Website Submission

Website Submission - A SEOSpecialist Shares His Secrets

Many of you have heard of submitting your website, but what does this really mean? What places should you really submit your website? What about submitting to thousands of search engines and directories through some website promotion service?

What Pages To Submit:
At the minimum, you should submit your home page. Many search engines will promise to find and crawl the rest of your website automatically (in their own good time). But if they don't discourage you from doing so, I would submit several of the important pages in your site. For example, a site map is definitely something I would want to submit, since it should have direct links to the rest of your website.
Also, if I get another webmaster to link to my website, I like to submit that page as well. I want the search engines to recognize that this resource has changed - it has a link to my website and I want the credït for it.

What To Prepare:
For the search engines, I would make sure that the website is properly optimized. At a minimum, I would do double chëck the meta-tags to ensure that the title, meta-description and meta-keywords properly describe the web pages and have some of my desired keywords in it. I would also run a website validator on the pages I intend on submitting - to keep the search engine spiders from choking on my website. For more information on optimizing a website for the search engines, go to http://website-optimization-2.blogspot.com.
For the directories, I would normally prepare some commonly requested information. This really helps to speed up the process. I normally use a generic text editor like Microsoft Notepad and save the following data before I go and submit to the different search engines and directories. This enables me to use copy and paste.
This should have:
Your email
Your website url
A good title for your website
A description for the website
Since Yahoo will allow you to submit a list of URLS that are in a text document (or an RSS feed) I would encourage you to prepare one to help them out. These should be at the root directory of your website and be updated whenever there is a change to your pages. That way you can just submit the location of the RSS feed or the text file and let Yahoo use that to find the rest of your pages. It is a nice time saver. Personally, I like using an automated RSS feed since Yahoo can use it to determine when the last changes occurred and decide what pages to re-crawl first.
(If you don't know what RSS is, hëre is a great article on it: http://feedvalidator.org/docs/rss2.html.)

Google uses a similar technology to help it find all of your web pages. It is called a "Google Site Map". That is the subject of another article. I wrote one that has a lot more info on the Google Site Maps, for when you are ready to build one. Google also has a special way to submit these. Just follow their instructions. If this is too complicated, contact a webmaster or a SEO specialist who is familiar with this feature.
Where To Submit:
I would recommend submitting your home page to the major search engines individually, at least initially. However, there are several services that do groups of them for you - and is a big time saver for the rest of your site. The following is one of my favorites: FreeWebSubmission.com. I have always deselected Google, though, since I submit to them manually through the Google website. I submit my web pages to the following search engines manually (without a special tool) just to ensure that it is done.
Submit to Google
Submit to Yahoo
Submit to MSN
You will need a Yahoo account to submit to the Yahoo search engine. And don't fret if you don't see immediate results. Your site should normally exist in MSN within about 6 weeks, in Yahoo in 8-12 weeks, and in Google within about 3 months. (You will not likely get much search results from Google for the first year though - but hold out and keep working on the other tricks. In the long run, Google will normally give you about 60 - 70% of the search engine traffïc if you follow these methods.)

