Search Engine Submission

Web site promotion is probably the most important aspect of being on the Internet.  We can build you a beautiful web site, but if no one can find you, we have wasted our time.  Although there are many things you can do to promote your web site, we concentrate on providing a solid, concise, and effective search engine submission for you.  Using specialized software designed specifically to perform an automated  search engine submission that is comprehensive, makes for good, solid listings in the search engines.  The use of proper keywords and phrases, titles and headings are vital in maximizing how well your site is indexed.  There are thousands of search engines but only a few that are used the most - we cover all the bases.  We submit your site every three months free of charge (initial fee only) to ensure your listings are as current as possible.  Some of the major search engines require manual submissions and we take the time to do these as accurately as possible.  Below is an overview of how to promote your web site for best results.  It is lengthy, but well worth taking the time to read it.

How do I drive business to my site?

The Internet is a unique, interesting and very large and complicated “world” who’s complexion changes by the minute, it seems. The Internet grows at an average of 200,000 - 300,000 web sites added per month! When you think about the enormous size of the Internet it is a little intimidating to say the least. But, the fact remains that the Internet is now and will grow to be, an integral part of everyday life for most of us. Companies large and small are turning to the Internet as a way to better serve customers with products, information, customer service, and etc. in a more timely fashion than has ever been possible. We already see banks that exist solely on the Internet - no bricks and mortar buildings and large parking lots to serve customers - it is all done via the Internet. This is not just a trend, it is becoming the norm, and we need to accept it and learn how to use the Internet to better our lives.

Unfortunately, too many people believe that just the mere fact that you have a web site on the Internet will mean people will immediately start doing business at an enormous rate right from the start. That statement could not be further from the truth. I am not trying to paint a “doom and gloom” picture, I am just trying to get the truth out. Granted, the Internet has made millionaires out of thousands of people in a very short time sometimes, but generally that is not the case. The Internet is designed to be a level playing field, so to speak. Whether you operate out of a garage or a large warehouse, you can have similar success or failure. What is the difference between succeeding and failing? One word: promotion! The search engines are designed to eliminate bigger, more powerful business from taking the top spots, and that is a good thing, in my opinion. If we do a good job of building a web site, get it listed appropriately with as many of the top search engines as possible, we have really done all we can in that arena. What comes next is up to you to take steps to let the world you are on the Internet and how to find you and what you product or service is. That can be a daunting task for most people.

Have you noticed that almost every ad you see on TV or in magazines is a dot com business? Millions of dollars are pumped into promotion of new web sites that have additional millions invested in them. When they go to submit their site to a search engine, they do it the same way we do yours. Now there are “tricks” that can help you get more exposure, some of which are considered “spamming”. This is where you do a barrage of submissions or emails, trying to smother the area with your information. You can imagine the drain this puts on the search engines and their personnel in trying to sort all that out. Consequently, the search engines monitor submissions and if they suspect you are spamming will not only refuse to list you but may never allow you to submit to them again! We don’t do or support spamming at SunLand Web Design. What we do is to design a web site to take advantage of all that is available to us to get listed where we want and not get left out or rejected. The essential parts of a web site that the search engines are interested in consist of keywords and phrases inserted in what are called META tags - hidden files that contain the terms we want the search engines to use to index our site. Let me stop at this point to make a point. The term “search engine” is really a misnomer. Most people assume that when you go to a search engine like Yahoo that it searches the entire Internet for sites matches. If this was true, it would be a slow process to say the least. Actually, most of the “search engines” are indexes only. They maintain a database of web sites using whatever parameters they designed into their program. When you do a search with Yahoo as an example, it searches its own database for matches. Some search engines combine with others to give you a wider scope than just searching one database. The whole process is a very complicated one.

So we get down to the question, “what do I do as a small operation to drive business to my site?” The answer is the same - promotion. There is a lot you can do to promote your site without spending the millions the big boys do. They are gambling at much higher stakes than you are so they have much more to lose. My recommendation to my clients is to first look at the sources you have for promotion already in place. If you have a customer base, start there to let every one of them know your business is on the web. Do a special mailing to every single address you can get your hands on. If you have established customers, what better place to start? Put your web address on EVERYTHING! All printed materials like business cards, letterhead, brochures, labels, flyers, and in every newspaper or magazine ad. If you use a vehicle in your business, out the web site on the sides and most importantly on the back of the vehicle along with your business logo. People driving behind you will see it and hopefully check it out when they get home if they think you supply a product or service locally they are in need of. If you have a retail outlet, out a sign up that says, “visit us on the web at...” If you use invoices, be sure the address is on them, too. And most of all...talk it up to your customers. Let them know how they can access your product or service 24/7 using the Internet. Another way to get the information out is to do a press release announcing your new business venture. These are generally free and often attract a lot of lookers initially. Call our local paper and see if they will do a short piece on you in the local section. If they feel it is newsworthy you can get some free exposure there. Some newspapers are now doing special sections for web businesses, this may be a place to get the word out. If you are part of an industry that has national magazines there may be good reason to put in “reader” ads that are inexpensive and yet effective by saying, “see our web site for more information”. 

