After launching new websites for our clients, we often get asked questions that are along the lines of “What’s the next step?” or “How do I get some traffic”. Both big questions with many different solutions.
Today we will focus on how to get your website indexed into search engines and put into local business directories. Follow the action steps in this article and you’ll be off to a great start.
1. Add Website to Local Business Directories
If you’re only business is local, then this section is especially important. Here are the steps you need to take to get into the local directories, search engines and other pages:
Register for Google local
Local customers already search Google for the products and services you offer. Google local helps create a listing for you so that your site will come up. It’s free and powerful. Create a business listing to be sure they find you.
ACTION STEPS:
- Go to google.com/local/add and watch the introduction video
- Register your business with Google
- Add yourself to the map
ShopCities (applies only if your in the Simcoe county and surrounding areas county area)
ShopCities.com is a very popular local business directory. You may have seen the signs promoting shopmidland.com, shopbarrie.com and the like around your local business area. If you haven’t, you soon will. These guys are serious about helping local business.
They offer free and paid packages. At the very least, get yourself on the free package. You don’t actually need a website to be here but it’s highly recommended. Chances are, if someone is using the Internet to find you, they’ll want see a website backing you.
There is an excellent video introduction on there website that will explain things in greater detail.
ACTION STEPS:
Kijiji.ca
Post a free ad on kijiji. They have both paid and free options. This is a great way for some initial traffic and leads. We have received great results from doing ads on kijiji.
ACTION STEPS:
- Go to kijiji.ca
- On the top navigation you will see “Post Ad – Free” – click that
- Follow instructions
- Post your add for free and link to your website in the description.
2. Search Engines
A search engine is simply a website where people type in “key words” about the topic they are searching for in order to get a list of websites and information. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. A search engine works by sending out what’s called a “spider” program to fetch as many documents (website files) as possible and then index them and serve results to people that are looking for the information. Your goal is to get your website indexed in these search engines. Let’s do that now.
Ahh Google! This is one guy you’ll want to co-operate with. Google has an approximate market share of over 70%. Yes.. over 70% of the people searching online are using Google to find what they are looking for. For this reason alone, it’s vital you get listed or “indexed” with them. Here’s how you do that:
ACTION STEPS:
- Go to www.google.com/addurl
- Read short introduction information so you can understand how everything works
- Submit site and you’re done.
There are a number of ways to enhance your rank (position in search results) but are beyond the scope of this article. However, here are a couple more things you can do to get a better rank in the index.
- Create compelling, valuable content for your customers via a blog, video, or other means and post it on your website. Also make sure it’s web readable. Learn more about making your content “web ready”
- Follow and study the webmaster guidelines at www.google.com/webmaster
Yahoo
Yahoo is a great search engine to be indexed in. But it works a little bit differently then google. What you can do is suggest that your site be included. Yahoo will then review and decide.
ACTION STEPS:
- Go to http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
- Read all options available to you.
- Click first link called “Submit your site for free”
- Follow instructions, your done.
MSN / Bing
This is an easy one.
ACTION STEPS:
- Go to http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx
- Submit url. Done.
3. Posting your URL Anywhere you can
Another great free way to expose your site is to
post your URL (www.example.com) anywhere you can.
- Here are some suggestions:
- Social media sites such as (facebook, myspace, twitter)
- Your email footer or signature
- If you post on forums, put your link in your signature
- Business cards, brochures, receipts, checks
- Anywhere you can think of!
If you’ve done all the action steps in this post, your site will eventually be indexed. This can takes a few days up to a few weeks. Keep rolling out valuable content on your website. If you do this on a consistent basis, traffic won’t be a problem for you.
In future posts we will go over some more advanced concepts of SEO (search engine optimization) and other marketing techniques such as building a list.
