Search engines serve as an important component of a small business owner's website marketing plans. Search engines can help to drive traffic to your site and help to grow your business. Of course, they should only be thought of as a part of your marketing plan. Most web sites get visitors from a wide variety of sources, only one of which are search engines. Most site owners find that visitors from other sources are more targeted and are much more likely to be a buying customer.

In the coming weeks, we will show you some other ideas you can use to market your site. Some of these ideas will be free services, others will require you to signup for a service from another website. Remember, these are only ideas for how you can improve the marketing of your site. Using them can greatly increase your business beyond what the search engines can provide to you.

How do I get started?
You can start submitting your site with our search engine submission service. Login to your site and go to the Site Marketing center (under the Admin tab, the right most button). Click on the Search Engines "learn more..." link and follow the instructions. It is important that you read all of the information that we provide as the information will greatly increase your chances of getting a quality listing in the search engines.

How long does it take to get listed?
Search engines are slow! Don't expect to start getting traffic instantly. Each search engine operates on a different schedule. It usually takes about 4 to 6 weeks for search engines to index your site and even longer for you to start getting good results.

How much traffic can I expect to get?
The amount of traffic you receive from search engines is entirely dependent on how many other sites are trying to get listed with your keywords, the number of sites that have a link to your site, how well your site has been prepared, and how long your site has been up and running.