So you've been talking to your web designer (who has just completed your brand spanking new site) and they sit you down and state, "Where are you going to go from here?".  You look at them and kindly ask what they mean.  They come back to you and say well now you need to submit your site to the search engines otherwise they are never going to find you.  Of course they can do it on your behalf for a small fee, and it sounds like a good idea, but is it the best strategy?

Because a lot of firms are still offering this out dated service, I thought it was about time to shed some light on the subject and offer some advice about how to get indexed in the search engines.  So before you throw your money away to a company, have a read of these suggestions first:

• Believe it or not, the best way to submit your site is not to submit it at all!!!  If you can get the spiders to find your site on their own through links, your site will get brownie points straight away.  Most pages that are submitted to the search engines are considered to be spam, so do you really want to be in there with them?
• Use blogs and ensure you have constant fresh content.  It is a known fact that Google loves blogs!  The more "fresh" content you are able to put onto your site, the better the chances of the spiders deeply indexing your pages.
• Submit a feed/list using Google sitemap and Yahoo!'s site feed.  If you are going to do this use Site Explorer and use urllist.tx or urlist.txt.gz.  Although these techniques are considerd to be acceptable, I would still recommend letting the search engine find you on their own.
• Do not use submission software!  Although these tools can help you get indexed in the smaller lesser known engines, it is still not recommended.
• And probably the most important part, are the search engine spiders able to navigate through your site?  Use straight text links that link to other pages on the site, this makes it a lot easier for the spiders crawl through.  Also give them more than one way to find your most important pages.

I hope these suggestions help you when it comes to knowing how to get into the search engines.  And be wary of anyone who suggests you submit your site (especially if they say they can do it for a price.)  The best practise truely is to be patient, and make sure your site is indexable, believe me they will find you. 

I hope this helps, and happy searching!