Ever seen this?
We will submit your web site to 12,234 search engines and directories for only $29.99?
Back in the day, yes, you had to manually submit your web site to web sites such as hotbot, snap, Google, infoseek, lycos, etc. That was WAY back in the day. Today, it’s a different ball game. Search engines like Google would much rather follow your link off of another page and find you all on it’s own. Think of it like this, If another web site that is indexed well in Google took the time to list your web site, it has to be of some value. Google then crawls this new link and then starts indexing the content on that web site. Voila, your web site is being crawled by Google. Getting it to rank under specific keywords is an entirely different conversation for a later blog.
5 Easy Steps To Attract Search Engines / Spiders To Your Web Site.
1.) Build a blog with an RSS feed and add worthy indexable unique content. Rinse and repeat.
(Quick tip: install the blog on your domain name for maximum SEO effect, add text links to your navigation so that Google and the other bots can find it easily. Create a technorati account and claim your blog, this will also alert Google to start crawling your blog.)
2.) Get your web site linked off of like content area web sites.
(Quick tip: Contribute to other people’s blogs with USEFUL and MEANINGFUL comments. Leave your web site address when you post the comment so that when that comment is published, Google crawls the link back to your web site. Did I mention MEANINGFUL content? Don’t spam other people’s blogs, etc to get inbound links, not cool, not targeted, a waste of your time.)
3.) Build and keep an up to date XML sitemap, submit it to Google via Google Webmaster Tools.
(Quick tip: build an xml-sitemap here and upload to your web server: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/)
4.) Keep contributing. In my experience, adding content on a semi-regular basis keeps enticing Google to come back, the more you feed Google rich and juicy stuff, the more it wants to come back.
(Quick tip: consider adding white papers, company news, press releases that have featured your company. Google can also digest PDF’s, so upload those suckers.)
5.) Navigation: keep your navigation simple, remember, Google doesn’t crawl graphic links, so use text links to allow Google to ‘deep’ crawl your website. Imagine laying out a bread crumb trail to find your way out of the forest: make sure Google can follow your structure
In my next blog, I’m going to discuss ‘noisy web sites’ and how to ‘defluff them’. In this challenging economic time, it’s survival of the fittest and cleanest!
Need some help getting found? Give me a call. I’m happy to review your web site and offer pointers and suggestions for improvement. Call 407-830-4550 or visit my site to learn more about Internet Marketing and SEO.
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Tags: Search Engine Optimization, seo
