Search Engines

Once you have created and uploaded your website, you will want other people to be able to find it. As most people use search engines (i.e. Google) to find what they're looking for, it makes sense that you should try to make sure that your site can be found using search engines.

Keywords

Most search engines no longer use pre-defined keywords so if you don't understand how to define keywords for your site, then don't worry. Most of the popular search engines now look at the main text within the pages on your site for the keywords so if you're selling widgets, make sure that you mention widgets within the text of your site. Don't over populate your page/s with your keyword as the search engines will spot what you're up to. Try to make your text relevent to the subject and above all, readable.

Title

One of the most important attributes for search engines is the title of your page. Many people forget to change the title from 'home' or something similar. Make sure that the page title contains your keywords. If you're selling blue widgets, make sure that the page is titled something like 'Blue Widgets from xyz company'. It is important that the keywords are very prominent within the title.

Submission

First of all, don't waste your time trying to get your site listed on every search engine. Most searches are made using only a few search engines so it's worth concentrating on these and in particular, Google. The best way for Google to find your site is via other sites it checks. Therefore, make sure that other sites have links to yours.

Search engines prefer manual submissions and automated generated submissions can be detected and ignored. The following addresses should allow you to submit your site manually to several search engines and directories. Please note that Vision Internet cannot guarantee the results from these and cannot offer further support regarding search engine submission. All the links will open a new window.

• Altavista & Yahoo - http://uk.altavista.com/addurl/
• Excite - https://www.excite.com/

It can take several months for a site to appear in the search engines after it has been submitted.

Site linking

By far the most important way for a search engine to find your site is via a link from another site (perhaps a local directory of sites). This makes your site appear more important to the search engines and will help to push your site above others within the search engine results pages.

If you are asking someone to link to your site, it's usually a good idea if they can include your key phrase within the actual link itself (called the anchor text). This will re-enforce your key phrase with the search engines and help push your site higher for that phrase. For example, the link Web hosting contains a key phrase for our web hosting page and will no doubt help a little towards pushing this site a little higher in the search engines. With a little luck, it may also prompt you into looking at what web hosting packages we offer.