Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : SEO / SEM Discussions : What about search engines?

[Phruce]

Hi. I've been working hard at finding my first host - not oversold with great support and uptime. I think I've settled on Steadfast. I don't need much space - 1 static business with just email, 1 family site and 1 business with maybe 20 pictures in a gallery. I think their 1200 mb and 50 gb will be more than I need. If I'm wrong about that, please set me straight.
I've just realized they say nothing about submitting my sites to search engines. I know some hosts do - but maybe thats the same ones that offer the world as far as space. It will be my first web site - I am pretty ignorant. Can I get my site to turn up on search engines or should I go for a host that submits it to 200 search engines or so?

Thanks for any help. This is a great place.
Phruce

[David]

Phruce,

No need to go to a provider that submits to search engines, handle it on your own: http://www.submit.gsign.biz/

Enjoy Steadfast, I sure do

[everity]

Steadfast's Bronze package is reasonable.

When it comes to search engines, I generally advise people to avoid mass submissions of their site. The best way to get free search engine traffic is

1) Make sure your site contains useful content, with relevant keywords and key phrases, and periodically update it. (in other words, follow general SEO guidelines.)
2) Find other sites that are willing to link to you
3) Submit to the major search engines to get the process started.

It probably doesn't hurt to use a mass submission service, but if you do, be prepared to receive a ton, I mean a TON, of spam, and very little worthwhile traffic in exchange.

[ldcdc]

SEO is more than submitting the site to the search engines. Submission is not all that important these days anyway. Just get some links to your site from pages that are already indexed, and you'll get in as well. How high your rankings will be for the search terms that interest you, is a whole different matter.

http://www.highrankings.com/articles.htm

[Phruce]

Thanks for the help. And sorry about posting in wrong forum. I really appreciate the advice and will make use of the links and study the article.

[daveredfern]

some tips for seo.

- don't try and cheat the system! you will just get removed from google and blacklisted.
- ensure you page is fully and correctly tagged with headers marked up as h1, paragraphs being p. also a good idea is to put the content is a div called content which makes the crawlers read and understand the page.
- move your css, js etc to other documents because the search engines will only read the first thousand or so lines and having css and js at the top will just mean the bottom of your page might not be read.
- put keywords in your title including you business name, area the business is in and services offered. any keywords you think people will search for should go in here.
- link backs - the more links to your site especially from sites of the same interest is very good for ranking.
- ensure you don't buy your domain for 1 year terms, buy a few years in advance. this way google can ensure you are not just a flyby company.
- time - you won't be listed first, i can take a few months so be patient.

hope these help you out a little.

[JeremyWCH]

If you want to have your site rank better, seo is important. You can pay a professional to do it for you, or you can try to do it yourself. Seomoz.org has some helpful articles that are free, if you want to do it yourself.

[LSXPWR]

Doesn't yahoo offer some package to get your name out there?

Anyone have experience with it?