How to Create a Website

Ok, the list below may look a little short but this is about submitting to the major search engines. You may not see search engines that you KNOW are popular (like AOL). That's because search engines sometimes get their results from other search engines. So, once you are listed in one; your listing is shared with others. For example; AOL gets it's results from Google™, so if you are listed in Google™ you'll show up in the AOL Search results automatically.
It's all about proceeding in the right order (big fish first), and submitting to the right places. Never submit your site before it is optimized and be very careful about using any automated submission services. The best way to get listed is to visit each search engine and submit your web site yourself.
(And yes, I know some of the places listed are not really search engines, they're directories, but this is about getting hooked up quickly - so I put all the big fish in one place.) Getting listed in major directoies (like Yahoo) will significantly improve your overall rank in other search engines. Vertical directories (those dealing with just one specific industry) will also improve your popularity.

Search Engine Submission - Internet Search Engines

Ok, you've optimized your site and your on your way to getting some good quality links coming from sites who are regarded as experts in your field. (If not, read about search engine optimization here and optimize your website before submitting to any search engines.) You can check the readiness of your pages with our SEO Doc. Read below for where to submit and the best strategies.
Internet search engines - search engine submission guide
Top Search Engines
Specialized Search Engines
Other Search Engines
Now you need to submit your website to the Internet search engines. Since Google™ and Ask™ are crawler-based internet search engines and they will find you eventually, should you still submit anyway? Yes - it can't hurt. And, it doesn't hurt for you to submit to as many other search engines as you can find. Smaller search engines and directories that are not considered as the "major" or "top" can still account for good quality traffic. And having them link to your pages count as incoming links to your website. The more incoming links you have - the better your chances are of being found and indexed by Google™ and other major search engines. Crawler-based search engines follow links found in other websites and they will eventually find you. If your budget is tight there are still places to submit your site for free.

Reciprocal Linking
Linking is one of the biggest factors in any search engine marketing strategy. In fact, you are better off spending your time acquiring inbound links than submitting your site. The quality and quantity of inbound links play an important part of how a search engine ranks your website. But, before you go off joining a link exchange, read more because quality is definitely the most important ingrediant. Also, remember that your main goal is to provide useful information to Internet surfers. If you make your goal to simply gain link popularity, this can backfire and hurt you.
To help you decide which link requests to accept and which to discard, read "Choosing Link Partners" in Chris' Position website promotion articles.
What are reciprocal links?

Reciprocal links are links exchanged between two or more websites. Of course, one-way links are a better deal if you can get them (Getting websites to link to you without linking back.) Get one link to your website from someone who is already listed with Google™ and the spider will follow that link to your site. This may get you into Google™ but your ranking will probably be so low it won't matter. Links are a very important component for your placement in search engines like Google™. It's a popularity contest... so getting good quality links to your website is an ongoing task...you will never be done!

Understanding Google™'s Unique Rating System

Google™ is clearly the most popular search engine today. If you achieve a top search engine ranking in Google™, you are considered very lucky. Especially if the first page position is for a highly competitive keyword. There are many factors involved in achieving ranking success within Google™. The three main factors are CONTENT, TRAFFIC, and LINKING. PageRank, for the most part, is not a factor in how well you rank. The original technology behind PageRank is explained here.
The purpose of this tutorial is to remain as non-technical as possible. In order to judge the value of a site based on inbound linking, Google™ developed the algorithm it calls PageRank. This assigns a rating from zero to ten to a site based on the relative strength of the combined links pointing to it. Sometimes you will see PageRank defined as 4/10. This means that the page has been given a PageRank of four out of a possible ten.

Google™ has it's own unique judging system.

Google™ is a crawler-based search engine. Sometimes called "spiders" or "robots", these search engines store billions of pages of information collected from crawling web sites across the net. When someone types a query into Google™, the results are pulled from the billions of pages that were collected during the last trip across the net.
What is optimization?

Optimizing your web pages (search engine optimization) is the process of improving how Google™ (and other similar crawler-based search engines) rank your web pages in relation to others when displaying results. It is not likely you will get ranked at the top for ALL your keywords, but it is possible to get there for a number of important ones.
The first step when optimizing for Google™ is to make certain there is nothing that prevents the Googlebot from indexing your site.
Frames: this can be a brick wall for an effective search engine optimization strategy - don't use frames unless it is critical to your presentation. If you already have a website designed with frames, implement the no-frames tag and a search engine friendly site map so that Google™ can read and follow the links throughout your site. If you are creating a new site, don’t use frames and save yourself the trouble.

Many people think meta tags are the magic solution to ranking well. Create the perfect combination with the perfect keyword density and presto! Well, that is far from being true - there is more to SEO than good meta tags and there are also many off-page factors. However, it does help to have highly optimized Meta tags.
What are Meta Tags?

Meta tags are parts of an HTML document that are used for you to describe the page content for search engines. Meta tags are placed within the head area of an HTML file and with the exception of the Title tag; your visitors do not see them as part of the viewable area of the page.
How to write meta tags correctly:

Selecting the best targets.

Enough cannot be said about selecting the right keywords. So many companies overlook this important aspect in their marketing plan and end up with listings under keywords that nobody uses in searches. Or, they end up at the bottom of a long list of competing sites for keywords that are way too general.
Research shows that most (31%) people search for two word phrases, a large number (25%) use three word phrases and ONLY a few (19%) try searching with a single word query. People are searching this way because they want relevant results... they don't want to wade through tons of listings to find what they are looking for. This is a good reason to make certain your keywords are specific and targeted.
Make a list of as many keyword combinations as you can find that best describe your web page. If the page is your home page this list could be up to 100 keywords or more. Find out how many people are searching for your keywords (using our SEO tools)... then rank the words according to the numbers. Next you need to narrow down the list and target ONLY the most effective words.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization

There are two primary methods to get top positions within search engine results pages. Major search engines typically display search results as a combination of sponsored listings and free (organic) listings. So, you can either bid your way to the top immediately within the sponsored listings or "optimize" your site to appear within the free listings; this process is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. The choice is yours, however, most successful websites use a combination of both strategies in order to dominate their competition and maximize their top positioning.
There are millions of searches a day on Google™ alone. Research shows that a large portion of traffic comes from search engines, but, if your site is not in the top positions, that traffic is not coming to you. It is a proven fact that people rarely go past the first page and hardly ever go past the third page of search results to find what they are seeking. That is why SEO is important to marketers, webmasters, or anyone that owns a website. Search engine optimization strategies enable you to achieve top positioning without a continuous payment for sponsored positions.
What are sponsored listings?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an established process of improving how your web site interacts with search engines and thereby boosting your "organic" or "free" search engine result pages listings. The articles in this section will help you understand how search engines work and how to optimize your website.
What are organic listings?

Organic listings (natural or free) are the heart of search results. They are compiled based on the search engine's own proprietary algorithm. Your ranking (or lack thereof) is partially dependent on how your pages are composed
and contructed. Google™ has 10 organic listings per page
and approximately 7-10 sponsored results.
What search engines are affected by SEO?

Crawler type search engines such as Google™ can be influenced by SEO. They all use a "crawler" or "bot" to retrieve your pages and they use a proprietary algorithm to rank the pages in their indexes.