So, you have your shiny new website, full of functionality, great toys to amuse people, and its all set and primed with a good standard of SEO. So you wait. And you wait. After a few weeks, you still can’t find your site when you type your keywords into Google, and according to Google analytics, the Marie Celeste has had more visitors than you.

What have you done wrong?

Well, this is a problem that we often encounter. People do the right things for their sites, but leave out one or two vital pieces of the puzzle that makes the difference between and successful site and an unsuccessful one. A common mistake is submitting their site to the search engines that they want to list for.

Sometimes search engines need to have someone come to them and wave a flag and shout “Hey! Come here and look at the site I have made and have put on the Internet!” as you cant rely on them to pick up your site automatically.

So, how is this accomplished? Well, lets take Google for example. With Google, using their Webmaster Tools, you can create an XML sitemap and submit it to them for them to take a look at. This allows them to index your site, normally in a matter of hours. Other search engines use different methods. For MSN for example, you can go to http://search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx to submit your site.  For Yahoo you could use http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/uk/free/request

These actions don’t guarantee that your site will work, but it is definitely good practice to submit them anyway.  They could potentially bring an increase in business from the very moment your site goes live.
And isn’t that worth it?

There are many ways to speed up the process of getting a fresh domain indexed by your favourite search engine. The aim for all search engines is to present the most relevant documents for the search phrase. The first thing to remember is that your site should follow all relevant site protocol and employ honest SEO standards to each individual page. Try to make the content original and factual also interesting for the reader, there is always something to say about the product or service you want to promote.
Do your research, first, think carefully about what you want to say about your product or service and the audience you want to attract. You might have the best product or service in your particular area but if the (SEO) promotion is not channeled to the right place the site will always lack bite. The structure of each page should have a similar layout with original content and no duplicate content especially in the headings.  Every Site should follow the basic SEO standards that also employ WC3 compliance and SEO friendly coding.
A good analogy would be to image your site as your home where each room is accessible only if you open the right door. Remember your site is your personal or professional space where you should know every area. And of course if you were selling or showing your house to interested parties you would push the good points and avoid the bad ones. You would I hope at the least make sure that every thing is in good working order and every thing is in the right place.  For instance you would expect every door in your home to open. Similar with your web site you would expect everything to be in order including spelling, grammar, structure, graphics, information, arrangement and content.

The site must have responsive internal links that makes it friendly to navigate and make sure there are no wasted links, each link should link to the right pages and so on.  The most important factor for internal opimisation is of course is relevant content about your product or promotion.