Also, if you have the Alexa toolbar installed, navigate to your website and clïck on the "info" button on the toolbar. Then you will have to fill in information about your website. Once this is registered, you will start seeing how your website's Alexa rating looks. There have been some rumors that Google considers the Alexa description in its searches - so make sure it is relevant to your website as a whole and has at least one of your keywords.
You should also submit your website to DMOZ. This is a massive directory that is republished in several other websites. It is managed by humans, and is therefore considered to be of special relevance by other search engines. I strongly recommend reading all their rules before submitting - and follow them closely. Make sure that you try to get listed in only one category - the most relevant one for your business. It can take a month or two to get listed, but it really helps with your backlinks and overall relevancy as a website.
Top 10 Exposure on 150+ Search EnginesYour Keywords - No Bidding - No Pay-Per-Click!Over 150 Million Searches Per MonthStarting at $3 to $4 or Less per Month Sign Up Today - Receive 2 Bonuses Valued at $60 After DMOZ, hëre are the most important list of directories to be listed in.
Yahoo Directory website submission ($299 annual fee)
Business.com website submission ($199 annual fee)
Microsoft Bcentral Directory website submission ($49 annual fee)
Best of Web website submission ($40 annual fee)
GoGuides.org website submission ($40 lifetïme fee)
Gimpsy.com website submission ($40 lifetïme fee)
JoeAnt website submission ($40 lifetïme fee)
Tygo website submission ($40 lifetïme fee)
Skaffe.com website submission ($40 lifetïme fee)
WowDirectory.com website submission ($25 lifetïme fee)
If you haven't used directories before - try browsing these before you fill out the förm to submit your site. They are organized by category. You need to find the most relevant category to put your website before you start to fill out the förm for each of these. Have a pen and paper as you browse - and write down directory paths of where you want to be.
Being in some directories just adds some good backlinks. (When another webmaster links to your website, this is considered a backlink.) Others, like Yahoo and DMOZ, tend to get some special relevance to certain search engines. After you get familiar with these well-known directories, look for niche directories that are specific to the type of business your website is about.
There are specialized directories that focus on a particular category of links. These can be valuable - you will just have to do a bit of searching to find them. These may be considered as part of your overall strategy.
Being listed in a search engine doesn't guarantëe that you will have a good ranking - this is just the first step - letting them know that you exist.
If You See An Offer To Get Listed In Hundreds Of Directories And Websites Automatically - Beware! Many of these will list you in hundreds of FFA (free for all) sites. These sites are considered SP@M by search engines and I would strongly encourage you to avoid them. Did I mention to avoid these? Chëck out what Google has to say about these. They may get you quick backlinks, but they are from the "wrong" type of site. These are just a list of sites - and they stay there temporarily. Only the latest 100 submitted or so are displayed there and you need to be resubmitted regularly to stay there. Few humans use this - it is just a linking game to trick the search engines about your popularity (and search engines don't like it). Don't bother.
To Wrap It Up:
Get backlinks - but avoid FFA sites. There are some important directories, but being listed in "Thousands Of Websites And Directories" is likely a promotional trick to get you listed in FFA sites. The most important backlinks are from web pages with content related to your website and those that your customers visit. If it isn't likely to draw your customers, it may not be very important for your website traffïc.

About: AuthorRobert Fuess

Go Smart Web Design Company
Central Coast Businesses

SEO Web Links - Directory Alternatives

SEO Web Links:
Directory Alternatives
By Joel Walsh

If you were writing a textbook on SEO linking circa 2001, you almost certainly would have included a chapter on web directories. They used to be the primary way of actively acquiring one-way inbound links, before content syndication, blogs, or the paid link market really took off.
Web Directories and SEO Links: What Went Wrong?

Fast forward a few years, and you'd have to rewrite the chapter on directories and web links. In fact, you would probably downgrade web directories from a chapter to a page or two. In the SEO world, nothing good ever lasts long, and so it is with web directories.

* Traffïc
With Google more accurate than ever, there was no more reason to turn to a human-edited list of websites. A directory might get you one or two click-throughs a month--or none at all.

* Redirects
Once directory owners realized their link popularity was valuable, they started hoarding it. Overnight, many, if not most, directories switched their HTML links to search-engine-invisible redirects.

* Fees
Most directories started charging for inclusion, or at least, for inclusion with a link rather than a redirect. If the fees were reasonable, that would not be so bad. But why would you pay $35 for a link on a PR 3 page with dozens of other links and virtually no content, on a site with dwindling traffïc?

* Corruption
In the SEO world, low-hanging fruit quickly goes rotten. Any volunteer-edited commercial category in a link directory runs a very real risk of being taken over by a corrupt SEO.

