Online marketing Blog

Submitting to search engines is largely a waste of time and money.

I spent a lot of money submitting to search engines in my early days before I was told that I was being robbed…

Many submit sites claim they are going to submit your website to 150,000 or more search engines. That’s bogus. There are only a handful of SEs that are worth worrying about. The rest are spammers…

Search engines use spiders or crawlers to crawl the net to find sites on their own. They do this by following links from other sites.

Repeated submissions to the search engines will not help. SEs will rank the most important and relevant sites first and not those the submit repeatedly.

If submitting to search engines did help, everyone would be doing it… They’re not.

A moderator in another forum I hang out in put it best:

They are also used because often clients expect it. The clients expect it that’s why you’ll see a lot of web designers and SEOers have to offer submit services because they may not get the biz if the client sees another with the service… Submitting has been so Hyped up that it’s a hard battle to win.

I strongly feel many website submit services are a scam. They’re just taking your money for something that isn’t necessary…

So How Do You Get Indexed by Search Engines?

Links to your website. And to rank well the more important and relevant those links are the better.

If you’re just starting out, submitting to directories is a perfect place to start…

Here is a thread I started a while back that will get you headed in the right direction…

SEOChat.com - Drop Everything! It’s time to start submitting…

More…

You will get spidered quicker and more often if you get links to your website. Much faster than submitting. And you can find a lot of FREE directories.

For any site I put up, one of the first things I do is submit to as many directories as I can. Because some of the directories (not all of them) get spidered all the time. When a search engine’s spider goes through a website, it follows links off of that website.

So let’s say you have a directory that you submitted to that gets hit by the spiderbot daily, well as soon as your link gets added to the directory the spiderbot will pick it up and follow it to your website…

It may not do a deep crawl right away, but eventually if you create enough content it will… content is important. The bots feed off of it and will visit more often if you add fresh content frequently.

I’ve used this strategy very effectively. I get visited daily by the SEs. And the best thing about it is that it’s free. A few years ago I spent $50 per month for a service to submit my website… wasted money.

It does also help to put your URL in your signature of any Public Forums you’re in. The SEs crawl forums like crazy as well…

BTW, there is nothing wrong with it; it’s a common practice. I’m even in forums where they actually encourage you to place your products or new deals etc. in your sigs. It’s beneficial for the community as a whole. I may need what you’re offering…

——————–

This is the first part of your link strategy. After you’re website is picked up, you can start concentrating on getting better link partners. Look for websites that are relevant to yours… trade links etc.

——————–

DMOZ is important, but don’t get obsessed with it. A lot of people get angry or freak out about not getting listed. If you do, it’s a bonus.

Submit your site only once. If you submit again you are sent to the back of the line.

There is no guarantee you’ll even be listed. Many people will wait a year or more to get listed.

——————–

I really believe that it is better to get one way links to your website (not recipricol). Search Engines like Google use inbounds to weigh how important your website is. If people are linking to your website naturally, that’s a very good thing. Reciprocals are artificial and I think SEs can pick up on that…

——————–

One of the best way to get links is to create content that people want to link to… that’s sound simple, but it’s very important. I have pages designed just for that purpose.

——————–

I know you asked how to submit to SEs etc., but it really is a waste of time and money. And time and money is precious in this biz.

——————–

SEO is not just about keywords, density, and meta tags. Your linking strategy is one part of the formula.

——————–

There are really no shortcuts. You just have to take a systematic approach and hopefully your website offers something the SEs eat up.

Good Luck!

Party Gaming you can play online casino games in your browser, wherever you are. Our suite of 53 games offers everything from blackjack and baccarat to movie-themed slots games. Enjoy all our great casino action, promotions, and offers, 24/7. You can even play instant bingo in your browser. There’s no need to download any software. It’s free, easy, and you can start playing straight away. Don’t forget about the world’s largest online poker room for beginner, casual or pro players. Choose from Texas Hold’em, Omaha and more!

