3 to 7 Webcraft.ws Website Construction Training Course

Step 3 of 7 - Submitting Your Website

The very first step of getting yourself out there is submitting your site to the world wide web. This step will explain what is meant by 'submitting your site'! We are going to look at submitting to Search Engines and Directories.

It will explain where to submit your site and whether or not to submit to thousands of search engines and directories through some website promotion service.

But first what id a search engine, directory and spider:

Search Engine - an automated search system as opposed to one that is compiled by human editors. When an internet user types a search phrase into the search box of a search engine, powerful software scans the search engines database for words that match the users query. Each search engine has its own unique criteria for deciding on the relevance of the pages contained in its database to the search query which is the reason why searches for the same query brings different results from each search engine, even though the contents of their databases may be almost identical. Examples of search engines are Google, AltaVista and Lycos.

Directory - a human compiled directory of websites. When a site is submitted to a directory such as Yahoo, it is visited by a human editor, who then decides whether the site is suitable for inclusion, under which category it will be listed and even the title and description that will be displayed on the results page. It follows that it is much more difficult to manipulate rankings on a directory than it is with an automated search engine but on the other hand, results are usually more relevant than those returned by automated systems. Examples of directories are Yahoo, DMOZ and LookSmart.

Spider - not the hairy kind, a spider (or crawler) is the name given to computer software used by search engines to analyze or "spider" pages on the world wide web. The spiders roam the web following links and indexing the pages found. This is one reason why reciprocal links from other websites are so important when promoting a site. Theoretically at least it should not be necessary to submit a site to a search engine, the spider should find it eventually on its own, but in reality the web is growing at such a rate that they are always playing catch up. Spiders often go by such inventive names as 'Scooter', 'Googlebot', 'Gulliver', ' Winona Spider' etc.

Search Engines and Directories:
http://www.webworldindex.com/members.html - A list of Search Engines and Directories,, Auto and Manual Search Engine Submission Sites and Other Search Engine and Directory Compilation websites.

Free UK adverts:
http://www.ukclassifieds.co.uk - reg and upload - nice.

Free Site Make-up:
http://www.akamarketing.com/html-sitemap-maker/

Free Software:
http://www.majorgeeks.com

http://www.tucows.com/

Test your current website:
http://www.iwebtool.com/tools/

Web Tools
Free web tools including webmaster tools. Select a tool below.

Duplicate your website information on the internet in different formats:
http://www.oocities.org

Get your own Blog today:
https://www.blogger.com/start

Blog visitor counter:
http://www.blogpatrol.com/signup.php

Get many more potentional visitors to your website by useing your FREE Blog. Open and account with them and load your information here. Remember to include your URL in below your information. You can also link your blog to your website as part of your website pages.

See my own Blog - http://geraldcrawford.blogspot.com

Search Engines:

Backlink Checker
Find a list of backlinks linking to you.

Google Banned Checker
Discover if your website is banned on Google.

Google PageRank Prediction
Predict your future Google PageRank.

Keyword Density Checker
Discover what keywords appear on your pages.

Keyword Suggestion
Find related keywords matching your search.

Link Popularity
Retrieve your backlinks from search engines.

Multi-Rank Checker
View your Google PageRank and Alexa Ranking in bulk.

PageRank Checker
View your Google PageRank on differnet Google servers.

Rank Checker
Get a overview of your website's ranking.

Search Engine Position
Locate your search listings on Google and Yahoo!.

Search Listings Preview
Preview your website on Google, MSN and Yahoo! Search.

Spider View
Discover how spider bots view your website.

Visual PageRank
View the PageRank of links visually rather than in text.

Domain Checkups:

Alexa Traffic Rank
View and compare Alexa Ranking graphs.

Domain Availability
Check the availability of domains.

Domain Look-up
Retrieve a range of information about a domain.

Domain Whois
Retrieve domain whois information.

Instant Domain Checker
Check the availability of domains instantly.

Ping Test
Check the presence of an active connection.

Reverse IP/Look-up
Resolve a host to an IP address.

Server Status
Check if your website is online or offline.

Website Speed Test
Find out how fast your website loads.

HTML:

HTML Encrypt
Hide your HTML source code.

HTML Optimizer
Optimize and clean your HTML source code.

HTTP Headers
Extract the HTTP Headers of a web page.

Link Extractor
Extract links from a specific web page.

Meta-tags Extractor
Extract meta-tags information from a web page.

Meta-tags Generator
Generate and configure your meta-tags.

