get conclusive results, and sometimes more. To make the playing field more stable and to make my stat's pragmatic, I use Alexa as my ranking tool and go to two rank checking sites ( so I can get an average of the results) at: [http://www.cpucash.net/rankchecker.html] and to [http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/] ( at this site you will want to check your results at the 'site saturation tab'.
Since the Search engines and Alexa are always changing their algoryhtms in order to keep the spammers and professional optimizer's from making the results lopsided, you have to take that into consideration as time passes. Where my site was at one time in the low 60,000's it is now in the mid 400,000's. This does not bother me since I am doing this by myself and in the manner most of those doing their own self promotions would and because there are thousands of new websites entering the internet everyday that have been done by professionals. I also think this whole 'ranking and popularity' thing is very over rated in the industry and is on the way out. If someone is really looking for what you have to offer, they will find you. The hype created by the engines themselves is believed by many with more weight that it should be given in your thought process and time to spend on this aspect of your site's promotions.
I concentrate on search engines and directories for one reason only and that is that once you are listed, your site tends to stay listed forever and is auto-updated when their 'spider's' re-crawl your site.
You have to submit your site to search engines and to directories once you have your site 'ready to go'. There are, of course, the major engines that you must target alone, such as Yahoo, MSN and Google. There are also minor engines and new engines appearing on the internet and to get you site submitted to them while they are still new and taking all the submissions they can in order to increase their database's you have to do quite a 'serch' for them yourself. The question is 'Why should you?' There are places that have done this already, all you have to do is to find them and 'bookmark' them for your usage.
A couple of years ago I found a great place for this and put the link on my 'Free Stuff and Resources' page at: [http://www.cpucash.net/freestuff.html] My link to the site on my page says ( in text) 'Seach Engines and Directories in Review', which will take you to:http://www.blueangels.net/
The rule that I gave myself for this was that I would submit to the sites that did not charge for submission nor required a link back in order to post. I spent several hours listing my site in the most revelant categories, being carefull to not post to the one's that had no satiable.
After a couple of weeks, I went back to them and checked to see if my site was indeed listed. On the most part it was, and for those where it was not I again submitted to those, again being carefull to see if my previous submission was still in the process of approval or had not been listed. The Blue Angels site also adds new places quite often, so I make sure to check out all the 'new' engines listed.
To take a faster track, and if you have the funds, it is always better to pay for inclusion (even 'pay per click') since you will always be placed higher in the results. It is also better to establish 'back links' for the same reason, just as paying for 'solo' ads with safelist'. Remember to always cover the 'back doors' too. These are submitting articles to places and allowing others to use them, and having your very own FFA type of site ( for traffic ), and keeping a close eye on your site's content.
Conclusion:
The ground floor of your promotions is getting listed in the search engines and directories. The gravy is to get your site 'referenced ' by others and to have them establish links to your site. All of this will increase your returns when someone is looking for your product or service on the interenet. NEVER forget that it is all a numbers game. Where as with e-mails the returns may be one out of a thousand, with the engines and directories it will be better. Your keywords and site descripton meta tags will prove to be the key to your success, but to only get a prospect to your site. Once at your site, you must sell the benefits of your product or service. Do not be dismayed by the amount of 'non-returns' compared to the pageviews as you will always get many more 'looky loos's' that are not serious to the 'real prospects'. The numbers are in your favor, if you have to time and dedication to let the time itself run it course in your favor.
Robert Nixon
Since the Search engines and Alexa are always changing their algoryhtms in order to keep the spammers and professional optimizer's from making the results lopsided, you have to take that into consideration as time passes. Where my site was at one time in the low 60,000's it is now in the mid 400,000's. This does not bother me since I am doing this by myself and in the manner most of those doing their own self promotions would and because there are thousands of new websites entering the internet everyday that have been done by professionals. I also think this whole 'ranking and popularity' thing is very over rated in the industry and is on the way out. If someone is really looking for what you have to offer, they will find you. The hype created by the engines themselves is believed by many with more weight that it should be given in your thought process and time to spend on this aspect of your site's promotions.
I concentrate on search engines and directories for one reason only and that is that once you are listed, your site tends to stay listed forever and is auto-updated when their 'spider's' re-crawl your site.
You have to submit your site to search engines and to directories once you have your site 'ready to go'. There are, of course, the major engines that you must target alone, such as Yahoo, MSN and Google. There are also minor engines and new engines appearing on the internet and to get you site submitted to them while they are still new and taking all the submissions they can in order to increase their database's you have to do quite a 'serch' for them yourself. The question is 'Why should you?' There are places that have done this already, all you have to do is to find them and 'bookmark' them for your usage.
A couple of years ago I found a great place for this and put the link on my 'Free Stuff and Resources' page at: [http://www.cpucash.net/freestuff.html] My link to the site on my page says ( in text) 'Seach Engines and Directories in Review', which will take you to:http://www.blueangels.net/
The rule that I gave myself for this was that I would submit to the sites that did not charge for submission nor required a link back in order to post. I spent several hours listing my site in the most revelant categories, being carefull to not post to the one's that had no satiable.
After a couple of weeks, I went back to them and checked to see if my site was indeed listed. On the most part it was, and for those where it was not I again submitted to those, again being carefull to see if my previous submission was still in the process of approval or had not been listed. The Blue Angels site also adds new places quite often, so I make sure to check out all the 'new' engines listed.
To take a faster track, and if you have the funds, it is always better to pay for inclusion (even 'pay per click') since you will always be placed higher in the results. It is also better to establish 'back links' for the same reason, just as paying for 'solo' ads with safelist'. Remember to always cover the 'back doors' too. These are submitting articles to places and allowing others to use them, and having your very own FFA type of site ( for traffic ), and keeping a close eye on your site's content.
Conclusion:
The ground floor of your promotions is getting listed in the search engines and directories. The gravy is to get your site 'referenced ' by others and to have them establish links to your site. All of this will increase your returns when someone is looking for your product or service on the interenet. NEVER forget that it is all a numbers game. Where as with e-mails the returns may be one out of a thousand, with the engines and directories it will be better. Your keywords and site descripton meta tags will prove to be the key to your success, but to only get a prospect to your site. Once at your site, you must sell the benefits of your product or service. Do not be dismayed by the amount of 'non-returns' compared to the pageviews as you will always get many more 'looky loos's' that are not serious to the 'real prospects'. The numbers are in your favor, if you have to time and dedication to let the time itself run it course in your favor.
Robert Nixon
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