On the same idea, if your industry has a national web site of their own that doesn’t compete with you, but rather is there to help promote the product or service, see if you can place a link on their page to yours. They may even have a “find a dealer in your area” section that you can be listed in. Another idea on the a similar plane is to see if product suppliers will do reciprocal links. By this I mean you include their logo or a text link to them and they in turn do the same for you. If you belong to an association in your industry, they may have ways for you to promote your site using their avenues of information dissemination. Check with your local Chamber of Commerce to see what it would take to get a listing in their database. This may require you join, but maybe that is a good thing to do anyway. And finally, you can buy space on local “mall” type sites that reach your locale. Often the cost in nominal, and you get great exposure through their efforts to drive people to their site. I think you get the idea.

The Internet has many ways to promote your site directly to Internet users. Prices range from free to thousands of dollars. Sites like linkexchange.com offer free banner exchanges - that can be good and bad. I personally tried it and was not happy with all the stuff being advertised on my site. None of it was immoral but sometimes they advertised the very service I was trying to promote! Made no sense to me. They do offer a variety of other plans for varying prices. There are many Internet companies out there that can help you to get banners on the Internet. Just do a search for “banner advertising” and investigate from there.

Another avenue is direct email contact. Like mass mailings from mailing lists we see used in the regular mail, the email does basically the same thing. Here you need to tread lightly.  Remember my warning on “spam”? There are government guidelines on how you can do mass email mailings so when doing so use a good company that understands and fits into the spamming guidelines. You can do this to help build your own mailing list: have a sign-up included in your web site for those interested in receiving updates, newsletters, and etc.  Sometimes doing an electronic version of a newsletter will appeal to people. It doesn’t need to be fancy, just make it relevant and interesting with a slant toward marketing. The small amount of time it takes to generate an email newsletter could produce a dividend in more business. These voluntary sign-ups are the best by far. Build an email mailing list of your own from the voluntary sign-ups to capturing every email from anyone who contacts you, whether it be via an order or an inquiry - they are all potential clients. We usually include in all our web site a “contact us” page where they simply fill in the blanks of a form to get additional information, product information, or whatever. They are required to enter an email. Thus, each contact has an email you can capture for later use. Over time you can build a viable email list to past customers or those who showed an interest in your business in the past.

In summary, I’d ask this question: if you opened a new store down on main street what would you do to let the public know you were there? Would you rely on them just finding your store sometime or would you be out there saying, “here I am, I am open for business!”? For best results on main street people need to know you are there, the same applies to the Internet - it is just done a little differently.

I know all this sounds rather daunting, but it doesn’t need to be. Just get a mind set that you are going to spread the word and look for every opportunity to do just that.

At Sunland Web Design we are 100% on your side and we do all we can to help you be successful. Your success helps us succeed as well. Through the use of a specially designed software package that is updated frequently to keep pace with the search engines and a comprehensive manual submission to those that require manual submissions, we usually get a very good take in the search engines. Clients report activity to their web site quite quickly in most instances. Most of the process is out of our control, unfortunately. Because of the large number of submissions (remember the 200-300,000 new web sites each month?) the back up can run anywhere from two weeks to as long as eight weeks or more. The sheer numbers of new sites is almost an impossible task for the search engines. At SunLand once we have signed you up we go into action! Working with you to design a set of keywords and phrases, proper titling, and text placement, I place an “intro” page on the Internet immediately which includes as much of the final information as possible. Then I immediately do a search engine submission (you cannot submit a site until you have at least a home page residing on the web). At that point we are “in line” for the search engines and don’t lose weeks as we work on the actual site itself.

SunLand Web Design is here to help you with whatever your goal is on the Internet. We are a full service web development company providing domain name registration, web hosting, search engine submission and marketing and professional web design, including e-commerce applications.

I hope this information has been a help to you. If you have any further questions or concerns please call us at 760-340-5744. The Internet is an exciting new world and we are here to help you become part of it. We look forward to working with you!