Source Code Viewer
View the source code of a page.

Miscellaneous:

Anonymous Emailer
Send e-mails to users anonymously.

Link Shortener
Make a long web address short and easy to remember.

md5 Encrypt
Encrypt text to MD5.

Online Calculator
A simple online calculator.

Your Browser Details
View your IP address and your browser details.

FREE - Receive a Fax on your own dedicated number and have it sent to your Email as a TIFF or PDF:
http://www.faxwhiz.com/freefax.asp?tp=506 or http://www.faxfx.net/webmail/signup.htm

Free Analog Web Clock for your website or blog:
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/clocks/wtsclock001.aspx

Free hit counter for your blog, ebay auction, myspace profile, web page or website:
http://freecsshtmleditors.com/freeblogebaymyspaceprofilewebsitehitcounter.php

Check Google page rank of any web pages:
http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

Stand Out from the Crowd For FREE:
http://www.v3.com/free-sub-domains.shtml?sid=v3navbarv3

Dplicate your address on the internet. V3 offers a myriad of ways to create a memorable name online. They are short, meaningful and easy-to-remember.

What Information To Submit:
At the minimum, you should submit your home page. Many search engines will promise to find and crawl the rest of your website automatically (in their own good time). But if they don't discourage you from doing so, I would submit several of the important pages in your site. For example, a site map is definitely something I would want to submit, since it should have direct links to the rest of your website.

A sitemap is a file that shows all the links on all your pages.

Also, if I get another webmaster to link to my website, I like to submit that page as well. I want the search engines to recognize that this resource has changed - it has a link to my website and I want the credit for it.

What Preperation To Be Made:
For the search engines, I would make sure that the website is properly optimized. At a minimum, I would do double check the meta-tags to ensure that the title, meta-description and meta-keywords properly describe the web pages and have some of my desired keywords in it.

I would also run a website validator - http://validator.w3.org on the pages I intend on submitting - to keep the search engine spiders from choking on my website.

For the directories, I would normally prepare some commonly requested information. This really helps to speed up the process. I normally use a generic text editor like Microsoft Notepad and save the following data before I go and submit to the different search engines and directories. This enables me to use copy and paste.

Your Website Should Have:
Your telephone number
Your postal address
Your e-mail
Your website url
A good title for your website
A description for the website
Minimum ten keywords for the site

Since Yahoo will allow you to submit a list of URLS that are in a text document. I would encourage you to prepare one to help them out. These should be at the root directory of your website and be updated whenever there is a change to your pages. That way you can just submit the location of the text file and let Yahoo use that to find the rest of your pages. It is a nice time saver.

Google uses a similar technology to help it find all of your web pages. It is called a "Google Site Map". For more information on these go please visit this link. - http://www.spiderweblogic.com/GoogleSitemap.aspx

Google also has a special way to submit these. Just follow their instructions. If this is too complicated, contact a webmaster or a SEO specialist who is familiar with this feature.

YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com

Get many many many potentional visitors to your website by useing YouTube. Open and account with them and load your video movies here. Remember to include your URL in the description section. You can also put the movie on Youtube on your website using white code.

Use this wonderfull FREE tool to make a your own slide show - Aurora Media Workshop is such a kind of program that includes prefessional features in Video, Audio, and Compact Disc media. It is a video converter, joiner, splitter; audio cd ripper, converter, recorder; video, audio, date cd burner. The powerful features and unbeatable price make Aurora Media Workshop an affordable and powerful all-in-one media solution on personal computer. - http://www.mediatox.com/download/auroramedia.exe

See this sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1wlZ56rT5M

Google Analytics:
http://www.google.com/analytics

Open account with Google insert the code into the pages you need to track and pronto.

DNS Look-up:
http://www.robtex.com/dns/12234455.co.za.html

Test Your Website Before Submissions:
http://www.scrubtheweb.com

Database of Web Robots:
http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/active/html/index.html

Where To Submit Your Website Address:
I would recommend submitting your home page to the major search engines individually, at least initially. I always submit Google manually through the Google website!

I submit my web pages to the following search engines manually (without a special tool) just to ensure that it is done.

