Search engine submission

Google serves around 80% of all searches carried out in the world. Every search engine has slightly different "rules" as to what is relevant content for its users. Google does the best job at this, and because Google do such a good job, everybody uses it. This is why it is important that your website is designed to satisfy Googles algorithm, to get it to the top of the list of tens of thousands of other websites in your area.

You may see competitors claiming "we will submit your website to 1000's of search engines" - this is a complete waste of time. Have you ever heard of bigsearch.com - bestsearch.com or searchnet.com? Nothing to be ashamed of - neither has anybody else. Those 1000's of search engines very rarely get used and if you need to provide an e-mail address for submission, it is highly likely that very soon after, you will be bombarded with spam.

What our competitors will also do is submit your website to those 1000's of search engines with the click of one button by the use of software. Most search engines that are worth submitting to will detect and block these types of submissions. We submit your website manually to ensure acceptance and indexing. In fact, you can even do this yourself but submission alone will not have any effect on where your website is ranked without prior optimisation. We also carry out search engine submissions on each of the other major search engines including MSN, Alta Vista and Alltheweb. Remember to check where our competitors are listed, are they listed on the first page for the keywords you found Jet Web Design with?

The Google search engine also currently feeds results to AOL - Freeserve - BBC - Netscape and other smaller engines to give your website even further exposure should you achieve a high listing on Google.

Unethical practice - The cowboys of 2010

Beware of web design companies or so called "search engine submission companies" e-mailing you out of the blue offering you a one off chance of "aggressive submission" or offering any unrealistic guarantees for minimal cost. Beware of any search engine submission company that talks about using the following tactics to gain you greater exposure:

Myth - "Changing your meta tags to match that of the top companies in your category will improve your websites performance, after all, it works for your competitors!" There are said to be over 100 "rules" to make a website rank highly on the most important search engines. Meta tags paint only a very small part of a much larger picture. Copying your competitors meta tags is likely to land you in hot water and will do nothing to improve your own positions. We were astounded when we saw competitors blatantly using our meta tags but luckily for us, it had no effect whatsoever on their search engine ranking.

Myth - “Your website needs regular submission to the major search engines” Regular search engine submission does not improve your websites performance on the search engines. This may have been true back in the 1990's but this information is now out of date. If your company is paying for search engine submissions to free search engines such as Google, Alta Visa, Alltheweb, MSN. Stop at once.

Fact - Some search engines require a one off or annual payment to list your website or webpages known as pay for inclusion or PFI. Some are worthwhile whilst others will show no or little return.

Fact - Some online directories require a one off or annual payment to list your website. However, there are several directories that will list your website without cost. The ODP is a very important directory to be listed in, but it can often take several months before submissions are accepted as each website is reviewed by a human. For many categories, there is a large backlog of pending submissions. http://www.dmoz.org/

Pay per click inclusion (PPC)

Do not confuse getting listed in the natural area with paying for clicks. There are several search engines that offer to include your website for your specific chosen keywords at a cost per click. The cost per click is determined by your competitors as a bidding scheme is in place. You only pay when people looking for your products actually click through to your website. You can usually identify paid advertisements on Google as they are listed under the heading "Sponsored Links". Two advertisements with light blue backgrounds are occasionally listed above the natural listings and several are listed to the right hand side of the page. Prices start from 0.04p per click and depending on the competitiveness of your business, this can be as high as £5 per click or even more. MSN and Yahoo place paid links at the top of the page under the heading "sponsored sites" or "sponsored results".

If you are currently paying for your clicks from any search engine, we could save you thousands of pounds each year and help your business to thrive by optimising your website to help it gain high natural listings. Have a look through our portfolio, then contact us for a demonstration of how we could improve your business.

Useful PPC Links:

Sign up for Google Adwords - Many companies see excellent results by using adwords.

Advertise on Yahoo and MSN - Driven by Overture - also feeds results to a larger network of search engines such as AOL, Freeserve and Lycos.