The job of the web designer does not end with the designing of the web-site. The professional web designer normally undertakes an integrated contract. He/she is expected to provide a complete set of services which begins with domain registration and ends with search engine registration and includes areas like hosting, designing and uploading.

Generally, clients are unaware of the intricacies of web promotion. Most probably known is that it involves getting their site listed on the search engines. However, there are millions of web pages on the web and all are vying for first page placement on the few well-known search engines which makes it very difficult to return a new site high up in the SERP's. The client expects this listing as a part of their web design contract and as a web designer if you wish to retain that client for a long period and want that client to pay your renewal fee next year, you'd better provide that client with a top-class search engine registration and optimization service!

Stage 1 >
After the website is duly designed, that is - after the layouts and dicing & converting to HTML have been accomplished, you must explain the importance of the title, keyword and description metas to your client. Please remember - refrain from the temptation of generating keywords on your client's behalf. The right individual to suggest same is none other than the client themselves as they know their business best! Of course, you can help with the grammar, phrasing, etc. but the germ of the idea must come directly from the client. There are hundreds of articles and tips & tricks on search engine registration and placement available on the web most of which are outside of the scope of this article.

Stage 2>
Copy & paste the title, keyword and description meta tags generated by your client into the HTML pages of the web site. Now your site is ready to get registered with the search engine but wait a minute... it is here that you face the question:

HOW DO I SUBMIT MY SITE TO THESE SEARCH ENGINES?

Don't panic!

Relax. There are various methods of submitting your site to the search engines.

Do it manually
Every search engine has an "add your site" link. The link names may differ from search engine to search engine. For example, some call it "Suggest a Site", others say, "Add Your URL" or "Suggest A URL" or "Add A Link", etc. Many search engines provide this simple facility on their home page but a few good search engines first urge you to select the appropriate category before adding the URL thus making the whole process systematic and efficient. Depending on the search engine and its submission policy the URL or link submission form will often request details such as title, keywords, description, company name, first name, last name, contact details, e-mail address, etc. Please note that there is generally a field and textarea restriction on title length, number of keywords and the length of the description. Some search engines restrict the number of keywords to 10, 15, 20, generally, a title may comprise of 50 to 80 characters and the description limit may range from 100 characters to 300 characters. If you are submitting manually it takes an average of five minutes to fill in a search engine submission form. The process of finding the search engines, visiting each one of them, locating the submission form and filling in the details is a long, tedious and near impossible one especially when you have as many as 1500+ search engines to submit to! However, if submitting manually you should make sure that you first cover the most popular search engines such as HotBot, Altavista, Lycos, Yahoo, MSN, Google, Excite, Alltheweb, Northernlight and also some from your country of origin.

Use free submission services
There are many services available which allow you to submit your sites to search engines. However, this system is not without a few disadvantages, viz.: they may submit to very few search engines, they may be slow, etc. Since a high volume of pages are received from such free services, the search engines have become smarter and all may soon start rejecting pages forwarded by such services.

Use of paid auto-submit services
There are certain sites which run paid search engine and directory submission services. Some of them use specialized submission software and for this purpose they charge users anything from 50USD to 90USD per web site registration. Spending money for such services reduces the bottom line of your contract and is not of much use since these sites function in much the same manner as free submission services.

[ WebPosition Gold ]
WebPosition Gold is a wonderful tool for automating your search engine submission process and that to 200+ major search engines and directories.

All you have to do is fill in the relevant details such as title, keywords, description and contact details then simply sit back and relax. Within 3-4 hours the program has done your job. A process which if done manually would probably take 7500 man hours! That's not all! It also generates a report with the date of submission, names of search engines and success or failure stats. If you get disconnected from the internet, it allows you to select search engines that were pending which means you don't have to go back to square one. It creates a profile for each website submission job separately so you can show your search engine report to your client as proof of submission. If your client is still not getting the desired response, you can simply resubmit with the help of WebPosition Gold. All it entails is a 3-4 hour job! Additionally, most SEO specialists recommended that there be a gap of at least 90 days before resubmission of a site. WebPosition Gold preserves the dates of previous submissions digitally thus making it easier for you to keep track of the date you last submitted. It is the best tool for ensuring customer satisfaction without costing you much time and money. On a personal note, merely by offering this service and executing it well we have secured regular renewals of our contracts from clients. Almost all of them have reported that they are getting good enquiries and closing orders because they are listed on top of the most important search engines.

Here's hoping this article will serve as a helpful guideline to you in avoiding some common SEO pitfalls and help you towards generating a growing and loyal customer base who continues to renew their contracts!