1. Yahoo! Search
2. Google
3. MSN
4. Open Directory
5. ScrubTheWeb
6. ExactSeek
7. SearchSight
8. EntireWeb
9. GigaBlast
10. Exalead
11. MavicaNet
12. What U Seek
13. Accoona
14. World Site Index
15. FWD
16. BusinessSeek
17. 01WebDirectory
18. Link Centre
19. IllumiRate
20. WebbieWorld
21. Wikidweb
22. Zeezo
23. AnooX
24. AMRAY
25. Domaining

26. Anaximander
27. SonicRun
28. Info Listings
29. Info Tiger
30. NetInsert
31. Pedsters Planet
32. Arakne Links
33. 123 Hit Links
34. Web Linker
35. Thales Directory
36. Burf
37. FreshTV
38. Cipinet
39. Dramba
40. Directory Storm
41. Amfibi
42. Clickey
43. ABD
44. Klottra
45. A1 Web Directory
46. TopSites
47. SEagency
48. Walhello
49. Web Directory
50. SearchHippo

Submit to Google - http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Submit to Yahoo - http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request
Submit to MSN - http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WSUT
Submit to Splatsearch.com - http://www.splatsearch.com/submit.html
Submit to Abilogic.com - http://www.abilogic.com/site-submission-guidelines.php
Submit to Ezilon.com - http://www.ezilon.com
Submit to Starting Point - http://www.stpt.com/directory/addsite.htm
Submit to Exactseek.com - http://new.exactseek.com/add.html
Business-Deals.biz - Submit a link - http://www.business-deals.biz/add-link.cgi
Submit to Worldwide Directory of Tours & Vacation - http://www.tours.com/add_form.htm
Submit to Librarians' Internet Index - http://www.lii.org/cs/lii/create/todo
Submit to Linkcentre.com - http://linkcentre.com/addurl.html
Submit to Amray - http://www.amray.com
Submit to Free Web Directory - http://www.directoryon.info/howto.php
Submit to Superiorwebmaster - http://superiorwebmaster.com/submission/form.html
Submit to Submitserver.com - http://submitserver.com/Forms/Submit2.htm?BG_Color=FFFFFF&Font_Face=arial&Font_Color=02218A
Submit to Websquash - http://www.websquash.com/cgi-bin/search/search.pl?Mode=AnonAdd
Submit to Entertainment-Resources.com - Travel - Add Site - http://www.entertainment-resources.com/Travel/form.html

Submit to DMOZ.org: http://dmoz.org/add.html
Submit to Yahoo Directory: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
Submit to MSN, LookSmart, Altavista: http://listings.looksmart.com/?synd=none&chan=lshomeft
Submit to Free way into LookSmart: http://www.zeal.com
http://www.goguides.org
http://www.joeant.com/
Submit to Educational Sites: http://vlib.org/
Submit to Educational Sites: http://www.wannalearn.com/
Submit to Reference Sites: http://libraryspot.com

If you have a South African site, I would suggest spending some time to get yourself listed on the following free Search Engines:

Submit to eSearch - http://www.esearch.co.za/search.php
Submit to Cape Info Cape Town accommodation, travel, events, wine & business - http:///www.capeinfo.com/
Submit to Grabble.co.za - http://www.grabble.co.za
Submit to Bitoogle - http://www.bitoogle.co.za

Submit to SAEverything: http://www.saeverything.co.za
Submit to SouthAfrica.co.za: http://www.southafrica.co.za
Submit to vottle.com: http://vottle.com
Submit to sayellow.co.za: http://sayellow.co.za

Submit to Gumtree: http://www.gumtree.co.za
Submit to Site ranking: http://www.siteranking.com
Submit to i do find: http://www.idofind.com/addurl/index.html

Submit to many all at once: http://dreamsubmit.net

You will need a Yahoo account to submit to the Yahoo search engine. And don't fret if you don't see immediate results. Your site should normally exist in MSN within about 6 weeks, in Yahoo in 8-12 weeks, and in Google within about 3 months. (You will not likely get much search results from Google for the first year though - but hold out and keep working on the other tricks. In the long run, Google will normally give you about 60 - 70% of the search engine traffic if you follow these methods.)

Also, if you have the Alexa toolbar - http://download.alexa.com/index.cgi?p= installed, navigate to your website and click on the "info" button on the toolbar. Then you will have to fill in information about your website. Once this is registered, you will start seeing how your website's Alexa rating looks. There have been some rumors that Google considers the Alexa description in its searches - so make sure it is relevant to your website as a whole and has at least one of your keywords.

You should also submit your website to DMOZ - http://www.dmoz.com/add.html. This is a massive directory that is republished in several other websites. It is managed by humans, and is therefore considered to be of special relevance by other search engines. I strongly recommend reading all their rules before submitting - and follow them closely. Make sure that you try to get listed in only one category - the most relevant one for your business. It can take a month or two to get listed, but it really helps with your backlinks and overall relevancy as a website.

