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SEARCH ENGINES

About Search Engines

Submitting your e-commerce site to search engines is one of the easiest, fastest, and least expensive ways to promote your new site. Tens of millions of people use the major search engines every day to navigate around the Internet and quickly find what they are looking for. While you shouldn't rely on search engines alone to bring you qualified traffic, this is definitely a good way to kick off your marketing efforts.

It is recommended that you avoid using auto-submission services that promise to register your site at hundreds of major search engines for a small fee. There are only a handful of search engines that really count and a number of the majors use the same database. Thus, you can register on one and show up on several of them. The experts in the field agree that you are much better off taking the extra time to learn as much as you can about the major search engines and manually registering your site with each one to ensure you get the best listing possible.

Each of the search engines works in a different way. Many of them use automated software called "robots" or "spiders" that literally crawl around the Web looking for new sites and indexing them. When you submit a new site to a search engine, you are telling the "spider" to crawl over to your site and assign you a particular relevancy score. This score then determines your ranking when someone searches for your site.

Yahoo is one of the most popular search engines and it is also one of the hardest to get a good listing on. Actually, Yahoo is technically not a search engine but a directory. It works like the Yellow Pages, categorizing by topic and type. The "search" function is added to help you find the various categories.

If you want to register your site on Yahoo, go to the home page at http://www.yahoo.com/ and drill down to the category you want to list in. When you are in the category of your choice, click the Add URL button at the top of the category page.

For Yahoo, it's important that you represent your business as an individual business, and don't use phrases like, "Earn lots of money." Instead, try something like "Joe Consultant's Storefront" or "An e-commerce site with competitive prices on PCs and accessories from the top names in the business." Do not use vendor brand names unless you have their permition!

I would suggest that at the beginning you think about avoiding Yahoo. You will need to study this site to understand what category to choose to be on the top of the listing. You can register your site at HotBot.com instead. Both HotBot and Yahoo use the Inktomi database. A listing on HotBot virtually guarantees a showing on Yahoo with much less complication. A listing on HotBot takes roughly 2 days to one week whereas a listing on Yahoo can take anywhere from 2-6 weeks. You can register your site with HotBot.com at the following URL: http://www.hotbot.com/addurl.asp.

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Choosing Your Key Words

When you register your site with search engines, you will be asked to list your site's keywords. These are words people will type in to the search box to locate the specific site they are looking for. You should choose your words carefully to make sure your site is viewed by the largest number of people. There are two strategies to consider when entering keywords: Targeted vs. Blanket.

A blanket strategy involves listing as many keywords as possible so that your site will appear no matter what the searcher chooses as the search word. A targeted strategy involves listing only a few very specific search words. If you use this strategy, you need to feel very confident that the searcher will search based on one of your chosen keywords. However, the advantage of using this method over the blanket method is that you are more likely to appear higher on the list.

The way to choose your keywords is to imagine that you're one of the people looking for your type of products. What words would you choose to find what you were looking for? The most obvious ones are the ones you want to use. You should also think about words that are attractive to consumers such as: free, discount, cheap, low-cost, deals.

Here is a sample of the code for keywords, it should be located at the "head" portion of HTML code:
(meta Name="KEYWORDS" Content="computers, laptops, books, computer courses")

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Tips for Search Engine Registration

Less is More.

You may be tempted to think that it is to your advantage to try to get listed on as many sites as possible, but this is simply not the case. The major search engines will drive over 90% of your website traffic if you are listed within the top 3 pages of keyword results. If you choose to promote your site beyond the top 5, don't waste your time trying to get listed on search engines that fall below the top 20. The time you waste trying to get listed on hundreds of useless search engines would be better used trying to increase your placement in the majors.  [go back to the top]

Don't Try to Promote Every Page of Your Site.

Almost every search engine will crawl through your entire site indexing all of its pages. If you have a large website and promote all of your pages, some engines will consider it spamming and reject your submissions.  [go back to the top]

Don't Get Too Comfortable.

