A Complete Waste of Money? Yes.

Marketing To Brides
Q&A With Chris Jaeger

Q: Chris, we're paying $40/month to have our website submitted to over 1000 search engines. I'm not sure what we're getting for our investment. Our search engine positioning doesn't seem to be improving. What do you think?

A: Submitting your website monthly to search engines has little, probably no, value. You're throwing your money way. If you've got time to kill submitting your website to lots of search engines may have some value - over time. I'd focus on Google, Yahoo!, and MSN (in that order).

If you're website is "in" Google (or Yahoo!) already there's no need to keep telling them about your website. Once they've found it they should regularly crawl it. Actually, the Google folks I spoke with told me at Webmaster World in Las Vegas told me: "there's no need to resubmit your website each month..."

If you're website is NOT in the Google "index" and not showing up then the best way to "get in" is to let Google find your website through ANOTHER website.

Let me say that again, carefully, because that is HOW you get in:

Let Google find your website (link) at another website. Preferably, it's a wedding themed website, as that will have more "weight" than a link from a non-wedding themed website.

Google does have a page where you can submit your website: http://www.google.com/addurl.html but most folks I talk with seem to think it doesn't really "get you in."

The second part of your question touches the issue of better placement. Since submitting your website has no value it certainly won't help your website get better placement or top ranking. To do that you'll need a search engine optimization strategy.

Chris Jaeger
Book More Weddings
http://www.bookmoreweddings.com

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