#1 Non-technical information about search engines and directories
Build a web site that gets found on the web!

Key to website success Tip #10
How to Jumpstart your Website - Search Engine Listings

What do I do when my web pages are done and on-line?

Investigate Google and Yahoo keyword programs to jumpstart your website using your top 10 keywords.

What is the Google Pay-Per-Click Program?

What about search engines and free search engine listings?

How does my website get listed in search engines?

How do I get a listing in a search engine?

What the difference between a Search Engine and a directory?

How do directories work?

We recommend you read the entire page.

It is not uncommon for your perfectly good website to sit in limbo for a year before the search engines recognize and rank it! If you need immediate results, here is a great option. All the planning and rules mentioned in this website are pretty much required to have your pages accepted and ranked well by the big guys - especially under the keywords you want!. If you have built a great website using the Dibbern guidelines and concepts here, your site's specific pages should eventually rank quite well in search engines- there are technical exceptions and the criteria on the web can change at any moment. Be sure you understand keywords and have established your keywords before you go there. Looking back at tip #9, remember, you want your (now) great website to rank well in the search engines so your potential buyer will find YOU.

Why Google?

As of October, 2005, Dibbern research shows Google reaches 44% of all the U.S. people looking in the entire worldwide web. Google's market in the UK and Canada adds another 12%. Yahoo holds about a 13% share and MSN about 10%. Collectively 26 other search engines and variations of Google and Yahoo hold the rest - which means they are not near as important to your success as Google is. AOL only has under 3% of the market. So where do you want to be?

If you haven't already done so, check out our definition section on key words - it will help you a lot in understanding search engines.

What is the Google "Pay per click" program and are there others?

The Dibbern simple explanation: Google is a "pay per click" program, which means generally for each time someone clicks on your Google ad listing and goes to your site from it, you pay Google. The cost per click is based on the keyword and the position you seek in the list. Different words have different costs. The pay per clicks range from about six cents to as much as thirty dollars for extremely hot keywords. Once you establish your account, you can see what each keyword would cost per click and how often they expect you will get clicked. This gives you an idea of your monthly cost. It takes some time to do the research, establish the keywords you want and the most time consuming of all is writing a succinct listing for that keyword that Google will accept. After you have all that done, Google will decide if your page qualifies for the listing (ad really! This is the point that all the concepts in our key tips become extremely important. (They are also equally as important for automatic free listings in Google.) As soon as your listing (ad really) is accepted it is available for the world to see under your keyword in Google at the left side of the page. You can get into the program for as little as $50 a month.

Is there more to it? Absolutely, but this gives you the basic idea.
Is the Google program effective? YES
Can you get people to help you put a Google program in place? Sure.

Are there other pay-per-click programs? Yes.
Are there flat price, one-time charge search engine programs? Yes. Yahoo, before its association with Overture was a flat cost search engine. It is a bit unclear at the moment.

FREE SEARCH ENGINE LISTINGS
Long, long ago, in a web far away, you could submit your website to major search engines - apply for a free listing. This system hardly exists anymore. Either you pay your way, or wait until the Search Engines "Spider" your site to put it in its own list where it wants - based on its own criteria. Spidering is silently looking at the code in your web page and evaluating what it finds. You have no control over when a spider will come calling on your web site, and you won't necessarily know when a spider is done looking at your site.

How are Search Engines different than Directories?. Directories are often more private operations in which you may buy a listing, or in a few instances, such as the Open Directory Project, you can obtain a free listing. New Directories may offer short-term free listings to get started. Directories usually do not initiate spidering a site, but rather rely on submissions to begin with. Many directories are market focused, while others try to compete with search engines by including all kinds of categories of products, services and interests.

Caution: There aren't thousands of true search engines, so question any offer that proposes to submit your site on your behalf to thousands of them.

Read all the Dibbern Keys: Click to each complete tip directly:
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