As soon as you register your domain name, submit it to Google!

Even if you haven’t built your site, or written an copy, or even thought about your content, submit your domain name to Google. In fact, even if you haven’t fully articulated your business plan and marketing plan, submit your domain name to Google.

Don’t wait!

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, getting on search engines has always taken a long time for a new site. Even assuming you do everything right, it takes months before your site is even indexed, and more months before it starts to rank well. As a rule of thumb, never expect to rank highly within 6 months of submitting your site to Google.

The second reason is a recent phenomenon called ‘Google Sandbox’. Many SEO experts believe that Google ‘sandboxes’ new websites. Whenever it detects a new website, it withholds its rightful ranking for a period while it determines whether your site is a genuine, credible, long term site. It does this to discourage creation of SPAM websites (sites which serve no useful purpose other than to boost ranking of some other site).

By submitting your domain name to Google as soon as you register it, you’re establishing a site history even if site has no content. By time you’ve built your site, written your copy, and developed rest of your content (and written your business and marketing plans), Google will probably see no need to sandbox you.

If you wait until launch day to submit your site, you’ll spend a month or two (maybe more) sitting in sandbox watching potential customers spend their money elsewhere.

How to submit your site to Google

Don’t waste money by paying someone else to submit your site to Google. It’s easy!

Simply go to http://www.google.com.au/addurl.html, enter your URL (domain name) and a few comments or keywords to describe your site. Then click ‘Submit’. That’s all there is to it. You only have to do it once, and only for your top level page (i.e. Home page).

Google’s robots will then crawl your website next time they’re out and about. Of course, they don’t guarantee that you’ll be included in their results.

IMPORTANT: As mentioned above, it takes quite a while for your site to appear in search engines. This is partly because search engines are big and slow – especially when it comes to new sites. It will take a minimum of 6-8 weeks before your site is indexed.

How to submit your site to other search engines

There are hundreds of search engines on Internet. It’s a lucrative business, after all! But don’t panic; studies suggest that top 11 search engines account for about 90% of web traffic. In other words, if you have top 11 covered, there’s no need to submit to rest.

Essentially, that’s where power of advertising is going. It’s all about Search. And Search is only going to become more important over next ten years. If you can get on that coveted first page organically, well then, more power to you!

I know you probably have read other articles about writing SEO copy and how it relates to achieving high search rankings, there are plenty of them to go around. But some of articles are complicated; some are too long, others boring. Still others don’t explain that great SEO copy is rarely effective just on it’s own – in order to get those high rankings (which is goal after all), you have to do other things too. So, we decided that what most people really needed was a “down and dirty”, easy to understand, ten step method. You ask, and we deliver. Here are official ten steps in order:

1)Check your Competitors Who are your competitors? Do you know? If you don’t, you may want to go online and do a search for your product or service. Who is on first two pages? That is your target. Those are companies that you want to compete with. Because right now, they are getting your customers. Take a look at their website. Notice copy. Analyze their business. Are they successful? What are they not doing right? Look for holes. You’re going to meet needs of their customers (that they are not fulfilling) so they become YOUR customers.

2)Research your Keyword Phrases Remember, Keyword Phrase research is critically important. It can also be a little tricky. Do you know what keywords or keyword phrases your customers search for when they look for you? Are you sure? See what your competitors are using. You can do this by right clicking on their home page, selecting “View Source” and then checking their keyword meta tag. Next, go on to Overture.com (Now Yahoo), click on “Visit Advertiser” section, and use their Keyword Selector Tool. Its great – and its free. You can also use Wordtracker.com, but it does cost $7.50/day.

3)Write Good Copy Now its time to start writing. Or re-writing. And if you can’t write, you can hire a website copywriter to do it for you. The bottom line is to write about benefits, not features. Don’t tell them how great your company is. They will discover that for themselves when you overwhelm them with your service and deliver perfect product that meets their every need. Make copy to point and snappy. Make it sure it has impact, and asks potential customer for their business.