IPA-IBA focuses on small and medium sized private companies in North America. Our complete profile reads a full-service business development group and general management consultancy aimed at aiding smaller entrepreneurs to make it big in life. We, International Profit Associates, over the years, have helped more than 170,000 small and medium sized businesses to create and maintain positive cash flow, accelerate growth, and control costs thereby letting young entrepreneurs to realize their dreams which they saw when they started out. With over 1,800 full-time employees on rolls, IPA IBA is one of the fastest growing integrated business analysis firms in the US.

Load Speeds are important… 20 seconds is a little high; but that’s about right for the size of your page. I try to personally keep everything under 12. Then there is no problem… Why take the risk of losing just a handful of visitors because of it… they could have put some money in your pocket.

What kind of files do you have on this page? Do you have a lot of pictures etc.? If you do, I would consider finding ways to cut those down…

Otherwise consider breaking up your page. There isn’t anything wrong with that… people don’t mind hitting a continute or “next page” button. Especially if they took the time to read the initial 32.5K…

Another thought… Have you thought about learning CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)… That’s something I’m learning right now. I’m converting everthing over to XHTML/CSS… This really cuts down the code to the point that almost all the visitor has to load is text.

CSS also has another very nice advantage (the main reason I’m converting) that comes with it. The lay out of your entire site can be held in one file (an external style sheet)… so if you want to change the layout of something on your entire website, instead of changing it on each individual page, all you have to do is change that one file and it will change the whole site… especially convenient for menus…

That’s the whole benefit. Much of your code is in their own files on the server. So there isn’t much code to load on the page itself…

The only other thing is to split test. Cut your copy down and send a sampling of clicks to the new page to see if it converts better…

Luckydabber Bingo is a Bingo Directory that focuses on safe online bingo sites that offer best bonus and fun for Online Bingo players.

Don’t get discouraged. I doubt there are any of us who have not felt like giving up at least once.

I’m always running into keywords that Google won’t give a chance. I normally don’t waste much time with them and try to find other niche keywords and phrases… OR I take that keyword and tear it a part (misspellings, etc).

Sometimes depending on the keyword there is a lot of competition for that keyword… maybe Google has some sort of maximum that it will allow in one keyword market (someone else might be able to answer that better than me)… which is probably just as well because it would be tough to try and get on top of a pile of 50 or 100 other affiliates bidding for that same keyword.

So my first guess is that you need to research some other keywords and keyword phrases. Study your competition.

There is a learning curve. The success of your campaigns depends on your niche and the products you are promoting.

When I first started out over a few years ago, I can’t tell you how many campaigns I set up until I finally found some profitable ones… but it’s different for everyone…<!–[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]–>
<!–[endif]–>

Luckydabber Bingo is a Bingo Directory that focuses on safe online bingo sites that offer best bonus and fun for Online Bingo players.

You know that NetSnippets is really fun… I’ve found myself just buzzing through threads and saving valuable info in a flash… I’ve already have several folders full of great info to reference later.

Now we can research and snip!

I found an awesome use for Net Snippets… I have a problem with forums where my PM Inbox gets jammed all the time… I hate deleting them all because I may need something for future reference… even though I’ll probably never look at them again… I guess I’m a pack rat.

So I always cut and pasted into a doc file and saved in a folder… not very easy… or easily searchable.

Now it is. All I do is highlight the message, hit “Add Selection” from my menu, label it, enter into a special folder… and delete the message. Takes 10 seconds…

B e a u t i f u l !

I’m all about saving time and making things easy.

It’s not my intention to discourage anyone from practicing SEO; I probably made it sound impossible. It’s not.

It certainly is an incredible way to get free traffic. And any free traffic is good traffic.

I make money with the traffic. Absolutely… it’s interesting to see a commission show up for something odd… then look at your logs and see someone had landed on a page you weren’t promoting with anything. Someone just did a search on Google.

You just have to be smart and spread your risk… just in case.

I balance the two. SEO is more of a long term strategy for me, PPC a short term… among other marketing strategies.

Sometimes PPC is actually a good way to get traffic until the Search Engine traffic does finally barrel in…

AND you don’t always have to wait 3 months. With the proper niche research and some luck, you can draw traffic in days… Once your site is crawled regularly, you can put a page up and be indexed within a day.

