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Submitting your site to search engines...

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:40:48 -0500

What is a “search engine?”
Search engines are programs used to search the web. They use huge databases that are built and maintained by other programs that go out on the world wide web and “index” as many web pages as they can find. When you enter a question or “search term” into a search engine like Google, Yahoo! Search or the MSN search engine, you are searching very rapidly through those databases for pages that contain the text you entered. You will want the search engines to know about your web site so that people will find it when they are looking for the information you are publishing.
Are you ready?
Before you submit you your web site to search engines you want to be sure that the site is ready for “prime time.” Use the following checklist to be absolutely sure your site is submission-ready:
• Are all pages finished? (You don’t want any “under construction” pages on a site that is ready to use.)
• Do all of your links work? Other sites will disappear or change their web addresses from time to time.
• If your site is selling things, is your ordering process or shopping cart functional and tested for bugs?
• Are you prepared to handle a sudden influx of traffic and/or sales?
Have you tested your site for usability? You need to check and recheck it yourself and have others do so, as well.
 Know the information you will need for submitting to search engines.
Write down the following information:
Your site's main web address (The address of the home page). for example: http://www.going-strong-seniors.com
Your site's Title (the name of your site that you want listed in engines. This will is usually be a company or organization name . For example: Eulogia Trading Company, or Going Strong Seniors.
A short description of your page/site content (10-20 words)
A long description of your page/site content (30-50 words)
A list of the important keywords for your site. In other words, for what search engine words to you want the search engines to find your site?
Your email address. Use an address associated with the site you are submitting if possible. Most web site hosts give you email addresses that have the same domain as the sites they are hosting for you.
Keep track of the search engines to which you submit.
Keep track of the information you submit to each search engine. You may need it later. When you are submitting to search engines they often warn you not to submit more than once. I’m not sure what the penalty would be for multiple submissions, but it doesn’t help.
I also check occasionally and record the dates when my sites start showing up in the search engines. It is possible for a site to be listed and then to disappear later. In such cases you will want to know when it was first there.
Where to submit.
It is the case that most search engines will find your site, even if you do not submit it, if an indexed site is linked to it. However, I believe that submitted sites show up sooner, and your goal is to get traffic to your site as quickly as possible.
Pandia.com offers a list of major search engines and detailed information about submitting to them. This site also has information about companies and organizations that will submit your site for you. Many of them are free.

Making money with Google Adwords

Sat, 8 Mar 2008 10:25:00 -0600

You will notice that I have little ads on my pages. As you can tell, these ads are provided by Google. I have used Google’s almost miraculous searching programs hundreds of times, and often wondered how they expected to make money doing that. Imagine my surprise when I kept hearing that Google was making millions of dollars on a regular basis. Well, here is how they do it.

“AdWords” is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. That means that advertisers pay Google to get their ads in front of people who have expressed an interest in their products and services. Google then contracts with people who maintain web sites (like me) to put the ads on their sites. When people search for certain topics using the Google search program, they get information about web sites that related to those topics. Some of those web sites have the little Google ads on them.

Now, here is the really cool part! Google has ways of “indexing” the web sites that they have ads on. Those indexes contain “keywords” that tell Google what information the web pages have on them. Google, in turn, interactively delivers ads that directly relate to the topics on those pages! The theory is that people who arrive at a page by searching for certain information will be somewhat likely to follow a link from a little ad related to that topic. Whenever they do so, Google collects a small fee from the advertiser and gives a little bit of that fee to the person who hosted the ad on his/her web site! What an idea!

The amounts of money changing hands for individual “click throughs” on the ads is very small; pennies or fractions of pennies. However, the number of potential customers using Google’s search programs is huge; hundreds of millions!

The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google's text advertisements are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines. Image ads can be several sizes, but they are all relatively small and unobtrusive.

When you click on one of those little ads there is never any obligation at the other end. You are just going to get some more information that is likely to be of interest to you. Of course, you are going to be getting it from an advertiser that wants to sell you something. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong with that!

Wow, man... did you sleep in those clothes?

Sat, 8 Mar 2008 07:18:41 -0600

Well... actually, yes I did. But then, that’s the point, isn’t it? Here I am, up early in the morning, at home, making money doing something I really like. I am retired, so I try to do mostly what I enjoy. Making a little money is just, as they say, gravy. (Umm, that makes me hungry! I think I’ll stop and have some biscuits and gravy before I tell you more.)

I’m supposed to be “retired,” so I make a point of trying to do what I like. I like writing, being creative, playing with computers and cameras, and stuff like that. I also like hanging around and talking with people my age who have common interests. Ta-daaa!

If you think that any of this sounds like something you might enjoy, stay tuned! (That means subscribe to this column.) I’ll tell you lots more!