Submitting Your Website to Search Engines

If you have a web-based business or if a significant portion of your business is done on the web through your website, then the best advertising and marketing is done by submitting to a search engine. No amount of press release, newspaper or radio ad, banner ad, spam email or newsletter will achieve the same results, although, maybe effective in a small proportion.

Beware of companies that promise automatic submission of your website to hundreds of search engines which are but only false promises. The best way to submit your website for search engine ranking and inclusion is to do it yourself or to hire an expert to do it manually, by contacting the search engine companies and directories.

Before you begin to submit your website to search engines ensure your websites are thoroughly designed to the professional quality using the right key words, good graphics and pictures and the relevant content. Don’t submit websites that are incomplete. While submitting to a search engine, make sure to provide information about your website, keywords and any other information that may be pertinent, including the name and contact information of your business.

Mere submission to search engine companies does not guarantee that your site would be immediately listed and the ranking will be high. Because there are thousands of new websites coming up every day and it may take quite sometime before they take up your site for review by human editors. One important factor to remember while submitting site is to include a site map of your website which makes the crawling easy for the web robots. Search engines like ‘http://www.google.com’ hardly considers submissions without sitemaps.

There are many online companies that accept search engine submission services. You can choose to do it yourself with a software package and service like this one:

http://www.webposition.com/order/trial.asp?WT.mc_id=google%3A%7Bifsearch%3Asearch%7D%7Bifcontent%3Acontent%7D%3A%7Bcreative%7D%3Atrial%3A%7Bkeyword%7D&WT.srch=1

Or if you want professional help try the following sites:

http://www.addpro.com/professional_submission

http://www.submitawebsite.com/aboutus.html

Don’t use the automatic submission services.

Here is a list of the most popular Search Engines and directory companies:

Search Engines
Go.com/InfoSeek AltaVista
Google, HotBot
Excite/Webcrawler

Directories
AOL Search Inktomi
Lycos Open Directory

Web Hosting Companies

With thousands of web hosting companies in the market it can be difficult if not impossible to know which web site hosting companies truly provide an excellent hosting solution at an excellent price. When you have an established domain name with a good web hosting company, you can get reports on your traffic and which of your pages your customers are visiting most often, as well as many other statistics.
Your web host will charge you a fee for monthly service that ranges from $10 or $20 to the more expensive $50.00 per month. Plan to pay between $300 and $500 per year to your web host.

Always avoid free or very inexpensive web hosting services, because you may experience bouts of server downtimes and you are likely to have significant limitations in storage, number of email addresses, FTP upload etc.

Be sure your web host can accommodate e-commerce and storefronts, wireless capability, bogs, forums, chats, online interactive helps and anything else you want to add onto your site.
Estimate what your growth needs are and ensure that this web host can serve you as you grow. The last thing you want to do is change host mid way unless you absolutely have to do so.

Check your bandwidth capability to be sure that, if your website traffic grows rapidly, your customers will not have to wait to download or view information. Three things to look for in a web hosting company are:

1. Excellent Customer Support: Your hosting provider should be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem. Ask them how long it takes for them to typically respond to your problem. A good test is to call them in the mid night to check if you get to a live, level 3 support.

2. A Sound Infrastructure: Check whether they offer a multi-homed network powered by multiple bandwidth providers to ensure redundancy. Some offer a 100% guarantee on its network availability or network uptime.

3. Financial Stability: If you're running very critical operations, you can't afford to be with a hosting company that may not be in business in a few months.

Getting to Know Fears and Phobias

A person’s fear can hinder his chances for development and for success. Fear in itself can be debilitating and can limit a person’s ability to go through life in a healthy way. Sometimes, a person’s fear can rule a person’s life and he becomes bereft of reason.
A person who allows his fear to rule his life can be prevented from leading a normal life. The sad fact is that the person who has the fear is not the only one affected, but also his family, friends, and the people around him.
Fear can be healthy because it allows a person to be on his toes and to be watchful of what is happening around him. A person can actually make his fears work for him instead of against him. Then again, this requires a lot of self-control and positive thinking.
A person’s fear can be caused by an event that happened some time ago, or by a belief that he is not capable of dealing with something or someone. There are fears that have a real basis, but most fears are just the creations of one’s imagination.
Phobia is also a fear of something, but such fear can be considered irrational. A phobia can be ridiculous and exaggerated such as a person’s fear of cats or of water. Some people who have developed phobias are aware that the fear is not based on rational thinking; but unfortunately, they are not able to get hold of their emotions and rise above their irrational fear.
Some people are quick to equate phobia with insanity; but it is not fair to conclude that just because a person is phobic, it means that there must be something wrong with his sanity. A person’s phobia can sometimes be embarrassing, especially when he is not able to control such fear. There are people who actually shiver and hide when confronted with their phobias.
Phobias can be simple like the simple fear of being in an enclosed area, or complex like the fear of riding an airplane. A social fear can be manifested in the fear of public speaking or of being surrounded by a crowd. Most phobias are characterized by panic attacks such as when the person is confronted by his phobia and he is forced to come face-to-face with it.
It is normal to be afraid because fear is rational. However, a fear that becomes irrational and is already without basis, is already called a phobia. It is no longer normal and can disrupt a person‘s lifestyle.
A person who wants to get rid of his phobia should not turn to doctors who dig deeper just to discover the root cause of the phobia. Such an activity can be a waste of time because finding the underlying cause of the phobia will not get rid of it. What is more important is to be determined and strong-willed so that the person’s fears will no longer rule his emotions. If a person can learn how to handle his emotions, then he can get rid of his phobia.