Why "submitting" your site to Google does NOT work!

By Derek Gehl

This week I want to demystify another Google idiosyncrasy...

If you go to www.Google.com/addurl, you'll find a nice little page where Google lets you submit your URL to be reviewed -- and if all goes well, you will be listed in their database under the keywords you've optimized your website for.

So it only seems logical to go to this page and submit your site when you want to get listed in Google's database, right?

Wrong.

Unfortunately, "logic" and "Google" don't always go hand in hand. The fact is, if you optimize your website and submit it to Google, your chances of showing up in their database any time in the next century is slim to none!

However, all is not lost! There are some little-known SEO strategies that will help you get listed in Google as quickly as possible. And today I'm going to tell you what they are.

Now, for the following strategies to make sense, you need to shift the way you think about "Search Engine Submission.

"In the past, all you needed to do was go to the search engine and fill out a submission form, then the search engine would send its "spiders" to your website to review your content and index it accordingly. That's how it still works for many of the smaller search engines -- but not for Google.

These days, in order to get your site listed in Google, you don't want to submit your website directly to Google. Instead, you want Google's spiders to "stumble" across your website on their travels through the Web.

But you don't have to sit back and wait helplessly for the spiders to come!

By putting links to your site on high-traffic web pages, you can make sure that Google finds your site in a matter of weeks -- instead of months.

This doesn't mean you should put your URL all over random websites on the Internet. In fact, if Google finds a link to your website on a web page that's using malicious SEO strategies, it can actually do you more harm than good.

So your goal is to find websites that have what in the SEO world is called "High Authority" and to get your site listed on their site.

What is the easiest way to identify a High Authority sites? Simple... PageRank. The higher the PageRank a site has, the more value you'll get from a link at that site.

Where do you find these elusive "High Authority" sites, so you can get yourself listed on them? Well, here are a few places to start:


1. Submit your site to the top Web Directories

• Google is constantly scanning the top Web directories to see what new sites they have listed. If they find your website in one of these directories, there's a good chance they'll add it to their own listings.
• Google's assumption is simply that if a human reviewed your website and placed it in their directory, then it must be good.
• Here are just a few of the top directories to start with:
• Yahoo Directory
  Best of the Web
  Go Guides
  DMOZ
  Gimpsy
• All of these directories (except DMOZ), do charge a submission fee, but it is typically money well spent.
• (*For the complete list of the Web's top directories, click here now to check out our Search Marketing Labs.)
  

2. Write quality articles and then submit them to the Web's top article directories

• Just make sure you include a link that leads back to your own website. A great place to do this is in an "About the Author" blurb at end of the article.
• The beauty of this strategy is, not only will you get a link pointing to your site from the article directory, if anyone decides to post your article on their site as well, you'll get even more links!
• If you know of any high-traffic websites that are popular with your target market, you should contact them directly and offer to write an original article full of great content they can post on their site. Chances are they'll go for it -- most webmasters understand the value of regularly posting fresh new content on their sites!
  

3. Comment in popular industry forums and blogs

• This is a great free way to get more links pointing back to your site. All you have to do is include a link to your site in your signature block, and then post away!
• Note: Google doesn't take links in blog comments into account when it's determining your PageRank. However, its spiders will follow such links to see where they lead -- so if your primary goal is simply to get indexed by Google, this is an excellent strategy.
• If you do these three things, you will dramatically increase your chance of getting your site listed in Google in as short a time as possible. You can even use these strategies to dramatically increasing the rankings of an existing website!