Search Engine Self Promotion
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http://www.selfpromotion.com
http://www.jimtools.com
http://www.iboost.com/
http://www.announceitamerica.com
http://www.dmoz.org/add.html
http://www.directhit.com
http://www.goto.com
http://www.searchengineforums.com
http://www.yahoo.com
Search Engines details.
First you need to understand that not everything people are calling "search engines" are the same thing. There are a great many types of places to submit your site and each should be handled differently.
Basic types:
1) Directories
These are categorical listings of websites usually accompanied by a short review or description. Yahoo is the consummate example of the directory. You can search the listings at Yahoo, and Yahoo has a "Spider" type engine on the back end (when it can't find a listing in its directory), but its heart is that basic categorical list.
To get a high rank in a directory, you need to be either placed in a category that shows up before others or your listing needs to start with a low letter of the alphabet depending on how the directory delivers search results. This is highly dependent on each site.
When submitting to these sites, your listing is usually reviewed by a human before being entered into the database. Your challenge is presenting that human with a listing that is acceptable to them and also one that will entice the web surfer to visit your site.
Since the reviewer sees many sites every day, he has a low tolerance for hype-filled marketing slogans and fluff. (Of course, there are some sites that don't review listings at all before entering info into the database in which case you're pretty much given free reign).
Now, as for the web surfer, he is bombarded with choices and advertisements on the web all day long. *He* has a low tolerance for hype and fluff, too.
If you follow these rules, you should always be able to please both the review *and* the surfer:
a. Get to the point quickly and concisely. Tell what you're site is all about and move on.
b. If the directory doesn't review your entry, show how your site will benefit the surfer. If it's a site where the listings are reviewed first (like Yahoo), just stick to the facts or you won't get in at all.
c. Try to include some of your keywords in your title. Since many people will conduct a search of the directory listings and not just browse to the right category, it's important that your site will be indexed in such a way that a potential visitor interested in what you have to offer can
easily find you.
2) Spider Engines (or True Search Engines)
These sites are based on actual extracts from the contents listed on your site. Contrast this with the directory that bases its listings on what you submit or a reviewer writes.
Common examples are HotBot, Alta Vista, and Webcrawler.
These engines work by sending out a "spider" (an automatic surf robot) that visits your site and takes a quick snap-shot of your page(s).
The nature of this snap shot varies considerably from engine to engine. For example, one may look at the first 500 characters of your site and nothing more. Another may look at your title and meta-tags (see below) and nothing more.
Each one in turn ranks search results differently as well. When people say they want to "come up first in the search engines", they are generally referring to manipulating the spider engines in such a way that they will come up first when someone searches for a particular keyword.
There are a great many sophisticated methods for attempting to achieve this goal. Some will work and some will get you kicked out of the engine entirely. I recommend sticking to the basics and moving on to more sure-fire promotion techniques.
At a minimum, though, here are some of the very basic things you should do to enhance your listing:
a. Your Title Tag
This tag is in the page "head" of your HTML (between <head> and </head>), and looks
like this:
<title>Your Page Title Here</title>
You want to use as many keywords here as possible. Just be sure not to make it look tacky...
When most search engines display your page data as the result of a search, the <title> tag is the first thing they display. This makes it doubly important to ensure the tag looks professional. If the tag says something like "tools tools tools plumbing plumbing plumbing", the type of person you are looking for probably won't even click on the link even if it does show up first in the search engine.
It's up to you to creatively include your keywords in a professional looking title. The title can be long (no more than 70 characters is best), but it had better not be just a keyword list. Have a friend look it over to see what they think. If they don't ask "where can I get this?" try again!
b. Meta Tags
Meta Tags are the most basic tools for manipulating the search engines. Some search engines will use these Meta Tags to index web content and give this more weight than the actual content of the page.
There are two main Meta Tags recognized by the search engines: "description" and "keywords". These tags need to be placed in the "head" section of your html document just like the "title" tag mention above.
The tags should look like this:
<meta name="description" content="Description of your document goes here.">
<meta name="keywords" content="your,key,words, here,like,this">
Some engines will look for agreement between the "description", "keyword", "title" and body text. So, try to use the same keywords in each field. That is, if your keyword list contains: "plumbers plumbing pipes tools", you need to make sure that you not only include those keywords in the "keywords" meta tag, but also the description, title and body text.
Remember though, every search engine is different. Some search engines will use only the first line of body text. That is, the text that comes right after the <body> tag in an html document.
c. Your Body Text
Since some engines don't look at Meta Tags at all, you need to ensure the body of your document contains some of your keywords as well. In general, you should try to include them up close to the top of the page (although some engines will spider the entire contents of your page no matter how much content you have).
Don't get so wrapped up around this that you sacrifice the content of your site. Your primary goal is to create a site that accomplishes your goals - getting listed high in the search engines is not a worthy goal - selling a product or service is!
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