Registering with the search engines

As part of our service we register you with several of the major search engines and directories, and we will continue to monitor the market for you and add you to others from time to time. However you can greatly enhance your exposure to the search engines by continuing to add your site to others. Most of them are free or have a free option, though if you want to take out one or two paid listings as well they can further enhance your site's position in the ratings. Then people using those engines can see your listing and come to your site.

We have already provided your site with certain data for this purpose (title and meta tags, for those familiar with those terms). We may also have edited the text you entered onto your pages, to make it more search engine friendly.

You will need to know your way around the Internet, or have an employee who does. We suggest that where search engines ask for your email address, you do not give your main address but reserve an email address solely for this purpose, since there will be quite a lot of mail which may not interest you, from some of them. For the same reason use an email provider that gives you an easy to use bulk deletion facility, or a provider like Hotmail (www.hotmail.com) that automatically drops mail when your postbox fills up (unless you are particularly interested in search engine positioning you won't need to actually read any of it!)

There are also general purpose directories (all-subject ones, not the local or specialist trade directories we discuss in one of our other articles). Some are free. Of the pay-for-inclusion ones, the most popular is Yahoo.com. However, be cautious about paid entries, as they can be expensive and not necessarily bring in enough customers initially to justify the cost. It is very much a matter of site popularity, and that is a whole subject on it's own.

A word of warning: we do not suggest you use search engine submission programs that claim to submit your site to 1000 or ten thousand or two million search engines. Especially if they charge - it's often money down the drain.

For a start, there aren't two million search engines. Or even ten thousand! Only the top search engines, like Google, Lycos, and similar, really matter. The 1000th search engine will probably never send you traffic. Often such bulk submission services are just a means to collect your email address for sending you spam marketing emails. If you do use a bulk submission service, do NOT give them your regular email address, as mentioned above.