Support & Assistance: Search Engines

Your web site has been designed and built. You have spent hours typing and  tweaking until you are 100% happy with the result. You have now uploaded your fascinating pages all about widgets up to your domain, http://www.widgets.ie/. The next step is to get the whole world to visit the site and buy your widgets.

And you thought the hard part was over didn't you?

So how do people come to visit a web site. There are two main ways:

1. By clicking on a link
2. By typing it straight into the browser

Clicking On a Link

As you might have already guessed, your web site has to be mentioned in other web sites for users to be able to click on a link. There are three main types of web sites that you should try and ensure your site is listed on:

1. Search engines
2. Directories
3. Similar web sites

Search Engines

The likes of Google, Altavista, Northern Light & Mamma are just a handful of web sites that allow visitors find what they are looking for by typing in keywords and producing the best results. For your web site to appear, you will need to have been visited by the Search Engine. While at your web site, the search engines take a snapshot of your content, so that it knows to produce your link when asked about "widgets". The procedure for getting listed on search engines varies, but most have a form that you fill out requesting the addition of your web site. It can take quite a while to be listed on search engines (4-6 weeks on average), as there are millions of web sites that each search engines has to visit regularly to maintain accurate results.

Directories

Directories organise web sites by topic. Some of the more popular are Yahoo!, Kunani, The Open Directory. Directories dedicated to particular topics are also common. The procedure for being listed in directories is also normally filling out a form. Unlike search engines, most directories require a human to visit your web site to decide either: which section it should be listed in or whether or not it is suitable. There are several Irish directories listed at the bottom of this article.

Similar Web Site

It is always a good idea to try and get yourself listed on web sites such as the Widget Trade Association, customer's web sites, suppliers etc. While the traffic derived from this type of web site will be less, the "quality" of visitor will be higher.

Typing It Straight Into the Browser

Don't forget to include your new web address on your business cards, adverts, invoices etc. 

Some Useful Links

• Jim Tools - A great place for beginners to get started
• Plug-In Profit Site - PlugInProfitSite.com provides a free website builder for aspiring Internet entrepreneurs. You will receive your own fully customized e-commerce website setup free within 24 hours...guaranteed.

Search Engines

• SearchEngineGuide
• Search Engine Watch
• WebMonkey Article on Search Engine Optimisation

Getting Traffic

• WebMonkey Article on Drumming up web traffic on the cheap

Irish Search Engines & Directories

Yahoo.ie
Searching Ireland
Swift
Ireland Information
Browse Ireland
Altavista Ireland
Irish Search
Index Ireland
E-Search
Doras
InfoSites
Index Eireann
Anything Irish
Find It Ireland
Global Irish
Ireland2Go
Ireland's Portal
Irish Links
Irish Lynx
SearchEngine.ie

Pay per click advertising:
Overture

SearchHippo

If you have a website you want to promote, you should check out SelfPromotion.com. It's a resource for do-it-yourselfers where you can learn to prepare your pages for the search engines, then use a sophisticated url submission robot to submit your webpages to all the important search engines and directories. You'll also find tutorials about website promotion, submitting to yahoo, and much more. Best of all, you can use the site for free -- if you like it, pay what YOU think it's worth! The guy who runs it has reinvented tipping!