With all of the changes to the search engines these days, you can drive
yourself crazy trying to get your site submitted. Unless you are willing to
commit yourself to doing it full time, or you are a search engine expert, you
won't rank at the top of the engines. However, this doesn't mean that you
should neglect this important means of getting traffic to your site.

Unlike most of the methods for promoting your business, which came from
the offline world, this method is different. It's unique, and it is changing and
growing at a rapid pace. By at least informing yourself of the basics, you can
make this a more effective method for driving traffic to your site.

Below are seven tips you can implement to get started:

1. Understand the Relationships of the Various Search Engines. Before you
can know where to submit, you need to understand how all of the various search
engines are related so that you don't duplicate your work, or worse, get banned
from submission.

Now, mind you, I am no search engine expert. However, I have been watching
closely what is happening, and here is what I have seen so far:

Recently, Yahoo, a directory, acquired All the Web, Altavista, Inktomi and
Overture. Yahoo is no longer going to be using search results from Google as
its backend.

Although it remains to be seen what role All The Web and Altavista will play,
Inktomi will only provide limited offerings in Yahoo because Yahoo announced
that Inktomi's paid inclusions would not be included in its results.

Overture, the number one pay per click search engine, provides paid results to
80 per cent of the major search engines and will continue to do so. It will also
be providing backend results to Yahoo. Overture provides results to major sites
like HotBot and MSN.

Yahoo is adding its own search engine & will continue to offer its paid directory
at $299 a year.

Currently, MSN and Yahoo, the number two and number one sites respectively
on Alexa, are battling for supremacy. Bill Gates is also working on a new model
for his search engine, but it remains to be seen what that will be.

Eventhough Google will no longer be providing backend results to Yahoo,
Google is still a major player. It is also the number one search engine in the
world. Google gets some of its results from the Open Directory Project, a
volunteer effort to create a directory of the best sites on the Internet.

Looksmart is still out there, but it appears to have changed its model to a pay
per click. You can get started for free, but you'll have to pay for each click.
(NOTE: I found this site hard to navigate to answer the most simple questions.
Maybe that's why it's the least relevant of the options available.)

Finally, you have Alexa, which is in a class all its own. You definitely want to
get your site submitted here because it's a great way to find out who is linking
to you, where you rank, and other statistics about your site. Back end results
for Alexa are provided by Google.

The easiest way to track your site using Alexa, is to download a copy of the
toolbar. You can get it here:
http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/htmlfiles/alexa.html

2. Prepare Your Site for Submission. Now that you know where to submit your
site, you want to prepare your site so that it gets accepted.

The best tool to help you is Good Keywords: http://www.goodkeywords.com
This free utility will let you search for the best keywords to use on your site.

Key words, however, are only part of the equation.

You will also want to create a good title and description. Take your time when
you create these. You want each to be key word rich, and the right length.
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