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The
job of the web designer does not end with designing of the
web-site. The professional Web designer normally undertakes
an integrated contract. He / she is expected to provide complete
set of services, which begins with Domain booking and ends
with Search Engine Registration, inclusive of areas like Hosting,
Designing & Uploading.
Generally,
clients are ignorant about the power web promotion. All they
probably know is the simple way of promoting the site through
a listing on search engines. There are millions of web pages,
all over the Net and only a few good search engines. This
makes it very difficult to list all the web sites on the first
few pages of search engines. The client expects this listing
as part of web designing contracts. And as a web designer
if you wish to retain him for a long period and expect him
to pay your renewal fee the next year as well, you'd better
provide him with a 'Search Engine Registration Service'.
Stage
1 :
After
the web-site is duly designed ( to know more about the professional
steps involved in web designing,
Subscribe to our newsletter FIREWIRE), that
is - after the Layouts, Dicing & Converting to HTML has been
accomplished, you must explain the importance of " the title,
keywords & description" to your client. Please remember -
refrain from the temptation of generating 'keywords' on behalf
of the client. The right person to suggest the same - is none
other but the client himself - for he knows his business best
! Of course, you can help with the grammar, phrasing, etc.
but the germ of the idea must come directly from the client.
There are, not to mention, hundreds of articles, tips & tricks
on search engine registration and positioning are available
on Net, which is out of bounds of this article. Yet, if you
still want more information on that and other vital issues,
Subscribe
to our newsletter FIREWIRE.
Stage
2 :
'Copy
& paste' the meta tags generated from the title, keywords
& description given by your client on all the HTML pages on
the web site. Now, your site is ready to get registered with
the search engine. But wait a minute ... it is here that you
face the nagging question;
HOW TO SUBMIT MY SITE TO THESE SEARCH
ENGINES?
Don't panic, however.
Relax.
There are various methods of submitting your site to the search
engines.
1.
Do it manually.
Search
engines do not charge for registering a web site with them.
It is absolutely free !
Every search engine has a link to "add your site". The link
names may differ from search engine to search engine. Some
call it "Suggest a Site". Some others say, "Add URL" or "Suggest
URL" or "Add Link" & so on. Many search engines provide this
facility on their Home Page, though a few good search engines
urge you to select the appropriate category and then allow
you to add the URL to the same. Thus, making the whole process,
systematic and simple. Normally, the URL or Link Submission
form will ask for details like the title, keywords, description,
the name of the company, first name, last name, contact details,
e-mail address and many other things, depending on a search
engine / its search engine policy. Please take note that there
is a restriction on submitting the title size, the number
of keywords to be used and length of the description. Some
search engines restrict the number of keywords to 10, 15,
20. Similarly, a title may comprise of 50 - 80 characters.
The description may range between 100 characters to 300 characters.
Done manually, it takes an average of five minutes (approx.)
to fill up a form on one search engine. The process of locating
the search engines, visiting each of them, finding the submission
form & filling in the details - is long, tedious and almost
impossible prospect, when you have as many as 1500+ search
engines ! You must be aware of a few popular search engines
like HotBot, Altavista, Lycos, Yahoo, Goto, Google, Excite,
Alltheweb, Northernlight and also some from your country of
origin. Like in India, we have search engines like Khojindia,
123india, Rediff, etc.
2.
Use free submission services
There
are many services available, which allow you to submit your
sites into search engines. This system is not without a few
disadvantages, viz.: they may submit to very few search engines,
they may be slow, etc. Since a very high volume of pages are
received from such free services, the Search Engines have
become smarter and they soon start avoiding the pages forwarded
by such services.
3.
Use of Auto-submit Services by paying them money.
There
are certain sites which run this service of submitting your
site to Search Engines, through their web site. Some of them
use specialized software and for this purpose they charge
the users anything from US$50 to 90 per web site registration.
Spending money for such services reduce the bottom line of
your contract and it is not of much use, since these sites
also function in the same manner as Free Submission services.
All above methods consist of one problem or another.
Which
brings us to the big question?
Is
it possible to ...
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Register unlimited number of web sites for unlimited number
of times in just one sitting ?. |
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Maintain
and update a list of around 3500 search engines, directories
& link lists ? |
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Automatically
submit web site details to 1500 search engines ? |
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Check
where your site appears on a given search engine ? |
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Generate
a report that tells you which search engine/s your site
was submitted to and When ? |
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Automatically
choose categories on your behalf, based on the categories
you have selected once ? |
The
answer to all the above is YES and that is made possible by
http://www.trellian.com/cgi-bin/msw/entry?id=19565&file=swolf/
Trellian's
Submitwolf.
Submitwolf
is a wonderful tool for automating your search engine submission
process and that too, with thousands of search engine & directories.
All you have to do is fill up relevant details like title,
keywords, description and contact details. Then, simply sit
back and relax. Within 3-4 hours, the program does your job.
A feat, which done manually, would probably take 7500 man
hours ! That's not all ! It will also generate a report for
you with the date of submission, names of search engines and
success or failure results. In the case your Internet connection
gets disconnected in the process, it allows you to select
searching engines that are pending. Which means, you need
not go back to square one - all over again. It creates the
profile for each web site separately. You can show your Search
Engine Report to your client as proof of submission. If your
client is still not getting the desired response, you can
resubmit with the help of Submitwolf. All it entails is a
3-4 hour job ! It is recommended that there should be a minimum
gap of 90 days, before you re-submit your site. Submitwolf
preserves the dates of submission digitally, thus making it
easier for you to keep track of the date last submitted. It
is the best tool for you towards ensuring full customer satisfaction,
without losing much of your time & profit. Personally, merely
by offering this service and executing it well, we have achieved
regular renewal of contracts from clients. Almost all of them
have reported to have got good enquiries and orders, as they
are listed on top of the most important search engines.
Here's
hoping this article will serve as a helpful guideline for
you to avoid some common pitfalls and towards generating a
growing and loyal customer base, who continue to renew their
contracts - for their life time. Kindly send us your feedback
for this article.
Regards,
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