How to Get Listed on Search Engines
Lots of people seem to be asking me about search engines at the moment. Here's the main steps I take. The theory is vastly simplified, but it seems to work for me...
Structure
The first thing I do is properly structure my website. Use CSS to style it, and HTML tags to structure it.
Submit
When the site is "complete", I head over to some of the major search engines, and try to get it registered it on them. These include (in no particular order)...
- Google - Add URL
- AllTheWeb - Submit your Site
- Altavista - Basic Submit
- Alexa Web Search - Submit
- WhatUSeek - Add URL
- The National Directory - Add URL
- Lycos InSite
- DMOZ - How to Add a Site
- AskJeeves UK - Add URL Email
- Yahoo UK - How to Submit a Site
At the time of writing all of the above offer a free submission service.
Link to ME!
The next part is more difficult. Its getting other sites to link to you. It could mean getting on a Webring, or going to a load of related sites and submitting your site to their links pages. Many sites will be happy to do a link-swap (ie: we link to you if you link to us). Another way is to put your website's URL into your email signature, so it appears whenever you post to any public forums or mailing lists. Why do you need to do all this? Well the more sites that link to yours, the higher up the search engines you should appear.
Its all about the content!
Keep updating your content - the more quality content there is, the more likely it is that people will link back to you and up the search engines you will go! Or thats the theory anyway.
Be Patient!
Getting a decent search engine ranking can take bloody ages! Be patient, keep chasing the links, keep updating the content and it will happen eventually. Slowly slowly catchy monkey as they say...
Other Useful Places
Well I've given you the basic steps I take, but theres loads more that you can do. SpiderFood specialises in this and gives you enough information on the subject to sink a battleship. I'll add more if and when I come across it.
Update!
I forgot to mention that Wolfgang Bromberger's evolt.org article Targeting Search Engines is also a very useful resource for this subject. Go read it now...