Is Search Engine Submission Necessary?

The sim­ple answer is no – search engi­ne sub­mis­sion isn’t neces­sa­ry. The majo­ri­ty of search engi­nes nowa­days (most nota­bly Google) crawl and index pages by fol­lo­wing links. Using that logic, a sin­gle inbo­und link from any alre­­a­dy-inde­­xed page will iden­ti­fy your page to the engi­ne. Sub­se­qu­en­tly, if that page links to other pages within your site, they will also be inde­xed… and so on.

For this reason, inbo­und lin­king is very impor­tant. In fact, acqu­iring back-links may be the most impor­tant of SEO. In the­ory tho­ugh, a websi­te owner shouldn’t have to ’sco­ut’ or ‘hunt’ for links. If the pre­sen­ted con­tent is of inte­rest, use­ful, and/or impor­tant, the­re is a natu­ral ten­den­cy among web users to link to infor­ma­tion. This is the basis for the Google Page­Rank algorithm.

With all due respect, sub­mit­ting your site to the search engi­nes can’t hurt. Plus, it only enta­ils abo­ut 5 minu­tes of added work assu­ming you only sub­mit to the big guys. And once is eno­ugh… you don’t need to sub­mit your site more than once. It doesn’t help or get your site craw­led any quic­ker or more often.

It sho­uld be noted that sub­mit­ting your site to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and many others doesn’t cost a fee. Many SEO com­pa­nies assert that you need to pay to be inde­xed. This isn’t the case and I would stay away from the­se com­pa­nies. They are money hun­gry and aren’t looking out for your best interest.

Would you ever con­si­der going on a vaca­tion across the coun­try witho­ut brin­ging a map? It is hard eno­ugh to find your way in some pla­ces with a map. How hard would it be if you tried this adven­tu­re witho­ut one? Yet, this is exac­tly what people do eve­ry sin­gle day in the onli­ne world. They tried to build the­ir own busi­nesses onli­ne witho­ut having a road­map to suc­cess. Then, after mon­ths or years of just wan­de­ring aro­und onli­ne, they give up in fru­stra­tion and quit. They walk away say­ing that the Inter­net doesn’t work for them. The reason it did­n’t work is that they did­n’t pick up a map and fol­low it!

You don’t have to end up lost in the onli­ne shuf­fle. Below I will give you ten steps to help you map out your cour­se and get you star­ted in the right direc­tion. It isn’t eve­ry­thing that you need to know by any stretch of the ima­gi­na­tion, but it will give you a basic foun­da­tion to build upon.

Con­si­der it your begin­ne­r’s map to Inter­net mar­ke­ting profits.

1. Choose a targeted market

The big­gest mista­ke most people make when star­ting a busi­ness is that they cho­ose a pro­duct and then try to find people who want to buy it. If that is the direc­tion you are star­ting from on your jour­ney, then you are going the oppo­si­te direc­tion from your desti­na­tion. Wise busi­nesses ope­ra­te from a dif­fe­rent con­cept. They pick a mar­ket first, and then they pick a pro­duct tho­se people are sear­ching for. In other words, inste­ad of try­ing to find leads to sell the­ir pro­duct to, they find tar­ge­ted leads and then ask them what they are wan­ting to buy.

Don’t even con­si­der star­ting a busi­ness until you know exac­tly whe­re you are going to get your leads from. Think tar­ge­ted custo­mers first. Then, you can come up with a pro­duct for tho­se indi­vi­du­als. Would you rather have 1,000 hits a day at your site of a gene­ral audien­ce OR 10 hits a day of people who are despe­ra­te and wil­ling to pay any pri­ce to buy your pro­ducts? If you are smart, you will cho­ose the people who are ready to buy!

2. Develop a Product

Next, you need to deve­lop a pro­duct or servi­ce for this mar­ket. Don’t just jump on the ban­dwa­gon of affi­lia­te pro­grams when you come to this step. The­re are three major ways to sel­ling a pro­duct online:

a. You create your own exclusive product.

This is the best oppor­tu­ni­ty you have. If you deve­lop your own pro­duct, you can pick it’s pri­ce, sell reprint rights to others, set up an affi­lia­te pro­gram, etc. Don’t tell me you can’t do this. Tens of tho­usands of inno­va­ti­ve entre­pre­neurs have used the­ir own infor­ma­tion pro­ducts to get the­ir care­ers star­ted. You can to.

Thro­ugho­ut your life, I am sure that the­re is some­thing you have lear­ned that you can sha­re in a How-To pro­duct. May­be you know some­one else who has the right know­led­ge for a How-To pro­duct and you could offer to help them cre­ate a pro­duct if you both sha­red the rights to it. Don’t just jump past this oppor­tu­ni­ty and say it can’t be done.

b. You buy the rights to a product or you JV for an offline product.

You can buy the rights to suc­cess­ful pro­ducts for $500 – $20,000. If some­one else has cre­ated a pro­duct that you know your tar­ge­ted mar­ket is inte­re­sted in, offer them a lar­ge up-front fee for the rights to it. This way you can get your own pro­duct and never have to pay a pen­ny in roy­al­ties. You can also search thro­ugh maga­zi­nes your tar­ge­ted mar­ket reads and look for pro­ducts people are sel­ling. Then, give them a call and ask for the exc­lu­si­ve Inter­net rights to the­ir pro­duct for a cer­ta­in per­cen­ta­ge of the pro­fits or an up-front fee.

c. You join an affiliate program.

