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.

The first and possibly the most important step you can take in marketing your website is to set up your own .com name (otherwise known as a domain name) With your own .com name you can direct customers directly to your site by giving them that name (instead of some long address that includes our website address in it) and you can also setup a customized e-mail address such as you@yourcompany.com or sales@yourcompany.com.

If you already have your own domain name (.com name) then you should login to your site, select the Setup Web Address button under the Admin tab, then select Setup and enter in your domain name. You will be given the DNS information you will need to setup on your domain in order to have your web site show up under your domain name.

If you don't have your own name, then you can register a new name (subject to availability) by logging into your site, select the Setup Web Address button under the Admin tab, then select Register.

For more tips on marketing your site, login to your site and go the Marketing center.

We are pleased to launch two new and exciting features of ProPageBuilder.com

1. ProPageBuilder.com Message Board, will be here to answer any questions about our online website builder system, web development, ProPageBuilder modules and features that you usually use to build the sites or stores. We will also be posting several tips and how-to's about SEO/SES and overall internet marketing.
2. ProPageBuilder.com Blog, will be here to keep you updated about our progress with launching new features and modules. We have several great releases in next several weeks which we are really excited. Keep an eye out of these updates and releases!

Please contact us with any questions or comments that you might have for us, we are always looking to hear from our customers and partners.

Thank you,
ProPageBuilder.com Support