Your Search Engine Submission Budget
Despite the rise in "paid participation" programs offered by search engines, free search engine submission is still possible. However, using the paid programs that are offered will speed up the listing process and almost certainly generate more search engine related traffic for your web site.
Given this, it is highly recommended that any site owner establish a search engine submission budget. This is true whether you are running a commercial web site, a "hobbyist" site in your own time or a site for a non-profit organization.
The Minimum Budget: Yahoo
How much to budget? At minimum, you MAY want to cover submission to Yahoo's human-compiled directory for one year. This is because the flat $300 annual fee that Yahoo charges may help ensures that major crawler-based search engines pick up your home page quickly.
Huh? Pay to be in human-compiled results in hopes of influencing crawlers? Crawlers analyze links from across the web to decide which pages they should pick up and potentially rank well. Being listed in Yahoo's human-compiled directory is potentially one of the best links you can gain, to influence crawlers.
It may be that crawlers will find your page and perhaps rank it well even without the benefit of a Yahoo link. So if money is tight, wait two or three months after you launch your site and see how you do. If you still aren't doing well with crawlers, then spending the money with Yahoo may help you.
I Need To Be Listed Fast!
Often, those who launch new web sites want to appear in search engines right away. A key way to do this is by using paid placement programs, as explained further in this guide.
The budget below will get you going for at least a month, in most cases. After that, it may be that you'll have some "natural" or "free" listings appearing. When this happens, you could potentially stop doing advertising -- though a wiser course is to continue with advertising as insurance against potential problems with your free listings.
Paid Listings Budget |
Overture (GoTo) |
$50 |
Google |
$25 |
Total |
$75 |
Bottom Line
Now let's put it all together. Here's the ideal amount you would budget, if you want to show up in the widest range of important search engines within a matter of days:
Search Engine Submission Budget |
Yahoo |
$300 |
Paid Listings |
$75 |
Total |
$375 |
Again, you can get listed without spending a penny, as will be explained on the following pages. However, if your goal is to be seen right away in as many places as possible, you'll set aside the amount shown above, in the combined budget. |