I don’t think SEO is a waste of time unless you don’t plan on being in this game for a long time. I plan on being here in 5-10 years. So I’ll be patient.

SEO is a tough game no matter how you look at it. You can be at the top of the SERPs one month and drop out the next… I’ve seen people who have held number one positions for years and suddenly disappear all together.

It’s a dangerous thing having 100% of your efforts in one area and depending on one form of advertising… diversification is a good thing.

SEO and PPC aren’t even the only way to market online… some people do neither and make a ton of money.

Really… There is no predicting Search Engine’s… they will always mess with your head. Sandbox or no sandbox. The algos always changing… Their index is updated frequently. Google’s PR is always in flux…

After the last major update there was a lot of talk there is even a randomization factor involved now… maybe even certain industries being treated different… Outbound links becoming a factor.

What I experienced could have easily been something I did… It’s the closest thing to a Sandbox I’ve had. One day I have 50 keywords ranked high the next day they disappear. 2 months later I see visitors from those keywords back in my logs and sure enough they came back…

SEO has changed a lot this last year. It is not as predictable. A webmaster would be a fool to rely on Google for 100% of their revenue. I’ve seen it happen… huge revenue generating websites dropping out of the SERPs completely… what a rush that has to be!

LET ME be honest. Like I said. The sandbox could have been something I did or some random shift in the index… who knows… I can’t explain it so I call it a sandbox… but I’m always tweaking my sites…

A lot of it I think has to do with new webmasters who think if they follow the book they should fine themselves at the top of the SERPs… when they don’t, they automatically call it a sandbox if they can’t figure it out…

Reality… it might be that there are 10,000 websites that were there first with more inbounds and experience. You have to earn your spot…

Bottom line. Sandbox seems to occur, but it will only occur for crowded markets… which leads me to believe you need to work harder than a niche market with no competition… If there is no competition and your site is relevant, it will rank…

If a new eBook comes out, and I place it on my website… do a search for the title and there I am…

I’ve been on page one or two for the phrase “Adword Mentor” ever since I placed an article on my site about it (4 months ago…)… I’m on page 2 now I think… It was instant because I’m crawled daily and there was no competition for that phrase…

Sound familier… PPC?

I think some people just like to Coach and/or Teach…

I’ve done some adwords mentoring… but it was part of a broader thing that I do (Online Business Coaching).

Some might ask, “Why teach people and make a little money when you can spend that time setting up your own campaigns and making a mint.” I think it just comes down to your talents, your personality and your goals.

I have several of my own businesses, but I like helping other people with theirs. That’s why I started coaching. I hope to do a lot more… but for me I’m not coaching because I wanna get rich doing it; I enjoy it.

First, it has nothing to do with Adwords… although indirectly I suppose it does. One of the reasons Adwords is so valuable is because you can go around this important factor that Google has… And it also might be a good thing if the website you are promoting has a high PR, because the visitor might see that website as being more important and more of an authority website… etc.

This is related to Search Engine Optimization and Organic Results…

Google uses PageRank, as Jen said, to measure how important a website is. It’s based on a few factors, but the main factor is how many inbound links (and the quality of those links) you have pointing to your website.

PR is combined with Googles Algorithm to determine your position in the SEarch Engine Results Pages (SERPs)… if you notice the sites at the top of the your search results have more inbound links than the those below them usually. Sometimes it’s close because the quality of links are important also. If you have a PR8 website pointing to you, you are in better shape than if you had a PR3 website pointing to you… in essence it makes your website more important…

If you install Google’s toolbar… or

http://www.pagerank.net/pagerank-checker/

…you will see a bar that says PageRank. That bar ranks a site from 1 to 10…

9 or 10 are very difficult to get. Google.com has a PR10… W3.org has a PR10… DMOZ has a PR9…

Those are websites that have a lot of links pointing to them. W3.org is considered an authority website…

It takes some effort to get to a PR5… generally I think PR5 and up is really good. A lot of people when they are out looking for people to trade links with, like to focus on people with a good PageRank…

Check this out… One of the biggest things PR is used for these days is determining the value of a web page and selling ad space based on the PR:

http://www.linkadage.com

There is a lot of controversy as far as the true importance of PR. I’ve noticed most people that are against it are people that can’t seem to get it.

