You Don’t Have to Pay

Hello.

It was great to see everyone at the Alameda Chamber mixer tonight. Good people here in Alameda. I was asked by a regular visitor to my blog that I must be busy since I haven’t posted in awhile. (Check out all the other people who “haven’t written in awhile” – 1.15 million) Well, I thought I better post or I may start to loose my audience.

While at tonight’s Alameda Chamber mixer, a fellow member mentioned to me that her brother (I believe) created a new website for her company and wanted to know how to get it listed with the search engines. She specifically asked, “Do I have to pay to get listed?” I told her no, you don’t have to pay, just make sure at least one website links to yours, otherwise the search engines won’t be able to find your website. And I quote Google:

“The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites.”

Google and other search engines search the web, going from link to link – just like us humans – to find your website. So the more links you have to your site, the more likely your website will be found.

I also told her to start with the Open Directory. Here you’ll get at least one link back to your website.

On a footnote (if you want to read more)

I get asked a lot about submitting your website to the search engines. There really isn’t a need to submit your website if you have other websites linking to yours, but it can’t hurt. Here are the most popular to submit to:

Submit your website to Google
Yahoo Submission
MSN Submission

Mike Swartz says, “Check it out.”