If you are just star­ting out onli­ne, this can be a good cho­ice. You do have to keep in mind tho­ugh that it doesn’t offer quite the pro­fit poten­tial that cre­ating your own pro­duct or obta­ining rights to one has.When cho­osing an affi­lia­te pro­gram, make sure that it is some­thing your tar­ge­ted mar­ket can­not be witho­ut. They abso­lu­te­ly have to have it. Also pay spe­cial atten­tion to the pro­fits you rece­ive from each sale.

If you are only be paid 5% com­mis­sions on the sales of $10 books, you will only be making 50 cents per custo­mer. It would take 2,000 custo­mers just to pro­duct $1,000 in pro­fits. You can­not make money like this onli­ne! Look for higher pri­ced pro­ducts and higher commissions…especially com­mis­sions in the 25% or higher range.

3. Create a USP

Cre­ate a Uni­que Sel­ling Posi­tion for your pro­duct or servi­ce. Too many com­pa­nies are just try­ing to be me-too com­pa­nies onli­ne. You can­not be just like the next guy and expect to make a pro­fit in a glo­bal eco­no­my. Just going to the next guy­’s web site to order is too easy for your customers.

You have to cre­ate a Uni­qu­eness to your pro­duct or offer. What can you offer that no one else can? Can you offer bet­ter guaran­te­es, bet­ter custo­mer servi­ce, more tech­ni­cal sup­port, faster ship­ping, or lower pri­ces. Think of some­thing that will set you apart from all of your onli­ne com­pe­ti­tors and tell in com­ple­te deta­il what it is.

4. Pick a Domain Name and Hosting Service

The next step is to pick a doma­in name that descri­bes your com­pa­ny, USP, and offer. Try to keep them as short and descrip­ti­ve abo­ut your busi­ness as possi­ble. Avo­id using dashes or mis­spel­lings of your pro­duct. Both of the­se things will cau­se people to leave out part of your doma­in if they type it in. Some­one else will be get­ting free traf­fic that you wor­ked hard to obtain.

For hosting, I per­so­nal­ly cho­ose to use Vir­tu­alis sin­ce they have the Fastest custo­mer servi­ce and tech­ni­cal sup­port in the indu­stry. Test them out. They will respond to you within the hour…anytime 24 hours a day. No other com­pa­ny I have ever been with has even come close!

5. Deve­lop a Custo­mer Frien­dly Site

The next step in the pro­cess is to deve­lop your web site and put it up for the world to see. If you are plan­ning to own a full-time Inter­net busi­ness, I recom­mend that you learn how to design the site your­self using one of dozens of pro­grams which are readi­ly ava­ila­ble at any softwa­re store.

You will save so much money if you can do the work your­self on just the edi­ting alo­ne as your site grows. If your main busi­ness is offli­ne and you are just adding a secon­da­ry inco­me, then you may want to con­si­der having a pro­fes­sio­nal do your site for you.

When desi­gning your site, keep the custo­mer in mind always. Pro­vi­de order forms for onli­ne cre­dit card orders. Make all of the links easy to under­stand. Try to keep your site sim­ple. Think like a custo­mer, not the busi­ness owner.

Your custo­mers are not near­ly as inte­re­sted in your busi­ness as you are. Make sure to put the bene­fits of your site and your USP right on top of the site. More than half of the web sur­fers never drop down past the first scre­en full of infor­ma­tion. So, you have to give them the infor­ma­tion they need as quic­kly as possi­ble. The rules for any type of busi­ness are Bene­fits, Bene­fits, and more Benefits.

6. Offer a Freebie

One of the major keys to deve­lo­ping traf­fic and sales at your site is to always offer some type of fre­ebie as a dra­wing fac­tor. For exam­ple, I offer dozens of free reports, weather reports, news, and more. My gre­atest dra­wing fac­tor thro­ugho­ut the past 8 mon­ths tho­ugh has been the two free e‑books which we offer on our site to people who sub­scri­be to this newsletter.

You need to come up with a fre­ebie no mat­ter what type of busi­ness you are in. Cre­ate a free report and give it away. Add in a mes­sa­ge board or some other type of CGI pro­gram on your site. Give a free demo of your softwa­re. Cre­ate some­thing that you can give away for free on your site to draw in the visitors.

7. Start Your Own Opt-In List

Almost eve­ry full-time Inter­net mar­ke­ter I know has deve­lo­ped the­ir own Opt-in ema­il list of some type. For most of them, it is a weekly new­slet­ter they send out by ema­il. For others, it may be a Tip of the Day. Other people might just have a list that they send out impor­tant upda­tes to.

No mat­ter what you cho­ose to do, odds will be on your side if you con­cen­tra­te on buil­ding a list of loy­al ema­il sub­scri­bers. Very rare­ly do custo­mers pur­cha­se from you the first time they visit your site. Most of them will get on your list, hang out for a few weeks or mon­ths, and then they buy from you. They have to get to know you befo­re they are wil­ling to spend the­ir money with you.

I have found that the most effec­ti­ve leads come from offli­ne adver­ti­sing. For exam­ple, you could pur­cha­se ads in a popu­lar tar­ge­ted maga­zi­ne for your busi­ness. You could also pur­cha­se a post­card in one of the card decks. Start up a co-op and get 10 other people to adver­ti­se with you and run your own ads for free. Offli­ne leads which come to your site often turn out to con­ta­in a much higher per­cen­ta­ge of buy­ers than any of the onli­ne adver­ti­sing methods.
Once you put our short 10 step outli­ne toge­ther you have a basic map to cre­ating your own Inter­net suc­cess sto­ry. You would­n’t con­si­der going on a trip witho­ut a map. So don’t try to go it alo­ne onli­ne witho­ut a map.
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