The original reason it was designed was to be an indication of the importance and popularity of a website, but in true Webmaster fashion, a lot of the community set out to find a way to use Inbound Links to manipulate Google and there started the Link industry… link exchanges etc, etc….

I just saw a guy earlier today that spent over $2300 to get PR3 or better links from 50 different websites…

One of the problems with that is PR alone does not provide you traffic… You still have to have a well optimized website, have done your keyword research and considered the other 100+ factors (some known, some unknown) that Google uses to rank a site in the SERPs… PR an important factor, but it isn’t the only factor.

AND ON top of that, it’s moves like getting 100s or 1000s of UNnatural links that doesn’t give PR a good name.

Some more info:

http://www.google.com/technology/

Yes, I have done some of that… I actually have a newsletter…

I don’t have a huge list yet, but I know many do and it’s a great way to market… IF it is an Opt In list… Although I have been promoting mine as much as I could.

The only problem I see with e-mail marketing these days is the difficulty of delivery. This is a real statistic: probably 30-40% of your list will receive the e-mails you send out. The rest are caught by filters or even just put in their bulk folder where they never look…

But if you do want to pursue it:

Using what’s called a “Name Squeeze” page is very effective. It’s basically just a landing page you set up for the sole purpose of capturing an e-mail address. You might require a name and e-mail in order for them to enter you website (or aff page) or you may provide them with a free report…

You see if you can provide them a free report and capture their e-mail you have a great thing going… you can promote your aff programs in the report… they already like and trust you because you gave them a something for free…

E-Mail lists are about building a relationship with the customer over time. Many people don’t buy the first time you ask them. Maybe it will be the 5th or 10th time you contact them.

This is real easy to promote with PPC if you have something valuable for them to want to provide you their e-mail. It’s always easy to get the clicks if you are offering something “free” in your ad.

You do need to be careful that this is an Opt In situation and that all your e-mails give that person the ability to Opt Out…

And if possible, it’s highly recommended that you are set up to provide a “Confirmed opt-in” (some people call it a double Opt In)… So they have to confirm via e-mail that it’s OK to send them stuff.

NOW how effective this is, as always, is going to depend on the product or service you are promoting and how it is handled… there are a lot of variables.

AND you may not get immediate results… it takes time to build a good list. So you may spend more than you make at first. Because you are providing something that is free, you are going to get a lot of “tire kickers” and people that aren’t in buy mode. So………..

All you can do is test it.

I personally use aWeber.com.

This is an excellent resource:

SEOBook.com

The guy that wrote this eBook is a very well known and knowledgable SEOer… I do have a copy.

Stompers is supposed to be very good as well. But a little pricey… and beware. I know someone that just got it and it ended up costing them a whole lot more after shipping… $380 bucks. He was in Ireland I think.

BUT…

A huge and FREE resource is SEOChat.com… honestly, you could learn everything you need to know just from this website and community.

You really have 3 roads to take:

1) Hire an SEO to do it for you… That can be very expensive… $1000s
2) Get an info product like one of the two above (and I think those are the best 2 you will find)…
3) Learn it from incredible resources like SEOChat…

Actually SEOChat is bigger than it looks… They have a FAQs area to take you through the basics…

They are part of the Developers Shed Network….

And I’ve found (and I’ve been almost everywhere I think) that it contains some of the most professional and knowledgable SEOs anywhere… and very helpful ones to boot.

So maybe what I would suggest is dive into SEOChat first because it’s free and spend the next 6 months reading through everything (because I think it will take you that long…) and then if you still need to get some info products.

There are probably other great resources out there, but these are the ones I am familiar with… I’m self taught. I’ve never bought an SEO product to learn from… I just hang out in a lot of SEO forums. I’ve learned by reading, ask questions, and playing the game.

Once you start applying what you learn remember to take notes… Learn from your mistakes and celebrate the little victories… It takes a year or more to learn it all on your own.

That’s the only reason I would get the above info products. To shorten the learning curve…