Granted, a good listing on a top search engine is a pretty exciting thing. But don't expect it to last forever. The good search engines are constantly re-evaluating their lists and crawling the web to ensure their rankings are as current and valid as possible. Also, hundreds of new sites are being submitted daily which could cause yours to get pushed down the list if a better one comes along. You need to keep a constant watch on your listing to make sure it stays at the top of the list. You may have to constantly resubmit your site to keep the listing fresh. Unfortunately, you can't just sit back and relax once your site has a strong listing on all the major search engines.  [go back to the top]

Don't Spam Search Engines.

Second, manipulating meta tags and keywords incorrectly can get you into a lot of trouble. Many of the major search engines take a very strong stance against Search Engine Spamming. This is defined as manipulating keywords, meta tags, and background colors in an attempt to gain a higher ranking. This includes listing keywords which have no relevancy to the content of the site, listing keywords multiple times, copying someone else's meta tags, etc. Not only is this unlikely to get you a better listing, but it is likely to get your site banned which could be severely detrimental to your promotion efforts.  [go back to the top]

Tips For Registering With the Major Search Engines
Keep in mind that every search engine is different and every search engine changes its criterion constantly. Do not use the guidelines we have provided as your only reference tool. Be sure to go to each of the sites you are interested in registering with to get the most detailed and up to date information on how to improve your ratings.  [go back to the top]

Below are some details about the major search engines and things you should know when registering your site with them:

AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com/

AltaVista is consistently one of the largest search engines on the web, in terms of pages indexed. It has recently surged in user popularity and has one of the highest overall usability ratings. The average wait time for having your site listed on AltaVista is 2 days-1 week. AltaVista rotates vistitors through four databases. If you don't see your site listed, try again in 15 minutes when the next database will be on display. Register with AltaVista weekly to get your site listed in all four databases.  

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Excite
http://www.excite.com/

Excite is one of the most popular search engines on the web. It has grown a lot since its creation and has taken over Magellan and Webcrawler. Excite will crawl your entire website, usually within one month, after your submission. The webpage you initially submit should be listed within a week. The rest of the site will appear within 4-6 weeks on an average. Excite maintains its own database and frequently updates it so you will want to monitor your placement closely. If you drop out of Excite, you should resubmit again. If you are able to garner top placement in Excite, you should also get good placement in Magellan and Webcrawler.

The following URL will take you directly to the registration page:
http://www.excite.com/info/add_url.html

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Go/Infoseek
http://www.infoseek.go.com/

Go is a portal site produced by Infoseek and Disney. It offers portal features such as personalization and free email as well as the search capabilities of the former Infoseek service, which has now been folded into Go. Infoseek, now Go.com, developed a reputation as one of the fastest search engines to get your site registered on. You could see results within 1-2 days after submitting your site. Thus, this is a great search engine to test your web site promotion efforts. We recommend that you register your site with Infoseek before registering with any other search engine.

The following link will take you directly to the registration page:
http://infoseek.go.com/AddUrl?pg=DCaddurl.html

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Lycos
http://www.lycos.com/

Lycos is one of the more complicated search engines. It is part Open Directory much like Yahoo and part Search Engine. Some people swear by it while others hate it. Don't bother registering every page of your site. The Lycos Spider will automatically index all pages after your home page. Listings on Lycos take about 2-4 weeks to appear. The Lycos robot will revisit your site on a periodic basis. You may find that you have a high listing one week and the next week your site does not even appear. You should monitor your listing carefully.

The following link will take you directly to the registration page:
http://www.lycos.cs.cmu.edu/addasite.html

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DIRECT LINKS

What is a Direct Link?

When you are promoting your site, you may not always want to link to the main page of your site. You may only be focusing on one or two specific products and you may find it much more useful to send your customers directly to specific product pages rather than trying to route them through your home page.  [go back to the top]

BANNER ADVERTISING

Banner advertising has become the industry's most reliable, most predictable method for attracting new visitors. In fact, 60-70% of online ad expenditures is allocated to banner advertisements.

