WELLNESSEO.com

Popular internet wisdom has it that, eventually, the search engines will find your site. It is true… but it doesn’t mean they’ll find you as fast as you’d like and it doesn’t mean that ALL of them will find your site. If an important part of your internet marketing strategy depends on being found by search engines, or if the content on your site changes frequently, better not leave it to chance.

For most purposes, simply submitting your site directly to Google, MSN and Yahoo! is a good start. These sites provide search content to many other sites including sites such as Ask Jeeves, Altavista and Lycos. It’s also a good idea to include the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org) in your submissions. They, likewise, provide content to several other search engines. For these search engines, submission is easy enough to do yourself.

If you expect to do business worldwide, it may be desirable to employ the services of a search engine submission service. Many of these firms claim to submit your site to thousands of search engines (and some actually do!) The point is that such a service can be valuable when you must submit to engines within dozens of different countries and potentially in other languages.

Also, don’t forget to include industry specific directories or listings in your submissions. Many times, these sites are free and may be focused on specific markets that are important to you. Lastly, a key concept to take away from this discussion is that search engine submission is not a one-time activity. It must become a regular part of your site maintenance.