Search Engine Submission: Help Google Find Your Site

You've probably heard of SEO, but you may not be aware that there are onsite and offsite SEO. Onsite SEO is about optimizing your site with keywords. More on this in my previous article Basic Guide to SEO. Offsite SEO is what you do away from your site, such as backlinking. Both are important, but if you haven't properly submitted your site to search engines, you are missing an important step. If you follow the steps below, your Alexa ranking should start moving up. Add Your Url to Search Engines Add your site url to all three major search engines. You can do this at the links below: Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurlrnYahoo: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submitrnBing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx Verify Your Url Next, verify your site. It is said that Google favors verified sites, and it is easy to do. If you don't already have a webmaster account, you will need to create one. Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/rnYahoo: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysitesrnBing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/WebmasterManageSitesPage.aspx Once you are logged into your account, add your site url. Next, verify your site. Follow the instructions on each of the links above, but there's usually two ways to do this. One is to upload a verification file to your main directory, the other one is to add a verification code in your page header. You can do this in your html editor program such as DreamWeaver, and if you don't have one, you can use the file manager in your hosting account. If you have a WordPress blog, you can also use the editor in your WordPress admin control panel. Submit Your Sitemap Next, submit your xml sitemap in each of the account managers above. If you don't know what a sitemap is, Google "sitemap generator", and you will find free sitemap generators. WordPress has a number of sitemap plugins as well. Keep in mind that completing these steps will probably not directly bring traffic to your site, but it will make search engines find your site easier. Alexa ranking is just an added bonus. To learn more about SEO, continue reading below.