Submitting Your Website To The Search Engines And Achieving The Best Listings

Starting a new website, and getting it listed in the Search Engines, is an important first step in being successful with an online business

However there are a number of steps you need to take, to make sure you will get the highest possible listing, when people do a search online

First of all, remember the Search Engines work, by making it easy for people to find information. You will always get a higher listing in the search engines, if the information on your website, is a "match", to the search phrase, people type in when searching online

Therefore you should always concentrate on providing as much relevant information on your website as possible. It will also help if you make sure you keep adding new content as often as possible. You can also use RSS feeds for other sites, to make this easier

Target Your Webpage Content To Relevant Keywords

Many people start building their website without first thinking about what people are searching for online. Your website might look great to you, but what really matters is that you have carefully focused pages, which are each "niched" or "targeted" to rank highly for one main search phrase or keyword. If you put too much different unrelated content on your webpages, then the Search Engine "spiders" may become confused as to what your page is really about. Rather than having lots of different content on a single page, it is much better to split your content into several different pages, each of which should be linked together by a common menu system

Finding The Keywords People Are Search For

As a guide, the best way to put your website together, is to do some good quality keyword research. This can easily performed at the publisher site of yahoo.com or the Adwords section of the Google Search Engine. Both these services allow you to enter a general keyword phrase, and receive a listing of all the more specific keyword phrases that people have searched for in the last month. Once you know the keyword phrases that people are searching for, you can add carefully targeted content, to get the highest possible listing, when people do a similar search in the future

Setting Up Your Menu Linking System

The best way to manage the internal links on your website, is to have an integrated menu system, which is repeated exactly on every page. This will make it easy for your users to navigate from page to page, but will also make it easy for the Search Engines to find the content on your website. The last thing you want is lots of great webpages which the Search Engines are unable to find, because your menu system doesn't link to them on every page

If you have a really big website, then it will be impossible to list every page in this way. In this case you should simply place a link to a site map, where every page is listed, this should make it easy for the Search Engines to find all your pages

What Makes A Web Page Rank Well?

There are a few simple rules you should follow, in order to make your webpages rank well with the Search Engines. Good listings will not happen overnight, and you will need to be patient. It is a little bit like planting a seed in the ground. To begin with there are no results much to speak of, however eventually as the seed germinates and starts to grow, the green shoots appear.

Here are some simple formatting rules to follow for very webpage:

1) Place the title of your page in a H1 top heading on your page. This means simply putting the HTML code < H1> at the start of your heading, and the HTML code < /H1> at the end of your heading
2) Give your webpage the name of your main heading e.g. if your webpage was "5 Simple Steps To Website Profits" then your webpage would be called 5-Simple-Steps-To-Website-Profits.html
3) Put the title of your webpage into the title tag of your HTML source. This means just finding the HTML code < TITLE>place your title text here< /TITLE>, and then changing the text
4) Review what you have typed into the META tags, especially the META tag "content", and the META tag "description"
5) Any images should have an ALT tag of the type ALT="describe image". You can also place your main keyword in the ALT tag, for maximum effect. Remember that Search Engines cannot "read" the text displayed in your images
6) Try to ensure you use paragraph tags in your HTML rather than just a double carriage return i.e. use < P> rather than < BR>< BR>
7) Wherever possible use sub headings using the < H2> HTML code. This will make your webpages much more readable, but also give you the opportunity to "slip" your main keyword into a sub heading, where appropriate. Obviously don't overdo this feature, or it will count against you
8) Try and start your fist paragraph with the main keyword phrase you are targeting

Manually Submitting Your Website To The Search Engines

The best way to get started submitting your website to the Search Engines is to manually submit your main domain name to Google, Yahoo and MSN.
This means going to the Search Engine individually, and navigating to their website submission page. You can then simply enter your main domain name - you do not need to list any of your individual pages, all that is required is your domain name only.

There will be a random code that you must enter correctly, this is just to check that you are a real person entering the information, and not a submission script.

You may encounter some problems, such as the Search Engine submission page telling you that your webpage cannot be found, however simply ignore this message and re-submit, until you get a success message, indicating that your website has been queued for "spidering", as and when the Search Engine next performs a search.

Websites That Drop Out Of Search Engine Listings

It is not necessary to keep re-submitting your website month after month. If your website gets dropped out of the index, there will usually be a good reason for this, generally related to the content on your webpages. Read through this article carefully to see what HTML code and formatting is missing from your webpages to correct this, then manually resubmit. Remember do not use other peoples content on your site, as this will be flagged up by the Search Engine Spiders as duplicate content. If you want to use free articles, then add some extra content on your page, such as a RSS feed, or say a simple definition of some term used in the article

Paid Website Submission Services

Be very careful of paid submission services, that claim to submit your website to "thousands" of search engines and directories. While some of these services may be occasionally worth using, in the main, you will get a reasonable search listing, simply by manually submitting to the main Search Engines. The "thousands" of directories may simply be Free For All link boards, which will probably do more harm then good to your main Search Engine listing

Improving Your Search Engine Listing

One of the main ways that Search Engines assess the ranking to be given to your website, is by counting the number of one-way inbound links, pointing to your website. For the small website, it is not always easy to generate extra links. However the following are a few methods that will work:

1) Write as much new unique original content as possible. This will get noticed eventually by some of the not-for-profit directories, which manually visit sites and only add quality sites to their databases
2) Write lots of new articles, and post them to the various free article directories
3) Write press releases about news related aspects of your website
4) Start an offsite blog, such as on blogger.com, and place a link to your website on your blog
5) Make posts on forums, making sure to place a live link back to your website, in your signature file. This can be added in your user profile area of the forum concerned

Conclusion

All of these methods, over time, should make sure you get the possible ranking for your website, with the Search Engines. Always remember, that content, and especially new original content, which matches the keyword phrases that people are searching for, will significantly enhance your search listings. This does take quite a bit of work, but over time, will yield results.

About the Author

Tim Fulcher is an independent writer and webmaster. To find more about how to be successful online visit one of his websites at: http://www.ebiz4every1.com http://www.privatelabelresell.com http://www.profitchargerhits.com