* Dubious Link Popularity
Given the notoriety of many directories for selling or inappropriately bestowing links, it's not hard to imagine a search engine quality control engineer turning the link popularity juice off from these sites.


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* Welcome to Our List."
If a directory doesn't charge a fee to enter, it may ask for payment in the form of an email address. You'd better use your special Hotmail account for that one.

* Anchor Text
Many directories do not allow for anchor text to be specified, delighting in providing as little SEO value as possible for the effort involved in submitting to them.

* Time
When link directories really were vital efforts to categorize the web, getting a link in them was as simple as having a good website and letting them know about it. Now that they've turned into tightly rationed supplies of link popularity, that kind of responsiveness is out the window.

* Idiosyncratic applications without any promise of timely follow-up.

* Application forms that often empty straight into a black hole:

- No way of checking on the status of submissions.
- Threats of scuttling submissions that are re-submitted when there is no response.


Web Directory Linking Alternatives for the 21st Century

* Reciprocal Linking With a Twist
If you network with other site owners, you can triangulate link trades so that they are not direct. Heck, if you really like each other, you may just link to each others' sites for the sake of it! It's worked for me with some high-PR links.

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* Blogging
Blog early, blog often, and someone is bound to link to you. It's the nature of blogging. The fastest way to get inbound links from your blog? Write about other blogs. The more controversial, the better. Post this article on a webmaster blog, and in the same post, reference the blog of someone who thinks link directories are still a good idea! In the blogosphere, arguments mean lots of links.

* Article Directories
These are the closest things to link directories, from an SEO standpoint, to emerge in the 21st century. You submit an article to one of these sites (of which there are over 200). In your article you include a link to your site. Article directories are everything link directories used to be: responsive, fair, fast, no-fee, relevant, and quality sources of not only links but information. OK, most of their pages are PR0 and the rest tend to be PR 1-2. But with most article directories, you can choose your exact anchor text for the link -- often more valuable than PageRank for non-competitive search phrases. Besides, if most of your links are on PR 4+ pages, how natural will that look?

In short, even if web link directories do still have some SEO value, they should no longer be your first stop for one-way inbound links. There are much better, and much less aggravating, linking methods.

About The Author
Joel Walsh owns UpMarket Content, which helps clients get one-way inbound links and web traffïc by developing and syndicating website content.

Couple of good websites..

Web Design Company

Website Ratings

Real Estate Virtual Tours

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Misconceptions
by Candis Thompson

Let’s get right to the point: A web site cannot promote itself and does
not automatically produce profit. This may seem logical, but it
is indeed a common misconception. There are millions of web sites on
the World Wide Web, many of which are likely to be very similar to your
own. We’ve come up with realistic solutions to the two most common
myths people tend to believe, along with some must-read Dos and Don’ts.

First, let’s battle the idea that once a great website “goes
live”, traffic, ranking, and profits will be high. Realistically,
who knows about your website once it’s finished? Probably only you,
your family and friends, and your web designer. That isn’t a whole
lot to work with if you want to produce a booming business. There are
millions of websites out there, and your newborn site needs to be advertised
and prepared in order to be competitive. There are several ways to market
your website, some being quite costly, others being free. Paying for advertisement
is always a gamble, but oftentimes can be very effective. Pay-per-clicks
or banner ads may be an option, but the best advice we can give is to
do research first. Save time and money by making sure you advertise to
your target audience. The free way to market your website leads right
to our next misconception clean-up.

Having your website optimized for search engines is essential, but once
is not enough. In order for a website business to succeed, thrive, and
grow, continual (and smart) optimization is needed. This means changing
content frequently, specifying title tags to be relevant to each page,
start and maintain a healthy link exchange, continually add new pages,
and use specific key words. An example of that last one can be seen with
the Go Smart website. If you do a search in Google for “web design”,
you will need to swim through pages and pages before finding our website.
This is because the phrase “web design” is highly competitive.
And most likely, any keyword you use (unless you have a very unique business)
will also be highly competitive. However, if you specify your keywords
to be original and to fit your business distinctively, you will probably
have much better luck. For instance, enter “pismo beach web design”
in Google and we are number one. Using relevant and specific keywords
can make a world of difference. Now, on to the Dos and Don’ts.

