This document provides tips for submitting websites to search engines and directories. It explains that search engines and directories are different and should be treated separately. Search engines use spiders to index websites based on keywords, while directories depend on human submission under appropriate categories. The document recommends submitting individual pages to search engines and the home page to directories. It also provides tips on keyword placement and monitoring results to optimize search engine rankings.

1. Search Engine & Directory Submission Tips

2. Site submission to search engines and directories is
often done incorrectly. In order to get the best results
from search engine and directory submissions, Swift
Media UK offers the following web site submission tips:

3. Treat search engine submission and directory
submissions separately

4. Most people incorrectly believe that search engines and
directories are the same. A search engine uses a
program that searches documents (i.e. web pages, which
are mostly HTML documents) for specified keywords and
returns the list of documents. A search engine has two
parts, a spider and an indexer. The spider is the program
that fetches the documents, and the indexer reads the
documents and creates an index or database based on
the words or ideas contained in each document.

5. A directory (such as Yahoo, commonly mistaken for a
search engine) depends on people for listings. The main
difference between a search engine and a directory is
that a directory does not make use of a spider or robot.
In other words, a directory will not list your web page if
you do not register it with them. Directories are usually
divided into categories and you must submit your URL
under the most appropriate categories.

6. Search engines vary which HTML tags to emphasize:
titles, meta-tags, alternative text, body text, headings,
etc. Directories primarily emphasize titles, the
description you submit to them and the category or
categories you select in the directories.

7. Because search engines and directories are so different,
it is best to develop your submission strategies
separately.

8. Search engine submission strategies

9. To get optimal listings in search engine and directory
queries, keywords and key concepts must be placed
strategically throughout your web pages. To summarize,
you need these words and phrases in: Titles, Meta Tags,
Alt-attribute, headings, main body text.

10. Other factors that affect search engine rankings are
HTML layout, keyword density, keyword prominence,
and keyword placement. These topics are covered in
detail at Copywriting for web sites, Search Engines,
Directories and Web Design, Search Engine, and
Marketing Considerations.

11. Submit individual web pages to search engines. Submit
your home page to the major directories

12. In general, we like to submit 5-7 web pages at a time to
the major search engines to avoid a spam penalty.
Additionally, we do not recommend that you submit the
same web pages to the search engines within a short
time period (even if you made changes on them).

13. We recommend that you first get your main URL
(yourcompanyname.com) accepted into a directory
before you try to get more targeted pages listed. You will
stand a better chance of getting multiple pages listed in
a directory if your overall site has been accepted first.

14. The time between site submission and addition to the
search engine or directory database is called the lead
time. You will not see results in your traffic logs until the
lead time has passed.

15. Monitor results on site reporting software

16. We are firm believers in using quality site statistics
software. In fact, we do not believe that anyone can
have a successful online business without it. Our two
favourites are WebTrends and Webalizer.

17. You will be able to see the results of your search engine
optimization and link development strategies in your
site statistics. You can measure the keywords used, the
URL's giving you the most referrals, the type of browsers
used to view your site, the time of day your site is
accessed, and so forth. All of this data will give you a
clearer profile of your site's visitors.

18. Then, based on this data, you can tweak the HTML,
graphics, and content to best suit your customers.

19. Submit and resubmit web pages as necessary

20. An online business that uses search engine optimization
as a marketing strategy will use this submission,
monitoring, and tweaking practice. Site submission is a
never ending, ongoing process because search engines
constantly change their relevancy algorithms.

21. We recommend that you resubmit a web page to a
search engine only when there is a significant change to
web page or if a page has dropped from the index.
(Changing a meta-tag description does not constitute a
significant change.)

22. To see if your web pages have been added or deleted
from a search engine, go to each of the search engines
listed below and type in the string listed below the
search engine name. Replace "companyname.com" with
your URL (web site address).

23. AltaVista

24. URL: companyname.com Google

25. Site: companyname.com companyname.com

26. HotBot (which uses Inktomi)

27. Domain: companyname.com

28. Fast Search

29. url.all:www.companyname.com

30. If your web site has been accepted into a directory, you
can then submit specialized pages within your web site
to other directory categories. Once your site has been
added to a directory, you should not have to resubmit it
unless your business has significantly changed and you
belong in a different category.

31. http://internetbusinessservicessite.info/form.php?id=60
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