Getting Listed: Doing It Right

Each search engine and directory has specific requirements when accepting a “request to be listed,” and those requirements are all a little different. It’s not one-size-fits-all. Some things are best done by hand, and you’ll probably find that this is one of them.

When you hand-submit your site, it’s a little like leaving your calling card with a client. You’ve met and you know she has your card because you just handed it to her. It’s an important part of the business ritual. Same thing happens when you resubmit a URL to a search engine or directory. You’re making sure that it knows who you are. Being polite and using the right techniques are important. And repetition is reputation when it comes to search engine database listings.

Here’s why you want to verify and confirm your submissions:

• You want to know if the “request to be listed” was accepted by the engine.
• If it was accepted, did it get placed into the database?
• If it was entered into the database, did it stay in or fall out?
• If it does stay in the database, is it number 41 or 45,041?

You can do this yourself if you have the time and can keep current on search engine practices. Or you can farm it out to a listing agency. Professional registration services performed by trained technicians will provide you the following:

• Verification and documentation that the “request to be listed” was accepted by the engine.
• Verification and documentation weekly or monthly to ensure the listing is found in the database.
• If the listing is not found, identification, documentation and resubmission.
• Verification and documentation to submit additional doorway pages, monitored monthly.
• Position analysis for your home page, sub-pages and doorway pages.

Hand-submission can be a definite advantage over random or computer-generated and automated services. When submissions are performed by hand, the procedure is documented and verified during the registration process, ensuring that you don’t fall through the cracks. Manual registration is effective and worthwhile.

There are many companies offering to “submit your site,” but legitimate search engine traffic agencies that actually build traffic to your web site through analysis, optimization, linking, and monitoring are hard to find.

Search engine and directory submission is a huge business and a whole new industry on the web. There is no standardization, and the industry is unregulated. Some of these businesses are legitimate and some aren’t. How can you separate the wheat from the chaff? By asking some very pointed questions:

1. Does a search engine analyst with at least three years’ experience optimize my home page before submitting it to the engines?
2. Does a trained technician manually submit my URL individually to each search engine and directory?
3. Does a trained technician return each month to verify that my submission is registered in the engines?
4. Do you send me specific documentation verifying that the stated tasks were performed?
5. Can I receive an individual screen-shot confirmation of each individual submission?
6. Can I personally visit each individual search engine and directory you submit my site to?
7. Will you identify the exact category for my submission into each directory?
8. Can you verify that I am listed (registered) in the search engines and directories specified?

If the answer to all eight questions is “Yes,” then you’re on the right track.

Don’t accept any less of a professional service. You are entrusting a third party to represent your company by submitting your web site for multiple listings on search engines and directories. Your prospective new visitors and potential clients will find you through these listings, so it is critical that the company you select to perform this very important activity is reputable.