DO

Use CSS (Cascading
Style Sheets) wherever possible.

Have a hyperlinked
menu – search engines cannot find your other pages if you use images
for your menu. If you prefer an image menu for aesthetic purposes, just
be sure you also have a hyperlinked menu somewhere else on the site.

Assign ‘alt’
tags to all images.

Use page-specific
title tags – this means different title tags for every page of your
website!

Have relevant keyphrases
bolded and hyperlinked to a relevant page.

Have a site map
– put as many links to pages as possible, and continually add on.

DON’T

Overuse Flash –
search engines cannot index Flash, and in turn, your website will not
likely rank well. If you are a Flash-lover and cannot let it go, be sure
to have a great (text/hyperlinked) link exchange.

Overuse images
– again, search engines will have a hard time indexing your site.
All titles and important key words/phrases should be text, not images.

Have only an image
menu – make sure to have an additional text menu for indexing purposes
(for example, the Go Smart website has an image menu at the top, but also
text menu links on the left side, at the footer, and throughout the homepage).

Overuse tables
– A CSS layout is indexed much better.

Use frames –
they cannot be indexed and are outdated.

Hope this helps, and remember to visit the Go Smart SEO
Services page for some personal help and attention. Good Luck!

What Makes a Good Web Design Company?

Are you in the process of trying to find a website design company to help with your website design needs? If so we have some tips for you. First we must ask a few questions?

1. Can your website work be completed remotely?
2. Can you communicate efficiently over the phone or through email?
3. Is your website hosted remotely or locally?

If the work can be completed remotely and you can communicate over the phone or email then your choices for a website design company are very wide. You will have hundreds of companies to choose from, which in itself can be overwhelming. If you need to communicate in person or if you need a professional to work on site, then your choices will be somewhat limited to your local area. Unless of course you agree to pay for traveling fees.

So you ask, "What should I look for in a web site company?" Here are some suggestions.

- Make sure the company has a good website of their own.
- Make sure the company has a good online portfolio of other projects they have completed.
- When contacting the company if they do not respond in 1 business day, be wary.
- Make sure the company prepares a detailed proposal of all work they will provide you.
- The proposal should contain every aspect of the job, the timeframe for completion and cost.
- The proposal should also require you to sign it as well as the company.
- Most companies require a down payment. If a professional doesn't require a down payment, this sometimes means they will not stick around for the entire project.
- Make sure the company has some kind of guarantee on work and if they can't deliver the work then you will be owed a refund.
- Cheap is not always best but the most expensive is also not always the best. Get a lot of proposals and compare them all. This will help you determine an accurate price.
- Make sure you know where the company is located. A lot of offshore companies present themselves as U.S. companies but in actuality the programmers are located offshores. This is fine for some people but others complain that it is very hard to communicate and the response time is very slow.
- It's an added bonus if the company is a member of the BBB.

Feel free to contact us if you have any other questions or concerns.

Your friends at Go Smart Solutions
http://www.gosmart4u.com/

Web Design Companies

Do you own or know of a good US based Web Design Company?

If so, please post the information here. Please post the web design companies web site, location, decscription of services and why you feel they are a good web design company.

We would like to create a list of great US based website design companies that offer affordable services. We will go through every site that is posted here and evaluate their services. We will then post back here on what we find.

Web Design Tips

There are many great resources out on the web that provide you with some great website design tips. In the coming weeks we will post some helpful articles and will also post some links to other great websites that have helpful website design articles. We also welcome you to post your questions about web design. We will try and answer all questions you have.

You can check out our website tutorial pages from http://www.gosmart4u.com/webtips.aspx
Your friends at Go Smart Solutions - Professional Web Design
http://www.gosmart4u.com/