Effective Strategies for Website Submission: Step 7 in Optimizing Your Site

Apr 18
05:30

2024

Dave Davies

Dave Davies

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In this seventh installment of our ten-part series on optimizing your website, we delve into the best practices for website submissions. This step is crucial for enhancing your site's visibility and search engine ranking. Despite the plethora of services claiming to boost your traffic by submitting your site to countless search engines for a fee, we'll explore why these claims may not hold water and how you can more effectively manage your website submissions.

Understanding Website Submissions

Common Misconceptions

There are several myths surrounding the process of website submissions:

  1. Frequent Submissions are Necessary: Some believe that you need to submit your website regularly to keep it indexed by search engines.
  2. Submit to Numerous Search Engines: Another common belief is that submitting your site to thousands of search engines will significantly increase traffic.
  3. Maintain Rankings Through Submissions: There's also a misconception that frequent submissions will help maintain or improve your search engine rankings.

These misconceptions are not only misleading but could lead to unnecessary expenses.

The Reality of Search Engine Traffic

According to data from Neilson/Netratings,Effective Strategies for Website Submission: Step 7 in Optimizing Your Site Articles the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN account for the vast majority of search engine traffic, with percentages as follows as of June 2004:

  • Google: 41.6%
  • Yahoo: 31.5%
  • MSN: 27.4% (Note: MSN results are sourced from Yahoo!/Overture)
  • AOL: 13.6% (AOL results are sourced from Google)
  • Ask Jeeves: 7.0%
  • Lycos: 3.7%
  • Netscape: 3.0% (Netscape results are sourced from Google)
  • AltaVista: 2.7% (AltaVista results are sourced from Yahoo!/Overture)

These figures indicate that a significant portion of search engine traffic comes from a few major search engines, questioning the value of submitting to thousands of lesser-known engines.

How to Submit Your Website Effectively

Manual Submissions to Major Search Engines

You can manually submit your website to major search engines without the need for paid services. Most search engines provide an "Add URL" page where you can submit your site directly. For example, you can find submission pages for major search engines on Beanstalk's Search Engine Positioning website.

Considerations for Other Search Engines

While minor search engines might not drive significant traffic, they can still generate visits. However, it's generally not worth investing in services that charge for submissions to these engines. Instead, focus on achieving a better cost-per-visitor ratio through pay-per-click (PPC) engines or other marketing strategies.

The Myth of Submission Necessity

Interestingly, the act of submitting your website might not be as crucial as once thought. For instance, the website www.beanstalk-inc.com was not submitted to any major search engines yet still achieved indexing. This was accomplished through quality inbound links, which search engines follow to discover new sites. This approach is often more efficient than direct submissions.

Key Takeaways

  1. Avoid Automated Submission Services: They often do not provide value proportional to their cost.
  2. Focus on Major Search Engines: The majority of web traffic comes from a handful of major search engines.
  3. Use Time Wisely: Instead of submitting to countless search engines, focus on building quality links and submitting to major and relevant directories.

In conclusion, while submitting your website can be part of your overall SEO strategy, it should not be overemphasized at the expense of more effective techniques such as link building and content optimization. Stay tuned for the next part of our series where we will discuss the importance of link building in detail.

Next Week: The Importance of Link Building