Once your new website is completed, you will want it to be found by the major search engines. This is one of the ways that you will attract new customers to your website and hopefully convert them into long-term paying customers.
There are millions of websites on the Internet. Search engines and directories are the places where people look to find the products and services they need. In order for your site to come up on these search engines and directories, they first have to find your site in amongst all the others.
The best way to encourage search engines to find your website is to have in-bound links pointing to your site. This just means that other sites such as directories, or other sites that are relevant to your business, have a link from their site to yours. You can list your site for nothing on some directories, whilst others may charge you a fee. If you are a builder, for example, and you are a member of the Federation of Master Builders, you may be able to list your contact details on their website, including a link to your own site. This means that people visiting the FMB website can click through to your site directly. This counts as an in-bound link. You could also look at getting a listing in your local directory; most towns and cities have local directories where people can find products and services that are located near them. Your local newspaper may also have a business directory that can offer you a listing with a link to your site. If you are using links, you should make sure that your site has a good internal linking structure. This will ensure that your whole site is indexed, not just one or two pages.
Making sure your site has content that’s relevant to your business and your customers is also important. By making sure that your content uses the keywords that you think people will use to find your business, and by trying to keep the content up-to-date, you improve your chances of being indexed by the search engines. Find out more about search engine optimisation here.
You can also submit your site to the major search engines. Whilst this doesn’t guarantee that your site will be indexed, it lets the search engines know you exist. With some search engines, such as Google and MSN, submitting your site is free. Submitting your site to the Yahoo directory can carry a fee, but you may decide that this is worthwhile if it helps your site to get indexed and drives traffic to your business. At the Web Marketing Group, we don’t submit your site to the search engines as part of your package, but if you visit the search engine sites, they can direct you on how to submit your site to them.
You may also find that you get indexed on Google at first, and then placed into something called the “Google Sandbox”. This is a device used by Google to try to dissuade rogue webmasters from submitting illegitimate sites. Read more about the Google Sandbox here
It’s worth noting that Google can take up to 9 months to index your site, but other search engines may pick you up much faster than that.
No matter how big your business is, you should be making the most of the Internet to win new customers. By following this advice, you can help to get your website noticed by the major search engines. WebTrafficker is designed to help you get more visitors to your site.
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