After DMOZ, here are the most important list of PAID directories to be listed in. They are not essential if you are a South African only site, but if you have the cash, it certainly would help!

Yahoo Directory website submission ($299 annual fee) - https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/reference/submit
Business.com website submission ($199 annual fee) - http://www.business.com
Microsoft Bcentral Directory website submission ($49 annual fee) - http://sbd.bcentral.com/addsite.aspx
Best of Web website submission ($40 annual fee) - http://www.botw.org
GoGuides.org website submission ($40 lifetime fee) - http://www.goguides.org
Gimpsy.com website submission ($40 lifetime fee) - http://gimpsy.com
JoeAnt website submission ($40 lifetime fee) - http://www.joeant.com/suggest.html
Tygo website submission ($40 lifetime fee) - http://www.tygo.com/smart
Skaffe.com website submission ($40 lifetime fee) - http://www.skaffe.com/info/addurl.php
WowDirectory.com website submission ($25 lifetime fee) - http://www.wowdirectory.com/howtoadd.php

If you haven't used directories before - try browsing these before you fill out the form to submit your site. They are organized by category. You need to find the most relevant category to put your website before you start to fill out the form for each of these. Have a pen and paper as you browse - and write down directory paths of where you want to be.

Being in some directories just adds some good backlinks. (When another webmaster links to your website, this is considered a backlink.) Others, like Yahoo and DMOZ, tend to get some special relevance to certain search engines.

After you get familiar with these well-known directories, look for niche directories that are specific to the type of site you own!

There are specialized directories that focus on a particular category of links. These can be valuable - you will just have to do a bit of searching to find them. These may be considered as part of your overall strategy.

Being listed in a search engine doesn't guarantee that you will have a good ranking - this is just the first step - letting them know that you exist.

If You See An Offer To Get Listed In Hundreds Of Directories And Websites Automatically - Beware! Many of these will list you in hundreds of FFA (free for all) sites.

These sites are considered SPAM by search engines and I would strongly encourage you to avoid them. Did I mention to avoid these?

They may get you quick backlinks, but they are from the "wrong" type of site. These are just a list of sites - and they stay there temporarily. Only the latest 100 submitted or so are displayed there and you need to be resubmitted regularly to stay there. Few humans use this - it is just a linking game to trick the search engines about your popularity (and search engines don't like it). Don't bother.

Other Places List to submit your website address

Click here!

Test your website

http://www.search-22.com/meta_search_engines.php

Meta Search

http://www.search-22.com/

Web Search

http://www.search-22.com/ppc.php

Pay Per Click

Test your website traffic

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=youraddress.co.za

Where To Submit Your Website Articles: [Boosting Traffic]

This will bring 50% more high quality visitors to your website.

Most well known: EzineArticles.com: http://www.ezinearticles.com

http://www.amazines.com

http://www.traveldir.org

http://www.free-articles-zone.com

http://www.isnare.com

http://www.advisor.com

http://www.articleworld.net

http://www.goarticles.com

http://www.articlemarketer.com

http://www.articles-galore.com

http://searchwarp.com

http://www.articleson.com

http://www.articlehub.com

http://www.bigarticles.com

http://www.aardvarkarticles.net

http://www.allfreelancework.com

http://www.365articles.com

http://www.articlealley.com

http://www.uniterra.com

http://www.electricarticles.com/author_signin.aspx

http://www.travelinghippo.com/

Fifteen Tips for Writing an Interesting Article

1) Eliminate hyperbole - people want concise information not an artistic story

2) Start every paragraph with a different word to enhance sentence creativity

3) Use popular keyword and key phrases for your target market in your article

4) Edit unnecessary prepositions and phrases to make sentences more powerful

5) Sparingly add adjectives to make your words more colorful and descriptive

6) Try to stay neutral and don't get your emotions involved in your article

7) Write your article and sleep on it, edit it the next day with a fresh view

8) Make your article title longer and more enticing to gather more readers

9) Tell your reader something new they haven’t heard before in a different way

10) Proof and read every article aloud to improve readability and create flow

11) When you write your article, list keywords and article description on same page for ease when submitting your article

12) Be in the habit of having both a Dictionary and Thesaurus handy for reference

13) Use plain ole easy to understand words so your reader doesn't get cross-eyed

14) The word "that" refers to things and the word "which" refers to people

15) Insert words that you have trouble spelling to increase your writing ability

Continue your research to jam pack important information into every article

Article Marketing & Copywriting Secret: How To Make Your Article TITLE Sell

Most authors are wasting their time producing dozens to hundreds of high quality articles that never reach a fraction of their traffic potential. It's a darn shame.