Test Banner Ads Weekly.

Test. Test. Test. Keep banners up-to-date and make sure they are aimed at live, working pages. If the links do not work, your customers become lost.

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FREE AND AFFORDABLE ADVERTISING

Free Classified Ads

The web is home to literally thousands of free classified ad sites. Type the words "free classifieds" into any search engine for a complete list of available advertising opportunities that won't cost you a dime. There are even several free and low-cost programs that will help you automate some or all of the task of posting your ads.  [go back to the top]

E-Zines

E-Zines is short for email magazines or newsletters. They are quick and cheap to produce and often go to huge numbers of eager subscribers. Ads placed in e-zines pack a lot of power for very little money. Depending on the publication, ads are typically 3 lines to 50 words, costing between $20 and $40. Many e-zines reach 40,000 to 300, 000 targeted viewers. There are literally thousands of e-zines where you can advertise your business. To find some of the best, search http://www.ezine.com/  

You might also try writing for an e-zine. Keep your article short. One or two pages is fine. Tell readers how to do something that will interest many of them. You can include 4 to 6 lines at the end promoting yourself and your business. Since you won't get paid for the article, most publishers don't mind allowing you a small personal plug at the end of your article. Writing an article makes you look like an expert in the field and your contact information at the end urges thousands of impressed readers to contact the expert.

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Start Your Own Email Newsletter

Nothing creates sales like your own Internet community. E-mail newsletters are great ways to build your Internet community and allow you to position yourself as a knowledgeable and helpful expert in your field. Subscribers come to see you as someone they know and can trust. E-mail newsletters are easy to produce and cost almost nothing.

Keep your newsletters short with a few brief segments on items you think will interest your readers. You should include your ideas and expertise along with product news and tips from customers. It is also OK to include some ads for yourself. Readers don't usually object to these ads as long as they are packaged with helpful articles and genuinely useful information.

Never send an email newsletter to someone who has not signed up to receive this information. Sending a newsletter to someone who has not asked for it is considered SPAM.

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Opt-in Email Lists

You can purchase commercial lists of people who have ASKED to receive messages about a particular topic. You can often send an email message to several hundred people for as low as $40.

If you send mail to opt-in lists, you can be assured that you are reaching a targeted audience. These are people who want to receive information from you and are very interested in what you are offering. You can also be assured that your message will not be viewed as SPAM.

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HOW NOT TO ADVERTISE ON THE NET

There are few things you should never, ever do when marketing your business.

SPAM

SPAM is identified as any email message which is sent to someone who did not specifically request to receive the type of information contained in the email. SPAM is rude, illegal, ineffective, and generally looked upon as the most unprofessional way to market your business. As an Internet business, you should take your online reputation very seriously and work hard to ensure you are well represented in the Internet community.

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Newsgroup Postings

Newsgroup spamming is sending unsolicited advertisements or off-topic messages to inappropriate newsgroups. Most newsgroups don't allow advertisements, and posting such messages will likely anger other users. While a few select newsgroups may allow this type of advertising, it is a good rule to never get involved in these type of postings.

Here's a short list of the reasons you should not advertise in most newsgroups:

  • You risk losing your ISP account. Many Internet Service Providers have strong policies against SPAM and may terminate your account if they find out you have been involved in spamming activities.
  • Many Net users boycott any business that spams.
  • Many programs used for reading newsgroups allow users to filter out ("kill") any messages sent from a specific address. If your audience doesn't like your first message, they may choose to never read any future messages from you.
  • Most people pay for access to news, whether in time or money. They don't want to pay to see your advertisement.
  • Most newsgroup messages take several hours to be copied to all the news servers on the Internet. Every unwanted message adds to the load imposed on the Internet, and adds to slowing down response times for everyone.

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