Despite recent slow downs in the high-tech galaxy, the Internet continues to grow exponentially - and e-commerce with it. When promoting your website in this burgeoning, increasingly competitive universe, one marketing tactic you cannot afford to neglect is search engines. While URL registration is still free and easy on most search engines, the techniques and secrets to obtaining high search rankings become more complex and more labor-intensive every day.

If you're in a competitive market, achieving high search rankings can be serious chore - and learning the nuances of search engine optimization can be a full-time job. There are literally thousands of search engines out there and each one has its own protocols for indexing websites in its database and developing ranking algorithms. Getting high search rankings (for critical keywords) on the principle engines involves a lot of strategy, a little wizardry, and the constant fine-tuning of your web pages, meta-tags, and submission schedules (not to mention other fine points like link-popularity and gateway pages).

Looking for an easy and affordable way to accept credit cards on your website? If so, the eCom Business Pack is your ideal e-commerce solution. It integrates everything you need to sell professionally over the Internet - real-time credit card processing, a secure online order form, a remote shopping cart, detailed transaction reporting, and a
FREE Internet Merchant Account. Click Here to Learn More!

Depending on how important search engines are to your business, you have a number of different options. If search engines do not compose your primary marketing vehicle - or if your niche market is so unique that visitors have no trouble finding you on search queries - then you may be able to get away with a simple do-it-yourself regimen of search engine registration. (Below, you'll find a list of links to registration pages for principal search engines, as well as links to portal directories that can drive a substantial amount of traffic to your website).

If, on the other hand, you're serious about optimizing your website for search engines and want to exploit the myriad techniques to achieving a high search ranking, then you may consider out-sourcing to experts. Why? Because search engines remain the number one way people find new websites on the Internet - and, statistically speaking, more than 60% of your online traffic will be arriving via search engines. Equally important, 90% of all Internet users never view search listings past the 20th ranked position, which means that effective search engine strategy involves battling for one of the top 20 spots on a search query.

Nowadays, you can find search engine optimization/registration companies that will work for you for a year, strategically submitting your website to the many thousands of search engines on regular basis. They'll also develop strategies to increase your link popularity so you can grab a high ranking across a wider spectrum of engines - and all for just a few hundred dollars.

If you want to keep things in-house, the first thing to do is familiarize yourself with the different ways search engines operate. Some search engines determine ranking by the number of links pointing to your site. Others directory sites compile and categorize URLs using living, keyboard wielding editors. On more and more engines, you can purchase ranking by bidding for a position on a keyword and paying for every click-through to your website. It's wise to do research on the search engines you plan to submit to and come up with an overall strategy that integrates, at the very least, well developed meta-tags and keyword-rich content for strong relevancy/scoring with the search engines.

There are more search engines on the Net than there are stars in the sky, so here is just a shortlist of a few principle sites to get you started - with direct links to their submission pages.

WebCrawler

Google

HotBot

Northern Light

DMOZ - Open Directory

Direct Hit

Lycos

Alta Vista

For around two hundred dollars, you can also register your business with powerful directories like Yahoo! or Looksmart. These directory portals are responsible for moving a great deal of traffic on the Net, and most businesses that monitor their web traffic statistics will tell you that paying for a year's visibility (under a specified business category or two) is a sound investment. Here are the two main directory portals.

Yahoo! Business Express

Looksmart Express Submit

Whether you decide to outsource to the professionals or keep your search engine strategy in-house, it clearly pays dividends to play your search engine cards intelligently. Optimization is the first step and, depending on your business model and market, an acute, tactical search strategy may be the only marketing vehicle your business will ever need.

Need Marketing help? Contact Paymentonline to speak with an ecommerce marketing consultant.