Three Steps to Avoid Trouble

First: There are many engines and directories that share databases. For example, if you want to be listed with Yahoo, never submit to Yahoo directly. This may sound odd, but even the biggest fish out there shares a pond with another lesser known name. Google shares the Google database so if you obtain good ranking with Google, you are in with many others.

A big part of getting ahead in the search engine race is knowing which directories and engines are considered to be the most influential by the other engines when building link popularity and page relevancy. Knowing this information will tell you which engines and directories are worth submitting to, and which are a waste of time. You may be surprised ... things are often not as they seem in this industry!

Second: Many engines and directories charge fees in exchange for position. This is done on a "bid rank" system whereby a closed bid is made for position, based on a per-search value. This means that if you bid $.20 per search for a given keyword or phrase, but your competitor bids $.19, you will appear above them in the search. This is a very fast and effective way to drive traffic into your site, but if you do it before your site is properly prepared, you are wasting money.

Just as with any search engine, you will do well to focus on a specific product or service that you offer. If you are buying very focused keyword phrases, this is more effective than if you are selling something general. As an example, if you sell yellow number 2 pencils with pink erasers and precision crimped copper ferrules, you will likely do better than just selling yellow pencils ... everybody is selling pencils. If you are selling cars, consider selling blue 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier sedans, because General Motors has more money to spend on this than you do. It is also very important to know which search engines to pay, and research how much it is worth. Don't worry, there is a formula for this, and we are here to help.