When I review the behind-the-scenes traffic statistics on over 20,000 articles that have produced over 1 million monthly page views in my article marketing lab...ONE thing is clear: All articles are not created equal even when everything about them is identical except for the TITLE.

The reason is probably not what you think.
If you've been schooled on traditional copywriting, you know that in the offline world, the headline determines as much as 95% of the success of the book or article. This statistic takes into consideration what makes the book title successful: Whether a human buys it or not.

Article Marketing on the Internet is a whole different story because of the way your articles reach humans who have an interest in them.

MYTH: Most people will read your articles because they came to a website and started browsing just like they do if they were to have gone to a local book store to find a book of personal interest.

FACT: Wrong! Most people will search the Internet using one of the major search engines and they will be putting in between 1 to 5 keywords that are related to the topic of the article or information they are looking to locate. The search engines will then deliver results that best match the human's interest.

YOUR GOAL: To have your articles show up in the search engine results for the keywords and topics that are most related to the content of your article.

HOW?

You must embrace this TITLE creation & traffic-building truth:
The first 3-5 words of your TITLE determine the success of your article in terms of how much traffic your article will generate back to your website. Success can only be had when you create keyword rich titles for your articles that match the most commonly searched keywords for your topic.

How to determine which keywords are rich and the right ones to use for your article?
You'll need a keyword research tool. Some are free and some are fee-based. Overture.com has a popular keyword research tool that shows you the most common search results from the Yahoo search engines directory. If you want to see what's on "Google's Mind" you can try one of their current beta tools called "Google Suggest": http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&complete=1

Whether you use a web-based keyword research tool or invest in one of the more advanced application level software keyword research tools, it's critical that you learn know how to do keyword research.

A "Good" vs. "Bad" TITLE Example:
Here is an example of the difference between a non-keyword rich TITLE vs. a very keyword rich TITLE that is proven to perform better in terms of traffic creation:

Bad TITLE Example:

"Top 9 Ways You Can Acquire Fractional Jet Ownership"

Excellent Keyword Rich Title Example:

Fractional Jet Ownership - 9 Strategies to Help You Acquire Your Private Jet

Why is it more effective?
Because it does not waste the first 3 words of the title with meaningless garbage words like "top" or the number "9" or "ways"...and gets right to the important words that might be found when someone is using a search engine to research a topic related to your article.

You'll also notice in my example that I included the word "Private" Jet. Why? Because my keyword research said that people who search for fractional jet also search for the word "private jet" and therefore I wanted to boost the chances that my title would be found by a larger number of potential visitors to the article.

Two recommendations on what NOT to do:
1) Don't include garbage characters in your TITLE such as quotes, tildes, asterisks or anything else that a search engines has to work hard to discard in order to understand the TITLE of your article.

2) Do not engage in any search engine spam technique by having keyword rich TITLES that have nothing to do with the topic of your article. You'll only be hurting yourself as the search engines already aggressively filter out bad behavior like this.

YOUR INTELLIGENT KEYWORD RICH TITLE COPYWRITING CONCLUSION:
If you want to maximize your results from any article marketing strategy, you must master keyword research so that you can create keyword rich and intelligent article TITLES. Your pay off will be massive amounts of traffic to your articles and website thanks to the search engines who love smart keyword rich TITLES!

To Wrap It Up:
Get backlinks - but avoid FFA sites. There are some important directories, but being listed in "Thousands Of Websites And Directories" is likely a promotional trick to get you listed in FFA sites. The most important backlinks are from web pages with content related to your website and those that your customers visit. If it isn't likely to draw your customers, it may not be very important for your website traffic.

Click here to return to the Top.

Author Informarion: Gerald Crawford was born in South Africa, studied electronics, telecommunication, eco-travel and african travel concepts. He taught responsible tourism in South Africa. If you have any questions or comments please e-mail me on. E-mail Address: southafricantravelarticles@12234455.co.za

Webcraft.ws South Africa
PO Box 12216 Die Boord 7613
Stellenbosch South Africa RZA
Cell: +27-0720390184 (mobile)
Fax: 0880218838384
SMS: 0720390184@voda.co.za
Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: info@webcraft.ws