In the early days of the Web, site developers were often Jacks of all cybertrades, and search engine submission was yet another do-it-yourself task. Nowadays, as the information economy causes more and more specialization, there are a number of professional site submission services, and many Web site owners find it efficient to "sub out" their site promotion.
Is it hard to learn to do effective search engine submissions? Not very. Does it cost money? Not a cent. Does it require any special, secret tricks of the trade? Nope. It requires some time and tedium, but any Web-savvy person can learn to get the job done on their own, with a little help from the scads of articles and tutorials on site submission.
So why pay for a submission service? Well, any time you ponder doing something "in-house" versus "subbing" it, you have to consider the trade-off between time and money. Spend your time doing it, or spend your money to have experts do it? Which answer is more cost-efficient for you depends on the size, history and purpose of your Web site.
The advantages of submitting yourself:
- Cash cost is nil. All major search engines and directories allow you to submit free. There are even helpful auto-submitting tools, and of course a wealth of advice and tips, available free.
- No one can sell your site like you can. Getting the most out of your submissions requires detailed knowledge about your site and your company that a paid submitter may not take the time to get.
- Site promotion is an ongoing process. Once you learn the ins and outs, you won't risk becoming dependent on expensive promotion consultants.
The advantages of using a paid submission service:
- Promotion experts know of places to submit that you might miss. For example, special-topic directories can generate lots of traffic if you seek out ones for which your site is appropriate.
- The best submission services help you to educate yourself. If you want to take over the submission duties in the future, you'll have a much shorter learning curve than if you just studied up from scratch.
Doing it Yourself...
...is simple enough. Almost every search engine and directory has a link that says "Add a site" or "Submit URL" or something like that, which takes you to their submission form. Simply enter your info, being careful to follow their submission rules to the letter, and you're off.
An auto-submitter, which lets you enter your information just once and submits it to lots of search sites, can greatly reduce the tedium of submitting to sites one by one. However, some submitters swear by manual submission, as it lets you craft each entry more carefully. Submit-it and Add-it both offer free and paid versions of their auto-submitters. My favorite, however, is Selfpromotion.com, which also includes reams of good submission advice.
Some people go off the deep end, and go spam-crazy. The more you submit, the more hits you'll get, right? So why not submit all your pages to every site in the universe, a dozen times each? I once had a client who wanted me to submit every single page of his site, separately, to two dozen Yahoo categories (a couple of hundred page submissions in all). I patiently explained to him that Yahoo will only list a site in two categories in any case, and that spamming in all those submissions might just annoy the worthy folks at Yahoo. To say nothing of how much I would charge him for such an endless and pointless task. But once some people get an idea in their head…
Other do-it-yourselfers fall into the opposite trap, and become spamees. Once, just to see what would happen, I went to one of those "Submit your site to 1,001 search engines with one click" sites and entered the info for one of my sites. Well, I found out what happened, all right. A tsunami of spam! I've probably gotten an average of twenty spamograms a day since then. A word to the wise.
Caveat Submittor
Submitting's not that complicated, but there are a few things you need to know, and some pitfalls for the inexperienced (read 10 Ways Not to Promote Your Website to avoid the most common mistakes). If you really can't spare the time to learn how to do it the right way, hiring a submission service may be the thing to do. But be sure to pick the right one, because there are a lot of shysters and snake-oil peddlers out there.
Skip the $19.95 crowd. All anyone's going to do for $19.95 is plug your info into an auto-submitter, which you can do yourself in fifteen minutes. If you want to benefit from the expertise of an experienced submitter, then be prepared to pay what you'd pay any IT consultant. Get references and check them out before you part with any cash. Any bozo can set up shop as a submitter, so make sure you're dealing with a reputable outfit.
Avoid anyone who says that they can "guarantee" you top placement. Although good submitters do have ways to optimize your site's ranking in search engine results, there's no way to guarantee a top ranking. A moment's reflection shows why this is so: The keywords you choose determine how often you'll come up in search engine results. If your main key phrase is "underwater basket weaving", then anytime someone searches for same, you'll surely be near the top. There just aren't that many basket weaving sites out there. But if you want to come up in searches for keywords like "sex", "mp3" or "Viagra", then get in line. A search on any of those words will bring up trillions of pages, and Superman himself couldn't guarantee that your site would come up near the top.
Avoid like the plague anyone who claims to have some "special secret patented system" for getting listings or maximizing rankings. These surefire schemes inhabit the same territory as foolproof stock market strategies and systems for picking winning lottery numbers: Fantasyland! There are no secrets, just facts and opinions that anyone can read about in online magazines like this one. When I submit a site for a client, I'm happy to tell them exactly what I've done, and even give them a list of the sites I've submitted to. Why not? The information's free!
When using a paid submission service, remember that, just as with any computer consultant, you're paying for the knowledge and experience that enables them to get the job done a little better and a little faster than you would have been able to do yourself. Working with a good consultant can often teach you a lot about the process, too. Many clients use a submission service for their initial submission, then handle future maintenance submissions on their own.
Whether you tackle the job yourself or use hired help, take the time to learn as much as you can about the process. Make thorough and effective site promotion a top priority, because it really is critical to your site's success.
In the early days of the Web, site developers were often Jacks of all cybertrades, and search engine submission was yet another do-it-yourself task. Nowadays, as the information economy causes more and more specialization, there are a number of professional site submission services, and many Web site owners find it efficient to "sub out" their site promotion.